Beep
Beep
Beep
Hiss
Beep
Beep
Hiss
A rhythm. Heart-rate monitor. Ventilator doing its job. Tube down the trachea.
Beep
Beep
Beep
Hiss
Hospital gown. Central line. Catheter. Chest tubes. Drainage for lung. GSW (gun shot wound) through chest rather than gut. It isn’t pretty. Complexion more grey than brown. Can’t see the eyes. Taped shut. Probably bloodshot. Deep rings under eyes.
Beep
Beep
Hiss
Doctor constantly monitoring. Parents being interviewed by police in a separate private room. A bit complicated. Neither one allowed to visit child without authorised prior approval and supervision. Turned ugly. Plenty of questions. Mobile lifestyle now under intense scrutiny. Domestic abuse. Coverups. They want answers.
How do you explain that your child is deemed mentally insane when you just committed something equally insane?
Guilt. That’s what radiates. A hospital choked with guilt. It’s been 8 hours since the surgery. Sedation afterwards. Stress and pain with direct ventilator line into lungs. Try waking up with that down your throat. Ewww. She should be resting for another few hours at least. Eva dodged death. Her lung was a spiderweb of shredded tissue and rupturing. Crimson blood everywhere. Soaked into the gravel and concrete of the RV parking lot. Police with sirens and lights. Asking many questions. Ambulance officers doing what they do best. Save lives with a shoestring and a prayer.
The Elder Gods appreciate the supplication.
Beep
Beep
Beep
Hiss
Gloved fingers very gently stroke through hair. Cautious. Concern. Love. Or at least a concept of love that might be understood by 3-Dimensional carbon-based lifeforms. Tangentially. Run a thumb over brow.
No noise. But you can hear the shape the lips make. The inaudible ‘I’m sorry.’ Then gone. And with it the world tilts a little off centre.
Eyes wide open. Dead eyes opened. Is this a murder trial recounted? Let them flick around. Tape ripped apart. Can’t speak. Only gagging. It isn’t pleasant. Not painful. But still horrific. Nurse comes over. Two. All old fashioned in white uniform and peak cap. Doesn’t matter where they stand, the silhouette of the buzzing light above always shadows their faces. Fuss over Eva. Check her clothes. Check pulse at her throat. Fingers caress the flesh. Affectionate. Explorative. Hungry.
Eva wants to cry out. To moan. Ever experienced dream paralysis? Awake but can’t move. Try that turned up to 11. Strange medical professionals examining your body. Checking the calf just before the slaughter. She’s A grade wagyu beef. Body manages an involuntary shudder. This spooks the nurses. Pull back. Someone approaches. Head blots out the light. All in shadow. Masculine. It’s the shoulders. Puts a hand on Eva’s.
“You’re fine now,” he reassures.
Puts a second hand on her arm. A third on her throat.
“Eva!”
Eyes roll in their sockets. Great time doc. Schwarzschild at the door staring in surprise. There is no way Eva can be awake. She’s so heavily sedated that the ventilator is needed. Even without the near-lethal damage to her lung she’d be mechanical lung girl for the next day or two. The doctor rushes over. Checks small monitors. The drain for her chest. Lifts her finger and hover’s it above Eva’s head.
“Follow my finger around. Blink twice if you understand.”
Blink. Blink.
Finger of doom slides around. Eva is cognisant. Aware. Starkly conscious. Disgustingly so. She really doesn’t want to be. Quick test ends.
“I will be right back.”
Well, she isn’t going anywhere doc. Captive audience. Ruth is out the room. Returns far too quickly with a man in scrubs. Looks perturbed. Must have been interrupted. Dinner break. Then he sees Eva. Swears.
“How long?”
“Uncertain. I came in for a routine check-up and she was staring at me. I’d say fully lucid.”
Other doctor makes a face. Runs hand over face.
“We cannot further sedate her. Blood tests. Full workup. I’ll talk with the anaesthetist. You dropped an interesting one in my lap, Ruth.”
Weak smile. Neither looks pleased.
Eva’s next two hours are not pleasant. They keep her on the respirator. Get her sitting up. More blood. More needles. Examine the surgical wound. They’re healing. Fast. Unnaturally. Normally it’s several days before the drainage tubes are removed. Now. Well now is now. Get them out now. That’s unprecedented. Other doctors on rotation come in too. Leave just as quickly. Conversation in the corridor. Hushed tones. Still carries. Eva can hear everything. The raw sounds of raw surprise. Lack of consensus. None happy. But all acknowledging they need to act. Schwarzschild makes the call.
Eva is awake. But in pain. A great deal. Body shudders. Kept sitting up. Plenty of pillows. Don’t want her lying down for too long. Especially now. Ventilator out next. Raw sounds. Whimpers. Tears. Plenty of crying. Nobody would blame her. She’s grasping the bedsheets. Clawing at them. It hurts. Her whole body and nothing they give her helps. Ragged breaths. A lung functioning when hours ago it was pulp.
“Mommy.”
Quick glance between professionals.
“Daddy.”
Okay now who is going to ignore that? She’s all of 11 and very unwell. They all know her medical history. The girl isn’t hysterical. But she’s about as distressed as someone can get short of having their puppy shot in front of them and the blood rubbed into their face.
Segue. Back in our first chapter I said that Eva had very little connection with her parents. That still holds true. Right here. Right now. They are the only things she can cling to. The last things for a very terrified girl to grasp.
“I’ll speak to the Sergeant,” Dr Schwarzschild offers.
Quickly out the room. The wait is longer. More tests. Spiro. Pain tolerance. Cognitive function. Eva passes them all. This is one for the medical books. She’s enervated, weak as a soggy peach and frightened. Give the girl her parents. For pities sake.
Door creaks open. Tall, confident woman in jeans, collared shirt and gun at the hip. Don’t screw with me gaze. Looks at Eva awake, up, tears pricking the child’s eyes.
“Ahh shit.”
Good first impression. But accurate. Looks over her shoulder.
“You have five minutes.”
Takes a step to one side. But keeps eyes fixed on the new arrivals. Medical professionals shuffle out. Courtesy. Also, nobody wants to be a fly on this wall. The story has circulated already. Just the Sergeant leaning against the wall. Christina and Luther rush into the room. Then come to a sudden halt. Just what the hell do you do now? Both are and are not responsible for what happened. Nearly lost their daughter on the operating table.
“Mommy.”
No hesitation now. Christina is on her knees and sweeping Eva in as gentle an embrace as she can manage. Her daughter’s bare chest is a horrific pattern of surgical gauze, tape, stitches, tubes and more. Hard to find the best way to hold someone. Parents can find the way if they try hard enough. Just let your daughter weep into your shoulder.
“Say nothing,” the Sergeant warns Luther.
The man nods. Cautious steps. Kneels before his daughter. Her arms look so thin. Frail. No strength to even lift themselves. Luther doesn’t have to do anything. Eva pulls him in close and cries. None of the family says anything. Just weeping and sobbing. Huh. Surprising. Guess this family does have some tears left.
Sergeant watches all of this and takes mental notes.
----------------------------------------
Wretchedly awake. That’s how to describe it. Eva feels foul. The most awful, horrendous and atrocious sensation in her 11 years. Eva’s been through things that few in 100 years have gone through. This should give you a good measure. No number of pain-killers or milder sedatives can put more than the softest of dents in the pain and nausea she is experiencing.
Clarification. Only physical. Mental. We aren’t even getting close to the fucked up psychological stuff she has endured previously. Being shot is psychological little league.
Reading is out. Not right now. More than three words leaves her spinning in the laundromat used by the gods. Same for watching anything. Eva spends those long, drawn-out hours with nothing but her broken body for company.
There is one thing to break up the monotony of the horror. And that is various apparently important people asking her questions. Eva gives the same story over and over. She stepped outside. A stranger approached her. She backed off and called for her father. He appeared and missed his shot. No, her parents have never hurt her. No, they haven’t physically harmed her in any way. Yes, they have been on the road for several years. Yes, they provide for all her educational needs. Yes, she is aware that she is unwell.
They expect a different tale. Some decide that since she’s already mad then her testimony cannot be believed. Not unless it matches the narrative they want. The rest are simply confused. Confused you should be. It matches Luther’s narrative. Somewhat. He thought his daughter had retreated to his side. But apparently that was wrong. There is wrong. Much wrong. Wow. So Wrong. Very confusing.
Compare the testimony. Have the confident interrogators do their thing. Looks like it’s just a truly horrific collision of events. Nobody at fault. Please note I said ‘nobody at fault’. Not nothing at fault. Very important distinction.
Eva isn’t allowed solids yet. But the doctors want her up and moving. At least if she were several days post-surgery then walking would be recommended. Now it’s barely a day and she’s up. Trudged all the way to the opposite end of the hospital. Rebuild stamina. Shadowed by a police officer. Got one of those funky little poles on wheels to push around. IV bag, chest tube and catheter all dangling off it. Medical staff are amazed. She was exchanging business pleasantries with the grim reaper and now...
Well now is scary. Now is not normal. Nothing normal about Eva. Hasn’t been for years. Slow, halting steps. Forty years in the hospital desert before you find your way back home.
“Would you like a hand?”
First offer of help all afternoon. Medical staff have been repelled. Cannot explain it. Do their job professionally. None like that. Nothing beyond that.
“Thank. You.” Eva rasps.
Throat still sore. Raw. As though her ability to speak is slowly being stolen away. A woman takes the pole. Another nurse. Can’t quite lift your head to see her face. Just the hem of their dress, stockings and white shoes. They move on ahead. Eva keeps pace. Step after step. Feeling a little stronger with each stride.
“You are recovering quickly, Miss Foxe. You will be right as rain in no time.”
The nurse moves faster still. Now it’s a struggle to keep up.
“Wait. Please.” Eva gasps.
No rest. No chance. No empathy. Now the pole and the nurse are at least a metre ahead. Can you feel all those cables plugged into your body starting to stretch. Feel the place where they plug into your insides tugging. Tension a revulsion that has you retching. Glance around. Where’s the police officer? They’ve been so intent on hovering and now they are absent. Just a corridor lit in pale light, either end disappearing into shadows.
“You must keep up, Ms Foxe. You do not want to fall behind.”
Now the nurse grabs the cables and gives them a tug. Pull on the chain to encourage the dog to walk a little faster. Can you imagine the sensation? Your organs are wrapped in a choke chain and being pulled upon. Eva gasps and moans. Is it pain? Is it nausea? Is it a sensation that exists that the physical body can model for the human mind?
Knees hit the ground. Hands next. Eva gasping. Choking back bile.
“Hurry up, Ms Foxe. I need you back in your bed.”
Tug on the tubes again. Now she vomits. Oh, by the way, vomiting isn’t good for you post operation. Not good at all. On hands and knees she is compelled to struggle forward. Vision blurred with sweat and tears. Bile pooling on her chin. Cold linoleum beneath hand and knee as Eva slowly inches forward. All she can do is gasp, pant and endure the horror. Only at the door does the tension on the cables slacken.
A cold hand rubs Eva’s neck. Give the little puppy a scritch to reward them.
“Well done, Ms Foxe. The doctor will see you soon.”
Not much in the stomach to bring up. Eva can only collapse onto her chest. Heavy footsteps. Impatient in their gait.
“I take my eyes off you for one second and— Fuck someone get a doctor!”
Squeak of shoes on lino. People crowding around the ill child. Carefully lift her up. Carry and place her in bed. More people fuss. Plenty of questions. Attending officer is given the grilling of his short career. It may end up being shorter. The Sergeant reappears on a warpath. Eva cannot hear most of what is said. You cannot mistake the atmosphere. Question. Questions. QUESTIONS. How did she get away? Why is she back at her room? How could she move from one end of the hospital to the other so quickly? Everybody is starting to believe the girl is a weirdness attractor.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The afternoon is a crimson blur. Pain washed around the mouth with saliva. Itchy lungs. Have you ever had itchy lungs? It is a thing. You can feel this fibrous sensation crawling around the organ. Leaves you wanting to cough and bring up whatever is slowly crawling around your insides. Evening assessment is that the drainage tube comes out.
Luther and Christina are allowed to return. Each clutch one of Eva’s hands. Give her reassuring looks. Tell her to look into just their eyes. Focus on them.
You do not need the sound of a chest tube being removed described. Nor do you want to know just how long that thing is. Happy to describe nightmares from beyond the wall of sleep. Not going to touch that one. Look it up if you want. Don’t eat beforehand.
Everything is sorted. Eva is sealed up. No more leaks. Might want to check the rest of the kitchen of the mind. I did mention those wet memories left on the floor. They haven’t begun to decay. Entropy does not reach into these places. Quiescent puddles of consciousness distinct from your own. Other thought. Belonging to other. Belonging not to the current owner.
----------------------------------------
Eva spends her evening sitting up. The idea of lying down is the stuff of nightmares. Food time. She shouldn’t be eating yet. Her unprecedented rate of recovery overrides that little rule. Soup and jelly. It’s a surprise for Eva. She didn’t think that filling her stomach with anything would end well. Instead, she is ravenous on a primal level. Her body is hungry. Hungrier than she thought. Hungrier than natural. The small bowl is gone in a minute. Held out pleadingly to the attending officer to bring back more. 2nd. 3rd. 4th. They stop at that point. The doctors are concerned she will vomit. Perhaps the connection between mind and satiety has been damaged due to medication and stress. Perhaps she just needs to replace what is missing and is ravenous. All note that she clears the four bowls, licks them clean. Yes, actually uses her tongue and licks them clean. Which gets a raised eyebrow from the officer. Desert does not survive. Large gelatine cubes. Too big for her mouth. Trying to use a spoon on the thick gelatine only sends it wibbling around the bowl.
“Can I have a fork?” Eva asks softly.
The nurse obliges. That tool isn’t much better. Spearing the jelly and eating bits of the cube is messy. Better options. Uses her fingers to eat faster. Plenty to eat. Disconcerting for those observing. But a sign of good health too. Bowls and spoon returned for cleaning. Jelly riddled fingers are sucked and licked clean.
Stomach is still grumbling. Eva will accept what the doctors tell her. Wait until morning for more food. She could eat all night if it were possible. It feels good. That empty space now topped up a meagre portion. Sleep. Sleep won’t come. Sleeping sitting up isn’t easy. Worse when your soggy mind is being scrapped over bare unsealed concrete. Eating was a distraction. Now Eva cannot escape the bleakness that is reality.
“Can I ask you something?”
Eva’s question. Not the police officer. Mind you they have plenty. This girl is strange on so many levels.
“Mmm?”
“What is going to happen to my Mom and Dad?”
Ooo now this one you want to dodge around. Sergeant will kill you otherwise. Not even close to your call.
“They’re helping us in understanding what happened.”
Snort. Derision. That gets the officer’s attention. Been slouched in their chair in the room. That noise. That isn’t the sound a little girl makes. That’s the sort of jaded cynicism a thirty something has spent many years polishing.
“Liar.”
“Pardon?”
Eva sighs. She is in too much pain. She is stretched too thin. Her patience has run out. ‘I have no fucks left to give.’ Get our your ukulele.
“You think my parents hurt me. That Dad shot me intentionally. That Mom has Munchausen by proxy.”
And how the hell does she know things like that? Kids smarter than he pegged.
“We only want to get to the bottom of what happened.”
“Ring. On your finger. Lock screen on your phone. You have children. Three sons. Some stranger appears on your doorstop. Your son cries out for help. What do you do?”
The officer has stopped playing on his phone. His attention is on Eva. Her bloodshot eyes peer into him. Her body animated with a crackling verve. That gaze. It’s hard to break.
“You be in his position and then judge my Dad. Accidents happen. Things go wrong. The world is not perfect. It’s a broken egg with rotten yolk spilling onto the earth.”
Eva repeats the mantra.
“You be in his position and then judge my Dad.”
“I understand young lady that—”
Interruption. Phone was on silent. Vibrates in his hands. The husband is calling.
“I’m at work so you… yes I… no that’s… what do you mean intruder? No. No. Sorry. Okay just take a breath. Someone there? Her. She’s good. Walk me through what happened.”
Officer doesn’t want this aired before the girl. Partly out of a sense of privacy. Partly out of a sense that maybe she had something to do with it.
Coincidence? Nah.
He’s gone from the room. In the corridor outside. Nobody can walk in and out without going by him. Not directly guarding the patient. Instead, he’s on the phone trying to calm his understandably distressed partner and understand what happened.
Cue Eva alone in the room. Hunched slightly forward. Exhausted but unable to sleep. Eyes closed. Mind focussed on the singular act of breathing. The slow beep of various monitors for company. And the squeak of another doctor on the rounds.
“A quick check-up,” the voice assured. “This will not take long.”
Fingers pressed against Eva’s wrist to read her pulse. Hey. Do you remember the fork from earlier? Do you think Eva is smart enough to arrange for a weapon? Would she put on a show and be messy with her food. Draw attention to something a little uncomfortable like how she eats so people don’t pay as much attention to what she does with the utensils. The Eva from the first chapter wouldn’t have had as much gumption. Now is a different story.
Fork + hand = inhuman howl. Eva doesn’t look to see who it is. Just rolls out of bed and onto the floor. That hurts. Pain is stars in her eyes. Black and white vision. No sound. No time to waste. It’s under the bed and pulling out all the tubes, cables and widgets attached to her body. Please note that you should never, ever yank out anything put inside you. The doctors and nurses know how to do that safely. Less caution thrown to the wind and more caution tossed into a wind turbine. More pain. More stars. White blood oozes from the wounds. Fork still brandished, Eva leans out enough to plunge the weapon into someone’s foot. Enough force and it’ll go straight through leather. Another inhuman howl. Black blood on the tines.
Scamper out and into the hallway. Lighting is failing. Yellowy and inconsistent. Long corridors with doors cracked on either side. Flickers of light and television peer through. Eva doesn’t know where to run. Only that she should run. Bare feet leave footprints of sweat and white blood on the lino. Something to track her by. And not enough time to stop the bleeding or turn the adrenaline down.
“Shogo.”
pant
“Shogo”
Pant
“Shogo”
Audience, please note who Eva is calling for this time. This entreatment goes unanswered. Past the unmanned nurse’s desk. Past the rooms where the beeps of heart monitors echo outward. A flicker. Motion at the end of the corridor. A wheelchair for patient movement. Something is moving it. An orderly so tall its shoulders touch the ceiling, forced to perpetually stoop. It’s long body and wide shoulders loom forward over the wheelchair. Spindly arms reach out from the ceiling to grasp wheelchair bars and push it forward. Eva comes to a halt. She cannot see the face of the thing pushing the wheelchair, obscured in the shadows of the tall ceiling.
A thought. Percolation. An interesting possibility.
“Excuse me,” Eva asks. “Can I ask where you dispose of soiled clothing?”
A clawed hand lets go of a handle and gestures at an intersection.
“Thank you!”
Eva is running again. Very helpful orderlies at this hospital. Adrenaline is still keeping spirits high. Enough to cushion the pain of every footstep. The agony that bounces around her chest as weight shifts from heel to heel. We’re in 1950’s television country. Monochrome vision. Colour is optional when in this amount of distress. But the directions are good and Eva finds the biomedical waste disposal room. Clothes covered in patients’ blood are not things to be lightly handled. Incinerate them to be certain. Too many diseases to share with your fellow humans. Lucky that someone was late today. Not too many people appear with sucking chest wounds so those clothes have been put to one side.
Our friend the fork makes their return. Tear at the plastic again and again. Oh Elder God, mother. Blood. Blood! Spill out the contents. Jeans. Hated purple shoes. Fluffy socks. Clothes on the chest would have been cut straight off. One bisected animal print t-shirt. One bisected camisole soaked in white blood. Eva’s out of her hospital gown in seconds. They are never flattering. Pulled on, with much groaning and difficulty, the camisole. The cut down the chest tugs at Eva’s heart. The gown is back on. Blood still fresh against her skin. Smells of copper and something else. Foreign. Alien. A warning to the animal part of her brain.
The walk back to her room is much slower. Adrenaline has run out. Focus has run out. Pain killers are probably low too. Eva stumbles and leans against the wall. Hears a heart monitor stop. The orderly appears from the doorway, an indistinct misty grey person on the chair. They leave in the opposite direction. One sticky footstep. Two sticky footsteps. Three sticky footsteps. Eva up against the wall as she stumbles forward. Streaming into the corridor. The light from her own room is flickering and crackling. Sometimes stadium spotlight white. Sometimes slasher film lightbulb yellow. Always inconsistent. Mustering her courage, the 11-year-old leans against the doorframe and confronts it.
A man. A doctor. A physician. His coat with too many sleeves, with too many arms, crammed into far too few pockets. Leather shoes with blood splatter tapping impatiently. No head. Just an impossibly tall collar and whatever beneath hidden in darkness. Body language is impatient. Agitated. Hungry.
“Where have you been, young lady? It is not safe to walk the halls alone at night. Now please get into your bed or I will have you restrained.”
One step into the room. Tug the door shut. Now just the two of them. Or it should be. They melt in from the darkened corners of the room. Nurses in anachronistic garb. Faces lost in the shadow of their peaked hats. Restraint jackets in their arms. Eva knows those. Fears those. They are an anachronism and long discontinued. But their intent is scarred upon her soul. Her heart is racing. This will work. It has to work. Shogo cannot lie.
“It was you in the corner of the room,” Eva whispered. “After the fit. Facing the wall. Forgotten. Alone. I noticed you. Then others. You wanted me back. You needed me back. An excuse for you to exist again.”
The fork is Excalibur. Noble Phantasm of the broken and tired. Clenched tightly between bloodied fingers.
“This was all you. You got hungry. You were tired of being forgotten in the corner. You fed and then drew me back.”
Excalibur is levelled at the enemy.
“If you want to hurt me, then hurt me. But never. Ever. Hurt my family.”
Three against one is poor odds. Against someone freshly out of chest surgery, exhausted, bleeding yet again and partially drugged, where’s the towel? Eva still fights. Feral. Ruthless. The fork draws black blood from the angry women. One bodies her against a wall, the other rips the weapon from hand and shoves a hand into a sleeve. Eva screams and hisses. She hasn’t fought this hard against medical staff in 2 years. That ended badly. 2 months in a locked ward. No chance this time. Eva yelping in pain as both arms are shoved into sleeves and locked against her chest, then tied around her back. Ties on the back are pulled up. In moments Eva is now helpless. Panting. In pain. Afraid. Defiant. The darkness of the room does not match that in her eyes.
“Maslow’s,” Eva gasps.
“Pardon?”
Eva shudders and coughs up white blood. Maybe something has torn inside. She doesn’t care. Now. Now is when she pushes back.
“Please pick up the patient.”
The nurses have Eva on unsteady feet. The world is oil, white blood from burst capillaries and salty tears. The good doctor leans in.
“What did you say?”
“Psychology. Psychiatry. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.”
Five pairs of the doctor’s hands pin Eva’s head and lift her chin up to look at the face that is not. The voice from the collar rumbles.
“I do not need to be lectured, young lady. The physiological needs are air, water, food, shelter, sleep and clothing.”
Lip bitten so hard it bleeds. Darkness in Eva’s eyes. Mirrors the darkness in her heart. She glances down. At the straightjacket. At what is hidden beneath the jacket. What is now very inaccessible. The one thing Eva was lacking.
“A gown isn’t clothing,” Eva taunts, “Substitute with a camisole. So what comes next?”
“The. Safety Needs,” a feminine voice replies. “Specifically personal safety.”
Coiling darkness to match Eva’s eyes. All ceiling lights commit suicide. Not-yellow eyes take in the room. Many of them. Only the faintest green illumination of the heartrate monitor. The last light of the damned. A pair of screams. Nobody sees what happens to the nurses. Just their high-pitched squeals. Bloodied caps are tossed into the green light. A sound like celery being chewed by a massive maw.
Now all the eyes fixate on the doctor. The thing swerves back and forth. Many arms reach out to ward off whatever might strike. Out from the darkness stretches hungry tentacles. Angry limbs grabbing at whatever might impede them. Restraining the doctor. They pull all at once, myriad arms taught, fingers spasming.
“You are not allowed to feed,” the oddly toned voice reprimands, “you are not allowed to slake your thirst. This one is my ward. And mine alone.”
Eva is dropped by the five hands. Lands hard. Has enough time to look upwards. She thought it would be dismembered. That is not the case. Instead, black tendrils worm their way through its chest, from collarbone down to coccyx. Grip the flesh either side and tear apart. Bisected. Cruelly. Beautifully. A mess of black viscera, organs that exist in no terrestrial organism and warped bone. All of it starts to hiss and fade into shadows. A nightmare returning to whence it came. Shogo is beside Eva. Does not undo her bindings.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where were you?”
“I promise to explain later.”
“Twice. You said that.”
“That is fair.”
Shogo looks up, not-yellow eyes fixed on the closed door.
“Why the hell are you on your phone?” a voice raged.
“I’m—”
“You should be in that room watching my daughter!”
The door swung inwards with a boom. Enough force to shake the hinges. Luther looks down. His daughter locked in a straight jacket. Bile and blood line her mouth and splatter the floor.
“Evangeline!”
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The Sergeant… hmm I guess she is going to appear enough that the woman deserves a name. I hate being put on the spot. Clement. Last name. I’ll think of a first name later. Sergeant Clement is trying to stare down the looming form of Luther Foxe. Rather than his earlier rather loud self, he is right now quite calm, collected and all the more intimidating.
“Why was your officer outside my daughters’ room? Why was the door shut? Why was she not under visual guard? Why did I find her with all medical equipment removed from her, roughly, painfully, dangerously? Why was she in an antiquated restraint jacket?”
“We are investigating.”
“The hospital has internal surveillance. What do the tapes say?”
“There appears to have been a power spike that interfered with cameras at that time.”
Luther walked away, ran a hand over his head before spinning to look at the Sergeant.
“My wife and I are under suspicion for harming if not attempted murder of our daughter. And under your duty of care this has happened to her. I am certain that if word got out of what happened earlier this evening then serious questions will be asked of your police department. And the hospital. Perhaps you should spend less time investigating me and more time trying to locate the people who are actively harassing and assaulting my family.”
Sergeant Clement took a slow, deep breath. She was not going to commit to anything. Not this early on.
“We will be doubling the guard. And reviewing all evidence.”
Luther shrugged.
“The hospital have offered to install a temporary cot in my daughters room so that Christina or I can be with her at all times. How both the hospital and your officer failed to notice anything…”
Oooo. Now Luther is really trying to be politically savvy. Because let us be honest. Anyone would ask the question of “How the fuck did you fucking fuck up so fucking bad, you incompetent fuck-wits?” That’s Queen's English too.
“Anything amiss.”
No quite as coarse. Still as loaded.
Sergeant Clement took another breath. This was going to be a complicated case. She knew enough already from Schwarzschild. Complicated family. Complicated history. Now their complications were in her town. Stirring up complicated things.
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Eva is fast asleep in her bed. Face a mask of peace. Slow, soft breaths in and out. Christina holds her daughter’s tiny hand and smiles ever so faintly. At these moments Eva looks almost normal.
“Your daughter will never be normal.”
The opposite side of the bed. A woman of average height and build. Eyes that are yellow but not. Cloak with the hood pulled back covering her body. Normal person reaction. Scream for the officers. How did they not notice her come inside the room? Door is closed too. Curious. That is meant to stay very firmly open.
Not normal person reaction. Christina blinks back tears and nods.
The strangers gloved hand grips Eva’s other hand. There is the same tenderness and love that Christina has. A complete stranger cares as much.
“You are the one Luther saw on our first night.”
“Yes.”
“What do you want with my Eva?”
“She doesn’t belong to you. Has not for a very long time.”
Those words are English. But the accent is strong. Hard to pick. Still intelligible.
“She is my daughter.”
“She is her own person. You are yet to grasp that.”
“I just want to protect her.”
“Then stop pretending that nothing of the past five years has been real.”
Crinkled brow. Confusion. Or is it.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Oh, you have to be fucking kidding me.
“Eva is very ill.”
“Eva is insane. That does not make her wrong. That does not make her a liar. Or invalidate the events around her. Were you running towards a destination? Or from a past?”
Christine shook her head.
“No. No that isn’t the way it is.”
“Liar. You and Luther need to ask hard questions. How much do you love your daughter?”
Christina leans in close, presses the fingers of Eva’s hand against her brow.
“I’ll do anything for her.”
“That assertion will be tested.”
Christina nodded. Rests arms on knees, head in hands. Stares at the floor. Strange thing on the lino. It looks like… a liquid. Dried up. Lean down and scratch at it with a nail. Get some of it caught beneath the nail bed. Examine up close. White. But smells like iron. Like blood.
Further confusion. Why take your eyes off a complete stranger in the same room as you? Christina looks around. The other woman is gone. Check the door. It’s open. Two officers standing to attention. No phones out with this pair. Cannot afford that sort of screwup again.
Deep breaths. Slow, deep breaths. Pat Eva’s cheek.