Free The Warden by Madeleine Roux Page A

I’ll get you help.” Jocelyn tore a strip of cotton from her uniform, trying to mop up the free-flowing blood and stop the bleeding at its epicenter.
    But the blood poured down Madge’s face, splitting over her nose and into her mouth, onto Jocelyn, dripping onto the floor, so red it looked black. “I fell and hurt my pretty face,” she mumbled, words jumbled from her broken and missing teeth. “I guess he got his way.”
    â€œHold on, Madge, I know it’s bad, just . . . Please hold on.”
    â€œWhy,” Tanner whispered. Again and again. “Why? Why? ”
    A shadow fell over them, swallowing up the meager yellow light of the operating lamps. Madge had gone limp in their arms and the shrieks of the patients, at last, had ebbed. Jocelyn felt a heavy hand fall on her shoulder. The warden’s.
    She shivered and tried to cast off his grip.
    â€œSurely you see now, Nurse Ash,” he said. “Sometimes there really is no hope. What could you have done? What could any of us have done? If we hadn’t put Lucy’s mind at ease—if we had not given her a peace she could not give herself—she might have done this same awful thing to herself. Dennis . . . Dennis could slip away from us any day now.”
    â€œI don’t . . . Madge didn’t do this to herself.” Jocelyn couldn’t look down. She couldn’t look into her friend’s broken face. Her skin was so cold, they were both so cold, the blood and the sudden gush of tears felt all the hotter. Stinging. “She didn’t do this. There was nothing wrong with her. I know there was nothing wrong with her .”
    She heard footsteps and glanced to the side, watching as two male orderlies filed into Theater 7.
    â€œEscort Mr. Frye to his room, please,” Warden Crawford said, tut-tutting at Tanner and squeezing Jocelyn’s shoulder so hard she could feel the bones give and crack.
    â€œI’d like him to stay,” Jocelyn whispered. “Madge . . . She really cared for him.”
    â€œIt’s best that he go.”
    He wasn’t given a choice in the matter. They caught eyes, she and Tanner, as the orderlies hauled him away from Madge, hisspectacles askew, his mouth open to call for help. But then the door shut and she was alone with the warden, Madge limp and lifeless in her arms.
    â€œShe was going to dye her hair like Jackie Kennedy,” Jocelyn murmured, wiping a stained piece of blond hair off of Madge’s cheek. “She wanted to be glamorous.”
    â€œThat’s nice.”
    â€œYou don’t care,” she growled. “You don’t care about Lucy. You don’t care about me or about Madge. You don’t care about anything.”
    â€œNow, that’s not true,” he said warmly, gently, shifting so that he could crouch in front of her and face her. He reached out, and she tensed as his hand cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his cold, steady gaze. “I care about the future. I care about making sure things like this never happen again—it’s senseless, useless.”
    Jocelyn couldn’t argue with that, but she couldn’t look at him anymore, either. I couldn’t help her . That was the only thought filling her head. I couldn’t help her .
    She hadn’t helped Lucy, and she certainly hadn’t helped Madge. What kind of nurse was she? What kind of person was she?
    â€œHush,” Warden Crawford said. She hadn’t even realized she was crying. The smile he gave her was gentle, fatherly, and for a brief, terrible moment his presence didn’t fill her with unease. “Some patients are beyond help,” he told her, lifting Madge carefully from her grasp, “but they are not beyond use. We will learn from this, Nurse Ash. Trust me, in time you will learn.”

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    THE WARDEN . Copyright © 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers. All