Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

That was the kind of softness I saw on J.J.’s face at breakfast. All he saw was his baby sister.

I’m not even sure he knew I was there.

After an hour, Lea came down.

“I got her into bed. I don’t know. I wish the hospital wasn’t so packed. I’d run her down there just to have them check her out.”

Off the concern on my face, she rushed to add, “I think she’s going to be fine. If we can get her hydrated, she’ll be fine. She needs rest.”

“Is it okay for us to stay here? We don’t really have any place to go—”

“Oh, you’re staying here. No question.” She looked at her watch. “The only thing is that I left my husband at home. He’s gonna need his bandages changed soon.”

J.J. was playing “kitchen” with Rinée. This was obviously her favorite game. But J.J. had a way of eating and drinking from the tiny plates and cups that made Rinée burst into peals of laughter.

It was good to hear laughter.

Lea smiled, too, listening to it. Then I could see grief or fear starting to gather in her eyes.

“I just keep praying Jamie’s gonna make it back here. I hope he’s okay. I love my brother so much.”

“I know how it feels,” I told her. “I really do.”

I put my hand on her shoulder.

“And I should tell you,” I said. “About what happened to Lizzie.”

“I need to go get my husband,” Lea said. And I realized she didn’t really want to know. “I think I’ll bring him here and we can all stay here. You two can just stay in the master bedroom. There’s a pullout couch in the study upstairs. We’ll be comfortable there. That way, we can all help each other and the kids will feel more comfortable in their own house, anyway.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Keep an eye on the kids while I’m gone?” she asked me.

“You got it,” I said.

“And, later. After dinner, maybe, I’d like to hear your story.”

There was a sadness in the lines around her brown eyes that made my chest ache.

Well, Astrid looked pretty much the same, to me, which is to say—horrible. But she was sleeping deeply, and I knew that was good.

I saw the spoon and the Gatorade on the table next to the bed.

Lea had told me to let Astrid sleep for an hour and then to sit with her and do the three-minute thing again.

So in the meantime, I decided to wash off the front walkway and the grass.

At first, the kids tried to come outside with me. I hesitated—what if J.J. asked me what I was doing? Would he know the dank, brown spill over the cement path was blood?

But I let them go out. They seemed to be enjoying each other so much.

I put on my suit, wanting the advance-warning whistle in case the winds changed.

The hose had a sprayer, which was pretty powerful. It took a lot of the blood away, and it was easy to get the grass clean, but in the end, I had to go inside and get a bucket and some Pine-Sol.

That stain on the walkway was deeply set.

I popped in to check on Astrid. She was awake.

“How are you feeling?” I asked her.

She made the so-so sign with her hand.

“My head is killing me,” she said in a soft voice. “Do you think there’s Advil?”

I found some in the bathroom.

“Can you take it with some Gatorade?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Lea says I should feed you a teaspoon every three minutes,” I said. “But the kids are outside…”

“I’ll do it,” Astrid said.

“You sure?”

“I just got a little dehydrated, Dean. I’m fine,” she said.

Well, her cheeks were sunken, her hair was plastered to her scalp, and her skin looked greenishly waxy. She did not look fine.

But that didn’t seem like a good thing to say to my girlfriend.

Lea came back with her husband, David, just after lunch (frozen meat-lovers pizzas and sweet potato fries for me and the kids—dry toast and tea with honey on a tray for Astrid). David was a huge, barrel-chested black man with one of his arms in a sling. It was heavily bandaged at the end—where his hand had once been.

He seemed pretty out of it, grinning at us and walking in a funny way, like he was constantly stepping over a low door threshold.

“He’s on Percocet,” Lea explained.

“Come on, Davy,” she said loudly. “Just up the walkway and you get to sleep again.”

“Oh-kay, baby,” he answered and tried to give her a kiss.

“No, no.” Lea laughed. “Into the house you go.”

She got him in and I guess she went to check on Astrid, because a few minutes later, she called me, her voice loud with concern: “Dean! Get up here!”

I smelled the vomit as I entered the room.

“Baby, she needs to go to a hospital,” Lea told me.

Astrid was hanging over the edge of the bed. She had puked on the floor.

“No,” Astrid moaned.

“She needs an IV. The Gatorade just isn’t cutting it.” Lea helped her sit up.

“No!” Astrid repeated.

“It’s not a big deal. Dean’s gonna take you in. They’ll give you an IV. After they get you hydrated, Dean’s gonna bring you back here. No problem.”

Lea took me by the arm and led me out into the hall.

“Here’s the thing—the hospitals in Vinita are full up. We waited there with David for eight hours yesterday and he had a hand hanging off him! They won’t see her, just for dehydration. I think you should go on up to Joplin.”

“Okay,” I said, wired with panic. “Okay.”

“See, I think she might have preeclampsia. It can be serious, okay? Lizzie had it with J.J. Just take Mr. Waggoner’s car and go.”

“Who’s he?”

“The man whose car you were driving before. Jamie’s neighbor.”

“Oh. Okay.”

The stupid, logical part of my brain was clicking away, making connections as if I wasn’t in the middle of a crisis, put it together: It wasn’t Lizzie’s car we’d been in. That’s why there’d been no car seat for Rinée.

Lizzie had been stealing her neighbor’s car. The one who killed her.

Before he killed himself.

I wake to feel tape being removed from my left hand.

I open my eyes and here is the nurse again.

“Well, hello there!” she tells me. “You had quite a rest. Been asleep for a twelve hours, maybe more.”

It takes me awhile to remember where I am and why I can’t move my limbs.

The nurse holds up the water cup with the straw to my mouth.

I drink, grateful.

“I think somebody bit you on the hand, that’s what I think. I think this is a nasty old bite wound,” she says as she finishes changing the dressing.

I remember that she’s right.

Aidan, little Aidan bit my hand.

Dear God, what happened to my kids?

“I am Sandy,” she says. “And you are Josie Miller, according to this sorry excuse of a file. You were at the containment camps at Mizzou. Is that right?”

I nod.

“How do you feel?”

Niko came for me and watched me be attacked and then sedated and taken away. My kids were left to fend for themselves in a horrific blood rage riot. And now I’m being held prisoner in a government medical facility.

My wrists and ankles are chafed from the restraints. I can feel, now, that they’ve got a catheter stuck in me and it’s uncomfortable. My head is pounding. My throat is sore. My hand itches and my heart is broken.