‘Shit, man, you need to be in bed. Get back in bed.’

‘Who made you my mom? Pass me my fucking pants.’

*

The glass in the door that Halo had peered through before was now blocked by what looked like a coat. Great place to put a peg, he thought irritably. He glanced down the corridor at Tom, who was in the nearest waiting area, hiding behind Quilting Quarterly. He shrugged helplessly and Tom limped over to him, wearing his smoke-blackened ‘Only in LA’ T-shirt and a pair of green surgical scrub pants which he’d forced Halo to steal from a closet down the hallway to replace his aerated jeans.

‘What’s up?’

‘Something over the window,’ said Halo. He was waiting – just waiting – for Tom to ask him to go in and draw Lucia’s fierce mother out of the room with some bullshit story she’d believe just because he was black, of course. Well, Halo wasn’t doing it. He had his ‘No’ all ready to go in his mouth, and his ‘Fuck you’ waiting behind that if Tom pushed him.

To pre-empt the confrontation, he said, ‘I’m not coming in with you. You’re on your own.’

Surprisingly, Tom didn’t argue. Instead he stood and stared off down the corridor for a bit, weighing his options.

Then he sighed and pushed open the door.

Halo’s imminent animosity switched instantly to manly support, and he gave Tom two thumbs-ups and mouthed, ‘Good luck!’

Halo sat down on a chair conveniently placed outside the door. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to go in after Tom and break up a fight between a foul-mouthed aggressive white guy and a little old black lady, cos if that happened, he just knew that somehow he and Lucia’s mother would end up in the Lexington drunk tank together.

And she sounded scary.

*

Tom slid quietly into the room, braced for the worst. And found something so far beyond it that he froze in horror.

Stanley stood behind the long white hyperbaric chamber, one hand directing a gun at a cowering nurse and Lucia’s mother on the other side of the room, the other lighting the cigarette clamped between his lips.

The door clicked shut behind Tom and the sound made them all look at him – even the gun turned to capture him in its sights.

Tom couldn’t help noticing that Lucia’s mother looked even more annoyed to see him than she had at being held at gunpoint by a stranger. ‘I guess this is all your fault!’ she snapped.

Stanley laughed and blew smoke in little puffs. ‘You bet it is,’ he told her, then shook his head at Tom. ‘You never did know when to get off a fucking hand, Patrick.’

‘Sir,’ said the nurse, tightly. ‘You need to put the cigarette out right now! That chamber is filled with oxygen.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Stanley, without taking his eyes off Tom. ‘You could’ve saved yourself the walk – I was coming up to see you after I got through here.’

Tom was scared to ask but had to: ‘Got through doing what?’

‘This,’ said Stanley, nodding down at the chamber, and – while his right hand keep the gun loosely pointed at Tom – his left started to unscrew the wide cap covering the hatch, which allowed medication or water to be passed to the patient.

‘Sir!’ said the nurse, with rising panic. ‘Sir! You can’t do that!’

‘Watch me,’ said Stanley, and glanced at Lucia’s mother. ‘Is she a smoker?’

‘None of my children smoke,’ said Mrs Holmes, curtly.

Stanley laughed again. ‘Well, this one’s about to start.’

Tom moved slightly.

‘Stay where you are, asshole.’

He stopped, but now he could see Lucia’s face through the little porthole in the side. She was lying on her back, watching Stanley through the top porthole, her eyes wide with fear. Beside her head he could see a pad of Post-its, which must have been provided so she could communicate with the nurses. The top one had a single word on it.

HELP.

‘Listen, Mister!’ the nurse said furiously. ‘If you open that hatch and the cigarette gets anywhere near it, that whole chamber will go up like a bomb.’

Stanley didn’t look at the the nurse, but he raised his eyebrows at Tom. ‘Feisty, ain’t she?’

Tom ignored the words. Instead he sought the bluff in Stanley’s eyes. With a sickening sinking feeling, he could see it wasn’t there. He was going to do it. Stanley was going to open the hatch and drop the cigarette into the oxygen-filled chamber, and they would have to watch Lucia burn – if the whole fucking room didn’t go up as well. But the chamber was solid steel, and Tom thought Stanley must be pretty sure it would contain the fire at least long enough for him to escape, or he wouldn’t be doing this at close quarters.

Tom watched his left hand slowly turning the metal cap. It was almost off. When it was, Stanley would have to put the cap down in order to take the cigarette from his mouth. That was his chance – his only chance.

In an instant, Tom visualized how it would happen. He would feint left, go right, running low so Stanley would have to lean over the top of the chamber to shoot him, grab the metal visitors’ chair that was beside the porthole, shield his head with it, throw it at Stanley.

Take it from there.

The cap was almost off. Tom tensed.

Lucia’s mother gave a loud cry and hurled Little Women at Stanley’s head.

It took them all by surprise. Stanley had been expecting a move from Tom, not from a sixty-year-old woman in white gloves, armed with a chick-lit classic. He ducked down behind the chamber, then immediately bounced back up to point his gun at the real danger – Tom.

But before his head even cleared the top of the chamber or his finger found the trigger, Tom Patrick fell on top of him.

The second he’d seen Mrs Holmes make her move, Tom had made his. All thoughts of ducking low, grabbing chairs and throwing missiles fled from his head and he went for the shortest possible route between the two points that were himself and Stanley. He threw himself straight over the hyperbaric chamber.

It was chest-high and he had almost no run-up, plus he was weak from the smoke and his bad leg ached, but he still seemed to take off like Superman, and felt metal bolts and ridges bruise and scrape his belly and hips as he slithered over the rounded shell, his hands locking around Stanley’s throat.

They crashed to the floor together, Tom on top, Stanley’s head making a sickening crack against the shiny lino. Tom saw his eyes roll back and his grip on the butt of the black gun loosen. He snatched the weapon from Stanley’s hand and spun it away across the floor.

When he saw Stanley coming back to him, he picked up Little Women. It was like a brick in his hand, and it felt embarrassingly good to smash it into Stanley’s face and to watch blood squirt from a freshly opened cut on the bridge of his nose. Felt so good, in fact, that he did it again. He was sure he could knock some teeth out too, so took aim …

His hand was halfway to Stanley’s grimacing mouth before he realized he was no longer holding the book. He curled his fist and punched the man instead, which was less satisfying, and made him wince as the man’s teeth dug into his knuckles.

When he looked up, Mrs Holmes was holding Little Women, with an expression of disgust.

Directed at him!

The nurse stood beside her, holding the gun on both of them like someone who knew what the hell she was doing. Even as he watched, Tom saw her flick the safety off with a practised thumb.

This was Kentucky, after all.

Looking over his shoulder as Stanley coughed and moaned, semi-conscious beneath him, Tom saw Lucia’s sobbing, gasping face staring out of the side porthole at him, like some shocked alien in a passing spaceship.