Heart Of Gold

A Grim Affair

An odd beeping pulled Rose up from the depths of her dark resting place.

Intrusive, like an alarm clock that refused to be turned off.

She fought against the noise as it nudged her towards consciousness. She was comfortable here, in her foggy haze of peaceful nothingness.

Rose twitched a finger, wanting to nudge the alarm, to tell it to be quiet.

Within seconds a stronger set of fingers were on top of hers, squeezing them, and the unexpectedness of human touch jolted her awake.

It took a moment for the room to sharpen. As it did, figures came into focus against the pastel walls. The beeping came from a tall monitor beside her bed - various tubes attached to it and threaded down into her left arm.

Rose moved to touch one but the strong fingers stopped her. She followed the hand with her eyes, up the arm and the shoulder and to the face attached to it - Jake's face.

Jake watched the struggle on her face as Rose tried to piece together the situation.

Her eyes flitted from him to Gail on the other side of her bed and then back to him. The cuts on her face tugged at their stitches as she frowned, trying to figure out where she was and why she was hurting.

"Rose?" he asked quietly, holding her hand. She flinched at his voice and her eyes darted to Gail. "Rose, do you know where you are?"

Rose's brow furrowed as she fought against the haze of tranquilizers - the doctors had pumped her full when she arrived. Jake hadn't been there but he heard from Gail that she had come in muttering to herself and refused to let the doctors stitch the cuts on her face and arms. She had demanded to see her brother's body and when the doctors refused, she took off running through the hospital, determined to find the morgue on her own.

When the nurses caught up to her, she fought them kicking and screaming to a bed where they finally sedated her. Sara had left immediately after identifying Mike's body and Gail had heard from her what happened after phoning to see if Rose wanted to meet for breakfast.

Gail had immediately called Jake.

"You're in hospital," Gail explained. "How do you feel?"

"I'm ..." Rose hesitated, her words feeling heavy on her tongue. "Bad."

"They gave you something to make you sleep," Jake told her, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "Do you remember anything?"

"I was running," Rose frowned, "running and they were coming after me. I couldn't find..." She froze, the little colour left in her cheeks fading away.

"I couldn't find Mike. They had him downstairs and I wanted to see him and they wouldn't let me. They said he ..." she paused, her fingernails digging into her palms. "They said he ..."

"He did, Rose," Gail murmured. "Mike died. There was a car crash this morning and the doctors couldn't save him."

"Who was he with?" Rose whispered, closing her eyes. "Who was driving?"

"One of the guys he works with," Jake answered. "Jim came in earlier to see how you were - he wasn't working this weekend and when Mike didn't come home this morning, he called one of the guys who was supposed to be dropping him off." Jake paused. "The guy's father picked up - said he died in a crash this morning and everyone he had been driving was dead too. Jim came over as soon as he could. Eva's down in the waiting room too."

No one was listening, Rose thought to herself, remembering her useless plea to the universe last night. She tried to remember the last time she had seen Mike- it had been about two weeks ago and he had brushed off her concern over his work friends lightly.