Page 23

Ruby

Captain Dennington fetched me in a big, black car with blacked out windows. There were four more cars like this behind me, filled with men. We were in the first car, just the two of us.

“I’m really sorry about this,” he said to me as we drove off. “I will find your mother.”

I didn’t know what to say.

I looked out of the window, feeling numb.

“There was no sign at the hospital that anything was wrong,” he went on. “Her chart had her name on it and I was told she was a dark-haired woman of about 45. When I asked her name, she said Charlotte.” He sounded sincere.

“I don’t blame you,” I said. I blamed myself. I should have gone to check on her as soon as I’d gotten away from the shifters or that first morning, when I woke up and felt like I could walk two feet without collapsing. Instead, I was screwing a vampire, having fun in a hotel room like I was on some kind of holiday.

I felt horribly guilty and was filled with remorse. If something had happened to my mother, I would never forgive myself. I knew that.

A part of me kept hoping that she had managed to get away, that someone had helped her.

Luc had given me a phone but I switched it off. I couldn’t even look at it now.

I understood that he had important work to do, that he had taken off enough time to be with me and that his people needed him but this was important to me. I felt like he had made a choice and he had chosen them.

I knew I was being unfair, but I didn’t care.

I didn’t care about his stupid war.

I only cared about my mother.

Captain Dennington respected my privacy and we didn’t talk for the rest of the trip south. A few hours later, in the late afternoon, we arrived at the hospital. I saw his guards fan out and he went into the hospital to speak to the people in charge. I pushed past him and went to the ward my mother had been in. There were four beds, all of them occupied. Not one of them was my mother. I found a nurse, someone I hadn’t seen before and asked about my mother. She fetched the file and repeated what I already knew; that my mother had been transferred to another facility at the capital.

I asked the other women in the ward if they knew my mother. Only one of them did, an older woman who said she remembered my mother leaving that day.

“Tell me exactly how she left. With doctors, nurses? Who came to fetch her?”

The old lady couldn’t remember.

“But did she look like she wanted to go? Or was she taken against her will?’

“Against her will?” the old lady was taken aback. “What do you mean?”

This was hopeless.

I walked out to the nurse’s station and saw one of the male nurses that I had met before.

“Excuse me!” I ran to him. “Do you remember my mother? Lottie Winton? She was a patient here a few days ago?”

He took a step back. “Yes… she was transferred, though, right?”

He had wide shoulders and friendly eyes; I remembered him as being caring towards my mother.

“That’s just it. It wasn’t her! They transferred someone else!”

“Who?”

“I don’t know! But the woman they say is my mother, is definitely not her!”

I could feel tears rising behind my eyes again. The situation was impossible. How was I ever going to find my mom?

I felt the nurse touch my arm. “Come with me,” he said in a low voice. He fetched a file and took me around the corner.

“Look,” he showed me the names and dates in the file. I could see who was in the ward that day. All of them had been discharged.

“I’m sorry,” he said and walked away.

I spotted Captain Dennington at the bottom of the corridor and walked up to him.

In a low voice, he said to me, “I have looked at CCTV footage from the day your mother was transferred. A few hours before I arrived, two men entered your mother’s ward. They were visitors. I want you to see if you recognize them.”

He opened his laptop and accessed the film footage. He had images of them checking in at the hospital. My heart sank. I recognized them from the tunnels. Two of the guards.

I nodded and sank to the floor.

“We’ll find them!” He said and called his men over their comms.

But I knew it was too late. My mother was dead. That was the only possible explanation.

Tears were streaming down my face and I felt my entire world collapsing.

I walked out of the hospital and down the street, not caring where I went. I had no idea where I was going. I didn’t care about anyone or anything at this point. I wanted the shifters to grab me and kill me. It was what I deserved.

I heard a car come up behind me but I ignored it.

It stopped next to me in the road.

“Ruby!”

I turned to look at it. It was the nurse from the hospital. He was looking agitated.

“Get in! Quickly!”

I didn’t think twice, I opened the door and got in next to him as he sped away.

“My name’s Dixon, by the way,” he said as he checked the rearview mirror anxiously.

“I just want to shake off the bloodsuckers.” He looked at me. “Do you have anything they can use to track you?”

I took out my phone and threw it out the window.

He was taking turns quickly and speeding down a residential area.

“What is going on? Where are you taking me?” I asked him.

He licked his lips and said, “Hang on,” as he pulled into a driveway under a garage roof.

“Come on!” he urged me. “Get out.”

I did as he told me and watched him close the gate to the street. The car was now completely hidden from the road.

“This is my parents’ house,” he said as he opened a side door going into a kitchen.

“Come on, I’ll make you some coffee and explain everything.”

I sat down at a coffee table and Dixon told me how he had taken my mom outside for a walk when they saw the shifters arrive at the hospital.

“She knew something was dodgy about them. She sent me inside to find out who they’d come to visit. When she heard they were asking about her, she immediately knew something was wrong. She told me she had to get away immediately and I brought her here.”

“So they went to her room and found her bed, what, empty?”

He nodded. “They told the men that I’d taken her out for a walk, but by the time they came outside, we’d already left. I switched her chart with one of the other patients.” He looked shame-faced. “I knew it would cause a bit of consternation, but I wanted to buy your mom some time. I didn’t know they were going to come to transfer her!”

“But that lady said her name was Charlotte Lucas!”

He grinned. “She was high on meds. She would’ve said her name was Minnie Mouse too!”

“And my mom? Where is she?”

He looked at me. “I don’t know.”

“What? Didn’t she tell you where she was going?”

He shrugged, “She asked for some clothes and money and said it was better that I didn’t know. She said you might come looking for her and that I should tell you that you know where she’d go.”

“She said that?”

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Isn’t it dangerous for her to be out of the hospital? I mean, I thought she needed treatment?”

“Her condition had stabilized, she was actually coming up for a discharge. As long as she doesn’t get any infections and takes it easy, she will be fine.”

I was stunned.

“She said you were in trouble, with vampires and shifters.”

I bit my lip and nodded. “They’re going to come looking for me and for you. Did she say how she was going to get out of here? By bus or taxi?”

He shook his head. “She said she’d pay me back, and that was it, she just walked out of here.”

I thought about what he said.

It made sense. I knew my mother hated vampires and that she wouldn’t trust any of them coming to look for her. I had a better chance of finding her without Captain Dennington and his team.

“You’d better get back to the hospital,” I said, “before people notice you’re missing.”

He walked me out of the house. “Good luck!” he called out to me.

“Thanks for helping my mom and me!” I said and he waved.

“Humans have got to stand together now!”