Ridley is not hard to find; a black cloud exudes him. The tarnished walls are marred by the smell of tobacco, grime and cheap vodka as he runs his fingerless gloves along them. I follow the sound of him cracking his knuckles, which click like popcorn. Hearing me, he turns. The bare bulb catches the bone of his eyebrows. In the negative space, his eyes are black and sunken like craters of the moon.

'What d'you want?' Ridley smirks, lopsided.

I slam him against the wall. He's off guard. His pause is palpable. It's long enough to shove him through the swinging doors back into the hospital with a fury so deep it could break continents. There are wall mounted fire extinguishers here, which he narrowly misses. To the right are emergency exit signs, heath and safety posters half stuck to the walls and a plethora of rooms for him to scuttle into, but I'm not done.

'You've got a nerve!' I yell. My anger feels like a hot purple flame flaring off my skin and the very sight of him makes me want to smack him until he's unrecognisable. 

'You locked her in the room whilst you tried to steal her medical notes,' I shout. What he could do with that information doesn't frighten me half as much as what he could have done to her. And I put her back in that freezing makeshift cell, not twenty feet away. 

When I look at Ridley's asymmetrical face, I see the monster in myself.  

'What were you thinking?'

'I'm thinking there's a whole lot you're not telling me and I'd being stitched up to something here.' Ridley wipes phlegm off his gristly top lip, his chin jutting upwards in his usual arrogant manner.

'We were all stitched up the minute we walked into that Goddamn house and you know it!' I say. 'We were there for the drugs and we ended up kidnapping a pregnant eighteen-year old. Who the hell does that?'

'You did!' Ridley shouts.

'I wasn't going to let you kill her.'

'Who says I was.'

'I say you're too dangerous to be trusted,' I spit. 'Why exactly are you still involved, Ridley? What's in this for you?'

He kicks me back and starts pacing down the hospital corridor towards the reception. 'None of your business.'

'You don't get to walk away from me like that!'

'You don't get to speak to me like that.' He whips around and points a long bony finger straight at my nose. 'I pulled you in to this gig. I got yous inducted into Freedom. Hell, I AM Freedom. But they look up to yous now. After last time, they got respect for you. They think you can save 'em from their flea pit shit for breakfast life. Wonder what they'll all think when they find out you're just a fraud, pussy whipped by some pretty blonde who's married to a gazillionaire and got pregnant with his baby. Makes sense she can do it without Prosper. Another asset that money buys.'

'You stay away from her.' I level up to him, his nostrils flaring in my face.

'Or what?'

I picture Mikey's club and where I first saw Ridley, and the anger rises like smoke wisps in my face, clouding my judgement. 

But I needed him.

Still do.

'Get out of my face,' I say, shoving him as hard as I can into the wall. He bounces off it with a thud that echoes through the plaster.

Thanks for reading Chapter Sixteen of Sever. If you think this is tense, you're going to love what's coming up, and lucky for you... the next chapter is now LIVE!

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CAST LIST (so far)

Terrence Ridley - Mackenzie Crook (one of the pirates from Pirates of the Caribbean)

Blue - Liam Hemsworth (the protagonist / anti-hero and Jade's ex-boyfriend)

Jade Lively - Lilly Collins (the protagonist)

Belinda - Lindsay Lohan (fellow kidnappee)

Adrian Lively - Alex Pettyfer (Jade's husband)

Marcus Lively - William Fichtner aka Alex from Prison Break (Adrian's father)

Mikey Drosner - Jack Black (Blue's lawyer)

Detective Pike - Viola Davis (Blue's prosecutor)

Prime Minister Christopher Seaford - Gary Oldman