TNT: Ch. 7

Gina had been waiting for most of the day. She'd used some valuable food money to eat at the hospital, but was weary of where to sleep. By her original calculations, she was in New York by now. There was some margin for error financially, but not much. The best thing to do, she concluded, was to sit by Vlad's bedside all night. She understood that it was a common practice for family members or close friends of injured people. Of course, he was almost a complete stranger, but it was a place to stay. She had almost dozed off, when a nurse came in.
"Excuse me, ma'am, are you kin?"
"Not exactly," she replied, sensing trouble. "How's he doing?" she changed the subject.
"He's in a coma, didn't they tell you?"
"I must have... forgotten." In fact, the doctors had been keeping her out of the loop all day.
"Well, if you're not kin I'm afraid you'll have to come back tomorrow. We had to do that after we had bums sleeping by random beds."
"Please," she said, discreetly slipping one of her rings onto Vlad's finger, "Vlad and I are... were... engaged -" at this she began to cry.
The nurse looked uneasy.
"Well, I guess that's alright dear. Take care."
She left. That was close. Her years of fake crying to get her way with her parents had paid off. But how long could she keep this up? Oh well, it was a problem for tomorrow.