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“No,” I mutter.This can’t be happening.“No. No, no, no! Get it out of me!” My voice rises to a near hysterical pitch as I tear at the tube, trying to rip it from my arm. What have they been putting inside of me?
“Ms. Alvarez, it’s okay. Please calm down—you’re safe here!” The woman, presumably a nurse, leaps into action, wrestling me to try and keep me from yanking out the IV. She’s too slow, and a burst of blood accompanies the sharp pain that spikes up my arm. I have no time to think about that right now though. I have to get out of here.
“Ms. Alvarez!” The woman makes another grab at me, but I tumble away and off the bed. “Oh, hell.” She gives up on trying to calm me, instead reaching over to hit a small yellow button on the wall.
I hear an intercom come on somewhere outside the room and realize she’s called security. She’s standing between me and the door, but there’s another smaller door off to my right, which I dart toward. A bathroom. It’s better than nothing, though I realize when I slam the door closed that there isn’t a lock. I’m shaking, bleeding, and from the feel of things completely naked under the gown I woke up in. My head is pounding, and all I know is that I can’t let myself be given to thisLeo, whoever he is.
My legs collapse underneath me as I back into the shower portion of the tiny room. All I can do is wrap my arms around my legs and pray.
“Espy!”
That voice.I know that voice!
“Espy?!”
It’s my brother, Em. He sounds almost as panicked as I feel.
“Em?” I call back tentatively, my voice hoarse. “Emilio?”
“Gracias a Dios. Estas despierta.”
The bathroom door opens, and everything after that is a blur of arms. I haven’t seen my brother in over two years, and now here he is holding me in a death grip on the floor of a hospital bathroom as I sob into his chest. Something about his familiar smell of freshly turned dirt has my walls crumbling down. My tears and snot soak into his shirt, and I know firsthand these tiles are majorly uncomfortable. Still, he continues to hold me, stroking my hair and murmuring to me in Spanish.
At one point I feel him lift my body and set me down on what must be the hospital bed. Em stays wrapped around me, and I trust him to keep me safe as I let all my pent-up fear, rage, and desperation pour out. Eventually I must dehydrate myself as my tears taper off with a hiccup.
“How did you find me?” I finally croak.
“Find you?” Em asks, sounding confused.
I push gently against his chest so I can see his face. His handsome features look tired in the harsh fluorescent light. I’m betting I look worse.
“The alpha, he kidnapped me, and-and he said that some other guy sent him for me—some guy named Leo ...” I cut myself off with a shudder.
“Oh,pequeña, no,” Em groans, and I see his face contort into a look of horror. Mixed with guilt? “That was Lincoln, my packmate.”
“Packmate?”
“I started going by Leo when I started school here. Gods, Espy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think about that. We were so focused on just getting you out.”
My emotions are too raw, my headache too pounding, to make sense of the rest of his explanation. I make out enough of the apologies and self-recriminations to know Em is taking on a lot of responsibility for leaving me there, but I just can’t process that right now.
The nurse from earlier returns with a doctor in tow, and this is when I learn that I’m in the medical facility at the River Valley military base. They explain I was too agitated when my brother’s packmate found me, and he made the choice to sedate me to avoid me further injuring myself. Apparently, I was out for about twelve hours, and while I was transported back to the base my father was arrested.
It’s all too much to take in right now. I’m relieved when the doctor finally takes pity on me, reinserting my IV and administering some pain meds to help me sleep. Em promises to be here when I wake, so I give up and let the drag of exhaustion pull me under.
* * *
The next twodays are long. And frustrating. The doctor insists on keeping me at the clinic, wanting to keep an eye on me and correct some of the effects of malnutrition I’m suffering from. In addition to the various cuts and bruises, I’m underweight and have vitamin and mineral deficiencies. And, most troubling, emotional deficiencies.
Okay, so the doctor didn’t actually say I was emotionally deficient, but she was concerned enough about my mental state that she called in a psychiatric specialist to evaluate me.
I’ll admit I’m feeling ... off. Fragile? Unstable? Anxious? My new therapist, Dr. Morgan, calls it a “trauma response.”
All I know is I’m not coping super well.
It’s been hard to stay asleep, and when I’m awake I find my mind wandering. It’s hard to focus on what people are saying or asking me, and sometimes my thoughts feel jumbled and I freeze up when I try to speak. I have what Dr. Morgan calls an “elevated startle response.” I call it stranger danger.
All the new people coming in and out of my room have my nerves frayed. There’s the medical staff, Dr. Morgan, law enforcement officials from several agencies who all want me to give statements and describe everything that’s happened to me in the past few years. A few representatives from the Department of Omega Rights, state and federal, and even the undergraduate dean from Em’s university have stopped by. Apparently, the military base is jointly located with the school campus, and the administration wanted to check in with their student and his “family emergency”.
