Page 46 of Deposed

Blake didn’t reply. He vaulted over the second balcony partition and sprinted across the next. I clung to his back, tightened my grip on his shoulders, and clamped my legs harder around his middle. Each of his movements sent lances of pain through my insides. None of that mattered. Blake might be younger, but he was built like a runway model, not a mountain gorilla like Carbuncle. And I was weighing him down.

Mr. Carbuncle’s furious roar made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and he made the pained cry of someone who had just slashed himself on a shard of broken glass.

My breaths quickened, and my pulse thrashed harder between my ears. If he ever caught up with us… Terror blanked my mind, and I focussed on the sounds behind us. The dull thud of heavy feet landing on concrete, a muttered curse, and the stampede of running footsteps.

Blake’s thrashing heartbeat reverberated through his back and into my chest, making my own accelerate to match his.

The sound of a body hitting metal, most probably Mr. Carbuncle crashing against the barrier between balconies, made the lining of my stomach tremble. I couldn’t look over my shoulder, in case I slowed Blake’s movements, but the crash of feet mere yards behind us was indication enough that Mr. Carbuncle had built up his own rhythm of hurdling over the barriers.

Sprint, leap, thud. Sprint, leap, thud. Blake ran like a man chased by a demon. I clung tighter to his torso and closed my eyes, clenching my teeth against the red-hot pain of my organs thrashing within an already agonized body. Tendrils of fear clawed at my spine, as though sent by Mr. Carbuncle himself.

It was probably my fevered imagination, but someone’s hot breath warmed the back of my neck, and panting breaths filled my ears.

But when the tips of huge fingers swiped at my back, I screamed.

Up ahead, something creaked. “Did you find—”

Blake swerved left, barreled into someone, and shouted, “Close the door!”

A door slammed shut. Blake tripped, stumbled, and righted himself. Behind me, a key turned in the lock, just as heavy fists pounded against metal and glass.

“What the devil is going on?” asked a cultured male voice.

My limbs, which up until now had been rigid, flopped with relief, and I slid down Blake’s back and onto the parquet floor. Adrenaline receded away, and every ounce of pain it had kept at bay surged forward. I curled into a ball on the ground and groaned.

“Emilia!” Blake knelt at my side.

“I-is she alright?” asked the other voice.

“No.” Blake’s voice broke. “That man out on the balcony hurt her.”

“We must call nine-nine-nine!” cried the man.

“I have the sergeant’s mobile. They’re somewhere in the building.”

Overwhelming, red-hot pain settled through my insides, up one side of my face and pounded to the beat of my heart. I squeezed my eyes shut and refused all offers of a drink or a pill or a sofa. Right now, I wouldn’t be able to take another jostling.

Everything hurt so much, I thought I would die. Blake knelt beside me, rubbing my hands, one of the few parts of my body that didn’t hurt. He murmured to someone on the phone and asked the man in the apartment for his floor and apartment number.

Moments later, a heavy fist pounded on the door. It opened and a group of even heavier footsteps entered the room.

Just as a male voice called my name, I passed out.

* * *

I awoke, not in a busy emergency room, but in a well-appointed office with a middle-aged man clad in a tweed, three-piece suit, standing over me. Square, horn-rimmed glasses magnified his cerulean-blue eyes, and his thin lips turned down at the corners. The only thing that indicated he might be a doctor was the stethoscope around his neck and two nurses in navy blue uniforms flanking him on both sides.

“Ah, Miss Hobbs,” he said in the same kind of difficult-to-understand upper-class accent as Duncan and Coates. “I’m glad to see you’re back with us.”

My gaze darted around the room. It reminded me somewhat of Edward’s study back in Elder House, with its mahogany bookshelves, matching leather desk, and chesterfield sofas, but I lay on an examination table in the corner, and at the wall in front of me was a sink hanging beneath three different types of dispensers. On the other side of the room, certificates adorned the walls along with framed pictures of the skeletal and muscular systems. This had to be some kind of upscale doctor’s office.

“My name is George Chumley-Stokes,” said the doctor. “Mr. Simpson-West insisted you be brought here for treatment instead of the local A and E. I gave you a mild sedative when you arrived, as you were rather agitated, and you’ve had X-rays, CT scans, and an ultrasound. Fortunately, there are no cracked ribs or significant internal injuries, but you’ll be sore for a very long time.”

“But I feel fine.” My face was tight.

His eyes softened. “That will be the morphine, my dear. It should last until bedtime, and after that, you’ll need to take a course of analgesics and anti-anxiety medications to help you rest.”

“Where’s Blake?” I asked.