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‘Of...love.’
‘You love Anouk?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Sol scoffed. ‘I’m not saying that. It’s just hypothetical.’
He hated himself for not sounding more convincing. It ought to—it was the truth after all. There was no way he could be in love with anyone. Let alone Anouk. Whatever they shared between the two of them, it wasn’t love. Was it?
Sol waited for the harmless jeering but it didn’t come. Instead, Malachi eyed him morosely.
‘Hypothetically, I don’t even know if we have that capacity,’ Malachi gritted out unexpectedly. ‘But maybe the question should be, do we deserve it?’
Sol didn’t know how to answer, but it didn’t matter because his brother was speaking again.
‘More pertinently, does any woman deserve to be subjected to our love, bratik? Such as we know what that is.’
If his brother had punched him in the gut Sol couldn’t have felt any more winded. As if the air had been sucked from his very lungs.
Was Mal right? Would his love be more of a curse than any sort of a gift?
His mind was so full of conflicting thoughts that he simply let them jostle, his eyes scanning the room almost as a distraction. Which was when they alighted again on the Christmas tree.
‘So, you and Saskia?’
‘I don’t wish to discuss it.’ Malachi cut him off harshly.
‘But you need to,’ Sol answered. He rarely stood up to his brother, he rarely needed to. This, he felt, was different. This mattered. To both of them. ‘Right here, right now. Our mother ruined both of our childhoods. It’s time we both decided whether we’re going to let her ruin our futures, too.’
* * *
‘What have we got?’ Sol asked, rounding the corner to the bay. It had been a hectic shift so far, but he thrived on that.
The young doctor running the case looked relieved.
‘Darren, nineteen, he suffers from epilepsy and this morning he had two back-to-back seizures, which is out of the norm for him. Full tonic-clonic seizures usually months apart and often only if there’s already something going on in the body, like an infection.’
‘Has he got an infection?’ Sol checked.
‘I think an ear infection.’
‘And you’ve started a course of antibiotics?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, possibly not neuro at this point. But keep me in the loop,’ Sol confirmed. ‘Okay, let me go and check in the next bay. I had a call for them, as well.’
* * *
He slipped around the curtain just as Anouk glanced up. Surprise swept over her face for a moment but she regrouped quickly.
‘This is Jack, twenty-five. He was drinking and playing football in the park with a group of mates when he collided with a tree. Loss of consciousness for about five minutes. Pupils are unequal and reactive and he’s agitated. We’re taking him up to CT now.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Sol confirmed.
Unequal pupils suggested a bleed on the brain, which might be pushing against the brain itself.
‘Great.’ Anouk nodded, turning back to her team and issuing her final instructions. ‘Let’s go.’
‘He isn’t responding to us verbally, although he does react physically if we ask him to do something. I don’t know if the verbal is about the alcohol or a possible injury.’
