So there really is no way out.
I slide onto the floor, rubbing at my leg where a deep ache promises to worsen if I stand any longer. My head feels light, as though something inside has become untethered. The inside of my elbow is sore where the IV needle was. I brush fingertips over my lips, remembering how soft Finn’s had been the moment we kissed.
Finn. Does he know about me yet? I called for him, again and again when my parents were dragging me out of the bed, propping me up in the wheelchair, forcing me out of the hospital. Finn never came for me then. Will he find me now? Will he even care to look?
As the sun sets outside, somewhere I can’t see despite the window, I cry. For my past life growing up with these people who might have brought me into the world, but certainly had no rights keeping me locked away in theirs now. A brief curiosity rushes past my self-pity: where did they find a lawyer who would rally behind such despicable life forms? Could I fight against the decision to be represented by people I had cut out of my life years ago?
Then again, how am I going to find a lawyer from in here? I’ll be lucky if this house is even in their name. At least that way, Finn might actually stand a chance of tracking me down. Not that he has any real reason to put in the effort. Until a few weeks ago, we hadn’t spoken since high school. Even then, he was just Ashley’s brother.
Ever since Ashley invited me to her place the first time when we were tiny and still interested in unicorns and princesses, I’ve been deathly jealous of everything she had. A mother and father who not only cared for her, but supported her, even when she came out as gay. A brother who, though she complained about him being annoying, was only sweet to his sister from what I could see. The house and golden retriever and a weekly allowance were all just extras.
For a brief moment when Finn and I kissed, I imagined that I might actually be able to join their family, putting even more distance away from mine.
A sob escapes, sounding like a mixture of a sigh and a shriek, bubbling up through tears and snot. I’m never going to escape my fate, my DNA, my life. This is it. Kidnapped by my own parents for the insurance money.
If Finn ever really wanted me before, he certainly won’t after this. Who would?
Chapter 10
Finn
“And you just let them take her?”
I haven’t seen Ashley this angry since the time those two boys in her grade—what were their names again—called her girlfriend something unrepeatable in polite company.
“I wasn’t here,” I say in defense.
“What are you talking about? You’re always here. And you just let them take her.”
“I had just taken off to get a few hours of sleep. I never would have left the floor if I knew this might happen.”
Ashley is pacing April’s room, which she has refused to leave, despite the nurses saying that they need the bed. She nearly attacked Nurse Jackie after she found out that she was the one who collected all of April’s things and put them in the box out in the hallway.
“So her parents took her?” She says, accentuating each word with wild hand gestures. “For the insurance money? How is that legal?”
“They were once her legal guardians, which makes it much easier to convince a judge that they should be the ones making decisions for her. She did suffer head trauma, which legally could be argued to have altered her judgment and—”
“So they can just drag her out? There’s nothing we can do?”
I’ve followed the rules all my life. Kept my head in books. Woke up early to spend time in the library. Went to bed at a reasonable hour a majority of the time. My whole life has been about keeping my nose to the grindstone, not daring to even bend the rules until the past few weeks with April. And even that was hardly gray area. She’s a family friend, and besides, I only spent time in here after all of my responsibilities had been covered.
Now, I’m at a crossroads, because I know a way to find April, but it’s going to mean jeopardizing everything I’ve ever strived for.
“We can kidnap her back,” I say more to myself, but Ashley picks up on my whispered announcement.
“Good luck finding her,” Ashley says with an extra helping of spite in her words. “No telling where those crackheads that call themselves her parents are living now.”
“I know how to find out.”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”
“It would involve pulling up her records.”
“You’re her doctor. Shouldn’t you be one of the people actually allowed to go through her files?”
“Not for something like this. Not so we can track her down and pry her out of her parents’ grip. I mean, we don’t know. Maybe they’ve changed. Maybe—”
Ashley places both of her hands on my crossed arms, causing me to look up. She is staring right at me with the same eyes I remember from when she was completely defenseless, coming out to me when we were back in high school. “You know what kind of people they are, Finn. You remember the bruises and stories. How much she used to eat when she stayed over. They haven’t changed, and if they have, they’ve only gotten worse. And they have her again, and she’s still sick. She needs us.” Ashley smirks. A sad motion tinged with a knowing humor. “She needs you.”
Her patient files are useless. April is an adult, which means the only address that is listed is her own. But inside are her parents’ full names and birthdates, which should help to narrow things down a bit. With this information, we could hire a private eye. But who knows how long that will take. On the other hand, with a few clicks of the mouse, I could be staring at her parents’ files. Completely against the rules though, and since I’m logged in under my name, the computer will be tracking all of my moves. So if there ever is an investigation, I’ll have no way of denying what I’ve done. Still, this is for April, so I don’t hesitate clicking through. But after looking through both her father and her mother’s records, I come upon a problem.
When I return to the cafeteria, where I’ve convinced Ashley to wait for me so as to get her out of the way of the nurses who were quickly losing patience, she sits up from her coffee. “Did you find anything?”
I show her the slip of paper where I wrote down anything I thought might be relevant. “They have different home addresses,” I say, bringing Ashley in on my conundrum. “But the nurses say that her parents came in together. They might be staying at either of these places, or then again, they might have moved on.”
She’s already standing, throwing back her coffee in a single gulp. “But it’s something to work with. We’ll just go to both of these places. And it they aren’t there, we’ll ask neighbors what they might know.”
“There’s another problem,” I admit, still sitting down, hunched over. “What do we even do when we find her?”
Ashley looks down at me like the words of a foreign language have just tumbled out of my mouth. “We get her out of there, of course.”
“Her parents had a lawyer, papers. Their taking her out of here for the insurance money was morally wrong in every way, but also completely legal. Us ‘rescuing’ April will be the exact opposite. We’ll be considered kidnappers in the court of law.”
My sister is shaking her head at this. “I can’t believe I’m having this discussion with you. Does it matter what the law says? Not long ago, the law said I couldn’t marry my girlfriend. Did that stop us from dating?”
“This is different. We could go to prison.” I feel spineless just saying it, but these are the facts.
“Is that worse than leaving April with them? They never did feed her well, even when she was a kid. Didn’t you notice how short she was until she spent that whole summer with us and grew like a foot? It was malnutrition. These people are monsters, and we will be too if we don’t do everything possible to get her out of there.”
The part of me that always seeks to follow the rules, consequences be damned, has kept me above the water for so long. Kept me from drowning in mediocrity like many of
my classmates. It’s what has given me the willpower to soldier on through years of pre-med and three-hour nights of sleep during my first few years of residency. It’s reassured me again and again that I’m in the right. Even if I had a patient die on me, I rested easily knowing that there was nothing else I could have done. I always played by the book. But now, for the first time in my life, the right thing is the wrong move. I know it in my heart, but it’s my brain having a hard time letting go.
Finally, I slam my fists onto the table, causing a quiet family sitting three chairs down to turn their heads. Still I don’t say anything. I’m just boiling inside, the two factions warring with one another to win control of my decision. Then Ashley says the words that turn the tide:
“Do you know what April said to me last night when you were out doing your rounds? She asked if it was OK that she was falling in love with my brother. Like I had to approve of it or something.” Here she laughs. A soft, sad sound. “I asked her if she meant you, because I thought it was more likely that I had some secret brother I didn’t know about than her falling for you.” Ashley shakes her head again, this time in disbelief. “But she said it was you. That it was always you.”
Now I stand, my legs as sure as thousand-year-old oaks in a gale. I remember the kiss we shared. All the times we exchanged little glances back years ago. Fragments of connections that, at the time, I never dared act on. Now is different. Now I have everything to lose. I won’t let April slip through my fingers.
“Let’s get our April back.”
Chapter 11
April
It is startling how quickly I fall back into old habits that I thought were long behind me. I haven’t lived with my parents since my sixteenth birthday. And even though this isn’t where I grew up, I am straight back in my childhood, cowering as I always did.
I don’t fall asleep until dawn, but it isn’t from a lack of trying. Not only is there no bed or pillows or anything really to cushion my body against the hardwood floor, but I have a bigger problem as the night wears on: all the painkillers that the hospital has been pumping me full of since I woke up are wearing off. Without their protective blanket over my nerves, my pain comes roaring back, reminding me that a two-ton moving hunk of metal recently threw me thirty feet through the air.
“Kathy,” I try early in the morning, my pathetic voice barely able to rouse my own ears. I’ve crawled over to the door, and my mouth is right at the slit of space between the bottom of the door and the floor. “Kathy,” I try again, but nothing stirs on the other side. My parents were up late with their roommates, or whoever those men are, drinking and arguing. Their cigarette smoke had seeped into my room, causing me to cough several times throughout the early morning hours. There was other smoke too, some drug I didn’t recognize. I tried not to breathe in any of those fumes, instead burying my nose in my shirt when that smell wafted in.
If no one out there is going to help me, I decide to try and stand. I need water at least, and no matter how coated with filth the bathroom sink might be, it’s not going to stop me like it did last night. As soon as I get up on my good leg, I know there is no way I can even so much as hobble on my broken one. As soon as I put any weight down on it, a white-hot jolt of pain shrieks through my body. Even hopping on my one leg sends bolts of pain through my nervous system.
Finally in the bathroom, I lean against the counter, cup my hands together, and take about a hundred gulps of the tepid water dripping from the faucet. Looking back in the mirror is what could pass as a drawing of me by a student in their first art class. My face is lopsided. On the right side, a three-by-three-inch square of hair has been shaved away, and black stitches stick up above the sprouts of new hair. My left cheek is still covered by the large swath of gauze. In all this time I haven’t looked underneath it, though nurses changed it daily back in the hospital. Finn kept saying it was nothing to worry about, but now curiosity has got the best of me.
I peel it off, surprised at how sticky the blood still is underneath. That when I find a scar much deeper and jagged than the one on my head that would soon be covered by hair. This scar runs from the corner of my lip right up to the bottom of my eye. In fact, it looks like I was fractions of an inch from losing that eye. As it is now, the scar pulls at my skin in an odd way, making my left eyelid droop slightly.
I’m absolutely hideous.
The wound probably needs to breathe, I reason, and it definitely won’t do it any good to put the bandage back over it, but I’m not ready for anyone to see me like this. Not even my parents who couldn’t care less about my life.
After drinking my fill and seeing the total bill of damage to my face, I fall back on the closed toilet and cry. My face buried in my hands, succumbing completely to pity and depression. If I ever thought there was a chance for a future with Finn, it’s long gone now. Even if I do eventually get out from under my parents’ grip, no one would want someone as disfigured as I am. Finn’s my doctor and old friend. He was just being nice, but as soon as I’m out from under his care, he’ll stop caring again. Even when I practically lived at his house each summer, we never had much of a relationship. I’ll slip into forgotten names and faces once more, just a pale blip in Finn’s memory.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I’m just so stupid for even imagining that he might come to my rescue. He’s a doctor, not some kind of hero. He probably thinks I’m resting up in a fluffy bed, being well cared for by parents that couldn’t even keep a pet dog alive for more than six months, much less their own child.
I’m only stirred from my tears when a knock explodes on the door. After crawling across the floor, I meet a manila envelope that’s slid under the door. “Sign all the places highlighted in blue,” says Matt’s voice. “You do that and we’ll see about getting you something to eat. Deal?” His voice is harsh, all clipped syllables floating on angry undertones. He kicks the door when I don’t answer right away. “Did you hear me, girl? Or are you dead already?”
“I heard you,” I say before quickly adding, “sir.”
Just like I’m a kid again, doing anything I can to avoid his belt.
“Good.”
“I need a pen though,” I reply feebly when I realize he’s forgotten this key detail.
“Dammit,” he says, calling across the room. “You got a pen, Kathy?” Something hits the door and I realize she’s thrown it at him. With a shuffling kick, the pen shoots under the door, connecting with my hand, stabbing at my finger right under the fingernail. I bite back a scream. “There,” Matt says. “Now get to it.”
Propped up in the corner of the room, my legs spread out at ninety-degree angles, I read through the papers they obviously received from their crooked attorney. Among learning that they are basically expecting me to sign away all of the insurance money due to me after the accident, I also see the name of the driver for the first time: Fred Astley. Although I know from the police report that it was his fault for driving the wrong way down a one-way road, I can’t help but think that he is just as traumatized as I am from the accident. He didn’t wake up intending to hit me and kill my (admittedly awful) date.
Although I’ve been hearing inklings of a payout over the past week, this is the first time I see the numbers in print. There are several more zeros than I expected, which explains the reason my parents have appeared from the shadows of my past. How they heard about this is a mystery, but I can only assume that the insurance company mistakenly contacted them over something or another concerning my case.
The tip of my pen shakes as I hold it over the papers. Then, without signing even the first letter of my name, I place it on the floor, and make a decision that I will no doubt soon regret.
“Hey, Kathy? Matt?” I call. Light scuffling noises scrape across the floor on the other side.
“What is it?”
Mustering up false bravado, I roll the pen back under the door and say in what I hope isn’t too shaky of a voice, “I’m not signing shit until you give me a phone call.”
Chapter 12
Finn
“Thanks again, and sorry for waking you.” The door shuts on my fake smile. Ashley yawns beside me, drawing out the action and not even bothering to hide her mouth behind her hand.
“That’s the last lead we had,” she says.
We’ve been up all night. Visited April’s old house and what was registered on her parents’ medical records as their current abode, but both came up empty. When it got too late, we retreated to a 24/7 diner, where we drank burnt coffee and ate far too many greasy pancakes, searching the Internet for more clues. That led us here, to a dank part of town that neither of us had ever visited until now. At least this guy knew who we were talking about. Despite his face tattoos and one gold tooth, he was friendly enough once he realized we weren’t police. And once I greased his palm with a few twenties.
“So he doesn’t know where they live now, but he said that they still buy from him every now and then, though he gets the feeling he’s not their main supplier anymore. Not that any of that helps us.”
“So where do we go from here?” she asks as we settle back into my old Nissan.
My first thought is ‘bed’. As a final-year resident, I’m always overworked and in desperate need of sleep, but after an all-nighter and the prospect of a double shift starting tonight, I need sleep more than I need oxygen at this point. Instead, I simply let out a sigh. Because even if I got in bed right now, all I would be able to do is think of April.
When my phone rings, I ignore it on instinct. No doubt it’s someone from the hospital wanting me to come in early, but when I finally glance at the screen, I see that the call is from an unidentified number. Probably some spam call, but I pick it up, hoping I’m wrong.
A Sweet, Sexy Collection 1: 5 Insta-love, New Adult, Steamy Romance Novellas (Sweet, Sexy Shorts) Page 10
