Hellbound

Chapter TwentyTwo

I wake to my phone vibrating with a call; the glow shows it's only just past three in the morning. I answer it without looking at the caller ID.

"Hello?" my voice cracks to a whisper.

"Poppy, hi um-" I lie back and rub my eyes as I cut her off.

"Josie?"

"Yes it's me. I'm doing night shift and ah, we might need you to come in" I sit up as the calm alarm in her voice begins to panic me. In the background I can hear yelling, my mind registering who it is instantly as I jump out of bed and throw on my uniform.

"What happened, Josie?" I slide my feet into my boots without doing up the laces. They clomp along the floor as I walk into the kitchen and grab the car keys. I couldn't care less about waking West but from the sound of snoring in the direction of the bedroom he hasn't woken up.

"He's okay, he's okay" she reassures as she hears the panic in my voice. "I thought I should call you, because you know" she hints at Hex being my Darling.

"Josie! What happened?" I hiss between my teeth as I exit the front door, letting it slam behind me.

She finally answers as I unlock the car with a beep. "He's cut his neck, he-" I can't hear her finshing her sentence over the booming voice in the beackground as Hex tells someone to fuck off.

"He what?" I start the car and back out the driveway.

"He won't let anyone help him, it's bad Poppy" I run a hand over my face, partly in frustration but also in worry.

"How'd he do it? He has no sharps in his cell!" I exclaim out loud. I had searched his cell only weeks ago and there was nothing sharp.

"I don't know-" she's cut off again from a bang of something against a wall. "Nurse thinks it's self-inflicted, he claims it's not" my heart gets stuck in my throat once she says that. There's no way its self-inflicted.

I can see Hellbound coming up as I drive over the speed limit, getting me there in record time. The night is dark and foggy, the air too cold to be outside. There's only a couple lights on in the prison as I park in the carpark.

"Okay I'm here, where are you?" I ask Josie as I jog up to the door and show the guard my lanyard before he waves me through.

"Nurse's office" she replies. The yelling in the background now not only Hex but the guards too as they tell him to comply.

"Liv's?"

"Yep" I hang up as I round the corner, Hex's yells becoming louder as I get closer. Other inmate's awaken to Hex yelling before they start yelling too, getting riled up with excitement as they bang on their cell doors.

The nurse's room is the only room with a light on in the darkened hallway as I jog, my boots echoing. I round the corner only to see Hex handcuffed behind his back, while two guards hold him down on the small bed. He's shouting for them to get the fuck off him, red in the face and his eyes angry. The angry cut on his neck is bigger then I thought it would be, stretching half the length of his neck as it wraps around horizontal, it oozes blood, droplets dripping on the white bedding.

His gaze finds mine instantly as I stand in the doorway. I can't imagine what I look like; I didn't even bother to put my hair up as it lays on my shoulder's in bed head. My face is bare and I've probably got sleep in my eyes.

There's a brief pause in his struggle as he registers me before he starts fighting back again, more violent then before. One of the guard's reach back into his pocket and withdraw the pepper spray.

"No! No, that's my inmate, you get off him!" I shout over the noise. It attracts the attention of the guard's as they look at me. Josie backs me up as she stands in the corner, clutching her phone desperately.