Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 99
“It’s okay,” Hannah said softly.
“You don’t have to share with anyone,” LaRae pointed out, indicating the one bed that took up nearly the whole space. Hannah wasn’t sure how they had gotten it in there. Maybe it had been in pieces and they had assembled it there. “I thought that with your medical problems, it’s probably best if you can sleep when it’s best for you, and not have to worry about whether you’re keeping anyone up or having them keep you awake.”
“Yeah. I guess,” Hannah agreed.
“So that’s your own little space. And when we’re done developing, if you’re still here, you’ll have something bigger.”
Hannah hoped to be back with her family in a few days. Surely everyone would see how ridiculous it was to say that her mother couldn’t take care of her and that Hannah was better off living with strangers. Strangers who had even more children and not enough space for everyone.
“Your bathroom is down the hall,” LaRae went on, first motioning and then leading the way. “I’m afraid that you’ll have to share bathrooms. The other children are on this floor, so you’ll have to work out a schedule if there are any issues.”
She walked to the end of the hall and turned on the light in the bathroom. It felt more spacious than Hannah’s bedroom. LaRae opened a drawer and pulled out an unopened toothbrush.
“That can be yours. You’ll find other things in your room. Deodorant and feminine needs.” She winked. “If you need anything, you just ask, understand? I don’t want you thinking that your needs are not important. They are. That’s why you’re here.”
Hannah nodded. Did LaRae think that Hannah wasn’t important in her own family? That her mother had neglected her, and that’s why Hannah had to live with someone else?
LaRae patted Hannah on the arm. “I know it’s tough, honey. Just hang in there. The first night or two are always the hardest, and then you’ll start to feel more at home. You remember that you’re safe here. You tell me if you have any trouble.”
“Okay.”
“Now. Do you want to come downstairs and talk for a while, or are you ready for bed? I don’t want to keep you up if you need to sleep. But if you don’t, we can get acquainted with each other while things are quiet.” She laughed. “Things aren’t always so quiet around here.”
Hannah had wondered at the quiet. At her own house, things were usually pretty busy. People watching TV, working on homework, talking on the phone, doing chores, going to their part-time jobs, and so much more. Someone always had their head in the fridge. There was noise and activity all the time unless it was very early or very late.
“My guys are pretty young,” LaRae said, when Hannah didn’t make a choice. “Two and four. So it’s past their bedtimes, and they are asleep.” She crossed her fingers and looked heavenward. “Hopefully, to stay! And then I’ve got Filbert, who is eight, also in bed, though he is probably reading under the covers right now. And Val is older than you, fifteen. She’s over at a friend’s and should be back soon.” LaRae stopped to check her watch. “Any time now, unless she wants to be grounded.”
Hannah nodded. Three younger and one older. And she was used to being the baby of the family. But she had babysat and helped with the kids at church, and in school they had done a reading mentor program where they had read to the little first graders. It had been a lot of fun, and Hannah had enjoyed the sweet little children and how excited they were to have big friends to read to them.
She looked at the toothbrush on the counter, and down the hall to her door, which was open. She’d been sleeping at home, but she was feeling anxious and keyed up from everything that had happened, so she wasn’t ready to go back to sleep. She decided that she didn’t want to hide in her room by herself. She’d rather be around other people who would tell her that everything was okay, even if it wasn’t, so she elected to stay up for a while longer.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Gabriel washed up slowly. He knew he was taking too long and Renata would be impatient and cross, wondering why he had to take so long in the bathroom when she was the girl and had more medical needs to take care of than Gabriel, who really just had to wash his hands and face and give his teeth a quick brush before bed.
But he was dreading going back outside. It had been bitterly cold the last few nights and he could hardly bring himself to face the cold outdoors again.
He knew there was nothing else to do. He needed to stay with Renata and keep an eye on her, and she wouldn’t stay with any of their contacts. They had a bit of money that could be spent on a warm motel room, but they were going to need that in a few more weeks when the temperature plummeted even further. It would be bitterly cold, and if they wanted to sleep at all, they would need somewhere to go. Since Renata had had some bad experiences at the city’s shelters, she wouldn’t go to one of them by choice. If forced by the cops, she might stay at one for a night, if she couldn’t get back out after the cops left, but she wouldn’t do more than that. And that was only if they forced her. Gabriel wasn’t going to try to force her.
He ran hot water over his hands, as warm as he could stand it. As if by overheating them now, he could keep them warm for longer once they went back outside. He knew it was silly, but he still did it. He wanted to do something, a ritual, to reassure himself.
They would make it through the night. They would cuddle up close and maybe get an extra blanket from the people who distributed them on occasion, and maybe it would be a warm night. In the morning, they would get up and immediately find somewhere warm to sit and thaw out and have their breakfast. And then their day would begin.
Gabriel shut off the faucets with a squeak and exited the gas station bathroom. Renata was pacing across the parking lot, her arms wrapped around herself, looking cross. She saw that he was finally out of the bathroom and scowled.
“What’s taking you so long, Gabe? Man, I can’t stand around here waiting for you. It’s too cold.”
Gabriel nodded. “Yeah. Sorry. I just… needed a minute.”
She walked up close to him and studied him. Too close and too intense. Gabriel looked away, embarrassed. When she looked at him like that, he felt like she could see right through him. Everything he was thinking and feeling.
“Are you okay?” Renata asked, her voice a little gentler.
“Yeah.” Gabriel shook his head. “I’m fine. Everything is good. I was just slow. Sorry.”
“Well, let’s get set up for the night. I can’t walk for long, and I want to get settled before I lose any more body heat.”
Dealing with mito, they both had to carefully conserve their energy. Their cells didn’t produce or store it the way that normal people’s did. One over-expenditure could result in a crash that put their lives in danger.
They walked in silence to the park where others were already setting up their tents. Gabriel looked around to see if the mission were handing out blankets for the night. It didn’t look like they were out. Renata’s head was swiveling this way and that, looking for any sign of trouble. The cops were supposed to let them sleep there, but sometimes there was trouble. If not the police, then drug dealers or skinheads looking to kick some bums, or someone having a psychotic episode.
Everything seemed quiet. Without a word, they set up their tent, rolled out their sleeping bags, and crawled inside. It was close quarters, but they were used to it. They cuddled up to share body heat. Renata was shifting around restlessly. Usually, once they were snuggled in, she was still.
“Are you okay?” Gabriel asked.
Renata shifted again, rolling over halfway and pushing him into a new position.
“Got cramps. Can’t get comfortable.”
“Cramps?” Gabriel repeated. “Was there something wrong with your formula? Do you think you have an infection?” He propped himself up on his elbow to look at her. “The flu?”
The last time she’d had the flu, she’d needed IV fluids. If she were sick, he should get her to Carmel’s or another safe house as soon as possible.
“Not the flu,” Renata growled. “Nothing is wrong. It’s just my period.”
“Oh.” Gabriel lay back down. He didn’t know what to say to that. In the months they had been together, sleeping in the same tent, she’d never before mentioned her period or cramps. “Is there… anything I can do?”
“No.”
“I can’t get you Tylenol or something, can I? You’ll just react to it?”
“Too much trouble. Gotta go to a compounding pharmacy so that they don’t use any fillers that I’m allergic to. Mix it with my formula. Better if I just sleep it off.”
“Okay. If you think that will work.”
They were both silent for a long time. Gabriel tried to give Renata space to move around, but the space was too small for her to turn over or curl up without running into him. He listened to her breathing. It was uneven. Gasping and sobbing, trying to keep him from hearing her distress. He wanted just to hold her and comfort her.
“Can I… isn’t there anything that I can do? Do you want to go to a doctor? We can find an open clinic.”
“Nobody will be open except Emergency, and I’m not going to the hospital.”
“But if it’s that bad…”
She rolled over again. Their faces were inches apart. Even in the darkness, he could see the glistening whites of her eyes.
“Doctors don’t care about cramps,” she said, her voice hard. “Women go in with pelvic pain, and they just get written off as being oversensitive. They probably won’t even prescribe anything, just say to take something over the counter. Go home, put a heating pad on it, take it easy for a day. Women’s pain doesn’t exist.”
Gabriel brushed a lock of Renata’s hair away from her face, trying to see her more clearly, to find some way to comfort and help her.
“Your pain exists.”
“Thanks, but as far as the medical establishment is concerned, it doesn’t. It doesn’t matter if you’re doubled up on the floor or throwing up because it’s so bad. You’re just hysterical. That’s the way it is, Gabe.”
It was hard to believe. But then he thought about the way the nurses had denied his allergies and muscle cramps when they had taken him off of his prescriptions at the hospital when he’d first been taken. And pain that was part of a ‘natural’ monthly process that women all over the world dealt with every day…? He could see doctors rolling their eyes and sending the patient home empty-handed. Especially if the doctor were a man. And especially if the patient were someone like Renata, seeing conspiracies where there weren’t any, making waves, causing drama.
“I wish I could help. You don’t usually have cramps with it, though, do you? You’ve never… I’ve never… you didn’t say anything.”
“I don’t usually get a period. Too little body fat. Too underweight.”
“Oh.” At least he hadn’t been totally blind to her pain in the months they had been together. That made him feel a little better. But not better about having no way to help her. He knew what it was like to be in pain and not to be allowed any painkillers or any other respite. He remembered her coming into his hospital room when they were both in psych and finding him racked with pain from the muscle cramps in his legs. She had massaged his muscles for a long time, until she didn’t have any energy left for herself and had to be carried out by the orderly.
“Can I… rub your back?” he asked tentatively. He wasn’t going to volunteer to rub her stomach, that was just too weird. But pregnant women got backaches, and the same might be true of period cramps.
“No.”
Gabriel sighed. “Okay.”
Renata lay still for a few minutes, or as still as she could while she was kicking restlessly and trying to find a comfortable position.
“Yes,” she amended.
“Yes?”
“You can rub my back.”
She turned so that he could reach it properly, and Gabriel started rubbing in the middle, gently.
“Harder. Lower.”
He moved down to her lower back and kneaded it. Renata moaned.
“Did that hurt?” Gabriel asked, stopping instantly.
“No. Keep going.”
“Okay.” Gabriel continued. She stopped flopping around so restlessly and lay still. He felt her start to relax. Her breathing slowed and evened out. Gabriel couldn’t keep up the massage for long, and eventually had to stop. When he did, she didn’t say anything. She just kept breathing slowly, and he thought she was asleep. Snuggling up closer again, Gabriel shared her body heat and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER NINE
Hannah woke up during the night, uncomfortable, the pain in her stomach starting to radiate outward again. She lay as still as she could and breathed slowly, keeping her eyes closed and trying not to wake up the rest of the way. If she could just sleep, like she did at the hospital, then eventually it would go away. The doctors told her it wouldn’t last, but had its own cycle and would ease off on its own after a while.
She could tell without opening her eyes that she wasn’t in her bedroom. The noises and the echoes of the room were not right. The sheets on the bed felt different. She felt like she was in a tomb, the walls and ceiling close, shrinking in on her.
She tried not to wake up and, at the same time, tried to remember where she was, and she couldn’t do both at once. Eventually, consciousness won out and she remembered about the police and the social worker and LaRae Jones.
She felt the wall beside her and at the head of her bed. She suspected she could probably reach all the way across the room to the other side. It was too small, too claustrophobic. She wanted to be back in her own bedroom with Tess sleeping close by. How was she supposed to get help if she were overcome by the pain? Tess wasn’t there to help. LaRae’s bedroom wasn’t even on the same floor. Hadn’t anyone thought about that? How could they leave her there, alone, without any way to reach out and tell someone when she was in pain?
“LaRae?” She tested her voice, wondering how far it would reach. Not to LaRae, if she were in her bedroom. Maybe to one of the other children? They could run and get LaRae and tell her something was wrong. The pain hadn’t completely taken over yet, and she could still call out. “LaRae! Help! I need help!”
There was only silence around her. The forced air of the furnace. The ticking of a clock somewhere, an actual tick, tick, tick. No voices. No snores. No one listening to see if she needed anything.
“Somebody! I need help! LaRae? Mr. Jones!” What was his name? “Brady! Please, somebody!”
But there was no answer. Hannah sat up slowly, which caused the pain to radiate out faster in every direction, reaching out to her limbs and every part of her body from her top to her toes. She swore softly under her breath. Was it a test? To see if she really was in pain or whether she could just go back to sleep if no one gave her the attention she was asking for?
She swung her feet over the side of the bed until they touched the floor.
Walking was not a good idea. She knew from past experience that if she tried to walk, she would collapse. She would faint. She needed someone to help her. To carry her. She needed someone to carry her back to the hospital and for them to do more tests until they could figure out what the crap was wrong with her. It wasn’t fair that they just kept sending her home, saying that there was nothing wrong with her.
She could reach the doorknob from her bed without having to stand up. One benefit to having a tiny room. She turned the knob and nudged the door open.
“Hello? Anyone? Can someone help me?”
Her voice reached through the dark house and no one answered. How far away was LaRae’s bedroom? She hadn’t included that in her tour. She had motioned toward it when she was talking to Hannah, but somehow Hannah was expected to know where it was without seeing it, or they didn’t think she would need them in the middle of the night. She would just sleep in her bed like the other children and not cause anyone any problems.
Hannah bent over, guarding her belly, trying to ease the pain that just kept getting worse.
Everyone seemed to think that she was just making up how bad the pain was. She could see it in their eyes. The doctors and nurses, the social worker, and the Joneses. They figured she was just trying to get attention. That it wasn’t as bad as Hannah said it was. If they’d believed her about how bad it was, they wouldn’t have left her alone there with no way to get anyone’s attention.
Hannah stepped off of the bed and shuffled forward, staying hunched over, hoping that if she didn’t straighten, her body wouldn’t know that it was working harder and she’d be able to take a few steps down the hallway to get the attention of one of the other children. The older girl. Which way was her room? Hannah couldn’t remember from her tour. Toward the bathroom or away? Was it left or right? Hannah tried right, toward the bathroom and the stairs that led up to the floor LaRae’s bedroom was on. She took a couple of steps. The vertigo and nausea started to grow.
Why did it have to hurt so much? Why couldn’t they give her something she could take when it got bad? Why couldn’t they figure out what was causing it?
“Help?” Her voice was getting quieter. She had been able to move forward, but her voice was fading with the pain so she couldn’t call as loudly. Like her body was trying to sabotage her attempts to get help. “Can somebody…?”
She fell to her knees. Her legs simply wouldn’t hold her weight. It hurt too much. But so did falling to the floor. She was shaking all over now. She was sick and helpless and no one was there to help her.
She crawled on her knees and one hand, her other arm wrapped tightly across her stomach, trying to hold the pain in. She reached one of the other doors. It was closed. Hannah collapsed onto her side and hit it as hard as she could with her fist.
