Somewhere in Mexico on March 18:
"He's not breathing!" Otto cried out in alarm as he tried to shake the boy on the bed awake. "He's not breathing!" He called louder this time so that Bellows rushed in.
Bellows picked up a small mirror that had been placed on a sink in the room. He sat down next to Leopold and pulled him up so that his nose was right above the mirror. He watched the mirror carefully and reported his findings: "He's breathing." He began cleaning the mirror of on his shirt. "We don't need him to run a marathon." He got up from the bed. "He's less trouble this way."
"We have to take him to a hospital." Otto's voice was full of concern.
"Yeah, and maybe we can stop at a street fair along the way." Sarcasm lined Bellows voice as he placed the mirror back where it belonged.
"He's gonna die."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you all along."
Bellows walked out as Otto looked down upon the kid with concern.
…
Thunder sounded outside as a car drove up to the kidnapper's house.
Bellows quickly got up and pulled the lock off of Leopold's door. He walked into the room and pushed Leo's once-handcuffed hand back onto the bed. He knelt down beside the teen and pushed his hair out of his eyes, forcing the boy to look at him. "You're my kid, okay. You do anything that makes them think otherwise, you're my dead kid."
As the front door slammed shut, Bellows stood up and leaned over Leo as though he was a grieving father.
Otto walked in with a doctor behind him. Leo's breath was ragged and short.
Bellows sat down next to Leo on the bed as the doctor set down his bag and began pulling at the fabric that was stuck to Leopold's bloody wound.
Bellows held Leo's head and made gentle shushing noises at the boy as he whimpered in pain.
"How did this happen?" the doctor asked as he examined the large gash.
Bellows responded with a poor excuse. "Uh, he was playing hide and seek and caught his leg on a fence."
"Oh, you have other children here." The doctor assumed as Leo was far too old to be playing hide and seek.
"No." Bellows answered as he stroked the child's face.
"Then who was he playing hide and seek with?"
Bellows paused and looked up at the doctor and then across the room to where Otto was standing.
"That was me," Otto answered.
He walked around the doctor to stand closer to Bellows.
"Personally, I think you're a little big for hide and seek." The doctor reached down to pull up Leo's shirt. "The child's size gives him the ad-" The doctor paused as he looked upon a scar that ran up Leopold's chest. "Your son has had heart surgery."
Bellows nodded in agreement.
"Is he taking any medication?"
Bellows reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of pills. He handed them to the doctor who examined the bottle. "Can you treat him?"
The doctor shook his head in disagreement. "He needs to be in the hospital. This infection could kill him."
Bellows walked to his side. "Doc, I'd rather not. His, um, his mother, she died in the hospital." Bellows feigned pain at the loss of his "wife."
"Yes, well my mother drowned in a lake, but when I'm hungry, I fish." The doctor looked at Bellows earnestly as lightning struck through the window behind them. Bellows looked down.
"Okay." The doctor leaned down into his bag to retrieve a syringe and some medicine. "Any allergies?"
"None," Bellows responded as he leaned over the bed.
As the doctor prepared the syringe, Leo managed to whisper: "Penicillin, I'm allergic to penicillin." His breathing was raspy and ragged.
The doctor immediately capped the syringe and placed it back in his bag.
…
After the wound had been bandaged properly, the doctor prepared to leave. "Make sure the wound is cleaned every day and that the bandage is changed. The anti-rejection meds will suppress his immune system so be sure that he takes these antibiotics." He handed Bellows some pills in a bottle.
"Thank you, doctor." Bellows said as the doctor moved out of the room.
"One pill, twice a day with food." The doctor responded.
"I'll drive him." Otto offered.
"No, no, no, I'll drive him." Bellows looked at the doctor with a large smile. "It's the least I can do, right?"
…
The doctor was found dead on the side of the road a day later. He had been shot.
…
After everyone had left, Leopold reached under the blanket to retrieve the cell phone he had stolen from the doctor as he was leaving. As he began to dial, the door opened. Leo threw the cell phone underneath the bed as Otto entered with a pair of handcuffs.
The boy watched while Otto attached one of the cuffs to the bed and the other to Leo's wrist.
Otto closed the door and Leo reached for the phone under the bed. However, now that he was handcuffed, he could no longer reach the phone that lay on the floor. He grasped for it hopelessly as a message flashed across the screen: "Low Battery"