Chapter Nine

Once they arrived at the hospital, while Rudy was tending to Jaime, Steve took the time to call his wife. "I'm up at Bethesda," he began.

"The hospital? What happened? Are you hurt?" Jenn asked anxiously.

"No, I'm fine. Couple little cuts on my arm – nothing serious. It...it's Jaime. We don't know what happened yet, but it looks like her husband went crazy. He hurt her pretty badly. I'm still waiting to find out how she is. I'm not sure when I'll be home, but -"

"You take your time," Jenn insisted. "If her husband did this, she'll need a friend close by."

"Thank you, Darlin'." Steve sighed with relief. "I love you."

"Love you, too – and keep me posted, okay?"

"I will."

Oscar, who had just flown back from a conference in New York when he got word of what had happened, found Steve just as he was saying goodbye to his wife. The two men looked at each other, shook their heads sadly and sat down to wait.

"Any word on Michael?" Steve asked, breaking the long, anxious silence.

"As we speak, he's being escorted under heavy guard from the ER at National to a private government-run psychiatric facility in Maryland. The locked ward."

"Good. I hope whoever locks him in loses the key," Steve muttered. "I mean, if you would've seen Jaime..." Steve cringed at the memory. "Broke my heart, seeing her like that -"

Both men stood as Rudy joined them. "Is she...okay?" Steve queried nervously.

Rudy's face was grim. "Jaime's been through a severe trauma," he explained. "First, to find out the one person she loved and trusted most in the world was lying to her, and then...this. Michael administered a dangerously high jolt of electricity to the conductors that lead to Jaime's power packs. His intent was to temporarily disable her, but he fried them completely. If we hadn't gotten to her when we did..."

"But you can fix it?" Steve asked quickly. "Will she be alright?"

"I'll have to replace the power packs, but not until her system has had a chance to settle. In the meantime, I was able to rig a very slight temporary charge to the burned-out cells that will keep her alive until we can operate. I'd say in about 24 hours."

"So....she's paralyzed?" Steve stated.

"For now, yes. Hopefully, the current did no damage to her biological nerves. We'll know more after the surgery. Then we can start healing her emotional wounds – or at least try to."

"Is she in pain?" Oscar wondered.

"No; I've taken care of that. She's resting."

"Can I see her?" Steve requested. "I just want to sit with her for a little while. I won't disturb her."

Rudy nodded. "I'll take you down there." He turned to Oscar. "I'll be right back."

When he walked into Jaime's room, Steve had to stop and catch his breath before approaching the bed. Even though he'd witnessed the worst of the incident, her appearance shocked him. The bruises on her face had deepened in color, looking angry and painful. There was more bruising to her left arm and peeking out the top of her hospital gown at the shoulder. She seemed to be sleeping peacefully at first, but very soon began to moan softly, flailing about in her sleep – but only her upper body and left arm were moving.

"Michael...." she whispered. Steve didn't know if he should wake her, so he pressed Rudy's call button. "Michael...." she repeated, more urgently this time. "No....." Before Rudy could get there, Jaime's eyes snapped wide open and darted around the room, panic-stricken. "Michael!"

"Jaime," Steve began softly, not wanting to frighten her further, "it's me. I'm here...and you're safe now."

"Where's Michael?" she pleaded, just as Rudy reached her side.

"He's being taken care of, Honey," Rudy assured her. "Now let's take care of you, okay?"

"I need to see Michael..."

"There's no way that creep will ever put his hands on you again," Steve promised.

"Gotta see him...he...didn't know what he was doing....please..."

"We'll talk about that later, Honey," Rudy told her gently. "You need to rest now."

"But....he's my husband..."

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