Saving Hope

XXV. Reports

Everything happened so fast.

One moment she was struggling toward the ER and she was being wheeled on a wheelchair the next. And then she was on a stretcher, surrounded by different sounds.

She could barely make out what everyone else was doing. She tried to speak but no one seemed to hear her.

Finally, someone was talking to her, asking questions of who she was, where she had been, what really happened, was there anyone she wanted to call?

“Yes, yes,” she said through clenched teeth. She was fighting the darkness that was about to close in on her. She had to tell them about Devin. Someone had to go after him and save him.

“Ma’am, what is your name?” the nurse asked again.

Hope blinked twice against the light on the ceiling. She could hear clattering somewhere and someone else was giving orders she could barely comprehend.

“Police, call the police,” she managed to utter between breaths. “Devin, you have to save Devin.”

“Ma’am, can you tell us your name?” the voice had become urgent when she mentioned the police.

“Hope. Hope Madden.” There was a short period of silence from the voice and the activities around her continued for some time. And then everyone stopped for a few more seconds when her name sank in their heads. Someone gasped, “Oh my god!” while another voice ordered, “Call the police. Now! And I need a STAT MRI.” Someone else asked, “Are you suspecting internal hemorrhage?”

Hope couldn’t understand them. Her mind was on other more important concerns. “Mom. Call my mom.”

“Your mom?” the voice beside her asked again.

Hope swallowed. “Mom. Gina Madden. Police. Devin…”

“Hope, you have to relax,” a different voice said from her other side. “We need you to relax, okay? Someone is calling the police now. The police will then contact your mother. Right now, we need to focus on you. We are going to do some tests to make sure that you are okay. Were you beaten? Tortured?”

She nodded. “Devin. Help Devin.”

“Hope, you have to stay calm. The police are coming. We have to make you ready for them, okay? We’ll do some tests and you can trust us, okay?”

“No other people. Doctors. Nurses. No other,” she said under her breath.

“Yes. No other people can come near you.”

The best she could do at that moment was to trust the voices. If she lived through this, she’d know she did the right thing.

*****

Devin was not feeling good.

No one had touched him yet.

Not a finger was laid on him.

And it made him even more anxious.

Burton and the other two men with him had a plan.

“When is the torture going to start?” he finally asked.

Burton did not look up from the paper he was reading but he smiled and said, “We’re waiting for someone. Hang in there, Frye. Just don’t forget to remember where you hid the documents and everything will be good.”

“You mean for all of you. I’ll be dead the second you have the documents in your hands.”

Burton flipped the paper to the next page. “You might be right. But it won’t be a painful death— that I can assure you.”