Page 105 of Corrupt

“Fuck.”

I should go. Right now. Walk out while I still could. Tyler was in the system. Band on his wrist. Monitors clipped. He was safe.

Me?

Not so much.

“I’ll tell Courtney where you are,” I muttered, more to myself than him.

Then I was out of the cubicle, the curtain swinging back into place behind me.

I stopped dead.

A&E was bedlam.

I didn’t know which way led out and which would drag me deeper into it. Trolleys jammed nose to nose. Nurses weaving through with clipped voices and sharper looks. A kid screamed somewhere behind me, high and panicked. A man shouting about needing a fag, swearing at no one in particular. Monitors beeped in uneven rhythms. The smell of antiseptic layered over sweat, blood, fear. But if I stayed, there’d be questions. Security. Police. Someone who’d recognise me from somewhere I didn’t want remembered.

I was boxed in.

I picked a direction and walked.

Fast.

“Excuse me!” someone called behind me. “Sir—hey!”

I didn’t stop. Didn’t look. And I clipped the corner of a trolley being rushed in by paramedics, the wheels juddering as it veered. A man lay strapped down on it, collar on, eyes rolled back. I stumbled, caught myself just in time.

“Move!” a paramedic barked.

A hand clamped hard around my shoulder.

I spun to face Henry.

“You need to come with me.”

“Nah.” I tried to twist free. “I need to get out of here. Look after him, yeah?”

“Stop.” Henry tightened his grip. “Seriously. Come with me.”

He angled his head just enough to say don’t do this here.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

There was nowhere to run without making it worse. So I let him guide me back through the tide of bodies, down a side corridor where the noise dulled but didn’t disappear. Somewhere between storage and nowhere important where a crash trolley was parked against the wall, monitors stacked on top of it like forgotten luggage.

Henry stopped, glanced left, then right.

Then he held out a phone.

I frowned, heart slamming against my ribs. “What’s this?”

“I know nothing,” he said under his breath. “Not a fucking thing. And I am exceptionally cross that I’m doing this.”

I took it. Confused. Then lifted it to my ear. “Yeah?”