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What?
I heard Taz clear his throat. “I’ll just step outside to give Lindsey some privacy.” He departed quickly from the room.
The nurse shook her head.
“He’s been here daily and observed me doing this. He has plans to give you your post-release care. I don’t understand why all of a sudden he turned bashful,” she said as if this was nothing. “He knows how to change these bags better than me.”
I was frozen to the spot. I was unable to speak or comment. Suddenly, as I watched her lift my blanket and check the contents of two very distinct plastic bags on opposite ends of my abdomen, I was ready to rescind my prayers of thanks to the God who had played a monumental, crazy, sick joke on me.
CHAPTER 46
(Taz)
I walked down the hallway of the hospital, raking my hands through my hair. I couldn’t handle it. I was such a fucking, fucking coward. I had left Lindsey’s room because I couldn’t handle the expression that had crossed her face when she saw those colostomy bags. She would have questions. I didn’t have answers.
It had been just over three weeks since Agent Hardesty and I had opened that locked door to find her. No matter how hard I tried, I would never get that picture of her, arms up over her head, tied to the headboard of that bed, lying in her own blood out of my head.
She had been so pale; her skin so hot to the touch. She was not conscious and I could only hope that she hadn’t felt too much pain prior to passing out.
Someone had tossed a blanket on top of her. Hardesty went over to her first. I had been frozen like a statute to where I stood. As Hardesty, lifted the blanket, I could see she was only wearing ripped panties and a bra. I quickly un-froze.
“Don’t touch her,” I had practically yelled to Hardesty. I shoved him away and he sensed I wanted to provide what privacy I could for her at that moment.
I pulled my Kydex knife from the sheath and cut the ropes that were binding her wrists and ankles. I wrapped her feverish, limp body up in the blanket, noticing all kinds of cuts and belt marks on her skin.
At that very moment, for just that instant, I wanted to go back twenty minutes in time, when I had my weapon pulled and pressed against Kyzer Stanfield’s temple. I wouldn’t have paused for a second in releasing the entire clip into his fucking, sick brain.
The locals were there within minutes, along with paramedics who quickly got her into the truck headed for a hospital in Marietta.
She had been assessed at the trauma center, and then air-lifted to Vanderbilt for the anticipated surgery required to reconstruct her lower bowel and rectum that had been torn apart by Kyzer’s brutal rape.
The bacterial infection had prevented the surgery from taking place for over a week. Her surgeon had said that her situation was critical if the bacteria got into her bloodstream, she could go into septic shock which ultimately could result in organ failure and death.
Once the surgery was performed, signs of infection appeared once again, and for the next ten days she had been in the ICU. The doctor had performed the temporary colostomy as a means to minimize infection traveling to the area reconstructed and promote healing.
Lindsey was alive and she was healing. I had prayed over her constantly, bargained with God for her to survive. All I hoped for was that she could accept that her survival might mean having to live with the colostomy for a period of time, possibly forever. The doctor said it could be reversed, but it was dependent on how well Lindsey healed without complications.
I thought about how much I wanted to kill Kyzer Stanfield then and even now. It wasn’t enough that he was arrested, it wasn’t enough that we got Susanne in the process, and that the barrels of cathine had been located at the R & D site, I wanted more. I wanted someone to pay with their blood for what Lindsey had endured at the hands of those maniacal thugs. I wanted retribution.
I couldn’t think about that now. I needed to get back to her. Her doctor would be coming in shortly for his daily check. They had induced her coma for the purpose of getting her through the pain of the surgery and infection.
She would need a few more days here and then I was taking her home, to my home to care for her as long as she needed me.
I retraced my steps down the corridor. I was prepared now to answer the questions that I could, to reassure her that everything was going to be okay.
When I breezed back through the door to her room she was wiping her eyes. The nurse had been back in to remove the catheter. She told me on her way out that the doctor had ordered the feeding tube removed, and it would be done shortly.
I sat down next to Lindsey’s bed.
“So babe,” I said, “Everything is going to be okay. You know that, right?”
She looked over at me, tears fresh in her eyes, shaking her head.
“How can you say that, Taz? How will my life ever be the same like, like this?” Her hands motioned towards her abdomen as sobs escaped from her.
I leaned over, taking her hands and putting them to my lips, kissing them.
“Baby girl,” I said, “You are young and healthy. Your doctor says that this will probably be temporary until you fully heal, okay?”
