Excerpt, Full Throttle
The water tap was broken. She’d been listening to it drip for hours, just a half-second behind the slow beep of the heartrate monitor.
She shifted in the hospital chair, adjusting the pillows on the narrow cot.
Not that they needed adjusting, really, but she was desperate for something to do. A use to have.
The young man in the hospital bed was unmoving.
Dark bruises decorated his face like the wrinkled skin of an overripe plum, and a nurse had taped a breathing tube to his mouth.
The next few hours are crucial, the doctor had said, and she’d replayed that word so many times that it had lost its shape, like a Silly Putty sculpture that she’d overstretched until it became formless again.
“You’re not allowed to die.” The words echoed off the sterile white walls. A lump burned in her throat. “Do you understand?”
The heart-rate monitor beeped steadily. He gave no sign of hearing her.
She rose, crossing to the window. A cluster of reporters had gathered in the car park, chatting with cups of coffee as they waited for her to emerge. Her anxiety became harder, the edges sharpening into anger. Where had those journalists been six months ago?
She yanked the curtain closed.
Somewhere, the water tap stopped dripping.
And the heart-rate monitor flatlined.