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“Elliott?” My mom said softly, eyes red from hours of crying. “Elliott, you’ve had to have surgery on your jaw son. It went well but your jaw had to be wired shut. If you want to communicate with us you’ll need to write down what you want to say, okay?”
I squinted my eyes and nodded in agreement. She brought over a pen and pad. I couldn’t hold them so she put the pen in my hand and held the pad steady for me while I wrote.
Jules?
She hesitated, clearing her throat, and looked over to my father. My dad came up and squeezed my hand.
“She was here yesterday son,” Yesterday?! I could tell he was leaving something out.
I pointed to Julia’s name and waited.
“Well, now Elliott, I don’t know if I...........well, I’m just not sure how to tell you this but after she left the hospital yesterday I saw her to her car and told her to go straight to her house where her mom and dad were waiting because we still haven’t caught Jesse yet.”
He paused for a long time, long enough for me to feel the tears slide down my temples. He didn’t need to say it, I knew. She never made it home, right dad? Just say it! She never made it home! I screamed ‘no’ through wired teeth. I didn’t give him a chance to continue. I began ripping out anything attached to me and tried to sit up. I could hear Maddy’s muffled sobs as she buried herself into my grandmother’s stomach.
My Uncle Danny helped my dad restrain me against the hospital bed. If I hadn’t had been so weak from the drugs I know I could have broken through them, nothing would have stopped me from getting to Jules but I could barely hold a pen let alone fight off two grown men.
They waited until I calmed down. All I could see were watery faces staring down on me in pity. I scrambled for the pen and paper and tried to write down everything I wanted to know. My mom helped me once more.
How long?
“Julia was here from the second she got into town until I had to order her several times to go home and get some sleep and something to eat. She repeatedly refused me but I eventually convinced her that you wouldn’t be up for hours......”
I underlined the words ‘how long’ and waited impatiently. I wasn’t interested in the back story.
“Eight hours,” Danny said.
Eight hours. Eight hours away from her being safe in my sight or enduring whatever hideous plan Jesse had for her. Only eight. I felt like vomiting but knew that wouldn’t have been an option with my jaw wired shut and shut my eyes for a moment instead to catch my breath.
Why aren’t you looking for her?
“We’ve searched everywhere Elliott. She’s not here son. We found her car running on Main with the door open. We think she’s alive because there was evidence of a struggle and it looks like he took her away in his car Elliott. He’s taken her somewhere. We’ve notified all the necessary authorities and they are all doing everything they can,” Danny said, before pausing. He leaned in and focused on my eyes, “Is there any place you can possibly think that he would have taken her? Anything you could give us would be helpful Elliott.”
I nodded and wrote, Blackwater Falls.
Someone must have called for a nurse then. I didn’t complain until I saw the syringe in her hand. I began to protest but it was no use. I couldn’t stop her and my dad and Uncle Danny had me by the arms.
As I drifted off to sleep, I thought of nothing but Jules. All I could ever want in the entire world was being threatened and I was handicapped by the very thing Jesse tried to kill me with. I fell asleep angry hoping the rage would burn the drugs faster so I could wake and tear out of the hospital with a vengeance.
I dreamt of Jules from the second my eyes closed to the second I woke. She inundated my thoughts and I woke to blood boiling when I realized where she was. I opened my eyes and checked around the almost quiet room.
I immediately grabbed my chest, just below my left collarbone. It was an instant excruciating misery and throbbed terribly. I frantically pulled the hospital gown from my body but found nothing there. Impulsively, I rubbed the area trying to remove the torment.
I had no idea the time but it looked late, only my dad was in the room with me. It was definitely late in the night because my dad was snoring steadily and I barely heard a peep outside my room. I heard a nurse tell someone to get some sleep before she closed their door and I waited for her footsteps to dim before I began removing anything that would have kept me tied to that insipid bed.
ld tell in his reaction that I didn’t look good. I couldn’t respond, only squint my eyes in terror.
“God! Elliott! Why didn’t you wait for me boy?” He asked, his eyes becoming moist. His hands searched the air above my body. Searching for something he could do for me. Everything about Danny’s eyes made me realize that Jesse had probably beaten me within an inch of my life and if felt that way too. I managed a grunt but that was the best I could do.
“Can you move?” He asked and I furrowed my eyebrows in response.
I’ll be right back,” he said, removing his coat and throwing it over my chest.
The heat from his body stayed with the jacket and I wished I could tell him how much I had needed that. He ran to his cruiser and I heard him scream into the radio for an ambulance. So, it’s gonna’ be one of those days? I hoped that I just looked worse than I really felt. That’s usually how these things play out. I’d gone to the emergency room before after a hard hit. It almost always looked worse than it actually was. Danny ran back to my side while we waited for the ambulance.
“We know it’s Jesse,” he said, probably trying to distract me from the pain I was feeling.
I squinted my eyes in response, as if to ask him how. I added my face to the things I was able to move and realized that I was starting to regain the use of the end of my extremities.
