AFFLICTION.

Chapter 21

"What happened? Are you okay? I was so scared!" She yelped. Daisy's blonde hair was pulled back off her face, her blue eyes were wide with shock and darted to my legs in between Harrys.

I pulled back from Harry altogether and walked towards her. "Fergus was hurt." I made an attempt to distract Daisy from her own thoughts. Walking to Fergus I placed the palm of my hand against his forehead, to feel the temperature of his skin. It was lukewarm, nothing too worrying. Fergus began to stir and his eyes shot open.

"How do you feel?" I asked, placing a cold piece of cloth on his head. Harry was rushing to my side, quick to examine his friend. 

He pressed his arm into mine.

Fergus swallowed and nodded. "I'm fine, I think." Harry sighed in relief, he turned his head and his eyes met mine but I quickly turned away.

Daisy was silent as she watched the scene before her unfold. I'd never seen her so quiet. She knew something, I could tell it, I could feel it. The way her eyes followed mine when they met Harry's. She knew about us. 

"You gave us a bit of a scare there mate," Harry said with a grin, patting Fergus on his good shoulder.

We were all in silence for 10 minutes. Pete sat on one side of Fergus' bed and Harry and I sat on the other. Daisy still hadn't moved from her standing position next to Pete, her eyes bore into mine.

Pete eventually broke the silence and shook his head. "They bombed the airbases." His fists were clenched in anger. "Do you know how many of our planes they destroyed? We're actually fucked. We might as well start speaking German now."

Harry was silent. I was silent. We were all silent. The reality of our situation began to hit me slowly. We were being invaded and had nowhere left to go but retrieve back.

"Okay," I began. "We need to think of a plan. How about we wait here, in Luxembourg for a couple of days until Fergus gets better. Gather supplies and then make our way back to Le Havre port to leave for England." It seemed like a sound plan. For the first time since arriving, Daisy nodded and agreed quietly.

"I agree with Lianna." Her voice was soft and fragile but her eyes didn't meet mine.

"We can't go back to Le Havre." Harry was blunt.

"Why not?" I spoke with desperation. "Surely, they still have boats going to and from England, we were only there a few weeks ago." Although we had been in Le Havre only a few weeks ago, it had felt like months ago.

"What makes you think they haven't already taken Le Havre?" Pete spoke with arrogance, shaking his head. "We can't stay in Luxembourg. We have to leave."

 Harry was quiet. His eyes were on me, but my eyes were on my hands which lay in my lap.

"We have to think this through first. I mean, Fergus is injured, he can't walk and I don't even know where Esma is." I spoke without hesitation. "We also need supplies, food, and water." My stomach began to curl at the thought of Esma. She had to be okay. She had to be.

"What? You wanna stay here? Are you crazy? We'll all become German prisoners." Pete stated with anger. "They'll force Harry and I into labour work, they'll shoot Fergus for being incapable and with you two," He pointed to Daisy and I. "They'll do as they please." I shuddered at the thoughts that crossed my mind. Daisy began to sob and I shut my eyes.

"At the end of the month, all of France will be occupied by Nazis." Fergus finally spoke.

"Well, what about these men." I gestured to the few men left in our hospital beds. Some were still slowly dying and others on the road to recovery. "We can't just leave them here!" I almost shouted.

Pete glared at me, his eyes were cold and serious. "Well I'm fucking leaving. Come on Harry. Here, Fergus, you can use this to walk." Pete, gathering his rifle and rucksack, handed Fergus a cane from nearby and stood from his chair.

Harry didn't move.

"I'm not leaving." Harry was still. His eyes were on Pete.

"Why? Because of your little French harlot?" Pete stated angrily, pointing his finger in my direction.

"She's no fucking harlot." Harry stood up from his seat, brushing against me in the process. His fist were clenched in a ball by his side.

"They'll fucking take you away and work you to death!" Pete's thin lips were pursed and his teeth were clenched. "They'll take her to." He pointed to me. "They'll beat her and rape her till they grow tired of it."

I could tell Harry was growing angrier by the moment. 

"FINE!" I screamed through clenched teeth. "We'll leave Luxembourg today." The thought of Harry being taken as a prisoner of war made me sick. "But I'm not leaving without Esma."

"Well good luck with that, everyone's either dead or already evacuated." Pete said coldly.

I headed for Esma's wing and Harry began to follow me but I stopped him, telling him to instead prepare Fergus for our journey.

"You need to find some fresh bandages and as many first aid kits as you can. Daisy, help them." I ordered. "I'll be five minutes."

I left. Walking to Esma's wings I planned for the worse. I sucked in a shaky breath, feeling my throat constrict. Panic rose like bile in my body. My palms were clammy and my skin felt flushed. Esma couldn't be dead. I refused to believe that she could be.

Walking into her wing, I noticed that it resembled a somewhat similar mess to my own wing. Dead soldiers still lay on the hospital beds. Blood stained the sheets, the walls, and the floor. There were even dead bodies in the corner of the room. My eyes slowly glanced across the room, fearing that I'd find Esma, bloodied and lifeless on the hospital floor, her head of dark curls sprawled out beneath her but i thankfully saw nothing.

I cried as a wave of relief hit my body, causing me to fall to my knees. If Esma was not in the hospital, it meant that she was most likely alive and had been evacuated like everybody else. I picked myself up and walked to the exit when I noticed a body lying in the corner of the wing. It was a woman. She was wearing a nurse's uniform like my own. Shards of glass marked her face and I gasped at the mere sight of her. I could tell she was already dead from her injuries alone. Taking a look closer my heart suddenly felt heavy and my limbs weak.

It was Evie.

She was barely recognizable and drenched in her own blood. "Evie! Evie!" I whispered desperately, feeling for her pulse. There was nothing.

She had a large gash in her abdomen and several cuts and bruises up and down her arms. She had bled out.

Her skin was still warm meaning that she hadn't been dead for long. I placed a hand on her head and caressed her hair gently.

"I'm so sorry." My eyes welled up and tears began to roll down my cheek. Evie had died all alone, with no one to hold her hand or whisper words of reassurance. The thought made me sick with sadness. I turned around and threw up on the hospital floor. I wiped my mouth and sat with my hands folded in my lap. I kissed Evie on her bloodied cheek, picked myself up and left.