Dope, Muggle (Harry Potter universe)

Chapter 9

M.O.D. UNIT RECOVERY WARD, ST BART'S, LONDON

Cillian knew that he was dreaming again. The framed edges of his sanity were slowly collapsing, crumbling in upon his fragile state.

He could hear the toy this time, that broken stick bobbing gently on the water. It was calling to him, saying something that was too quiet for him to hear. He craned his neck and tried to listen. As if his perception was a video camera in a movie, the shot sat on the stick for a few more moments, before panning up, and he could see London. He seemed to be standing on the shores of the Thames, and as he looked back into the water, he saw the face of Donovan Conroy staring back up at him.

Cillian bolted awake, suddenly aware of his new reality. The blood rushed to his head and he felt like he was going to pass out, and everything was blurry and quite bright. He felt a large hand on his shoulder.

"Alright, Son. You're alright, just lie back," Hughes said, gently guiding Cillian back to his pillow.

"My chest..." Cillian said, trying to find the words through the pain, "it feels like an elephant sat on it."

"I should think so. You had a shard of glass sticking out of it, and three of your ribs were broken," a woman's voice said.

Cillian blinked his eyes several times, his vision coming back to him as his eyes adjusted to the light. He saw that the woman who spoke was Alice Everlane, one of his coworkers at the DST. Alice was a kind of Goth girl with jet black hair, black lipstick, lots of tattoos, and a nose ring. She was one of the people that Cillian had genuinely enjoyed working with at the CIA. Cillian had wondered if Steig Larsson had based his character partly on her.

"Storm-" Cillian managed.

"The hacker? In the wind," Alice said.

The hospital nurse walked up and used a remote control on the mattress to slowly help Cillian sit up.

"You've been blown up, Officer Williams. Not a lot of us get to say that," Atkinson grumbled from his chair in the corner of the room.

"I wanted to apologize, Williams. When I said 'low risk,' well... You really are very lucky to be alive," Hughes said.

Cillian took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"I'm not the only one," Cillian sighed, garnishing a slight look of confusion from Hughes.

"We're going to find him-" Alice started to say, before Cillian cut her off.

"I'm not TALKING about the hacker! He's chump change. He's not the one who killed everyone in there. He's not the one who set off that bomb," Cillian seethed.

"Someone else was there?" Hughes asked.

Cillian turned to look out of the window. He did not speak for a long while.

"It was Conroy."

Hughes and Atkinson exchanged a surprised look with each other. Alice's mouth just sort of hung open for a few moments before she quickly clamped it shut.

"Officer Williams, you've been under some pretty heavy general anesthetics," Hughes said.

"I didn't fucking imagine it, Sir. It was Donovan Conroy. I don't know how he survived, but he did. He's alive, and he killed them all," Cillian spat with hatred.

"How do you know this?" Hughes asked.

"Because I saw him. He looked right at me. The fucker looked me in the eyes and saluted me," Cillian said, mimicking the salute that Conroy had given him just before the explosion.