AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thanks, Doc,” I said. I looked at Katie. Her eyes were closed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes as she nodded.
“Alright. One last thing, do you want a female doctor to treat you?”
Katie shook her head no violently.
“OK. I will need to get a couple of nurses…”
I opened my mouth, but he interrupted me.
“Not the one from earlier. I know the two of you don’t see eye-to-eye. I’ll have the SANE nurses come in to assist, and then once we’ve treated all the injuries necessary for them to do what they need to, I’ll step out while they do the exam.” He took a breath and stepped to the frosted glass wall behind me.
Unwilling to have him behind me unwatched, I turned to see what he was doing. He started undoing latches and opening up the wall. “This room right next door is empty, Jackson. We can keep the partitions pushed back, and after you both get back from CT, we will examine you in this room while Katie gets x-rays. Then, while we are x-raying you, we will set her hip and shoulder. This is as close as we can get to the same room, but we cannot x-ray you guys with you sitting together. Understood?”
I nodded.
“Good. I will tell you what is happening every step of the way. No surprises.”
“Thank you,” Katie said, startling both myself and Dr. Cole.
“You are very welcome, Katie.” Dr. Cole left the room only to step back in with a couple of nurses. “Jackson, Katie, this is Ivy and Fiona. They are going to go with us to CT. A doctor and a couple of techs will be waiting for us. While you are being scanned, Jackson will wait with me in the booth. He will be able to talk to you. Then, while Jackson is being scanned, you and I will wait in the hallway outside the door to the booth. We will keep it open, and you can hear and see everything happening. Okay?”
Katie squeezed my hand and closed her eyes. Her chin trembled, but she nodded. I turned to look at the doctor. Scared to death for her to be out of my sight, I nodded.
Two
Katie
As I watched the nurses ready us for what was to come, my mind threw me back to when Jackson started the truck. The world crashed in on me as we drove away from that house. We’d been abducted and held hostage, tortured, and…
Don’t go there.
I’d blocked out everything but the truck’s vibrations chewing up the pavement and the feel of Jackson’s fingers stroking my hair. His touch usually drowned out the world around me. But this time, what happened kept bleeding back into my mind.
The pain in my hip and shoulder was horrendous. There was another, more excruciating pain that I ignored as much as possible. Allowing myself to experience that would have been unbearable.
It’s all my damned fault—or Conrad’s.
How could my dad abandon two of his children? How could he have children I didn’t know about? Why would he keep them hidden? They acted like he knew about them and abandoned them. He hadn’t been the greatest dad, but he’d never denied me.
I was inundated with questions and guilt. Even though Jackson tried to keep quiet, I could tell he was hurting. Every so often, he’d grunt or tense up when the truck hit a bump in the road.
“I can hear your mind whirling, darlin’,” Jackson whispered. I could hear the emotion in his voice. I didn’t know how he was driving.
My chin trembled as I nodded. I couldn’t bring myself to respond. I knew I’d lose it if I did. I couldn’t do that to him. I’d been the cause of so much pain and suffering, even if it was indirectly. I, or rather my father, had been what caused Michelle to push Caleb further into his insanity.
The soft, silent sobbing that Jackson’s comment triggered escalated. Great racking sobs tore through my chest, robbing me of breath. I just wanted to shrink into myself until I disappeared.
Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? What has Jackson done? He rejected Michelle, but that didn’t warrant this.
Nina. Not Michelle. Neil. Not Danny.
Several miles down the road, my sobs turned to whimpers, and then I went quiet. We drove in complete silence for miles. The only sound was the road noise from the tires.
“There’s a hospital up ahead,” he murmured, his fingers never pausing their soothing motions.
I just nodded. Tears still ran down my face. The horrors of what awaited me there couldn’t compare to what I had already experienced, but they still terrified me nonetheless. I knew they would do an exam and ask loads of questions that I would not want to answer but would have to endure anyway.
Endurance and survival. The story of my life.
