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“The cameras—” she starts.
“—have already seen me,” I tell her. “It’s okay. Youneverhave to go back.”
I put her down in the living room as I said I would, unlock and open the front door, then carry her through the yard and over to my car and set her in the front seat.
“Devon,” she almost wheezes, “my bag…it’s in the side yard under my bedroom window. Can you get it?”
“Yeah, I’ll get it.”
I run back toward the house, then over to the side yard and find the duffle bag resting on top of the shrubbery. I grab it by the handles and race back to the car, climbing in and starting it quickly.
She jumps when I reach across her and buckle her seatbelt, then resumes her slumped position against the window. I fly through the neighborhood toward the bridge and pull into the hospital parking lot about twenty minutes later.
“Stay here, Ally,” I tell her. “I’m going to grab a wheelchair. I’ll lock the doors, okay?”
She shakes her head. “No. Don’t leave me here.”
I point out her window. “Look. You can see the front door from here. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
I get out of the car and hear a second door slam a few seconds later. Ally clutches her stomach and leans against the side of the vehicle as she shuffles forward.
“I think I’m dying,” she says. “It hurts so bad.”
I rush to her side, lift her into my arms again, and carry her toward the building. I get her into a wheelchair at the front door; they hand me some paperwork and take her straight back to a room. A medical assistant lifts her into the bed and starts asking her questions she doesn’t want to answer.
My mind takes me back to when I was fourteen, and my mom was in the hospital looking small and frail and terrified just like this. She dragged herself over to a neighbor’s house after Jack beat her one night, and they called 911. My grandparents came to get Ivy. It took the police days to find him.
“We’ll get a nurse in here soon,” the man says. “They’ll get your IV in. I’ll order some pain meds and X-rays. They’ll assess your oxygen levels, and we’ll find out if you need some help breathing or if you’re doing okay on your own. Do you have any questions, Allyson?”
She shakes her head.
“I want to talk to a police officer,” I tell him. “A family member did this to her—her aunt.”
“Devon, no.”
“I’ll let them know,” the MA says before he leaves the room.
I cross the room to the dark-haired girl lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. She looks so much smaller than she normally does like this.
“Hey,” I say. “Can I lie down with you?”
She nods, and I climb into the bed next to her. I take her hand in mine, and she stares straight ahead, not speaking.
“Ally, what happened?”
“It wasn’t her,” Ally says. “It washim. I was going to leave; I found a shelter, packed a bag, and then…he came home and caught me. I was halfway out the window, and he brought it down on my ribcage…multiple times, and then he…he…”
She shakes her head and turns away from me again.
“Allyson…”
“Okay,” a young woman says, pushing the curtain aside. “I’m Melody. I’m going to be your nurse. Can you confirm your last name and date of birth for me?”
I wait while the nurse gets Ally’s IV in and watch the relief wash over her as the pain meds start to do their job. The nurse listens to her lungs and checks her oxygen, then makes the determination that she’s breathing well enough on her own and won’t need a respirator.
They ask her if she has any other serious injuries other than the ones to her torso. She hesitates before answering no, and then the nurse tells her someone will be down to take her to radiology when they’re ready and leaves the room.
But rage runs through my veins because I’m afraid of how she would have finished that sentence.
