Lucy jerked, momentarily startled by the intruder.
Darkness.
Shattering pain.
Nothing.
36
I woke up in a hospital bed.
My first thought was, ‘Ow!’
I must have said it out loud, because Becky jerked awake from where she’d clearly been snoozing in the chair beside me. Taking a moment to orientate herself, she spotted that I was also awake, and quickly shuffled the chair up close enough to take hold of my hand.
‘Eleanor. How are you feeling?’
I tried to answer, not that I knew what to say, but my throat was hoarse and dry, so instead what came out was an ugly croak.
‘Here.’ She offered me a sip of water from a paper straw, smoothing my hair back from my face after I plopped back onto the pillow, finding that lifting my head up an inch for three seconds was about as much as I could manage.
‘Okay?’ She peered at me, her expression a mixture of concern, compassion and relief.
I nodded. Clearly I was not okay, but I thought she probably knew more about that than I did.
‘What happened?’ I rasped.
‘It was Lucy. Do you remember? You were in the old cider store.’
‘How?’ I flicked my eyes around the room, hoping she’d understand my question.
‘How did you get here?’ Becky gave the barest of smiles. ‘Daniel heard you scream. After you left, there was a whole big kerfuffle with Nora. She was ranting on about the retreat. Daniel told her to leave, and eventually while the band got going, he and Alice called a taxi to drive her to her hotel. It was pretty clear that she’d lost it, though.
‘And then I remembered about the knife in the arbour, so I called Brenda and left a message, and tried to find Daniel to tell him, but he was putting Hope to bed, so that took me a while, and people kept wanting to stop and talk to me, ask if I was okay, ifyouwere okay. I ended up yelling at DJ Vapes to leave me alone so I could try to find out. So,’ she paused to take a deep breath, ‘I eventually found Daniel, once Hope was in bed and Billie and Rob were babysitting. Once I’d managed to get him alone and explain, and then we’d found Luke and a couple of other guys to help search for you, Brenda had called back and said she was on her way. But we couldn’t find you anywhere. You weren’t answering your phone. The band were winding down, so we asked more people to help, but a lot of them assumed you’d simply gone off on your own. To be honest, we did too. If we’d seriously thought… maybe we would have looked faster.’
She stopped, wiped a stream of tears from both eyes, blew her nose and wiped her eyes again. ‘I’m so sorry, Eleanor. This is totally my fault.’
‘Er, excuse me?’ I said, trying to heave myself up into a sitting position, and ending up sliding several inches further down the bed. ‘You didn’t do this. You didn’t even makeherdo this. The two Noras are completely to blame.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Yes, but I’m going to get really angry if you even hint at being in any way responsible for that woman’s crazed campaign of revenge. And that will make my head hurt even more, which will be your fault. Now, please carry on.’
‘Okay.’ She rubbed her face, gave her head a brisk shake and carried on. ‘We’d all spread out, looking for you. Other people were busy tidying up and sorting everything out. Daniel had stayed by the farmhouse, in case you came back – and because he wanted to be near Hope. Then he heard you scream, and got there just as Nora was about to… well. Do something horrible. She was startled and you fell backwards. Your head smashed into the concrete floor.’
‘So that explains the thumping headache.’
‘You’ve also hurt your knee, and are covered in bruises and cuts. Oh…’ Her eyes filled with tears again, as she gently stroked my hair. ‘That monster pulled out a chunk of your hair.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She’s been arrested. Daniel restrained her while he waited for the police.’
‘It was all her?’
‘Looks like it. The Bee Murderer is vanquished. The queens and their boys can rest in peace, and so can you.’
Not likely. Becky was ushered out soon after that, but the last thing I felt was peaceful.
