Missing

16

Chapter Sixteen

Three days later

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

I picked up my phone on the third ring, hoping that it would be someone to take my mind off Mark and the ever darkening tale. I hoped it would be Meg, there to give me a new story about her and her boyfriend. I envied her, she lived such a stress free life.

"Kansas this is the hospital. Mark Smith has been admitted into our intensive care ward, the police told us to call you," it was like she said the words in slow motion. What had happened to Mark since I left him?

"Thank you, I will down shortly," I finished before laying on the floor holding my head in my hands. Every time I tried to escape him, something new happened that threw me back into the case again.

***

The hospital walls were bleak and white, too sterile for my liking. Nurses and doctors hurried past me, barely noticing the teenage girl that was traipsing through the hallways. I had been given some brief directions by the receptionist but I had managed to find myself lost in the maze-like place.

"Kansas?" A voice called from behind and I turned to see Lacey running towards me, her cheeks covered in fresh tears. I hadn't seen Mark's mum since my first visit, something I felt guilty about. I had been so absorbed in the case that I forgot to even give her a call.

"Lacey," I said halfheartedly, giving her a limp hug. I wasn't really in the right mindset to worry about other people, all I wanted to know was what had happened in the short time frame that I had been gone. "What happened?" I asked her, hoping she would know.

"He collapsed in his cell," she shuddered at the word 'cell' and I remembered the bleak place he had been staying, "They say that he might have something inside of him, they suspect some kind of drug."

I could see the disappointment on her face as she said the word 'drug'- no mother wants to know that their kid is doing drugs. Especially drugs that can put you in intensive care.

"Maybe its withdrawal from a drug that he was taking before," I muttered to myself, Mark wouldn't have been allowed to take drugs at the police station.

Lacey began to lead me to the floor that Mark was on and with every step I felt more uneasy, I didn't really want to see him. The past few nights had been riddled with nightmares and plagued by his words.

"Here he is," Lacey mumbled and left me facing a door, which I slowly opened. Inside the room was Mark laying on a bed connected to some sort of drip.

"Kansie?" He said in an almost child like voice, and I walked over to him.

He looked like death, his skin seemed yellow although it might have been the hospital lights. He looked so fragile just laying there, helpless. A complete contrast to the old Mark, the one who seemed indestructible.

"What happened to you?" I asked, hoping I could get a clear answer.

"Withdrawal," I knew it, "I had been taking this drug, I can't remember its name to be honest, while I was hiding. I suppose my body just shut down without it."

He shrugged it off like it was no big deal, despite the fact that it had landed him into intensive care. I couldn't stand watching him waste away into a person I couldn't even recognise, but then again I never had been able recognise the boy I grew up with. He had changed so much since that time.

"I need to go," was all I could say before running out of the hospital room. It hurt me physically to see him look so helpless, so weak.

I couldn't just stand there and forget the boy I once knew, the innocent boy who had been tainted by everything illegal.

***
When I got through my front door, all I wanted to do was run up to my bedroom and cry a river of tears. But my mother had other plans.

"Kansas darling, where have you been?" She said in her shrill, high pitched voice that annoyed me every time I heard it.

"I've been at the hospital, visiting Mark," I mumbled before trudging up the stairs only to be stopped by her grabbing my arm.

"Kansas, you know you can't just run away from your problems, you started this case so you have to finish it," I looked at her with bewilderment, how did she know?

"How did you know I was going to give up?" it had been a recurring thought that just did laps of my brain.

"A mother knows everything," she said slyly then walked away leaving me baffled. I walled up the steps slowly, my head heavy with information.

"Why does everyone have to speak so cryptically?" I moaned before flinging myself onto my bed so I could finally rest after an exhausting day.