by Susanne Beck
He covered my hand with his own gloved one, making no attempt to pull away. His dark eyes were compassionate as they looked into mine. "We have to wait until the paramedics get in here, Ma’am. We don’t want to move her yet."
"Why not? She could be dying for all you know!"
"That beam that fell across her back was very heavy, Ma’am. There’s a good chance it may have damaged her spine. If we move her now, we could make things worse. Just wait a few more minutes. The paramedics should be here by now, alright?"
Releasing my grip on his heavy jacket, I reached down and eased the towel from around Ice’s soot-blackened face, then brushed sweat-soaked bangs back from her high forehead with shaking fingers. As if my gentle touch was some sort of magic elixir, her eyes blinked open, a moan coming softly from her cracked lips. "Angel?" she croaked, her voice raw.
Yet another sob came up from my throat and I covered my mouth with my free hand. "Ice?"
"Angel?"
"Ice! Thank God! You’re awake!"
She blinked her stinging eyes rapidly, then winced as she tried to move. "Is that what this is."
I put a restraining hand down on her shoulder. "Don’t try to move, Ice. Part of the ceiling collapsed on your back. You could be really hurt."
The firefighter added his hands to mine. "Best to do as she says, Ma’am. The paramedics are on their way."
Getting her strength from I don’t know where, Ice managed to shrug us both off as she rolled from atop the pile of bodies she had tried to protect. "I’m fine," she said hoarsely. "See if you can help these two."
"Ice . . . ."
"I’m alright, Angel." Overcome by a sudden spasm of coughing, her body convulsed, drawing in against itself as she heaved and gasped for breath. I saw, with great relief, that her arms and legs appeared to be moving freely, though I guessed the pain of her injuries was intense.
As I stepped over to help her, the paramedics rushed in with their equipment and stretchers, quickly working over the bodies of Critter and the other woman. To my surprise, and happiness, both women were alive, though still unconscious. Critter’s golden curls were caked with sweat, soot and water, but I could see her chest rise and fall in a regular, though shallow, rhythm that caused the first smile to break over my face since the fire started.
The other woman was older, more frail. I knew she worked in the laundry room, but didn’t know her except to wave to in the hallways. She had some nasty burns on her face and arms and her leg was cocked at an impossible angle at the knee where it had been trapped beneath the heavy beam that had fallen across Ice’s broad back.
As the two women were being cared for and made ready for transport, a third paramedic joined me at Ice’s side, slipping an oxygen mask over her face. Her paroxysms of choking immediately eased with the fresh flow of air into her breathing passages.
After the paramedic was sure she was breathing freely, he grabbed her right arm and swabbed it with a pungent alcohol wipe, while his other hand held an IV cannula, intent on piercing her skin with it. Seeing what he was about to do, Ice ripped the mask from her face and pushed him away, snatching her arm easily from his grip. "No."
Throwing down his contaminated equipment, the man grabbed another packet from his kit while simultaneously making another grab for his uncooperative patient’s arm. "Look lady," he sighed, exasperated when Ice wouldn’t willingly hand over her flesh to be pierced. "I need to start an IV so we can get you to the hospital, alright?"
"No hospital. Just take care of those two and the others. I’m fine." Her calm assurances were belied by another fit of coughing which passed through her body.
I grabbed the oxygen mask, but her hand lashed out and batted it away. "No hospital," she repeated in a raspy, wheezing voice. "I’ll . . .go to the infirmary . . .but . . .no hospital. I mean it."
The paramedic looked helplessly back at his superior, who in turned looked over at Sandra, who’d moved in to join us just as Ice awoke. Sandra and Ice locked gazes, heating up the air between them with the intensity of their stares. A free woman had a choice to refuse treatment. A prisoner had none.
"I’m alright, Sandra," Ice rasped out in a tone that brokered no argument.
I could see the indecision in the head guard’s eyes. When Ice was completely set in stone over something, she was a person you most definitely didn’t want to cross paths with. Yet Sandra was a very strong, and headstrong, woman in her own right.
After a moment she nodded slightly, blinking to break eye contact with Ice. She turned to the waiting supervisor. "She’ll go to the infirmary with me. Our doctor’s coming in from home. If she even blinks the wrong way once she’s there, I’ll take her over to the hospital personally. Fair enough?"
"It’s highly irregular, Mrs. Pierce," the paramedic supervisor stated doubtfully. "Sickness from smoke inhalation can show up hours after the event. There’s a good chance someone could die before you could even get them to the hospital. I highly recommend against this course of action, Ma’am."
Sandra looked back at Ice, who shook her head once in a savage gesture. Though I wanted to convince Ice to go to the hospital, I knew that not even my persuasive skills could sway her decision. Instead, I kept quiet, watching the silent interplay between the parties. After another long moment, Sandra seemed to deflate, her shoulders uncharacteristically sagging. "I’ll take full responsibility for the prisoner," she finally said. "Our infirmary is fully stocked and should be enough to see to her needs for now."
The supervisor looked as if he was going to argue the matter further, then simply sighed. "You’ll need to sign this AMA form then, Mrs. Pierce. I’m going on record as stating that this is against my better judgement and that this woman’s life may well be at stake."
"I’m aware of that, and I’ll sign anything you like. Let’s just get this over with so that the other women can be treated."
Rifling through his papers, the supervisor eventually came up with the correct one for the situation and handed it to Sandra on a clipboard. Grabbing the proffered pen, the guard scrawled her signature and handed pen and clipboard back to the waiting paramedic, nodding curtly.
Reading over the signature carefully, the man stuffed everything back into his kit, then gestured to the others to gather their things for the ride back to the hospital with their injured charges. I stood quickly and gently kissed Critter’s soot-streaked forehead, silently wishing her a speedy return to health as she was wheeled from the carnage.
When I turned back, Sandra was gently helping Ice to her feet. My lover winced and gritted her teeth against the pain of her injuries. Though the bottoms of her uniform had been burned away, her legs didn’t seem to be badly burned and for that I was grateful.
When she was fully upright, Ice tried to shake off Sandra’s assistance, but the large woman would have none of that and eased one of Ice’s long arms around her shoulders, slipping one of her own arms around my friend’s narrow waist. Then she leveled a no-nonsense glare at me. "You too, Angel. And before you try that oh-so-innocent act with me, I can see your hands from here. You’re just lucky I didn’t sic the paramedics on ya."
Quickly, before Ice could see, I hid my burned hands behind my back and adopted my best contrite expression. "Yes, Ma’am," I said, trying hard not to smile. Truth be known, so much adrenaline was pumping through my body that I couldn’t even feel my hands, let alone know if they hurt or not. I was sure that would come later and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
* * *
That night in the infirmary was the first we had ever spent together. Unfortunately, we couldn’t do much, not even talk. My hands were liberally slathered with burn ointment and heavily bandaged, while Ice was stuck lying flat on her stomach, her burned back likewise bandaged and an oxygen mask secure over her face. And believe me when I tell you that seeing the graceful curve of Ice’s backside as it rose from the pristine sheets of the hospital bed made for one very frustrated Angel.
We’d both been stripped, s
crubbed and tended to by the very kind, if a bit elderly and doddering, penitentiary physician, Dr. Soames and his trio of efficient nurses. He tsked and muttered and harrumphed his way through the examination, but despite his gruff mannerisms, his hands were very gentle and soothing to my burned palms and skittish spirit.
After he was finished treating the both of us, he had his nurses administer some pain-killing injections, then dim the lights and lock us in for the night. One of the nurses would keep an eye on us through the reinforced glass window of the adjacent office.
Alone at last, I turned my head to the side to see Ice looking at me, the mask obscuring her features. Her eyes, though, were filled with a curious combination of amusement and adoration as they almost twinkled in the muted lighting. My heart again filled to overflowing with the love I had for this sometimes violent, sometimes gentle, but always heroic woman who chose to share her own love with me.
Reaching out a bandaged hand through the rails of my stretcher, I beckoned contact with my eyes alone. Her face crinkled beneath the mask as one long arm snaked out from under the sheet, touching my wrist above the bandages lightly, her fingers warm and gentle on my sensitive skin. My body relaxed immediately.
So linked by the gentlest of touches, we continued to stare into one another’s eyes until the stress of the day and the painkillers caught up to us and we both fell into a well-earned sleep.
* * *
Several weeks later, I found myself sitting with Ice in one of the stuffing-impaired vinyl chairs that populated the visitor’s room at the Bog. My bandages had finally come off the day before and the newly healing skin was driving me mad with its incessant itching.
Ice seemed to be fully healed, of course. Though, to be truthful, she could still be in agony and neither I nor anyone else would ever know it by her demeanor. The Queen of Stoicism . . .that was Ice.
Still, though my hands were driving me to absolute distraction, I counted myself truly blessed. I had survived the fire with minor injuries and a new haircut while seven other women had lost their lives to its consuming flames. Two more were critically burned and two others, of which Critter was one, were still in the hospital suffering the after-effects of smoke inhalation. To everyone’s great relief, though, all the women were well on their way to full recoveries. Critter was due back in prison by the end of the week, which made us all happy, particularly her Amazon friends.
If not for Ice, things would have been a great deal worse. She was touted as a hero throughout the prison by guard and inmate alike. Brushing it off in her typical style, she told us all to thank the firefighters and those of us who tried to put out the fire with buckets, towels and bare hands (the last was always directed at me, of course). We, she said, were the true heroes.
So now I was sitting in the sparsely decorated visiting room for the first time ever, nervously tapping my fingers on the mounds of paper sitting on my lap and waiting for a lawyer who just happened to be my lover’s ex lover. I didn’t know whether to laugh or throw up.
The rattling of the key in the lock startled me out of my reverie and I sat up straighter, wanting very badly to make a good first impression on this woman, for a variety of reasons. The door squealed open on rusty hinges, and I was glad for the noise as it covered the sound of my jawbone rattling to the floor.
Donita Bonnsuer was, to be perfectly honest, absolutely, positively, drop-dead gorgeous. As Ice rose gracefully to greet her friend, I studied the woman with frank appraisal. She was tall and slender with flawless mocha skin, beautifully rounded cheekbones, full, soft lips and sparkling chocolate eyes. She was dressed in a devastatingly impeccable business suit, the bright red setting off her dark skin and jet hair perfectly. Her smile when she greeted Ice seemed to swallow up her entire face and displayed gleaming, perfect, white teeth.
My sense of insecurity, so long dormant, waltzed right up to my guts and shouted "howdy!" as it tap danced on my stomach and decided to stay awhile. I looked at them both, greeting one another like good friends too long out of touch, and thought that they could be on the cover of some magazine featuring the world’s most beautiful couples.
When Ice turned to me, though, the look in her eyes shriveled my insecurity like a slug under salt, and I felt a smile break out over my face that grew even broader when she responded with a rare one of her own.
After placing my paper mountain on the chair beside me, I stood, carefully wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on my uniform. Donita approached and clasped my hand warmly, smiling at me. "It’s a pleasure to meet you, Angel," she said in a low, smooth, and cultured voice. "I’m Donita, as you’ve probably guessed already, and Ice has talked to me about your case. I’d like to know more, if that would be alright with you?"
"Um . . . .yeah! Sure! That’d be great!" Insecurity might have shriveled, but foot-in-mouth disease seemed to be making a comeback.
If she thought me odd, she didn’t show it, but rather grasped her briefcase and led the way to a battered table set up, more or less, in the center of the rectangular room. Grabbing a chair, she hunkered right down, beckoning for the pile of papers I held in my hands. I slid them across the table to her, then sat down myself, crossing my hands in front of me like a good little schoolgirl as I looked on curiously.
Ice squeezed my shoulder in passing and I looked up, panic-stricken, as she made her way to the door. "Where . . .where are you going?"
"Back to work," she replied, smiling slightly. "You two can get along just fine without me."
"But . . . ."
She held up a hand. "Relax, will ya? You’ll be fine. Just answer her questions and take it from there." She smirked, looking over at Donita. "She doesn’t bite, ya know."
The lawyer grinned. "Not hard, anyway."
I gulped. Ice tipped us both a wink, then waved and left the room. Donita give me a grin full of shining teeth.
* * *
Two hours later, the session was wrapping up. My jaw ached from hanging in awe as I watched her work. She was, simply put, amazing. She whipped through the thick transcript as if it were child’s play and took the time to explain everything to me, never once making me feel ignorant or foolish with my questions. She was a true master of her craft and I was honored to be in her presence.
Calling an end to the session, Donita snapped her briefcase closed, then set it on the floor next to her own copy of the transcript which she would take with her. She stretched her long arms, then straightened the cuffs of her blouse and suit jacket, a pleased smile on her face. "I think you have an appealable case here, Angel. Mind you, I can’t be sure until I’ve subpoenaed that hack you had for a lawyer, but I definitely think we’ve got some good stuff to work with."
"Subpoenaed?" I repeated blankly.
"Yeah. I need to get a hold of his worksheets, what witnesses, if any, he talked to, questions he asked, stuff like that. That way, we can see exactly where our starting point is."
"Starting point? But . . . ."
Her eyebrow rose, reminding me strongly of Ice. "Yes?"
"I, um . . . ." I sighed. "I thought that I was only talking to you for advice."
She grinned broadly. "Exactly. And you got some. We can win this case."
"We?"
"Is there an echo in here? Of course, we. Unless you’ve passed the bar in the last week or so and Ice neglected to mention it to me."
"No, it’s not that." I sighed again, the need to explain warring heavily with my sense of pride. "You see, I don’t . . .well, the fact is, I’m positive I can’t afford what you’re worth. I’ll be happy to give you what money I have, but I’m afraid it isn’t very much. And my parents . . .well . . .we’re not on speaking terms anymore."
Donita’s smile broadened. "Not to worry, Angel. As you might have guessed, I do pretty well for myself with my caseload. But I also do several appeals a year on a pro bono basis. Yours will be one of them."
"I . . .can’t let you do that."
"Sure you can. All you have to do is say ‘Don
ita, I’d be happy for you to take my case.’"
I looked at her, dumbfounded.
"Say it."
My dumbfounded look turned to a narrow-eyed stare as I contemplated refusing like a child who has been told to apologize. But the warmth in her eyes and the smile on her face stopped my petulance unspoken. "Donita, I’d be very happy if you’d consider taking my case," I replied, an eyebrow lifted in small triumph.
Grinning, she stood and sketched a mock bow in my direction. "I’d be honored, Angel."
Grabbing her briefcase and balancing the thick pile of papers precariously with the same hand, she reached out and shook my hand to seal the deal. "Remember that the wheels of justice turn slowly. There’s a lot of work to be done before I can even think of bringing this up before a judge. Just sit tight and I’ll be in contact as often as I can, alright?"
I smiled and nodded happily, excited over the chance for an eventual release for the first time since I’d entered the Bog three years ago. "Thank you so much," I gushed.
She beamed. "My pleasure, Angel. And tell Ice thanks for me, alright? This is gonna be fun." With a final wave and a beguiling, blinding grin, she knocked on the door and was soon gone from my sight.
PART 12
THE NEXT SEVERAL months went by quickly for me. The continued positive news from the appeal front kept my mood up even if it did seem, at times, that the wheels of justice Donita had spoken of were mired in quicksand and sinking fast.
One early summer morning, I sat in the cool dimness of the library, excitedly turning a gaily wrapped package over in my hands while pointedly ignoring the demanding over-the-glasses look I was getting from Corinne. I had been waiting for this particular package for almost two months, almost fainting in excitement when I’d heard from a friend that it suddenly became available at an estate auction. My excitement doubled when I found out that it was, amazingly, within my budget.
