The Wrong Sister

The next time I opened my eyes, I could tell I was in the hospital. Damn. I really had to stop waking up in hospitals, I thought to myself. I groaned in pain. My head felt like it was going to explode. Instinctively, I went to raise my hand to feel the side of my head. How it throbbed with such intense pain! However, something restricted my hand’s movement. I went to move the other hand instead, but it too was tethered to the bed’s guardrail. What the fuck? Why couldn’t I move? Why was I in so much pain? My lower stomach hurt as well. What had happened to me? Had I been sent back in time or something? I wasn’t lying flat on my back. I was slightly elevated. I struggled to sit up fully, but something pressed against my chest, forbidding me from rising more than just a few inches. I could still see enough, however. Both of my wrists were bound by leather restraints, and an IV needle was inserted into one hand. And then it all came rushing back like a tidal wave from hell. Lisa. Lisa had caught me just a few blocks away. I remembered the kick to my stomach, explaining why my lower core was sore. I also remembered her fist slamming into the side of my head. Had she intentionally tried to kill me? Just knock me out? Or did she simply not give a shit about what might have happened after she punched me? When I thought about it, though, the bitch probably knew the right area and exact amount of force to render me unconscious without killing me, which was probably what she wanted. I wouldn’t be waking up in the hospital if she wanted me dead. I wouldn’t be waking up anywhere at all. Now I have become aware of another pain. It was coming from my left forearm. I sat up as much as I could and looked down at it. It was wrapped in a white bandage. Dark spots, presumably blood, were present. How the hell had that happened? I wondered. I must have cut it on a piece of glass when I was kicked down, although the idea made little sense to me at the time. And then I remembered more. “Burke!” I began to struggle. “The vermin is back in its cage.” My head snapped to the left and back a bit. I hadn’t seen Lisa sitting in the corner of the semi-darkened room. I glanced toward the window. No light seeped through the sides of the curtains, which confirmed it was nighttime. Facing Lisa again, I hissed, “You fucking bitch! You did this! I’ll never stay with you!” Two nurses hurried into the room. “Get her out of here!” I demanded. “She’s the one who did this to me!” I expected the nurses to turn to Lisa and ask her to leave. Instead, they just eyed me with pity. What the hell was going on? Lisa rose from her chair, now with an entirely different expression and tone of voice. “Honey, you were attacked on the beach when you went for a walk while I was out.” “No!” “Then you cut yourself.” “NO!!” “I found you bleeding and unconscious when I got home.” “No fucking way!” I screamed as quick bursts of memory flooded through my mind. I saw her hovering over my mostly unconscious body with a razor, careful to angle it in a way that would make it look like I had cut myself. “You did this to me!” “Calm down,” one of the nurses said sternly, without a shred of sympathy in her voice. And why should I have been surprised? Lisa was a cop. Of course, people would believe whatever she told them. But I wasn’t ready to give up that easily. “I want her out of here! She’s the one who beat the crap out of me both last night and today when I tried to get away. She may have knocked me unconscious, but I had bursts of awareness, and I remember her standing over me with a razor, angling it to make it look like I did this to myself. I didn’t!” The nurses said nothing. Lisa remained silent as well, standing several feet behind them and glowering at me angrily. I saw the rage in her eyes, but I didn’t care. Certainly, she wasn’t going to beat me in front of the hospital staff, so I let the truth come forth. The only problem was, I didn’t get much chance to get more than a few words out before the sedatives one of the nurses injected into my IV knocked me out colder than Lisa had. When I awoke, God knew how many hours later, I repeated the process of trying to get someone to listen to me and believe me. It was pointless. All the nurses would tell me was that I would soon be moved to the psychiatric ward and could “discuss” it with my doctor. I asked to see Dr. Lacayo, or at least to have somebody contact her for me. “Has she been treating you?” one of the nurses asked. I nodded. If the doctor wouldn’t believe me and find a way to get me away from Lisa, then it was hopeless. I would have to return to Lisa, be assaulted again, and then try to escape again, hoping to be successful next time. I realized that the call about having to go out on a case had been a lie. It had been a test. She wanted to see how quickly I would try to make my getaway. She followed me those few blocks and decided the deserted street I was last on was a fine place to pounce. Truthfully, I doubted the doctor could or would be willing to help me. I believed all she would tell me would be to go to a shelter. With Lisa being a cop, that wouldn’t work; otherwise, I probably would have considered it myself. What I needed most was to put a lot of distance between us, and fast. The more miles I could put between us, the more time I had to figure out how to survive undetected, even though I knew she could hop a plane to anywhere she suspected I might be. One thing I knew: I had to stay out of the desert. She knew how much I loved and missed the heat of the desert, and that would be the first place she would look for me. After a few days in the physical hospital, I was transferred to the mental hospital just as promised. I continued to tell my story to anyone and everyone present, though no one believed me yet. All the while, I tried to get someone to see past Lisa’s badge and gun and into the truth. Lisa kept her phony smile affixed to her smug face, insisting that I had been attacked on the beach by myself and then cut myself after a breakdown. The problem was, even if I had been attacked and had a meltdown, I wouldn’t have cut myself. I would have either killed myself or done nothing at all. I had gotten very black-and-white where that was concerned. Cutting was typically reserved for younger people. As an older person, I didn’t see the point or need. The day after I was settled in Funny Farmville, I was relieved to finally get a visit from the tall, slender Guatemalan psychiatrist. She approached me with concern evident on her face as I sat on the edge of my bed, my lone roommate out in the courtyard smoking a cigarette. “Oh, thank God you’re here!” I breathed, seeing the first pair of compassionate eyes since Lisa decided to go postal on me. “What happened?” asked the doctor. “Oh, please. You’ve got to believe me.” The doctor glanced behind her at the door and then back at me. “I’ve only got about ten minutes. Tell me what happened, Shaylin.” “Lisa did this.” I pointed to my bruises. “And this.” I indicated my bandaged forearm. The doctor blinked in surprise, but at least she wasn’t quick to disbelieve me. “Look, I know everyone’s quick to take a cop’s word over anyone else, but I swear she did this to me. I have nothing to gain by lying.” I told her everything, start to finish. “Oh, my,” was all the doctor could say at first. “I need your help getting as far away from here as possible. Seriously, Doc, I don’t want to die. I just want to get as far from Lisa as I can. Distance should buy me enough time to figure out how I’ll support myself. If I stay in the area, she’ll only find me.” “You’ve got to, though.” I jerked in surprise. “Got to what?” “Stay in the area. She expects you to run as soon as you can, rather than to have to look for you here. For now, I think it’s best that you play dumb. Tell her the next time you see her that you really don’t remember much of what happened.” The doctor motioned to my injured arm. “Okay, but I’ve got no place to stay here. I certainly can’t stay with any of our friends or acquaintances; that will be the first place she’ll look for me. That, and the desert areas where I’m from, and the type of climate I prefer second to tropical.” She gave a soft smile for a second. “There is something I could tell you, but I’m pressed for time right now, and you absolutely must keep this between us.” “Oh, of course.” “One thing is that your file is missing.” “Missing? As in missing from your office?” The doctor nodded. “Fortunately, I keep some records backed up on the computer.” “Well, that ought to tell you something right there.” The doctor nodded slightly but maintained a thoughtful, hesitant expression. Finally, she said, “There’s something I heard about Lisa.” “Which is?” “Not enough time now,” she said, shaking her head quickly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but remember—you can’t say a word to anyone, okay? You must promise me that for both our sakes.” “I won’t say anything, whatever it is.” “Just play dumb and be cooperative whenever possible. We’ll figure out what to do next as soon as we can.” “Anything to escape this loon in the end. Whether you believe me or not, thank you so very much for listening.” “I believe you,” Dr. Lacayo said before leaving the room.