Two for Joy - Louise Collins Page 0,47
the first stone. Then another, and another, until the anger made him release the stone in his grip too soon. It landed on the roof, a tile slipped, and it fell towards the magpie.
It moved at the last second, but unlike the first time Romeo had experienced this dream, he didn’t feel any relief, or triumph, or happiness.
He knew what happened next.
The magpie flew away from him, and then he heard them. The angry machine guns in the trees. He ran around his house and headed towards the sound. He saw them swooping, clawing, pecking, and he yelled at them to stop, he yelled at them to go away, and they did, but not because of him.
They flew away because there was someone else.
Romeo couldn’t see his face, the figure walked up to the broken magpie on the ground, then lifted it up.
He held the magpie so Romeo could see it, then snapped its wing. The crunch spiked nausea in Romeo’s gut. He staggered, bracing himself. The figure snapped the other wing, then the magpie’s legs. Each crunch weakened Romeo, slowed him, prevented him from getting closer, until the magpie was dropped, discarded on the ground with a gushing wound to its neck.
When Romeo finally got close enough to reach for the magpie, it turned into Chad. Chad with his eyes open, but lost forever. Chad with his skin pale, his body broken, and neck gushing blood.
When the blood stopped flowing, Romeo screamed.
****
Romeo flung himself forward when he woke. He immediately regretted it when his head pounded. A bucket was swiftly put in front of his face, and he retched up nothing. The pain in his head didn’t lessen after the dream, it grew, and as he looked around the room, he realized he was having trouble seeing. He touched his face, testing the mass of swollen flesh that was his cheek.
Justin had punched him in the face, that had been part of his plan, but he wasn’t in the city hospital like he wanted. There were bars and gates—he was in the prison hospital. When he tried to move his other hand, it clunked, and he glared at the cuff attaching him to the bed.
The man that gave him the bucket pushed him back down on the bed. “Easy, Romeo.”
“Why am I here?”
“Justin Steel punched you in the face.”
He knew that, but he’d hoped if it wasn’t hard enough to kill him, it would’ve been enough to get him to the city hospital.
“I’m Doctor Zander.”
“My vision’s blurry, I’ve got a pounding headache, I think I need to be in hospital.”
“You are in a hospital.”
Romeo didn’t comment. He needed to play this game carefully. Even though Zander worked in the prison hospital with the most despicable people on earth, he still had kind eyes, and he studied Romeo with them. He needed to keep it that way.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“We X-rayed your face. You’ve got a fractured cheekbone, lucky really, we all know what Justin’s capable of.”
“A fractured cheek bone?”
“And a mild concussion. According to Paul and Fred you were out cold.”
Romeo was going to have to do some work to upgrade his mild concussion, to a severe one, curtesy of the medical A-Z dictionary.
“Who?”
“Paul and Fred…”
“I don’t remember what happened. Where—where am I?”
“You’re on the hospital wing.”
“Wing?”
Zander frowned. “Yeah, of the prison.”
Romeo scrunched up his face, the pain made him wince, and Zander steadied him.
“Can you tell me your name?”
“It’s um … um, give me a minute and it’ll come back to me.”
“Can you remember what you did today?”
Romeo eased himself down on the pillow. He stared at the light in the ceiling until Zander moved closer and blocked it from view.
“Hey… Romeo?”
“Romeo.” He repeated.
“That’s your name.”
He gave Zander a wonderous look and laughed lightly. “Yeah, of course it is, Romeo.”
“Do you remember what you had for breakfast?”
“No.”
Zander unhooked a pen from his top pocket and shined it into Romeo’s eyes. He cursed and ducked away. Zander hummed, then backed off.
“I’ll keep a close eye on you.”
Romeo hadn’t over done it, Zander was concerned, but not overly so. He moved along to the next curtain and disappeared behind it. Romeo closed his eyes and tried to picture the medical A-Z he had in his cell. Grade three concussion. That’s what he needed to be taken to the city hospital, for them to look for damage on his brain.
Nausea, confusion, amnesia, trouble speaking, Romeo was going to present with every symptom until Zander had to do something.
First on the list,