Tessa had expected the return journey to exhaust them. The ward transfer had taken three signatures, two calls to transport and an argument about whether the survivors’ trial injuries belonged under emergency follow-up or the gate service. By the time the lift opened, Nessa had been sitting upright too long and Harun had stopped answering questions with anything beyond a nod.
Then Nessa asked for tea.
Tessa looked down at her. The woman lay on the receiving trolley with her eyes open and the muscles around her mouth less tight than they had been all morning.
“Water first,” Tessa said.
“With the tea after?”
“If you still want it.”
“I’ve wanted it since yesterday. Yesterday it tasted like wire.”
Harun laughed from the next trolley. The sound surprised him into a cough. A porter stopped pushing long enough to let him settle, then took them into the temporary assessment bay beside the hospital’s older surgical ward.
