"How did this even happen?" I asked David, whilst climbing into the car. "When did you find out?"
"One question at a time," he muttered, pressing his foot down harder on the accelerator. "I don't know. I just got a call from the hospital saying that Claire had been involved in an accident, and could I come over as soon as possible."
"Well, who hit her?" I questioned. "Why-"
"Less of the questions please, Liv," he said, frustrated now. "I'm not in the mood."
I said nothing.
We continued to sit in silence for a good five minutes, before David swerved left around a roundabout and headed into the hospital parking lot. Cursing when he realised he'd have to stop to pay for a ticket, it was obvious that he was worried and annoyed and scared.
Eventually, he stopped shouting insults at the ticket dispenser (most of which were "Yeah, well your mum's a garbage dispenser and your dad's an overpriced vending machine") and we were able to get inside the actual building.
From there on, it was pretty easy. I saw it as a sequence of still images, with David stating our names, taking a lift upstairs and eventually reaching Claire's ward. It took a while to weave in between a different number of people and talk to the receptionist (who had two phones for her two ears), but we finally managed to find Claire.
To be honest, I'd been scared that we'd find her in a horrible condition. I'd imagined her with broken bones and a cut lip, with blood smeared across her clothes. At one point, the thought of something going wrong with her brain - in the same way mine had - crossed my mind, but it was quickly erased.
"Well, I don't see why I should I have to pay over a pound for a stupid bottled drink," she argued. "What makes it worse is that it's half the price down on the ground floor. I'm a lawyer, you know."
"Yes, love," a nurse muttered. "You've said that a couple of times already."
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" she demanded. "This is ridiculous."
"You know," the nurse said, sighing. "I thought lawyers were meant to be well off. Can't you spare a pound?"
"That. Is. Not. The. Point," she stressed. "You know what?"
"What?"
"I'm going to complain to your floor manager," Claire said, walking towards the toilets. "We'll see how you feel about this then."
"No, wait!" the woman shouted. "You can have it for free!"
"I can?"
"You can," she said, relieved.
"Okay then," Claire muttered. "You owe me."
"Yes, of course," the woman muttered, before going off to gossip about Claire with one of the cleaners.
A smile made its way on to my face and the tension in my body left. Claire was definitely okay.
"That was... quite a show," David said, cracking up. "Even in hospital, after being involved in a fricking car accident, she's still her usual annoying self."
"I can still hear, you know," she said, coming to stand beside us. "I'm not deaf and I'm not annoying either."
For a moment, we both just took in the sound of her voice.
Claire's forehead had a small plaster on it and her arm was in a cast. She winced every time she moved slightly, muttering something about useless hospitals and private wings.
"I guess something must have hit you in the head," David muttered at last, not noticing when I winced. "Because you're in complete denial about yourself."
"Shut up, David," she recited. "Gosh. It feels great saying that."
"Oh, well that's lovely-"
"You know, while I was in the crash, you were in my possible last thoughts," she said emotionally.
David lifted his head at this. "I was?"
"Yes, you were," she answered. "I remember thinking I would never get to verbally abuse you again. It would've been such a huge loss for you."
"Some people never change," he muttered.
"I know!" she said, a smile taking over her face. "Isn't it great?"
"Of course it is," he muttered.
He pretended to be angry for a moment, but pretty soon he was mirroring Claire's smile and I was too. It felt nice to be here together, in the middle of a hospital with a smelly man watching cartoons in the corner and an easily intimidated nurse. It felt like home.
"And then I said 'Lawyers are meant to be rich' and she said 'But no, I'm saving all my money for if I go bankrupt one day!'" the nurse said, snickering with the cleaner.
"And then this ugly tramp with the most awful dye job," Claire practically shouted, attracting the attention of the patients nearby. "Well, actually you could have mistaken her for a piece of toe fungus-"
"What's toe fungus?" David asked me.
"She was so incredibly rude," Claire continued. "Honestly, I think her name was... Wait, it'll come to me. Oh, that's right. Henrietta Montgomery! That's what it said on her nametag."
Suddenly, everyone was looking at the members of the staff, with their eyes finally landing on the bottled-drink nurse.
"I think I need to complain about her. She's absolutely awful at her job-"
"Claire-"
"You know, I think I met a Henrietta Montgomery in university-"
"Claire-"
"And she was-"
"Claire-"
"What now, David?" she hissed. "Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Let it go," he said, trying not to laugh. "It's not like you're ever going to see her again."
"Exactly," she replied. "If this is the last time I'm going to see her, I'm going to make it worth my time."
"Claire-"
"Don't you start with me too," she said, mock scolding me.
"But the nurse has gone," I told her. "I think you scared her off."
"Oh," she said, looking disappointed. "That's a shame. She was actually quite nice."
"You what?" David asked. His eyes were bugging out of his forehead. "You guys were trading insults a minute ago."
"I know," she said, happily. "She was just like me! Except I'm not a tramp with a bad dye job or a piece of toe fungus. It's a shame we're in different professions. I would've liked to see more of her."
"I give up," David muttered. Sighing, he added, "Do you know when we can get out of here?"
"Well, I was just waiting for the both of you," she said. "I'm not allowed to drive by myself, which is absolutely absurd. Let me just sign out."
David nodded, before walking ahead and muttering something about a parking ticket.
I waited, leaning against the wall, as Claire talked with the receptionist. It was hard not to take in the injuries everyone had, ranging from bandages over peoples' eyes and casts on their legs. Some people had crutches whilst others were in wheelchairs.
The extent of some of the injuries and the fact that there was so many of them was amazing in the most horrible way. What made it worse was that there were people all over the hospital, in not only one building but three.
I was in a different building, I thought to myself. I'd been in the children's ward, because I was a minor. Claire had been stubborn enough for them to move me (later on) to my own room, with a window view of the traffic outside.
"What are you thinking about, darling?" Claire asked, beginning to walk out of the ward with me beside her. "We should probably find David."
"I know where he is," I muttered. "He's near the ticket dispenser, probably shouting insults at it again."
"David is quite weird," she agreed. "And he keeps sniffing every time I compliment him, like there's mucus stuck up his nose or something."
I just barely stopped a round of laughter from escaping. "You really didn't damage much, even after everything that happened."
"No, I didn't," she said, thoughtfully. "I saw the car coming, so the other vehicle just scraped the side of my own."
"Was it..." I began. "Did they do it on purpose, because of me?"
I noticed that her hands were shaking by her sides. "Nothing happened because of you, sweetheart. It's just a situation that we can't control. It's not your fault that it's like this."
"But you do think someone organised this as, like, a threat or something?" I probed. "Was it Tim?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "I was on my way to the shops and it was a last minute decision, so it's not like he could have known where I was going. Someone would have had to inform him right at that minute that I was out of the house and he would've sent someone to come after me."
"Oh."
"They're all just suspicions, darling," she said, quietly. "It's nothing that can be proven and look, it's not like I'm hurt. If their plan was to take me down, they obviously failed."
"But what if it was a warning?" I questioned. "What if they know that we're trying to do? This is obviously just a minor thing to them, but what if gets worse? We're in deeper than we know, Claire."
She stayed silent.
It was a joint understanding of what was going on and the fact that there was only a small gap out of this mess.
We were going to have to find it or risk living in fear forever.
"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" David asked, for the fifth time that day.
Claire had obviously had enough of this, because she glared at him. "David, I'll gladly give you a black eye if you ask me that question one more time. I'm perfectly fine."
"Fine," he muttered. "Excuse me for being concerned."
"You're excused," she said swiftly. "After what you did in the car, I don't think I'll even be able to look at you ever again."
"I drew a smiley face on your cast!" he defended.
"No," she said, annoyed now. "You drew a marshmallow with its guts exploding on a plate of mashed potatoes."
"The marshmallow had a smiley face on it," I offered.
"Yeah," David said. "You can even give it a name and make your first friend. It's like preschool for arrogant adults."
"Shut up, David," she muttered. "And get out of my house."
"But-"
"Goodbye," she said, slamming the door in his face.
"That was interesting," I commented.
"Yeah," she muttered. "It was."
We dissolved into silence, a repetitive silence that I was getting sick of.
Claire walked away and upstairs, most likely to rest like she'd been told. That left me alone and thinking. And sometimes, when you think long enough, you get confused and go in a completely different direction to what you should have done, which is why I felt raw anger instead of relief at Claire's state.
I was angry at Tim. I was angry at Maria Carter. I was angry at Maria Carter's son for possibly starting this mess in the first place.
I was just angry.
And because I was being consumed by that anger, I let it lead me to Claire's office, where I practically hunted for Tim's address. Later on, I realised that that was a pivotal point in life; it would lead me to something so much scarier, but at that time I didn't think on that wavelength.
Once I'd found Tim's address, I got out my phone and found a map with directions. It wasn't hard from there to take the winding streets to his house, even if it was dark. The thoughts of anger and what he'd done to Claire fuelled every step that I took, and when I doubted what I was doing, I added more fuel to the fire.
Eventually, I found myself standing in front a large, detached house with an open driveway in front of it. This was Tim's house.
I walked up and knocked impatiently on the door.
I waited.
I rang the doorbell.
I waited.
Everything seemed to happen in a sequence of short actions that were neither of great importance r no importance. Everything, at that point, seemed to act as some sort of beat inside my head. Everything was leading me somewhere. Everything was part of the bigger picture.
It wasn't until Lucas opened the door that I questioned my entire plan (or lack of it, actually).
"What are you doing here?" I asked him. "You're not meant to be here."
"It's my house," he muttered, breaking what little hope of a plan and some sense that I had left. "If anyone shouldn't be here, it's you."
"But this is Tim's house," I stated, stupidly. "Where is he?"
"Out," he said sharply. "And this isn't his house. This is my dad's house."
"But-"
"Tim!" I heard a familiar voice call out. It was Maria Carter. "I'm going to head in. Are you coming?"
"Get in," Lucas hissed, dragging me inside and towards a creepy looking closet under the stairs. "Hide in there."
"No," I said, slightly scared but desperately trying to hide that fact. "I'm not hiding inside your weird closet. I don't know what you're planning, but I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm going home."
"Just get inside the stupid closet."
"No."
"Go."
"No."
"If you don't get in there in the next five seconds, Tim's going to come in and question you. If you want to avoid that, you'll hide under the stairs until I tell you to come out."
"I'm going home. You can't stop me."
"Let me just get the shopping in!" Tim called from outside.
I ran into the closet, with the familiar feelings of nervousness bubbling up inside my stomach all over again. Nausea rose within me and I desperately tried not to puke on a carpet that read "Wipe your paws".
"Hurry up!" Lucas persisted. "Whales move faster than you."
"No they don't!" I defended. "I'm just not very active when certain people are trying to shove me into their weird closets because their creepy uncles are arriving. If anything's moving slower than a whale, it's your brain."
"Shut up and get in, Liv."
"Don't call me that."
"Fine."
"Fine."
This wasn't making any sense.
I was letting the fear of someone as stupid as Tim push me into something that was not okay. I thought about it and was just about to get out of the closet, when Lucas stuck his fat butt through the door and sat down.
"What are you doing?" I asked. "Move. I need to get out."
"Shut up, Liv. You'll only be here for ten minutes, tops."
"Oh yes," I began sarcastically. "Because being stuck in a closet with someone I don't trust at all is one of the things I've always wanted to do. Ten minutes seems awfully short though. Maybe we should stretch it to twenty."
"I'd prefer five," he muttered.
"I vote for none. Move."
"Shut up."
"Move."
"Shut up."
"Move you big-"
"Maria, did you hear something?" I heard Tim ask from outside.
"It's probably just the wind."
Yes, because the wind was capable of speaking. It also apparently had both feminine and male voices. This was turning out to be an amazing trip full of equally amazing discoveries.
"Yeah, it's probably that," spoke the qualified lawyer.
"I want to go," I told Lucas, who simply rolled his eyes. "This is stupid."
"You're stupid," he muttered. "Just shut up for five seconds and listen. You might actually find out something useful."
A/N: I'm not very happy with this chapter, but I felt that if I didn't post it, I'd do the usual thing and somehow convince myself to stop writing it. This is definitely going to be edited after NaNo, because I feel as if certain (most) parts of this chapter moved too fast and the characters (Liv) reacted unrealistically.
Also, we're at 42,074 words. I don't know if I'll manage to finish this story in time, but I think we'll clear the 50,000 mark quite easily.
And as usual, thank you for the continued support. It means the world.