Page 92 of Depraved Boys

“You’re in the Acute Medical Unit of the Cumberland Royal Infirmary. The mountain rescue and ambulance crew found you unconscious on a ledge and airlifted you to the hospital. After such a serious accident, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“But I don’t know how I got there.”

The corner of her eyes tightened with irritation. “Perhaps it’s due to your blood alcohol levels being twice the legal limit.”

“Blood—s” I shook my head. “But I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since those girls forced me to drink.”

She pursed her lips. “It was all over your school uniform.”

“No.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?” she asked.

I cast my mind back to the night before, when I had been working on Corrine’s diary. A shocked breath whooshed out of my lungs. She had been seduced by Prakash!

Pushing those thoughts aside, I continued my recollection of events. Rushing to Cormac’s room too early in the morning and remembering it was Sunday. Getting abducted by Leopold and Sebastian to their mountain hideout. Then… A flush bloomed on my cheeks, and I skipped over the next few events.

“You remember something?” asked the doctor.

“From Sunday, but it’s not related to the accident.”

“It’s two-thirty A.M. on Wednesday,” said the doctor. “You were brought in on Monday at eleven fifty-five P.M.”

My brows drew together. This made no sense whatsoever. Sebastian drove me back on Monday morning. We were supposed to arrive in time to get changed before classes started.

I stared into the doctor’s expressionless, chocolate-brown eyes. “What about the two boys I was with?”

Her brows rose. “Your Renault landed in the stream, and emergency services found no other passengers.”

“Renault?” My hands rose to the neckline of my checkered hospital gown. “That’s Mom’s car.”

Pursing her lips, Dr. Croft leaned forward and shone a light in my pupils. “The alcohol should have left your system by now, and—”

“But I didn’t—”

“That’s a matter to discuss with the police,” she said.

“Has anyone told my next of kin. My uncle—”

“Already knows, but you still need to give the police a statement.”

I wrapped a hand around the base of my neck and squeezed my eyes shut. How on earth did I go from the back of Sebastian’s jeep to this? “The whole of Monday is missing, and I don’t have a clue why.”

The doctor didn’t respond for several moments, and I cracked my eyes open. She drew back and tilted her head to the side as though considering the truth in my words. I held my breath.

From the way she spoke and acted, it looked like she thought I had taken up drink-driving. Perhaps she had gone into my medical records and remembered the last time I was here. Maybe she was finally getting an inkling that I might be a victim of something nefarious.

“I’ll refer you to the neurology department,” she said.

Before I could ask her what she thought could be wrong with me, Dr. Croft stepped out through the gap in the curtains.

My shoulders deflated, and I sank back into the mattress. Without my mobile, Uncle Trevor, or a memory of Monday’s events, there wasn’t much I could do about this predicament.

When I awoke several hours later, the curtains remained closed, even when an assistant brought in fresh water, and another lady asked me if I wanted tea, coffee, or toast. Perhaps the hospital staff didn’t take kindly to people they believed got themselves into resource-draining accidents, or maybe they had forgotten about me.

As I sipped the dregs of my over-stewed tea, the curtains parted, and two police officers stepped through. The male, a man in his early thirties, wore the flat cap of a sergeant, and the female, a tall, dark-skinned woman, wore a woman police constable’s bowler hat.

“Miss Evergreen?” asked the male officer. “I’m Sergeant Rockford, and this is my colleague, Constable Clive. I understand that the mountain rescue found you early on Tuesday morning. Could you tell me how you got there in your own words?”