The monitor beeped. It was a strangely soothing sound.
Beep. Rosie’s still alive.
Beep. Still alive.
Beep. Still alive.
Beep. Alive, alive, alive.
Thea sat in a chair next to the bed in the medical wing located in the Staff Bubble. It was evening. Had it all only happened a few hours ago? She felt dazed. She stared at Rosie, at the mess of her face, the swelling, the blood, one eye swaddled in bandages, the other mercifully closed. Her chest rose and fell gently, rhythmically, hypnotically. If Thea focused on that, she didn’t have to think of anything else; her brain could just fill itself with the rhythm of it. And the beeping.
Beep.
Alive.
Beep.
Alive.
The door opened.
‘Thea?’ Rory’s voice. She didn’t turn around.
‘I brought you some food. You need to eat something.’
She could hear him put a tray down and then he dragged a chair over to sit next to her. Out of the side of her gaze she saw him rub at his beard.
‘She’s given us all a bit of a scare,’ he said.
There was quiet.
Beep. Thea’s fault.
Beep. Thea’s fault.
‘I …’ Her voice caught. ‘I thought she was—’
Head lolling to one side, blood-matted hair, pulpy flesh.
Rory nodded.
Rosie’s chest rose and fell. The woman who had been constantly fidgeting, moving, smiling and gesticulating was gone and in her place was a quiet mechanical automaton. Near her undamaged eye, Thea could still see the heart she’d drawn around one of the discs on her temple.
‘The doctor tells me she is stable, but they will have to wait and see if there has been any internal bleeding on the brain.’
Thea imagined blood like sticky cherry jam, spreading itself slowly across the crevices of Rosie’s brain and oozing into the cracks.
‘Her eye?’
‘There’s a lot of swelling. Hard to tell. They’re optimistic she won’t lose the sight.’
‘If she wakes up.’
One of Rosie’s hands lay above the covers, the nails neatly filed and rainbow-coloured. Thea willed a finger to twitch.
‘She’s young, healthy – she’s got an excellent chance of recovery.’
Thea swivelled to fix him with a hard stare. She remembered the way Rosie’s face had looked when she first got to her: squashed fruit with shards of bone poking through.
‘Did the doctor actually tell you that?’
‘Uh … no.’
Weirdly, it looked like Rory was the one out of the two of them who had had the least sleep. There was hardly any white left in his eyes, just angry red webs.
‘I’ve brought some of Rosie’s things. Just in case she needs them.’ He put a plastic bag at her feet. It immediately sagged and toppled over.
She felt like the bag, the things she wanted to say just spilling out of her, even as she tried to hold her plastic handles together.
‘There’s someone in the monastery.’ Thea instinctively lowered her voice, watching the bag slide once more.
‘Huh?’
‘There’s someone in the monastery. They cracked Rosie’s head into the wall. I saw it.’
Rory scratched at his beard again, his brow furrowing.
‘But … Rosie slipped and fell.’
Thea gripped the arm of his chair.
‘What? No, that’s not true. I saw it. There’s someone in the monastery and they hurt Rosie.’
Behind them, a throat was very deliberately cleared.
‘That will be all for now, Mr Thirwood,’ said Delores.
Thea turned around. Delores was standing in the doorway, her red hair a shock of colour against the white of the wall next to her. She clasped her hands in front of her, an oddly demure pose, like a saint about to pray.
Rory got up so quickly that he pushed his chair back with his knees and the legs screeched against the floor. He didn’t make eye contact with Thea as he quickly skirted around Delores. Thea stood in Ethan’s classic pose: arms crossed and feet planted firmly.
She’d be damned if she spoke first.
Delores took a few steps into the room and, behind her, the door closed noiselessly.
Beep.
Rosie’s alive.
Beep.
Alive.
‘Miss Denestrio is a very lucky girl, wouldn’t you say?’
Thea wasn’t in the mood for dancing around the subject. ‘You told people she fell. That’s a lie. Someone is in the monastery.’
‘So you’ve said. Many times. To the doctors, to Ms Stowe, to anyone who will listen to you.’
‘Have you even called the police?’
‘Miss Mackenzie, I fully understand your concern. This has been a blow to us all. Of course, accidents like this remind us why we discourage clients from leaving the safety of the Centre in the first place.’
‘But it wasn’t an accident, was it?’ Thea deliberately raised her voice. ‘Someone shoved her head into a wall so hard she’s actually swallowed some of her teeth.’
‘Yes, as you keep saying. To everyone. You’ve had an exhausting day—’
‘No, no, no. Don’t brush this off. I wasn’t imagining it. It happened.’
Delores walked around Thea to the bedside where she hovered a hand over Rosie, not quite touching her, an odd gesture as if in blessing.
‘And, at first light tomorrow, we will have a search party scour the monastery. If there is anyone to be found, we will find them. I don’t mean to make you sound delusional. It’s just, well, this is an island, Miss Mackenzie; it’s hard for someone to just sneak in.’
‘I don’t care. I saw it.’
Delores pressed her lips together briefly.
‘And what about Rosie’s family?’ Thea continued. ‘Have they been told? When is she going to be moved to a proper hospital?’
‘Miss Denestrio has no family. Her mother recently overdosed – cocaine, I believe. Of course, you probably knew that already. You two have become quite friendly lately.’
No, she hadn’t known that. There was so much she didn’t know and now may never get the chance to ask. Small talk. They had wasted their words on chocolate and strange cuckoo dreams when really their talk should have been much bigger, because one day they would be sat in a hospital wing realizing they didn’t really know anything about each other.
‘As for the hospital,’ Delores continued, ‘it is winter and it is to be expected that the boat service may be temporarily suspended due to weather. I believe snow is forecast. Our facilities here are world-class. Rest assured, Miss Denestrio will get better care here than in a grubby mainland hospital.’
Delores gave Rosie one last look and then she moved to the door. All the tins and jars of Thea’s mind had now rolled loose from their shopping bag and she was just left with the floppy plastic, so thin you could poke a finger through it. Through her. Her shoulders sagged.
At the doorway, Delores turned to Thea. ‘Naturally, due to the unusual circumstances today, we will not expect your answer until tomorrow. Take the time to, shall we say, sleep on it.’
For a few seconds, Thea was confused. Answer? Then she remembered: the sleep study. The Sleepless Elite. Of course, that was why Delores had come! To check on her. To check she still had her little guinea pig.
Not for Rosie.
Thea stood straighter, each beep of the machine behind her matched by the pulse throbbing in her temples. When she spoke, it was light and pleasant – but there was steel glinting under her words.
‘Oh, I’ve already made up my mind, Delores,’ she said. ‘Thanks for the offer, but, once the boat starts operating again, I’ll be leaving.’
Delores’s face set, a stone expression with flinty eyes.
‘With Rosie.’