by Alex Gates
But tonight it seemed…cold. As if the administration and residents didn’t want to speak loudly.
Or at all.
My steps clicked a quiet beat, mirroring the quick pace of my heart. Elevated and uneasy.
Why?
Not one thing seemed out of place, but nothing ever did. The residence was clean, quiet, orderly, and, above all else, drug-free. That was the rule, the first and only strike. Mandatory drug testing ensured that those in the program remained clean and committed.
If Hannah had taken something, she’d be expelled from the only program offering her a chance at a healthy life with sealed records.
Her screams echoed from the downstairs TV room.
Terrified.
“Get off of me! Let me go!”
My stomach rolled. I sprinted down the stairs and slammed through the swinging doors.
Two male attendants loomed over the petite girl, pushing her onto a brown leather couch, pinning her flailing arms and legs. She fought and spat, twisting hard as her pajama bottoms crept lower and lower over bony thighs. She screamed. The men didn’t release her. Only knelt harder against her. Uncaring. Fierce.
Dominating.
“Excuse me—” A woman administrator abruptly turned from the struggle on the couch. She dared to speak to me as if she hadn’t just waved her manicured hand and ordered the men to hold Hannah tighter if she continued to resist. “Who the hell are you?”
A blinding rage flashed my vision with images of the last time Hannah had been found restrained and sobbing. I launched at the couch, ripping away the first man pressing his weight against Hannah’s outstretched legs. Bare. Her struggling had wiggled the powder blue bottoms even lower.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, tossing the bastard away. “Are you insane?”
The poor girl wailed, her face wet with tears, saliva and more. Strands of blonde hair stuck to her cheek, and her bangs swept over her eyes, hiding a puffy, red face.
With her legs free, she kicked, but she’d lost weight since I saw her last.
Too much weight.
The kick only pissed off the man still clinging to her arms. He swore, but I was quicker, rushing against him and using my shoulder to drive his sternum away. If the rest of his body wanted to follow, that was up to him and how easily he bruised.
Hannah freed herself, scuttling across the couch to grab her pajamas and regain a shred of modesty. She curled into a corner and began to hyperventilate. I dared the men to lunge at her again.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I blocked their path. “For Christ’s sake, this girl is a survivor of assault and trauma. You’re going to trigger her flashbacks. Give her some damn space.”
I pitched my badge at the woman who thought a quick huff and sneer from her strawberry margarita lips would intimidate me into backing off. Not likely. I didn’t let her near Hannah.
“Is this the way you run your facility? Physically assaulting victims with PTSD?”
“Excuse me.” The lady straightened her grey pantsuit. A couple more sandwiches, and she might have had a figure to fill it out. She snapped her fingers towards the guard. “Bill, who is this person? How did she get inside?”
“London!”
Hannah cried my name as she dug her hands into her beautiful blonde hair. She tugged, hard, ripping out a fistful as she sobbed into the couch.
“Sedate her.”
The woman’s order chilled me, spoken too quickly. Like it wasn’t the first time she’d issued the command.
What kind of woman was this?
The thick bun coiled against the back of her head, tugged a little too tight. The severe style highlighted the deepening age marks furrowing her brow, the darkness under her eyes, the wrinkles teasing lips too red for a woman of her misery and frigidity.
“Stop!” I placed myself between her and Hannah, nearly reaching for my gun. I tossed my badge instead. “I don’t know what the hell is happening here, but you’re gonna step away from the girl before I call backup for my backup to sort out this shit show.”
The threat didn’t intimidate her. “You’re interfering, officer.”
“You’re goddamned right I’m interfering. Hannah called me half an hour ago in distress, and now I’m here. And you’re gonna let her talk to me before you go poking a recovering opiate addict with sedatives.”
“Hannah wasn’t permitted a phone call after hours.”
Wrong answer. “Look, Ms…”
“Patricia Carson.”
“Ms. Carson.” I could be reasonable. Was harder than getting aggressive, but we were both adults with the welfare of the kid in mind. “Let me talk to Hannah. I’ll calm her down without the need for any drugs.”
“I can’t imagine she’ll have anything to say to you.”
“Why don’t we let the girl speak for herself?
Hannah nodded, still ripping at her hair. She didn’t speak, but the tears continued to fall.
What the hell was going on here?
Patricia nodded to the two attendants, dismissing them and the guard from the room. She eyed me, but her stenciled eyebrows couldn’t arch as threatening as she’d intended.
“You have ten minutes,” she said. “Then Hannah is required to return to her dorm—quiet, respectful, and docile, is that understood?”
“She’ll be fine,” I said.
“Good. It’s a privilege to be a part of Grayson House. She’d do well to remember it.”
She closed the door behind her, but the cameras aimed for us, ever watchful. I doubted those ever turned off, especially in a common room where all the girls could socialize and watch TV on…
Brand new screens?
Since when did a juvenile facility have cutting-edge technology? Leather couches? A billiard’s table?
No wonder this place was in such high demand. I’d begged Judge Reissing to make calls and ensure Hannah could be placed at this facility. Damn. The private company who ran this place ensured the girls had better lives here than they did before they’d arrived.
Hannah’s tears dried, but that didn’t mean her pain and fear faded. I gave her time, joining her on the couch without pressure, judgement, or demanding answers to the questions burning my curiosity. No sense traumatizing a victim. Flashbacks and PTSD lingered long after the crime. Hell, longer than their attackers spent in prisons. I waited for her.
“I can’t do this anymore, London.” Hannah’s whisper transported me back four years, when I held a broken twelve-year-old girl in my arms and listened as she finally gathered the courage to whisper all the terrible things her father had done. “I can’t handle this.”
The four words that fueled a relapse. I removed the judgement and concern from my voice. “Do you want to use again?”
Hannah looked away. “I…you wouldn’t understand.”
“Then make me understand. I’m here now.”
“Only for ten minutes.”
I crossed my feet under me and settled in. “Let’s see them kick me out of here. I’ll sit with you all night if you want.”
“They won’t let you.”
“They won’t have a choice.”
A lie, but it soothed Hannah. Grayson House was still a private facility. I had as long with Hannah as Patricia Carson deemed worth her patience.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Once you leave, it starts again. And I can’t…”
“You can’t give up now. You’ve been clean for six months. You’re doing so well. I know you don’t want to go back to the way it was.”
Hannah shrugged, rubbing the tears away on her shoulder. “I want to leave. I don’t care where I go. I want to leave.”
“Don’t say that.” I offered her my hand, knowing better than to grab her without permission. She squeezed as hard as her chilled, sweaty palms could grip. “This place can help you. They’ve been helping you.”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t be afraid of failing,” I said.
“That’s why I’m here. That’s why this place exists. They want you to get better. Everyone wants you to beat this addiction.”
“You promised me…”
My heart broke. “I never promised it’d be easy.”
“I can’t do this.”
The hair on my neck rose. Something else shadowed her voice, a darkness that stifled the air and suffocated both of us under the weight of a terrible secret.
I didn’t trust it.
I edged closer to her. “This isn’t about drugs, is it, Hannah?”
She didn’t answer. Her silence scared me more than any of her screams.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did someone hurt you?”
“I want this to be over.” The finality in her words punched harder than a fist into my gut.
“No.” The word was too stern. I didn’t care. “You don’t get to talk like that. Not after everything you’ve been through, everything you survived. You’re almost there. In another six months, you will walk out of here free. Then your records will seal once you hit eighteen, and you can have a new life—any life you want.” I forced a smile. “You’ll see. A whole world is out there, ready and waiting.”
“As evil as ever.”
I tensed, preparing for a battle I couldn’t see, couldn’t fight on my own. “It’s not all evil. There’s so much good out there. We just have to find it. You and me. We’ve seen the bad, but we deserve the good. And we’ll get it. I promise you.”
Hannah turned, her eyes soft, brown, and brimming with tears. “Why would you lie to me?”
“I—”
“Have you ever seen real evil?”
It was not the first time I’d been asked a question like that, and I still couldn’t hide from the truth.
I’d never reveal that part of me to someone still innocent and naïve to the ways of the world, but for Hannah? The darkness never gave her a chance. She was one of the few who’d understand.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s why I know this will get better. You have to face it. Fight it. Accept that it exists, but know that you are so much stronger than how they tried to break you. You’re a survivor, Hannah.”
“No. I’m not.” She wrapped her knees close to her chest and held them in place as she rocked. Not a good sign, but she was still with me. Talking. Only scared. And…
Lost.
“You can’t beat evil,” she whispered. “It stays with you, forever and ever. Stains you. It’s in your blood. In your mouth. In your skin, your hair, your soul.”
“Hannah—”
“How do you survive memories, London?”
If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a healthier woman. Married. Settled. Free.
Hannah’s whispers curdled my blood. “That’s the real evil. The memories. You experience it once, but then you’re cursed forever. He might be gone, but the memories still destroy you once they turn out the light and leave you to suffer for the rest of your nights.”
She was right, but she didn’t need to know that, not when she was still young enough to believe in hope. I cast my arm over her shoulders and drew her close to me.
“We’ll get through this,” I said. “I promise. I’ll protect you, just like I’ve always tried to protect you.”
“I could OD, you know?” Her head nuzzled into my shoulder. “OD and fade away. I’d be safe.”
“That’s not safety, Hannah. That’s the evil you can’t see, the one you can’t ever quit. Don’t let the addiction trick you into thinking it can help.”
“It’s the only thing that can help.”
“And that’s why you need to stay here,” I said. “Grayson House is the best place for your recovery.”
“That’s what they want you to think.” Her eyes narrowed on me. Sober. Clear. Hopeless. “No one is safe here.”
“Why?”
“I wish I had the needle.”
“You have to be stronger than the addiction.”
“It’s not the addiction.” Hannah dried her tears, but the surrender in her voice was more potent than any heroin burning through her veins. “Heroin isn’t the enemy. The world is the true poison.”
4
“If you only knew how hard I worked to find you…
Maybe you’d appreciate the pain.”
-Him
I shouldn’t have been the first one to give a toy to that newborn baby girl.
Hope. The media had named her instead of her mother. That wasn’t fair—not to the little girl suffering alone in the hospital, and not to the mother I was certain needed just as much help. At least the baby had the entire city rooting for her. In less than a week, she’d earned more prayers than the Steelers’ goal line defense.
She’d been a little bundle of miracles and perseverance, but that baby required more than machines and medicines to make her whole. She needed her mother.
But I couldn’t find—couldn’t bring—a family to her. The picked a poor substitute, a pink teddy bear from the hospital gift shop. I made it halfway to the NICU, stopped, and went back to exchange the teddy for a larger, fluffier stuffed elephant. Maybe guilt. Maybe another delay. I’d already raided a Babies R Us instead of immediately visiting the hospital. At least the armload of donated baby blankets, diapers, wipes, and onesies would forgive my cowardice. I bought everything my sister had needed when she brought Clementine home.
And I was as awkward now as I was then.
I hated hospitals. Hated them even more after the kidnapping. Ten years ago, I’d survived for two weeks breathing in the stench of death and decay. Somehow it wasn’t as bad as the antiseptic and sterile cling that stuck to hair, bodies, and clothing. They’d hospitalized me for a week after my ordeal—helping me to re-grow the skin on my stomach and sides that he had stolen.
Taken.
Eaten.
I squeezed the elephant before stepping from the elevator into the NICU. At least Baby Hope wouldn’t remember her stay here. The poor thing had already experienced the worst of humanity. She wouldn’t know me, wouldn’t know the promise I made to her, but I vowed to do everything in my power to ensure this was the last hardship she’d experience before finding a home with a real family.
I approached the nurses’ station, brandishing the haul for the baby with an uneasy shrug. The young blonde nurse gave me a sunny smile.
“Are you visiting someone in particular?” Her voice blended kindness with the ruthless efficiency of a diligent nurse. Made sense—a picture of three little blonde rug rats decorated her computer’s desktop. Took care of sick babies all day and then went home to raise her own. The woman was a walking saint.
“I’m Detective McKenna. I…found—”
“Hope!” She clapped her hands together. “Thank God you found her!”
Yeah, we’d have words when I choked down that final breath, and he’d be lucky if what I spat was gratitude. I nodded anyway. “I brought her some things. Just in case…”
“So thoughtful,” she nodded. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t acted so fast. I’m Elizabeth Freeman, I’ve been watching her. Follow me. We’ve started a collection drive for her.”
I plunked the bags in an unused maternity room now cluttered with supplies and toys. “Looks like she’s pretty well taken care of.”
“She has stuff,” Elizabeth said. “But she needs love more than anything. Come with me. I’ll take you to her.”
I sure as hell didn’t belong at her bedside. My chest tightened. Great. The baby was already abandoned once. I couldn’t duck out on her when she was trapped in the NICU.
I donned the robes and scrubbed my hands before entering the unit. No lullabies here. The quiet hum of machines and nurses’ soft words comforted the tiny patients. They had heart monitors instead of teddy bears and closed incubators in lieu of mobiles. Maybe a baby’s mom and dad went home for the evening, but the nurses and doctors stayed, ensuring the ones needing the most care had all the attention they deserved.
Still
, I feared the worst as I approached her incubator in the corner of the NICU.
“She’s a fighter,” Elizabeth said. “But she needs a little extra care.”
More than a little. The baby wasn’t in a complete withdrawal, but her tiny hands and feet twitched hard, almost shaking. It wasn’t a restful sleep for her, and I doubted it would be for a couple more days, if not weeks.
“You can hold her,” she said. “She’s doing very well. Surprising after everything she’s gone through. But we’re trying to hold her and touch her since…”
She didn’t have a mom. “I’m not sure…”
“Do you have children, Detective?”
I couldn’t suck in enough air for that chuckle. “No. Not me.”
“But you’d be such a good mom.” Elizabeth stared down at the baby, watchful of the machines and her breathing. Hope didn’t need respiratory equipment, just a warm bed and an ankle monitor that seemed far too heavy for her. “You found her. Saved her. I think we still have your jacket around here.”
“She can have it.”
“See? You’re great with her. The clock is ticking, Detective. Don’t want to wait too long.”
That’s what everyone was saying. Mom. My sister, Vienna.
James.
“Has anyone called?” I asked. “Anyone with information about the baby?”
“No. I wish they would. To think…what sort of mother…” She snapped her mouth shut, apparently too sweet to ever say a disparaging word about anyone. “I’m sorry. I’m surrounded by families having the best and worst moments of their life every day. I can’t imagine a woman not being there for her child…especially when she’s responsible for her condition.”
The surveillance footage still kept me up at night. The city and department vilified the mother, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw her note.
I couldn’t let them take her.