The Ballerina's Stand

by Angel Smits

  The man cursed and rushed over to his captain. Jason watched them talk, though he couldn’t hear anything. The urgency of their movements jacked up his concern.

  “What happened in there?” the EMT asked Jason.

  Jason looked over at Dylan, who was leaning back, his eyes closed. He tapped the boy’s arm and repeated the EMT’s question so he could read his lips.

  Dylan shrugged. “We were talking,” he signed rather than taking the oxygen mask off. “Then b-o-o-m. She—” He pointed at Lauren. “Pushed me to the door. I ran.”

  “They don’t know anything,” Jason told the EMT. “I got here to find the place already aflame. Damn it, just take care of her.” His panic threatened to choke him.

  Lauren had no idea what was going on. Her eyes were closed. The lids and surrounding skin were a ravaged red. When Jason wouldn’t let her burrow back in, she tried to put her hand over her eyes. Protection.

  “I think her right arm’s broken,” the EMT said. “But the eyes concern me more.”

  Dear God. The EMT reached up to touch her face and Lauren yanked away. Jason knew it was necessary, but he ached at the idea of forcing her to hurt.

  “She’s deaf,” Jason said. “They both are.” He tried desperately to come up with a way to explain to Lauren what was happening. What the hell was he supposed to do?

  The stethoscope around the EMT’s neck caught his gaze. He took her hand, waiting an instant for her to recognize his touch, to calm. Slowly, he guided her uninjured hand to the stethoscope. At first, she flinched at the touch of the cool metal, then he saw the realization dawn, and she relaxed. She nodded, telling him she understood.

  She cooperated, only crying out when the man carefully opened her eyelids and shone a light in each eye. “Her eyes themselves look damaged. But they react to light.”

  Jason had no idea if that was good or bad. Time moved slowly, mired in the sizzle of the water on the flames, in the loud calls of the firemen, in the destruction of Lauren’s world. The EMT put some type of medication and gauze over her eyes so even if she wanted to, she couldn’t see the damage. That might be a small blessing, but Jason knew she’d eventually be heartbroken.

  “Sir?”

  The female EMT had an IV bag in her hand. Lauren was struggling again. The EMT seemed to think bullying Lauren would get this accomplished.

  “Shhh.” He gently touched Lauren’s arm. They’d splinted her broken arm, and wanted to put the IV in her other arm.

  She was trying to sign. He was so damned bad at this, especially when she could only use one hand. They’d put Dylan in an ambulance and were preparing to take him to the emergency room. He needed medical care, not to have to be an interpreter.

  Jason focused. She spelled slowly, carefully. “W-h-a-t-s h-a-p-p-e-n-i-n-g?”

  He couldn’t talk to her. Couldn’t write on something for her to read. Couldn’t even sign badly to her. He took her hand in his. At least he could give her that message. She turned her hand, palm up and held tight.

  Minutes ticked by as they placed the IV in her arm and prepared her to go in the ambulance. Then she slowly moved her fingers and spelled, “D-o-n-t l-e-a-v-e m-e.”

  How could he tell her he wasn’t going anywhere? He leaned forward and tenderly kissed her. She tasted of smoke and pain. And sweet Lauren underneath. She kissed him back and leaned toward him. Giving in. Hopefully, not giving up.

  * * *

  PANIC DIDN’T LEAVE room for words. Lauren tried to swallow back the hurt, the fear, the darkness. But it was all there.

  What had happened? Who was that man in the studio? Was there anything left of her beautiful dream? Was Dylan okay? She’d felt his touch, felt him move and squeeze her hand, but she still worried. Were his eyes hurt, too? Or anything else?

  Why was Jason here? She didn’t have a late class tonight. Whatever his reasons, she was glad he’d come. If he hadn’t... No. She had to stop those thoughts.

  Dear God, her eyes burned. She’d never felt anything like this. Someone, she thought it was the female EMT—the whiff of perfume was her clue as were the softer hands—put a plastic tube in her hand. An oxygen tube. Seconds later, she put it beneath Lauren’s nose and carefully, avoiding the tender skin around her eyes that hurt so badly, looped it over her ears.

  The panic returned. Were her eyes permanently damaged? They couldn’t even tell her. She’d never survive that. Trapped inside her head...

  No, she’d been able to see light when someone had flashed it in her eyes. It had hurt, but it had been there. Bright and real. She clung to that knowledge.

  The same way she clung to Jason’s hand. Damn. She shivered in the night’s heat. She hated dependence, but what choice did she have?

  Jason’s fingers moved, his index finger moving skyward with her hand following. “Up?” Seconds later, she felt Jason’s arms close around her, lifting her. She let herself enjoy the safe cocoon for a minute, laying her head on his shoulder as he settled her on what felt like a gurney. Someone put a blanket and straps over her legs. Then she felt movement, first upward, then sideways. They slowly rolled the gurney over what she assumed was the pavement since it was so rough. Then up again. An ambulance?

  Jason never let go of her hand.

  She leaned back, and tried to relax. Her breathing was fast and her heart pounded. She tried to tell her body to calm and slow down.

  Instead, her fingers tightened on Jason’s. He squeezed back and she leaned toward him, turning her face in the direction where he had to be. She ached to see him.

  She pictured him in her mind’s eye—the way he’d looked last night. Totally out of place at the ballet with his cowboy brother. She tried to smile, tried to focus on the image. He’d looked so good, tall and strong.

  Jason wouldn’t let anything more happen to her. She trusted him. She had to.

  * * *

  SLOWLY, CAREFULLY, THE emergency room nurse washed Lauren’s eyes. The gentleness of the woman’s touch astounded Jason, but even with that careful touch, Lauren flinched and tears flowed down her cheeks. “The tears are actually good for her,” the woman explained. “They clean better than any solution I can make up.”

  Lauren clung to his hand, as if he might slip away. He squeezed her fingers. He wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Can you show her this?” The nurse handed him a soft cotton pad, thicker than the gauze of before. At least this nurse realized she had to explain to Lauren what was happening. He put the pad in her palm.

  “I’m going to put one on each eye. It’ll block the light completely.”

  Jason nodded, tapping the cotton against Lauren’s finger, then oh-so-carefully putting his index finger on her damaged eyelid. He waited for her to respond with a nod. Slowly, the nurse put a clean pad over Lauren’s right eye. She winced but didn’t fight.

  “It’ll be pitch black when I’m done,” she explained. “The light is as painful as the burns. But for her, I think the dark will feel worse.” The woman’s compassion impressed Jason.

  She secured the first pad, then waited, letting Lauren adjust to the deep black. When Lauren nodded, the woman lifted the other one. Jason’s chest hurt. He hated that he couldn’t do more.

  Her grip on his hand tightened. He let her hold on. Once she was done, the nurse stepped back and took a deep breath. This was tough for her as well.

  “Thank you,” he whispered and smiled faintly. Lauren seemed to sense they were done and signed thank you—it was a welcome sight. He leaned over and kissed her forehead. He was so proud of her.

  She tapped the pads over her eyes and signed, “How long?”

  Jason looked at the nurse, repeating her question.

  “Couple days or more.”

  How did he explain that? After a minute, he took Lauren’s hand and made the sign for two, letting her
feel it against her palm. Then he spelled out d-a-y-s letting her feel each letter, figuring that would be easier for her than using the sign.

  She frowned then as if it hurt. She smoothed her brow. “Go?” she signed the question.

  How the heck would he explain that the doctor wanted her to stay the night? He gently pulled his hand away, eliciting a faint gasp from Lauren. He leaned close to her so she could feel his presence beside her. He put his palms together and laid them beside her head in the sign of sleep.

  “Here?”

  He took her hand and put it next to his jaw and nodded. He tapped a single finger there, then formed her hand into the gesture of night. She sighed and nodded.

  She pointed in his general direction and then spelled, “S-t-a-y.”

  Jason’s heart caught. The fact that she asked him to be with her told him how unnerved she was. Lauren didn’t ask for anything. Her independence was taking a beating, but she was also strong enough to know this was a time to admit she needed help.

  He once again nodded, with her palm against his jaw. Her thumb moved slowly across the rough stubble of his chin, finding his lips. He covered her hand with his own, turning his lips to her palm, relieved when she let herself smile. He saw her relax, her shoulders drooping just a bit, and her head fell back on the rough gurney pillow.

  Sleep was her friend, but he wondered if she could even do that.

  “Dylan?” she asked.

  “The boy who came in with us?” Jason asked the nurse. “Where is he?”

  “He’s just a couple of cubes away. He asked us to call his grandmother.”

  Jason nearly laughed. Dylan didn’t have a grandmother. He had to mean Maxine. As if on cue, the older woman’s voice rang out in the emergency room. “My darlings. Where are my darlings?”

  How the hell would he explain this to Lauren? Did he even want to try?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LAUREN STARED INTO the darkness. Pitch-black, heavy darkness. Not the darkness of night where a rim of light shone under the door, or the moon’s faint glow peeked around the edges of a drawn curtain. No, this was weighted down, with pain, with bandages and fear.

  Memories rushed in, and she was unable to bite back the cry of anguish that rose in her throat. She felt it escape from between her lips. The heat of the flames, the smoke, dark and thick, at first making her eyes water, then burn the longer she’d struggled to see where she was going. She shook her head to dispel the sensations, but froze as pain bounced around her skull.

  She had no idea where she really was, though she’d been “told” she was at the emergency room. How long had she been here? Most of the time, Lauren hadn’t been sure what was happening. Panic bathed her body in sweat, and she tried to sit up on what was likely a gurney. Something hard—a hand—settled firmly on her shoulder, pushed her back down.

  She cried out again. She wanted to fight, longed to have the ability to yell at them and tell them what she thought and wanted—and didn’t want. She could sign, but they probably wouldn’t understand her...or would they? A couple of choice gestures came to mind.

  Then suddenly, another hand came out of nowhere, not to hold her down, but to curl around her fingers, warmly, gently. She knew this palm, knew the thick fingers and hard calluses of Jason’s hand. She turned her hand in his, gripping hard, letting his touch engulf her and soothe her.

  She’d never been able to know what the world sounded like, or what sound really was. But she’d been able to function by looking at it. She “heard” by reading lips and watching signers form words with their hands. Now she couldn’t hear or see. Her greatest fears realized.

  Was it gone forever, her only means of connecting? She felt as if she were trapped inside a coffin. The panic returned.

  And then Jason’s fingers moved. He was signing in the palm of her hand. Slowly at first, then more quickly, as he must have realized she understood what he was doing. She nodded, relief flooding her. He formed the letters he was just beginning to learn.

  For her.

  Her eyes burned, not from the smoke or her injuries, but emotion. She prayed the bittersweet tears could somehow wash away the pain and damage.

  Lauren didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity, though the temptation was strong. She had to focus. It was one thing to see a sign, another to feel its contours.

  What was that? An m? An a, x. Maxine! Maxine was here? Another familiar hand, older, thinner, precious, curled around hers.

  For the first time, Lauren understood Jason’s frustrations at having to learn all this. Her chin up, she frowned, her concentration overpowering her fear.

  She could do this. She’d find a way to make this work. No one was taking her life away, not if she had anything to say about it.

  * * *

  THE LOOK ON Lauren’s face when Maxine took her hand might have been comical if she hadn’t been so stricken. The bandages were stark white against her face, covering the piece of her that was the most expressive. Her eyes. But Jason knew her well enough now to read her body language.

  From the nurse’s explanation, he knew that she couldn’t see a thing. Total darkness would give her eyes the chance to truly heal. Add that to the fact that she couldn’t hear a thing...

  Lauren immediately recognized her foster mother’s touch, and she let the older woman hug her. Jason breathed a sigh of relief.

  The nurse came back then. Her silly grin told Jason that she recognized Maxine, and along with the information she needed, he’d bet she’d ask for an autograph.

  He let them have their moment, but once that was done, he stepped forward. “You’re releasing Dylan?” he asked the nurse.

  “Why, uh, yes. Here are some medications if he needs them tonight, and prescriptions to fill at your pharmacy tomorrow, if needed.” She shook the packet she’d stapled to the discharge instructions and handed it to Maxine.

  Jason really should let them know Maxine wasn’t related to Dylan. He was, at the moment, a ward of the state. But the state wasn’t here and wasn’t going to take him home. Maxine would.

  Dylan sat on the edge of the gurney, already anxiously moving his legs. He wasn’t one to sit still long. Already, he looked better than he had all night. “Where’s Tina?” he asked.

  “She’s with Hudson.” Maxine spoke and signed. “They’re meeting us out front.”

  Everyone nodded. Everyone except Lauren. She had no idea what was happening. The frown on her brow told him she wasn’t happy about it. Her teeth caught her lip, her anxiety growing.

  “Lauren’s staying overnight,” Jason informed Maxine.

  The woman spun around from where she’d been talking to Dylan. “What?”

  “The doctor wants to keep her for observation.”

  “Oh, dear.” Maxine looked up at Jason, almost too imploring, then back and forth between Dylan and Lauren, as if she had to choose. “What are we going to do?” This obviously hadn’t been what she’d expected.

  “Are you comfortable taking both kids?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then I’ll take care of Lauren.” He wasn’t leaving her anytime soon, anyway. Until he figured out what who had caused the fire, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight.

  But how would he explain to Lauren? He reached for her hand, and she gripped hard. He had to force her fingers to let go. He slowly spelled D-y-l-a-n, then made the sign with her fingers for go and then guided her hands into the “home” sign. Then spelled Maxine.

  Lauren puzzled it through, then nodded. Her brow smoothed slightly. She then pointed to her own chest.

  He took a deep breath. Then put her hand on his chest and made the sign for stay. He was staying with her.

  She shook her head. She signed that she couldn’t ask him to do that.

  “You’re not askin
g.” He kept the signs slow and simple, as much because of his own meager skills as for her. “No choice. I am staying.”

  Lauren bowed her head, then nodded. The slow way she made the thank you sign told him how much she appreciated it, and hated it.

  When the nurse returned, Maxine signed the autograph with a flourish, then held the paper up and said, “This is my attorney. He’ll be staying with my foster daughter.”

  She did take control of everything. Lauren wouldn’t like Maxine doing that, but in this case it worked. And the nurse didn’t even question her authority. He wasn’t sure if it was due to awe or procedure.

  He didn’t care. Someone had tried to kill Lauren. They wouldn’t get another chance.

  * * *

  LAUREN WAS ASLEEP. Jason stood in the doorway of her hospital room, staring at her. With the bandages, he couldn’t see her expression. They’d taken her for X-rays and put her arm in a cast. How would she sign? He knew she could use one hand, but the signs were far from complete. Not all signs could be modified.

  Mentally, he cursed, barely resisting the urge to put his fist through something or someone. If and when the cops found that guy, Jason hoped he didn’t meet him. He couldn’t promise to control the urge to kill the bastard.

  Lauren moved, her legs shifting beneath the thin blankets. A soft whimper escaped from between her lips. Jason took several hasty steps, intent on comforting her.

  And then, just inches from the side of the hospital bed, he froze, remembering her frightened scream at the studio. That had been the first real sound he’d heard her make.

  As he stood there, she moved abruptly, startling herself awake. Her whimper of fear sent him the rest of the way to her side.

  Jason tossed his jacket to the chair beside the bed as that sound came again—her small cry of terror. Carefully, so as not to jar her, or hurt her, he put his hand over hers and waited for the recognition.

  She smiled and let her head fall back. Slowly, he moved away, watching as she tensed again. He lowered the rail of the bed.