On Trial

The Rocky Road to Healing

This chapter is LONG. I used up 10 pages on Google docs, writing this, now I would like to go to bed. 😂
Thank you to my friend Jess for helping me with the title and some of the parts of this chapter!

Madeline walked into Torlip's infirmary. She had Cassandra, wrapped in a blanket, in her arms, her bag on her back, and her dogs tied up outside, once again.

She had removed the glass from Cassandra's foot, after carrying her down Trellis' ladder. The poor girl had screamed and cried the whole time, in so much pain, both physically and emotionally. Madeline had tried her best to comfort her, while wrestling with the glass, but Cassandra had been too hysterical to soothe.

She was now half-asleep, absolutely exhausted. She had tear stains on her pale cheeks, bruises all over her chin and a mouth that looked like she'd eaten raw pigeons.

The infirmary was extremely busy. Grumbling old men, screaming children, stressed mothers, and coughing young men, crowded the waiting hall. Madeline had to do a lot of pushing and shoving, to get to the doctor, who was looking at some papers.

"Help!" She cried, making him look up, "she has chronic bronchitis, which is getting worse and several injuries! She's so sick, please help!"

"I'm sorry Ma'am, but you need to wait, like the rest of the patients, or book an appointment for tomorrow" the doctor replied.

"But this is an emergency!"

"I'm sorry, we are dealing with patients as quickly as we can, but we are mostly booked solid all day. You'll have to wait."

Madeline sighed, before thanking the man and taking a seat. Unfortunately, this was the only option she had, it would take ages to get to any other infirmary.

"How are you feeling, honey?" She asked, brushing Cassandra's sweaty fringe from her eyes.

"T-tired, a-achy, feel s-sick and c-cold," Cassandra mumbled.

The sweat running down her beetroot-red face said otherwise.

"It's ok, you're safe with me, and you're in the right place, you're in the infirmary, the doctors and nurses can help you."

The girl's eyes widened to the size of saucers and she shook her head rapidly.

"No! T-they'll g-give me m-medicines a-and s-shock me! T-they'll give m-me back to Mr T-Trellis! T-they'll give me i-ice baths a-and-"

"Shhh, no they won't. They won't do anything like that, and if they even so much as try, I'll knock them into next week."

Cassandra still looked scared, and Madeline couldn't blame her. She'd been through so much, and hadn't been given any time to recover. She was so used to awful things happening to her, by now, that she didn't expect anything good to happen, anymore. Again, Madeline couldn't blame her.

"How's your foot?"

"Sore, b-but better than i-it was."

Madeline smiled, at least something was getting better.

After a rather long while of waiting around (so long, in fact, that Cassandra had fallen asleep), a team of doctors and nurses came up to them, wheeling a gurney.

"Hello, I am so sorry for the wait," the head doctor said, "it's been very chaotic today!"

"It's alright," Madeline replied, even though it wasn't alright, "this is...Honey."

She could hardly call Cassandra by her real name, they would be sent back to the prison in a heartbeat, if anyone twigged who she really was.

After gently waking "Honey" from her nap, she allowed the medical staff to place her on the gurney.