The hand was gripping, and my body moved on pure instinct. The first thing I felt was my arm swinging up to break my attacker’s grip and then I rolled off the bed, my free hand grabbing the knife under the pillow. Then it was a pivot on the balls of my feet and a hop back to hold the knife between me and my attacker.

And there I found my mom staring stupefied at me.

“Taylor?” she asked. Her eyes gazed at the blade in my hand. It was one of their steak knives I found in the back of the drawer. Nothing that they would notice was gone, but also not the best of weapons. But it was still a knife, and potentially deadly.

I panted, my body still trembling with the exertion of getting myself free in about two seconds.

“Taylor,” my mom repeated. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

I swallowed, and continued my panting. I didn’t feel safe. And as the adrenaline drained, there was pain. I fell to a knee, finding it hard to breathe because it felt like fire on my side.

Shit, I realized too late.

The world was starting to waver again, the edges of my vision warping as I recognized the familiar feverishness of being very very sick.

I tried to stand, my mom slowly approaching me as I did so.

“Are you okay, Taylor?” she asked.

I didn’t get much warning before I retched once, then vomited on the hardwood floor with a very loud splat that would forever be engraved in my memory.

“Oh,” my mom said and finally rushed forward, skirting around my vomit to put a hand on my back.

I coughed as Henry came skidding into the doorway, looking concerned.

“You’re burning up,” my mom stated then pressed a hand to my forehead. “How long have you been sick?” she asked.

I shook my head, only so slightly. Nausea was rising up my throat, making me retch again but nothing came out.

“I’m taking you to the doctor,” she said and tried to help me up, but my feet weren’t cooperating with me, much less her.

“Henry, get her other side,” she ordered.

He dutifully came around and pulled my other arm over his shoulder and helped pick my weight up.

I did my best to breathe and to finally speak. “I–I just need some painkillers,” I managed. My teeth ground together immediately after.

“You’re going to the hospital and you can either come willingly or I will call the ambulance and they will drag you in on a stretcher,” my mom snapped.

I didn’t bother arguing. I’d rather have the chance to run rather than get strapped down again.

Every movement in the car was still painful though, and the driving wasn’t necessarily the safest I’d ever experienced.

“What’s bothering you?” Mom asked.

“Huh?” I said dazedly.

“What is hurting or feeling bad? Is it just your stomach or is there pain anywhere?”

I didn’t answer. There was such fiery wrath emanating from my stitches. I’d had bullet wounds I’d trade for this pervasive and nauseating pain. The entirety of my body felt warbly in the worst possible way.

“Taylor?” Mom asked, glancing in the rear view mirror at me and Henry.

Henry took this as his queue and started to run his hand across my forehead. His concerned look flitted over me.

“Where does it hurt, Tay?” he asked.

I shook my head, grinding my teeth together harder as the car went over a pothole.

Henry proceeded to poke at me in random places. My hand, which had a large bandaid on it now, rather than a full bandage, and then my arms, he checked my knees, even the back of my head. Then he poked my side. I winced and he looked up at my face.

“Show me your side,” he said.

I shook my head again but he gently continued to explore my torso, careful to keep it platonic but probing. He finally hit the edge of the bandage and I hissed, trying to make a swipe at his hand to keep it away, but it was sloppily executed.

“You did get injured, didn’t you?” he asked angrily.

At my silence he put a hand against mine, though I stopped fighting him as he pulled the hem of my shirt up enough to see the bandage I’d cobbled together from my old jacket I’d already torn up.

“What is this, Taylor?” he asked.

I felt the dull pull of the car turning into the hospital parking lot and looked up to get some shattered information that we were in that same hospital I’d started in.

My pulse quickened. I needed to get out of here and hide while I healed.

Mom unclicked her seatbelt and threw her door open.

A valet was approaching, recognizing the urgency as Henry, too, scrambled to get out of the car.

I was clumsy about getting the seatbelt off of me and managed to push my door open before Henry appeared and grabbed my arm to help me stand. His grip was like iron on me and I quickly realized he was worried I might try to run. But my body was far too weak to exert itself much and even I was quickly realizing I needed to be here. Like it or not, without some help I was going to die and I wasn’t ready for that yet.

Mom practically threw her keys to the young man as he scribbled something down on a tab for her and thrust it in her direction.

It was all so frantic as Henry dragged me along behind her until there were wheelchairs, and he and my mom pulled one out and set me down in it, asking if I was comfortable and whatnot.

To be honest, I really just wanted some painkillers and some sleep.

They wheeled me right up to the Emergency check in and the secretary on the other side looked skeptical at Mom’s frenzied state until Henry leaned forward and explained, “my sister has an infected wound that’s giving her a high fever.”

“Where is the wound?” the secretary asked.

“Her side, just under her ribs. She has a high fever, has been vomiting and is very weak.”

“And what is the nature of the wound?” the secretary asked.

“It’s uh…” he looked back at me then kneeled to pull my shirt up a bit again and yanked the bandage away, wrinkling his nose at whatever he found there.

“It’s stitched?” Mom asked as she looked over his shoulder. “But— it’s definitely infected,” she told the secretary who opened a drawer and then leaned over the counter to put a thermometer against my forehead.

“Okay, that’s a very high fever so we’re gonna get her admitted right away,” the secretary said and began typing on her computer.

Within a few moments, another nurse came around, spoke briefly with the secretary and then came around the counter to help me.

Mom started to follow us but the secretary called her back to fill out paperwork.

“I’ll stay with her,” Henry reassured her, though she looked fully distraught anyway.

I was wheeled back into the maze of rooms and beeping machines that I’d woken up in the first time, even got put into the same room.

The nurse helped Henry get me onto the stretcher before hurriedly taking readings.

My nausea continued and once he got my vitals in, he was concernedly paging for a doctor before turning to Henry.

“You said there was a wound in her side?” he asked.

“Yes,” Henry said and pulled my shirt away to reveal it.

The nurse took a look at it, gently prodding around it, despite my pained squirming and then took a pair of scissors to my shirt. Henry turned away and pulled the curtain shut behind us.

“Where did she get this injury?” the nurse asked.

“I don’t know,” Henry said. 

The nurse looked at me then, almost accusingly. “How did you get this?” he asked me directly.

“I– A knife,” I managed.

“What kind of knife?” the nurse asked.

“A— pocket knife.” It was hard to think straight. “Three inch blade, with serrated edge on the last inch.”

“And was it an accident that the knife ended up in your side?”

I didn’t answer but Mom came in the room at that moment, then froze seeing my shirt cut away and the wound glaringly out in the open.

I risked a glance down at it. A red-streaked white fluid had dripped down my side and the skin surrounding it was an angry red and swollen.

The nurse gently dabbed some of the fluid up , cleaning the area up a bit.

“Who stitched the injury?” he asked. He was currently ignoring my mom who was anxiously standing by.

“I did,” I admitted, but I wasn’t happy about it. I just also didn’t want to die.

“You stitched it yourself?” he asked.

I nodded.

Henry refused to turn around, but I could tell he had made a face.

“Alright, the doctor will be in momentarily, they will not leave you waiting long,” he said and dodged out of the room between Henry and my mom.

“How are you feeling Taylor?” Mom asked. She was a little calmer now, less completely frazzled but still stressed.

With a gentle hand, she pulled the cut flap of my shirt over my exposed skin so I felt a little more modest.

I sweated against the papery sheet on the stretcher.

“I’m okay,” I reassured her.

“You don’t have to hide injuries from me,” she told me. “I know you’ve led a difficult life but this could’ve killed you.”

I didn’t make the comment that it still might. I’d seen it happen, though the director usually terminated us if we were severely wounded enough. He had always had his favorites though.

“I’m okay,” I repeated and closed my eyes. I was trying hard not to panic. This place reminded me of the distressed first couple days out of the director’s grasp. 

Every minute here felt like an eternity. Neither one of them sat down, choosing to anxiously stand as we waited.

A doctor and a nurse came in next, only giving a quick knock on the doorway before sliding through the curtain.

The nurse started putting an IV in my arm while the doctor sat on a stool and wheeled closer to me.

“Taylor, correct?” he asked.

I nodded.

“May I take a look at your side?” he asked.

I nodded again and he peeled the remnant of my shirt away from it, examining the injury.

“You said this was a stab injury?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“And you stitched it yourself?” he asked.

“Yes,” I repeated.

“Did you disinfect it at all or… I mean, how did you treat it?” he asked.

I tried not to panic too much and did my best to tell him what had happened. “After the knife was in there I didn’t take it out until I had some cloth and packed the cloth in there right after pulling the blade out.”

“Okay, to stop the bleeding, I presume?”

“Yes, and then I waited for it to stop bleeding heavily before stitching it shut.”

“How long did you wait?” he asked.

“About a day and a half, maybe two.” It had been a while and there had been so many things going on the timeline was hazy in my memory.

“What kind of needle and thread did you use?” He started to wipe up around the wound with some cloths.

“I boiled a sewing needle and just some standard thread for a couple minutes,” I explained.

He nodded.  “So you did try to keep it clean,” he mumbled. 

I nodded then held back a pained moan as he pressed around my injury.

“It’s definitely infected,” he commented. “Probably from whatever you packed the injury with. It looks like the stitching is okay, but underneath is not doing so well. That’s probably also why you’re in so much pain.”

I breathed. The nurse on my otherside had gotten my IV set up and I could see a saline solution starting to drip into the tube.

The doctor gave the nurse some directions of what to put in me but it all sounded like gibberish to me.

“We’re gonna start some painkillers and antibiotics right away,” he said to me. “And then we’ll have someone come around to open up the wound and clean out anything that shouldn’t be there, okay?”

I nodded. The doctor looked at Mom and then Henry.

“Any questions from you guys?” he asked.

Henry shook his head but Mom launched into a list that she seemed to have stockpiled.

With Mom distracted, Henry came closer and lowered his voice.

“Was it the same guy that cut your hand that stabbed you?” he asked.

I nodded.

He sighed. “I’ll stay with you here and make sure no one tries to sneak in or anything okay? But you need to get some rest.”

I nodded again.

Mom was still anxiously talking with the doctor, who was being very patient with her as most of her questions were going to be addressed by the next doctor when they cleaned up my wound.

Henry sat in a chair off to the side and I stared at the ceiling.

The pain was fading which was nice, but there was so much noise out in the hall and so much beeping from my own machinery I wasn't going to be able to sleep.

I at least closed my eyes for a few minutes.

---

AN: Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate it, this is my last prewritten  chapter :( but things should move faster from here on out, we're getting to the cusp of act three and then its all easy writing from there. Hopefully I'll be able to wrap it up satisfyingly, I always have great anxiety about that (... since I've written the beginning of far more books than I've written the end of...)/

But alas, Happy Holidays, hope you've enjoyed Taylor's journey so far and thank you for reading. (I'm thankful for you guys.)