Chapter 22
What the hell was that buzzing noise?
Susannah wished whoever was conducting a conversation in the corner of her bedroom would shut the hell up. She tried to say so, but her tongue seemed to be sandpaper, glued to the bottom of her mouth. The voices faded. Quiet again.
She was on her back for some reason. She didn’t sleep on her back. Was there something in her mouth?
The buzzing noise was back. It went black again.
Susannah’s eye opened, but not because she meant it to. Someone had their fingers on her face, and then there was a bright light.
“Excuse me?” Well, that was what she tried to say. There was definitely something pressed against her tongue. That wasn’t right. She started to struggle, and then all the agitated voices came back.
“Susannah? Can you hear me, love?”
She opened both eyes then. The lighting was horrible and, as she focused, she could see a strip light overhead. Maybe that was the source of the buzzing noise. Then a strange face came into view. Friendly, smiling, like she wanted Susannah to do well on her test.
“Nice of you to join us, Susannah. I’m Dr Gray. We’ve been a bit worried about you. Now, we had a breathing tube in just to make sure you were okay, but that can come out now if you give me a second.”
The next few seconds made Susannah wish she’d stayed asleep.
There was a lot of handling her then, propping her up with pillows, and listening to her breathing with a stethoscope.
“All good,” the doctor said, giving her and a nurse a brisk nod before leaving.
“What’s happened?” Susannah’s voice came out sounding like Kathleen Turner with a chest infection. “Wait, all I remember is smoke, but I couldn’t wake up properly.”
“You’ve had a lucky escape,” the nurse said, patting Susannah’s hand where an IV had been inserted and taped in place. “But there’s a young lady out there bursting to see you, so I’ll let her fill you in on the details.”
“Tess?” Susannah tried to ask, but it came out as more of a croak. Nonetheless, the very person she most wanted to see came charging into the hospital room a minute later. Despite her private room, the door had been left ajar.
“Are you okay?”
Tess looked pretty roughed up. Her face was sooty, her eyes were red, and her hair was out of that permanent ponytail and hanging limply around her face. She had her arm in a sling and her clothes looked filthy. As she got closer, Susannah became aware of the smoky smell coming from her own body. It was nothing compared to the freshly extinguished barbecue scent that Tess brought in with her like a dust cloud.
Not that it stopped Susannah from grabbing that soot-streaked pyjama shirt and carefully pulling Tess close enough to kiss. “The pub?” Susannah asked.
Tess shook her head.
“Please tell me nobody was…” She couldn’t say it. The thought of being responsible for anyone dying was too much.
“No, you were the only one there. Babs was away, and the Andersen boys were all safe at home.”
Tess did her own inspection of Susannah, checking for injuries and who knew what else.
Susannah squirmed under the attention. “Unless I’ve suddenly turned into a pit bull, you can leave that to the human doctors.”
“Are you saying I’m not human?” Tess smiled for the first time since coming in. That cheeky grin of hers was an instant painkiller.
Susannah sat up a bit straighter. “Ha-ha. How did you get so messy? It can’t have spread all the way back to the houses, surely? Is Waffles okay?”
“He’s fine. He’s outside with Margo and Adam. The fire spooked him a little, but it didn’t come near the house, thank God.”
“Then how… Tess…did you—?”
“Do you want something to drink? I can ask the nurses if you’re allowed anything more than the few sips of water you had when they took the tube out.”
“Tess Robinson. Did you run into a burning building—into an actual fire—just to save me?” Susannah stared at Tess in something like amazement, the rest of her words deserting her. That kind of bravery was awe-inspiring and terrifying in turn. When had Susannah become someone worth risking that kind of danger for?
Even under the soot and the faint burn mark on her left cheek, the blush on Tess was obvious. “It was instinct! Nobody else knew you were there, and the fire engines took way too long. I had to, and I’d do it again, so don’t even think about getting mad at me!”
“Mad at you?” Susannah got a good handful of the pyjamas that time. “I could kiss you!”
“Oh. Well, you can definitely do that.”
So she did. They both did, for a few breathless moments. Very breathless, since neither of them had fully recovered.
“They’ll want to check on you more.” Tess pulled a chair to the side of the bed and took Susannah’s hand in her good one. “And you probably have more questions, but can we just be like this for a moment? Just…be glad we’re both still here?”
“Of course,” Susannah said. “We’ll take all the time you need.”
A parade of doctors, nurses, and orderlies took up most of the next few hours. Susannah was wheeled around in a chair after her attempts to walk under her own steam ended quickly and with a lot of coughing.
“I’m not carrying you again,” Tess warned. “I’ve got a potentially broken collarbone, so you’ll have to listen to medical advice and take the wheels.”
The hospital wasn’t a major crisis centre, but it was the biggest facility in the area. Susannah took their reassuring words that she was fine to heart, and despite the pain levels and general exhaustion, she vowed not to wallow in the bad luck of it all. At least she was here to tell the tale.
They were back in her room when Tess brought it up, having choked down some vending machine coffee and
