Page 10 of Axton
“If we can’t help them, we can refer them to other organizations. We don’t take victims with extensive criminal histories. We also cannot harbor illegal immigrants, but there are other organizations that fly under the radar that might be able to help.”
We stepped off the elevator and an uneasy feeling came over me. I halted my steps and took a look around. I didn’t see anything that should have had my hairs standing on end. It was a feeling of danger or some kind of warning, but I wasn’t quite sure whatI was feeling. I didn’t feel the need to defend myself or turn away and leave.
“Mr. Axton, are you okay?” Ms. Jones asked.
“Yeah, it’s fine. Let’s take a look at this girl.” I tried to put the feeling aside, but as we walked further down the hall of doors, the feeling grew stronger. It wasn’t a gut instinct to turn around and leave, but one that drew me toward a particular door. Strangely, I knew what room we were going to stop in front of before Ms. Jones stopped walking.
“I’ll step inside with you. She’s asleep, and she is being monitored, but if she were awake her small head injury would cause her a great deal of pain. The doctors battled between medicating her to save her from the pain, or allowing her to feel it to get more information about a possible crash site where they could find more injured people. They decided, judging by the dried blood on her skin, she must have traveled a bit of a distance, and it wasn’t guaranteed there was a site within our jurisdiction. The authorities have contacted surrounding counties to do a search of their own and our doctors put our patient’s wellbeing ahead of other possibilities that might not exist.”
“How long will she be out?” I asked, while fighting my urge to step inside that room. That was strange for me. I had an aversion to hospital rooms. One reason was the fact that my life support was almost turned off and I almost died as a child, and then there was the hospital in Germany when I went to help Creed, and finally my last visit to a hospital was when a prospect died from injuries from a motorcycle crash. He was drunk and took the life of a young woman that just graduated college.
“It’s hard to say. She has some swelling and a small brain bleed. They will monitor that and her healing to make decisions as time goes by. Are you ready to take a look and see if you know her?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
We stepped inside, and the curtain was partially pulled so I could only see feet under a blanket at first. My heart began racing, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I got goosebumps the further I stepped into the room. I saw legs under a thick white sheet, then delicate hands, a small but tall frame and eventually beautiful copper toned hair. Then I saw her face and took a sharp breath.
“By your reaction, I presume you know her?” Ms. Jones asked.
I looked at that face and my entire body froze. I didn’t know her, but holy shit, she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. She laid peaceful, like an angel, but one with a broken wing. A strange and powerful feeling of protectiveness came over me. I couldn’t speak, only fight to draw in a deep breath to assure my heart was still pounding. There she was, with tubes and wires everywhere, yet her skin seemed to glow and everything about her seemed so delicate.
“Mr. Axton?” Ms. Jones tried to catch my attention, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the young woman.
“You’re right, she’s a very striking young lady.” I gulped.
“But does she look familiar to you?” She asked.
I went to shake my head but stopped myself. I knew exactly where I needed to be, and that was in that room looking over that girl. “Maybe, she does seem a bit familiar.” I lied.
“Well take a minute and think about it.” She encouraged.
I tried to shake myself out of whatever was happening to me. “I will need to make some calls. I think maybe I know how we can identify her, but it may take a little time. Do you mind if I stay with her?” I thought for sure she would bring up security and safety concerns, but she shrugged.
“Sure, I’ll just step out to the nurses station. Let me know if you need anything.” She walked away, and my first thought was that I needed to get the girl moved. What if I was the person that she ran away from? Did they have any security in that hospital? No protocols to ensure the safety of their patients? Nobody even checked my ID. I knew right then, I couldn’t leave the girl until I knew she was safe. I had my laptop, so I made it into a chair and started it up as I called Creed on my business phone. My personal phone was still quiet, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. It wasn’t like my mom or sister would call unless there was an emergency.
“What’s up?” Creed asked.
“I am with the girl and of course I have no idea who she is, but there are a few clues. I’m about to look through the files you downloaded for me, but I have a question. Who do you know, or who did you try to recruit that might have been involved in any way with religious cults here out west? Former military that might have been involved with helping people escape cults?”
“Hmm, that does sound familiar. Let me dig into these files along with you. What makes you think she is a cult escapee?”
“She was wearing the type of clothing I remember when Warren Jeffs was in the news. Oversized eighties style dress with puffy sleeves, large bow in her long hair, and she was wearing a cross necklace. She was carrying a few grand in an envelope and that’s all she had on her.”
He paused. “Arizona. There’s an influx of sex trafficking in that area. Is she of Latino descent?”
“No, she’s about as Caucasian as they come, but that doesn’t mean much. She has fair skin and copper brown hair. Obviously, I haven’t looked at her eye color but I’m hoping her doctor will stop by. I’d like to know if she has any distinguishing marks without being kicked out of this place for examining her myself.”
I scrolled through some of our past recruits. They were all ones that turned down our offers, choosing their families over their careers.
“It sounds so damn familiar. For some reason, I’m thinking of a woman, not a man, and she turned us down to keep a low profile in that area to work on her own cases independently. I think I remember her saying she was raised in a cult and her best escape was to join the armed forces. I just can’t remember her name, it was a few years ago.” He was hopefully on to something. “I’ll filter to only show possible recruits in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Utah and California.”
I did the same. One file after another only showed women that wouldn’t fit the criteria. “Maybe expand to include men?” I asked.
“Nope, bingo, I’ve got her. Open the file of Anna Marie Allred.” He instructed.
“Allred, that sounds familiar.”
“Look up that last name.” He said.
