this moment, but disgust wasn’t a strong enough word. She was actually finding it difficult to swallow, and her head was pounding.
Following Brenda, the senior charge nurse, back through the door to the ICU she made her way to the water cooler next to the ward office. She’d just had a cup of coffee, but her throat was tight and dry with anxiety. Brenda had beaten her to it, and was picking up a couple of plastic cups of water. She looked keenly at Ellie.
Oh not you too, Ellie thought. The expression on her face must have said it all, because Brenda simply made a comment about the rubbish summer they were having.
Ellie gave a faint smile, turned towards the ward and stopped.
That was odd. Sam hadn’t said anything about wanting to examine Abbie again today.
With a small frown she spun round to Brenda.
‘Do you know what Sam’s doing with Abbie?’ she asked, indicating the closed curtains around Abbie’s bed. Brenda flicked her head sideways, and Ellie looked in the direction she was signalling. She could just see Sam’s bald head over the filing cabinets in the office, and he appeared to be talking on the phone.
‘Did Abbie’s mum come back?’ Ellie asked.
‘Not that I’ve seen.’
Ellie felt as if her back were crawling with spiders. She glanced at Brenda, and no words were necessary. Brenda kicked open the door to the office and said two words. ‘Sam! Now!’
But Ellie had already gone. This wasn’t right, and she knew it.
She reached the bed next to Abbie’s in seconds and spoke sharply to the agency nurse as she ran past.
‘Who’s with Abbie?’ she barked, knowing it wasn’t this girl’s fault.
The startled nurse looked up from where she was taking her patient’s pulse.
‘A doctor. Came a few minutes ago. Why? Is there a problem?’
Ellie didn’t know. Perhaps she was over-reacting. But seconds later she knew she wasn’t. Sam and Brenda rushed to her side.
‘I’ve got this,’ Sam said, firmly pulling back the curtain.
But he was too late. The curtain on the far side of the bed was flapping, and Ellie could see a figure dressed in scrubs racing to the nearby emergency exit.
‘Ellie - get in here,’ Sam shouted.
Trying not to disturb the other patients, Brenda mouthed ‘I’ll call security,’ just as the alarm on the emergency door destroyed any chance of discretion.
Ellie didn’t care about security. All she cared about now was checking if Abbie was okay. She pulled back the curtain to follow Sam, and found Abbie tossing her head and her upper body from side to side. She was trying to speak. Her eyes were wide open, as if with shock, and Sam was frantically trying to hold her still.
‘Calm her, Ellie. I need to check her over. Make sure that whoever that was hasn’t done anything to harm her.’
Ellie crouched down at the side of the bed, and tried to stroke Abbie’s hair back from her head. But it made her worse. Abbie jerked her head away from the hand, as if Ellie’s fingers were burning her poor skin.
‘Shh,’ Ellie whispered. ‘Be still. Be quiet.’
Abbie’s body went rigid, and she arched off the bed, at the same time moaning with such distress that Ellie’s whole body was instantly covered in goose bumps.
‘What the hell’s happening to her?’ Sam asked.
‘I’ve no idea, Sam. I’m just talking to her. Soothing her.’
A slightly out of breath Brenda reappeared at the open curtain.
‘Security are on their way,’ she said as she turned to pull the curtain back around them. ‘Christ, what’s up with her?’ she asked as she saw the state that Abbie was in.
‘Brenda, get me one milligram of Midazolam please. We need to calm her down.’
Ellie had moved her hand away from Abbie’s head, and was now stroking the back of her arm. That seemed to be causing less distress. She stopped speaking, and started to sing softly.
‘Ellie,’ Sam said quietly. With his head he nodded towards the edge of the curtains surrounding the bed. On the floor was one of Abbie’s pillows.
Ellie knew that the shock on Sam’s face would be reflected on her own. No words were necessary. Sam grabbed a pair of surgical gloves from his pocket and put them on, picking the pillow up by its corner as Brenda reappeared with the sedative for Abbie. She looked from one to the other of them, her brow furrowed with silent questions.
‘Get security to cover the doors, Brenda,’ Sam said. ‘And you need to call the police.’