Priory // h.s.

chapter sixty

"No, it's not!" I interrupt angrily. "You. Are. Dying!" I punctuate each word by aiming a punch at a spare pillow.

 He slides my innocent victim out from under my fists. Tossing the pillow to the floor, he scoots sideways on his bed, patting the space he's cleared. I sit as carefully as I can, not wanting to shake any of the tubes or monitors set up around us. 

"These make it look worse than it is," Harry says, gesturing to the equipment. "You're taking it in as something really serious because of all the stuff I'm hooked up to."

My eyes search his face frantically, pent-up frustration welling inside me. "Yeah? What am I supposed to be taking it in as, exactly?" I leap to my feet and nearly trip over a nearby table. "Maybe you don't understand this, but you have been INJECTED WITH SOMETHING THAT COULD KILL-"

"Ma'am?" The same Asian doctor I spoke to before pokes her head in, looking rather alarmed. "If you're going to yell, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We can't have you upsetting the patient."

"No, I'm sorry, I'll-"

"That wasn't really a question." She smiles apologetically, but her mouth is set in a firm line as she swings the door wide open in a meaningful way.

Feeling like a badly behaved child, I give her a nod. "One second." I turn to Harry. "I'm finding that cure. We're getting out of here, and we're never ever coming back-"

"All right, Amber."

"-and we're going to forget Priory and all of this-"

"Whatever you say." Harry settles back onto the heap of pillows on his bed, smiling up at me in a vacant sort of way; I'm not sure he's even listening to a word I'm saying. Resultingly, I double my efforts to convince him, as if by mere words I can conjure enough faith to lift the both of us out of this hospital room, to a better place.

"-and we're going to be okay," I finish, squeezing his hand. "The two of us." I bend down and press my lips to his, but he hardly responds. His head lulls to one side, his fingers falling from mine weakly. I cast the doctor a wide-eyed stare, but she only shakes her head.

"He's asleep. Tired."

"Right. I'll leave now."

Something in her expression changes. She shakes her head. "Stay here. With him. Just... keep the noise level down."

Forgetting to say thanks in my relief, I drop heavily into a chair by Harry's bedside. Once the doctor leaves, I murmur, though it might as well be to myself, "I'm right here, Harry. I'm not leaving."

 — 

Jillian, Gerald and Niall enter about half an hour later. At first I think they've arrived to join my vigil, but a quick glance at their faces tells me something else is going on: their faces are flushed, eyes alight, and they're all talking at once.

"Shut up!" I exclaim. "One at a time! What's--what happened?"

"The cure, Amber," Jillian pants. "They think they might have found it, stored away in the plane that was apprehended."

I freeze, beating back the smallest ray of hope that dares to rise up inside me. "Where is it?"

"Being driven here as we speak."

Niall runs a hand through his short blonde hair. "It has to work. Right?" He tugs on Jillian's arm unconsciously, as if begging for reassurance. "It has to work," he repeats to himself.

Simultaneously, all of us turn to look down at Harry. His eyes are open, but they're swimming with tears. I gasp and fall to my knees at his bedside, cupping his cheek against my hand. "Harry, what's wrong?"