“Sorry.” I gave him an apologetic smile. “I’ll get right to work.”
I rushed into one of the rooms and saw a woman who was slightly older than me and approximately six or seven months pregnant, yelling and flopping around. Ashley hadn’t been able to tell us any of their names, so we were left in the dark. Their patient charts had them listed as patient one, patient two—so on and so forth.
“No, don’t want to die. I want to go back!” she screamed as she thrashed around.
“Stop,” I said gently as I placed my hands on her. I could feel her fear and her panic. “You’re okay,” I crooned as I placed my hands on her. I pushed feelings of calm and peace into her.
After a few more minutes of pushing my feelings into her, she finally calmed down. “What’s your name?” I asked softly.
“Pam,” she said softly.
“How old are you, Pam?” I asked trying to keep her mind busy.
“19,” she said in a small voice.
As she sat there, I could slowly see the panic recede from her eyes replaced by clarity. She looked around in wonder, like she was just realizing where she was. I could see the moment she realized she was pregnant and her eyes rounded in horror. When she looked like she was going to leap out of the bed, I put my hand on her.
“We found you in a facility. We aren’t the bad guys,” I said urgently. We needed her to believe me. We needed her to find out what Horatio was up to, besides the obvious. I could see the distrust and hysteria in her eyes. “We found you along with eleven other women. You were all implanted with something. We think it had drugs in them. You’ve been here for a couple of weeks now. Do you remember anything that happened there?” I asked as I felt her suspicion and fear recede.
“I needed the money,” fat tears ran down her face. “I’m never going to get high again, I promise,” she said in horror as she looked down at her stomach. “How?! How?!”
I felt her anxiety rising again and I pushed the calm back to her again. “We’re trying to figure that out.” I stroked her hand. “We’re going to help you, we promise.”
“Get it out,” she said despondently.
My heart sank. “You’re afraid and rightfully so, but we can’t do that until you talk to some of our doctors here. We also have crisis counselors and have helped many people just like you. We want to help you.”
“Then kill me,” she said dejectedly.
“No,” I said resolutely. “I know this seems hopeless, but you aren’t giving up yet. You’ve already been through too much not to survive this, too.”
Under all her fear and panic, I could feel the fighter within her. I didn’t know her past, but she had been a fighter once upon a time. We just needed to give her the love and support she needed so she could find another reason to keep fighting.
There was a commotion down the hall when I finally exited Pam’s room. I ran down there to find out what was going on. I hadn’t expected to see a woman in the corner of the room and screaming.
“I want my son, give me back my son,” she was a woman of average height and stature, with beautiful long blond hair. Her features were quirky, but it only added to her unusual beauty.
Gavin was trying to approach her, but she continued to try and throw anything possible his way, but without her hands. Small objects flew from the cabinet doors and from her food tray left uneaten.
“She won’t let me near her,” he said in frustration.
“I got this,” I reassured him. “Go ahead and go to the next one.”
He nodded, seemingly relieved.
I slowly approached her dodging a sandwich. “It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “We’re not here to hurt you, we want to help you.”
“Give me back my son,” she cried out, tears rolling down her face.
“He’s at school,” Alex said calmly from the doorway.
I looked up startled to find him perched in the doorway.
Micah came to a skidding halt behind him. “I’m so sorry, Blake. We were playing and suddenly, he started clutching his head and getting agitated. I couldn’t stop him. He came running this way.”
I looked over at the woman and she was looking at Alex with a look of complete sadness and despair. “Where’s my baby?” she asked softly.
“He’s at school,” he smiled serenely. “He’s going to be so happy that you’re home, Miss. Amy.”
“You’re lying,” she said distrustfully as she stroked her slightly rounded belly.
Alex advanced toward her, but she didn’t try to stop him. He finally reached out his hand and grasped her hand. Amy’s eyes closed before a large smile spread across her face. Her eyes opened, tears in them.
“You have my Chippy, you helped him,” her legs seemed to collapse under her as she began crying tears of joy.
My own eyes began to fill with tears as I rushed over to her, embracing her. “We do, and you never gave up hope that you would find him. He’s going to be so happy we finally found you. Do you remember what happened?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I just remember men coming into our home and taking my boy and then… I was here.”
Alex grabbed our hands without warning, and I could see the night clearly. She had just put him to sleep. She was cleaning their dinner dishes when a group of masked men came busting through the back door. One of them slipped behind her and injected her with the implant. Through drug filled eyes, she saw some of the men dragging a screaming, crying and hysterical Chip. When the kitchen utensils started hurling their way towards the men, one of them knocked him out. She was loaded in a vehicle, while her son was loaded in another.
The next scene showed her in a drug filled stupor. She was on a cold, metal table, her hands strapped down to the table, feet strapped in stirrups as a man with a paper mask covering his face did something behind the sheet draped over her legs.
“Healthy female, no history of drug use, healthy son delivered nine years ago,” a young woman stated holding a clip board.
“Implantation of Male B,” the man said in a cold nasally voice.
The nurse scribbled something furiously on the clipboard.
“I thought she was supposed to get Male A,” another man came into the picture, a paper mask covering his face.
The first man made a scoffing sound. “I’m done implanting these subjects with his. He needs to stop living in denial. He has produced two children with the same subject. It hasn’t been his specimen impregnating these subjects in years.”
“But he thinks he has,” the second man spluttered.
“We tell him what he wants to hear, so he leaves us alone,” the first man stated.
“But what about—" and that’s where Amy had blacked out once more.
When I opened my eyes, Amy looked slightly horrified. “Is this why I’m pregnant? I couldn’t have any more children.” She wiped away the tears on her face. “Chip’s father wanted more children. I couldn’t give him anymore.”