Chapter 2
“Oh Fuck, Fuck… Bea. Oh! Christ, what have you done, Bea? - Bea, listen to me. Bea listen to me, stay awake.” He was begging now but he didn’t care. This was like Meg all over again, but with her it was too late, she was already dead when he got to her, but this was different, Bea was still alive, her eyes were open, there was life in her body. He couldn’t let her go like this. “Stay awake! Bea stay awake! Bea? Bea, we've got an ambulance coming. Can you hear me? Bea?” He was pleading with her, she could hear him, her eyes held an intensity that he had never seen before, he could tell she was giving up.
She opened her mouth to say something but was silent. She tried again, “It’s going to be okay.” Her voice was quiet and the effort of those 5 words shook her to her core. 5 words that seemed so final.
“Bea listen to me… please listen to me… Bea listen to me please, stay awake, okay? Can you hear me? Stay awake! Bea stay with me.” He saw her eyes becoming less focused, more drowsy, her body which had been rigid with pain seemed to relax underneath his hands, “Where’s that fucking ambulance?” he shouted out to no one in particular, although Vera answered,
“Bea, Bea, we’ve got an ambulance coming. Put pressure on the stomach.”
Will heard the words but it seemed so futile, so pointless, the life was pouring out of Bea, the concrete beneath them was a vivid red. “Oh Bea, Bea, listen to me. Stay awake! Bea!”
Then nothing, her eyes lost focus and rolled back in her head, Will felt nauseous, he was sure he was going to be sick right there. He pulled his hands from her and stood up. A sob stuck in his throat, he held his hands out, not wanting to look at them, hands that were now red and covered in blood, Bea’s blood. Blood that had no right being anywhere other than inside Bea. And on top of all this there she still stood, the monster who had done this, caused so much pain. She was still alive. Will couldn’t bring himself to look at her, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Bea.
Vera touched his arm, “What are you doing, put pressure on the stomach Jackson, NOW!”
He shook her off his arm with a roll of his shoulders, “Its Fucking pointless….”
Then he heard it, the distant sounds of the ambulance, it was coming, it was near. He couldn’t give up on her, she had no one else. He dropped to his knees and began CPR. Just like a few weeks ago when Ferguson had tried to drown her. He’d bought her back once. He could do it again. He began compressing the chest, getting a rhythm going, not daring himself to look at her face. Trying to remain distant as he breathed life from his own body into Bea’s and watching as her chest rose and fell with each breath he gave. And he didn’t stop, he carried on and on until the ambulance arrived and took over, only then did he step back and allow himself to be back in the moment, wiping furiously at his eyes as his emotions betrayed him and a stray tear slipped out.
“Mr Jackson… Mr Jackson, are you okay? Do you need to step outside?” Will shook his head, immediately bought back to the present and the memories of that day drifting to the back of his mind.
“No, Mr Channing, I’m okay. Just thinking. My thoughts on all this? My thoughts are that Ferguson should never have been put here in the first place. It’s been a nightmare from start to finish. And Ver… I mean Miss Bennett has done the best she could with an impossible situation. When a prisoner is the only one with any balls to do anything, then we know we are in trouble.” He stared at Channing until Derek Channing had to look away. Guilt washing over his face. Will stood up. “I’m off to the hospital now Miss Bennett, it’s my turn up there, relieve Miss Miles.”
Vera nodded, “Let me know immediately of any changes.” Will gave a tight smile and a nod of his head before leaving the room.
It was there again. That intermittent bleeping. And the pain, pressing down on her. And now there was something else, something in her mouth, hard and plastic. Making it impossible for her to breathe properly. She wanted it gone, she wanted the pain to stop. Then there were voices, muffled voices, why couldn’t she open her eyes.
“How are you feeling then Novak?” Will stared in to the tired eyes of the blonde sitting next to him, her face pale, her hair scraped into a messy ponytail. A drip stood on a stand next to her and the tube snaked its way along her arm and into her skin, another tube sat neatly beneath her nostrils giving oxygen continuously, both reminders of her own battle with life, thanks again to Ferguson. Her hands sat entwined with Bea’s, resting gently next to Bea’s bandaged stomach. The ventilator rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern, entwined with the bleeping of the monitor.
Allie licked her dry lips and gave a small smile, “I’m okay thank you Mr Jackson. Finding out about Bea kinda gave me an incentive to get better quickly so I could come see her.” Will pursed his lips together nodding his head. “Listen,” she continued, “I’ve been wanting to see you so I could say thank you.”
Will cocked his head slightly to one side, “What for?”
Allie nodded her head towards Bea, “For what you did for Bea. Maxine told me it was you who got to her first, that you held her, that you gave her CPR… I know you’re her friend… in fact I was jealous about that at first… crazy right? I mean she’s totally gay,” she gave a little laugh and looked at Will who was smiling back, “Even if she didn’t know it to begin with. Anyway, I mean it, thank you.”
Will placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, “You’re right, she is my friend and I wasn’t going to give up on her. The rest is up to her now.” Allie and Will both looked at the battered body of Bea. Neither of them able to believe that she was still alive. She had arrested numerous times in the ambulance and on the way to the hospital, but each time she was bought back to life. It gave surgeons enough time to rush her in to theatre and repair the mess that her stomach had been left in.
It was touch and go for so long and Allie had been afraid to sleep during those early hours after Bea had left surgery. She feared she would go to sleep only to awake and find out her soul mate had died. Her head was a mess; she was struggling to make sense of everything. And on top of it all she was physically exhausted. The freak had done a good number on her and Bea. She let out a sigh as she stroked her fingers across Bea’s arm and that’s when she felt it, the smallest of squeezes from the hand that she clasped tightly to her own. Allie’s eyes shot to Bea’s face,
“She squeezed my hand, she did, she squeezed my hand,” she sobbed, her own voice sounding manic even to her own ears.