Now You See Me

Thirty-Three: Transformed

I run along a myriad of hospital corridors, heart racing. They all look the same, blank and uniformly white. Signs flash past me, but none of them seem to be the right ones.

"Excuse me?" I stop a passing nurse. She turns to me and smiles, but it's tired and comes across as fake. She doesn't look like she really wants to talk. "Can you direct me to recovery, please?"

"For what department?"

"A and E."

"Down this corridor, turn right. Reception will let you in."

"Thank you." I set off again, leaving her behind with her files and her misery. My feet ache from the journey here; with the tube drivers on strike, I'd run from the East End to a hospital in the middle of the West End of the city. I had no change for a bike or a taxi; Mum needed it all for the food shopping later.

When I get to A and E, I walk straight to the desk, even though I want to stop and catch my breath on the corner. My calves are screaming at me to give them a break. Sweat is beading at my temples and I wipe it off with my jacket sleeve.

"Damien Smith?" the receptionist asks me casually, as if she doesn't expect me to be surprised that she knows my name already. "He's waiting for you in bed five."

"You..."

She smiles indulgently, like I'm some kind of idiot. "He's been asking for the last hour whether we actually called you or not."

"Ah," I feel guilty at this, "I couldn't get the tube over and had no money. Perfect disaster, really."

She chuckles and waves me in, though something about it seems relieved, and I want to roll my eyes at the implication of how much of a pain Chris is making himself. I push the door wide and step in, scanning the quiet room.

"Damien," he says, brightening up as he sees me. His skin is pale and drawn, and dried blood still crusts slightly under his nose. He's sitting on top of the covers, one leg heavily bandaged and in a huge plaster cast. "What took so long?"

"Tube strike." I sit down in the chair beside his bed and stretch my legs out with a sigh. "Just like you to get into an accident when we're on opposite sides of the city during a tube strike."

He laughs. "Yeah, that's about right. Though the car suffered more than I did."

I grimace. "How bad are you? Mum almost had a stroke when I told her on the phone."

"Three breaks and some bad surface damage," he says, looking dejectedly at his enormous cast. "But beyond that, just a nosebleed and a singed eyebrow. The driver's still in the operating theatre. His airbag didn't trigger."

"Oh my God," I say. My hand creeps over and wraps around his, and I'm fully aware of how close it had really been. "What's happened to him?"

"A rib punctured his lung." Chris looks haunted now. "If the ambulances had come a minute later he'd have suffocated. It's still looking shaky now."

I close my eyes, and try not to imagine what it could have been like now if Chris had been in the driver's seat.

The thought makes me lean over and press a kiss to the side of his head. He accepts it with a content little grumble and turns to capture my mouth with his. My fingers tangle with his, brushing the plastic bracelet on his wrist, and I tighten my grip. Before I know it I'm parked on the bed beside him to get closer.

We break apart when the ward door opens again, and Chris smiles at me. His eyes slip over my shoulder, and the expression on his face slides quickly into one of horror. I turn; Chris's mum has just arrived, and with her is Adam. Chris's stepfather is not making any attempt to conceal his disgust; his mum's expression is indecipherable.