Chapter 2 BEATRICE'S POV
1503 Words
From the start, I knew that I was different. I can hear voices screaming within my head. It’s strange to hear them when I have no recollection or memories of them.
The pain from their voices made me feel uneasy. My adrenaline tugged me from within whispering words of encouragement; whispering for me to escape. But why should I do that? I am not a mouse caught in a trap. I am not even a prey hiding from its predator.
I hummed and combed my hair using my fingers. This is insane! Maybe I should take a rest for a while, take a nap and then forget about these ideas.
Yeah, that’s right!
I should do that.
Her innocent eyes mirrored terror and agony.
The girl emptied her stomach
She wasn’t sure why they bothered to feed her. She didn’t keep much down anyway. Her wrists were noticeably skinnier than when she had been brought to the cold, dark cellar.
They laughed at her, taunting her. “Makes you puke? You can’t take it like a lady?”
No woman should take what the little girl took. No man, either. Especially, not a little boy or girl.
No, nobody.
Nobody but her.
She'd been forsaken, no one had come for her. No one would. Did she deserve this? This horrific fate that had been thrust upon her?
Yet she must.
Because no one came.
The man clocked her upside the head. “You know you get hit whenever you puke, lady. But still you insist on puking.”
The girl gagged again and heaved, the sharp pain was making her vision blur as her eyes water. Nothing remained in her stomach to come out.
Cramps churned her gut. One of them kicked her, and her head hit the concrete wall.
Episodes of mimicking sounds of pain erupted like an agonizing call, nostalgic waves of fear spread like veins gripping her core.
Blessed blackness, where no pain existed. No masked men. No demons snarling.
Just nothing.
Nothing was good.
I gasped when I woke up. What the hell was that? I swallowed the lump in my throat and I pressed my lips together. This is not good. Maybe too much stress gave me this kind of nightmare.
I need to roam around first before going home.
“CODE BLUE! CODE BLUE!” Neon simultaneously shouted orders and checked the little girl's pulse. “I need a cart, stat! We got a young female, who looked to be eight or nine, barely breathing. Somebody call peds!”
I rushed into the room. “Where did she come from?”
“Don't know,” he answered.
Staff and crash carts arrived at the same time, and everyone fell into a fast, furious pace.
“She's not on the boards,” Macy, the head nurse reported, grabbing a needle. The IV slipped in, followed by the catheter. Immediately, they were drawing blood and urine.
“She's running a fever! Oh, we got hives!” Bea, another nurse, had finished snipping away the cotton sweatshirt to attach the five-lead heart monitor and revealed the little girl's inflamed torso.
“STAND BACK!”
The chest X-ray flashed, and they fell back on the patient, working furiously. The girl's body was covered with a sheen of sweat and she was completely nonresponsive. Then her breathing stopped altogether.
“Tube!” I shouted, and immediately went to work to intubate.
Shit, she was small. I was afraid I was hurting something as I bumbled my way around her tiny throat like a water buffalo. Then the tube found the opening and slithered down her windpipe. “I'm in!” I exclaimed at the same time as Bea whirled out of the room with vials of fluid for the CBC, chem 20, and urine drug screen.
“Pulse is thready,” Macy said.
“Assessment, Neon?” I demanded.
“Anaphylaxis reaction,” Neon said immediately. “We need one amp of epi.”
“Point-oh-one milli,” I corrected him. “Peds dosage.”
“I don't see any sign of a bee sting,” Macy reported, handing over the epinephrine and watching the doctor administer it through the breathing tube.
“It could be a reaction to anything,” I murmured, and waited to see what the epi would do.
For a moment they were all still.
The little girl looked so unprotected sprawled on the white hospital bed with five wires, an IV, and a bulky breathing tube sprouting from her small figure. Long blond hair spilled onto the bed and smelled faintly of No More Tears baby shampoo. Her eye-lashes were thick and her face splotchy — smudges under the eyes, bright red spots staining her plump cheeks. No matter how many years I worked, I would never get used to the sight of a child in a hospital.
“Muscles are relaxing,” I reported. “Breathing's easier.” Epinephrine acted fast. The little girl's eyes fluttered open but didn't focus.
“Hello?” I tried asking. “Can you hear me?”
No response. I moved from verbal to tactile, shaking her lightly. She still did not respond. I tried the sternal rub, pressing her knuckles against the tiny sternum hard enough to induce pain. The little girl's body arched helplessly, but her eyes remained glazed.
“Hard to arouse,” I reported. “The patient remains nonresponsive.” Now they were all frowning.
The door burst open.
“What's all the ruckus about?” Dr. Lincoln strode into the room, wearing green scrubs as if they were tennis whites and looking almost unreal with his deep tan, vivid blue eyes, and movie-poster face. I had heard he was very good but also seemed to know it.
“We got it,” I said a bit testily.
“Uh-huh.” Dr. Lincoln sauntered over to the bed. Then he spotted the little girl sprouting tubes and drew up cold, looking honestly shocked. “My God, what happened?”
“Anaphylaxis reaction to unknown agent.”
“Epi?”
“Of course.”
“Give me the chest X-ray.” Dr. Lincoln held out a hand, peering at the girl intently and checking her heartbeat.
“We got it under control!”
Dr. Lincoln raised his head just long enough to look at me in the eye. “Then, why, Dr. Beatrice,” he said somberly, “is she lying there like a rag doll?”
I gritted my teeth. “I don't know.”
What’s happening to me? Why am I like this?
“I GOT DRUG screen results!” Bea plowed through the door, and I grabbed the reports, just beating out Dr. Lincoln
“She's positive for opiates,” I called.
“Morphine,” Dr. Lincoln said.
“Narcan,” I ordered. “Point-oh-oh-five milli per kilo. Bring extra!”
Bea rushed away for the reversing agent.
“Could she be allergic to morphine?” Neon quizzed me. “Could that be what caused the anaphylaxis reaction?”
“It happens.”
Bea returned with the narcan and I quickly injected it. They removed the breathing tube and waited, a second dose already in hand. Narcan could be repeated every two to three minutes if necessary. Dr. Lincoln checked the young girl's pulse again, then her heart.
“Better,” he announced. “Steadying. Oh, hang on. Here we go…”
The little girl was moving her head from side to side. Macy drew a sheet over her and they all held their breath. The little girl blinked and her large eyes, a striking mix of blue and gray, focused.
“Can you hear me, honey?” Dr. Lincoln whispered, his voice curiously thick as he smoothed back her limp hair from her sweaty forehead. “Can you tell us your name?”
She didn't answer. She took in the strangers hovering above her, the white, white room, the lines and wires sticking out of her body. Plump and awkward-looking, she was not a pretty child, I thought, but at that moment she was completely endearing. I took her hand and her gaze rested on me immediately, tearing me up a little. Who in hell drugged and abandoned a little girl? The world was sick.
After a moment, her fingers gripped mine. A nice, strong grip considering her condition.
“It's okay,” I whispered. “You're safe. Tell us your name, honey. We need to know your name.”
Her mouth opened, her parched throat working, but no sound emerged. She looked a little more panicked.
“Relax,” I soothed. “Take a deep breath. Everything is okay. Everything is fine. Now try it again.”
She looked at me trustingly.
This time she whispered, “Daddy's Girl.” Hell! My mouth dried up upon hearing those words. And suddenly I felt my world collapse.
“Dr. Beatrice!” They screamed and I don’t know what happened as I embraced the dark.
- Writer
