Nicole stopped abruptly in front of the emergency room drop off and unlocked the car doors. He got out of the car and grabbed Jessi under her shoulders and dragged her out. He scooped her up and carried her through the automatic doors toward the front desk. When the nurses noticed Jessi, they moved quickly to get a bed for Kyle to set her down on.
"What happened?" one nurse asked, approaching them with a rolling cot.
"She was feeling tired so she decided to lay down and now she won't wake up," Kyle explained, trying not to sound too panicked.
"She was fine before she laid down?" the nurse asked, starting to roll the cot back to a room where she could be treated.
"Yeah, she was perfect," Kyle explained. "I don't know what's wrong, she seems fine."
"How far along is she?" the nurse asked, looking at Jessi's belly.
"31 weeks," Kyle answered.
"Who's her prenatal care doctor?" the nurse asked.
"Dr. Saunders," Kyle answered.
"Saunders... Saunders..." the nurse pondered the name. "Oh yes! Dr. Saunders! She's delivering a baby right now upstairs. I will call her down as soon as possible. For now our emergency room doctors will take care of her."
The nurses hooked Jessi up to what seemed like a thousand monitors. They was a machine for her heartbeat, the baby's heartbeat, her respiratory area, and a blood pressure monitor. The nurses were perplexed when they couldn't find anything immediately wrong with her or the baby. Thankfully, as the temporary doctor was beginning to order diagnostic tests, Dr. Saunders entered the room. Kyle listened to the doctors as the temporary told Jessi's doctor about what was happening.
"They said she went to sleep to rest a little bit and she wouldn't wake up," the doctor muttered under his breath to Saunders. "We haven't found anything wrong with her yet... it's like she's just gone comatose. We need to do an MRI, but that's risky with her being pregnant." Dr. Saunders moved closer to Jessi.
"Hey Kyle," she said, greeting him. "Hello, Nicole."
"Hi Dr. Saunders," Nicole replied. Kyle shook his leg anxiously while Nicole was trying to keep calm. At that moment, Stephen and Josh walked in quietly, Stephen put a bag next to Nicole and sat down quietly while Josh leaned against a far wall.
"So obviously we've got a mystery here," the doctor continued, looking at the chart before her. "I just saw you a week ago, so I know Jessi and the baby are in great health. In fact, everything we've checked so far has been good, so we'll have to run a few tests to see what's going on underneath the skin." One of the nurses came in and took a few vials of Jessi's blood.
"We're going to take a few tox screens to see if something foreign is in her bloodstream," Saunders continued. "After those results come back we will probably take her down to MRI."
"Okay," Nicole said. The doctor and nurses left. Kyle stared blankly at Jessi's motionless body. She looked like she was having the best sleep of her life- he just wished she would wake up.
The Tragers waited mostly in silence for news. Every so often a nurse came in to check Jessi and the baby's monitors and wrote notes. Josh was curled up in the corner of Jessi's hospital room sleeping, Stephen appeared to be dozing off in his chair, and Nicole and Kyle watched Jessi desperately. After about 45 minutes, Dr. Saunders came back into the room. Kyle and Nicole sat up attentively to wait for her news.
"Her blood tests came back negative for anything out of the ordinary," she told them, looking disappointed. Kyle felt defeated.
"So an MRI is next?" he asked expectantly.
"Yes," Saunders replied. "But there's a waiting line for the machine." Kyle groaned internally and looked at Nicole. She gave him a sympathetic look. She knew he just wanted Jessi awake and alert, she did too, but unfortunately there was nothing they could do.
"How long?" Nicole asked.
"Between two and three hours," Dr. Saunders replied. She noticed how disappointed the two alert people in the room looked. "I'm sorry," she continued. "We're doing the best we can, but at least Jessi appears to be stable."
"But you have no idea what's wrong with her," Kyle said, annoyed. Nicole put a hand on his shoulder.
"We'll figure it out, Kyle, don't worry," Dr. Saunders said before leaving the room.
"This is awful," Kyle said to Nicole after the doctor was gone.
"I know, but maybe you should try to get some sleep until Jessi goes down for her test," Nicole suggested. Kyle was certainly tired, but he shook his head. There was no way he would be able to sleep now, not until he knew Jessi was going to be okay for certain. Finally, after more and more waiting, Dr. Saunders came and said it was time to take Jessi to the MRI. Kyle stood up and started to follow the doctor, but she held out her hand.
"I'm sorry, Kyle," she began. "But I need you to wait here. We can't have anyone else in the MRI room and there's still a little line to use the machine. We are just going to get her down there to prep her."
"I can't wait with her until she goes in for the test?" Kyle asked.
"I'm sorry," Dr. Saunders answered. They left the room and Kyle resumed his seat next to Nicole.
"Don't worry, Kyle," she started. "She'll be back soon, and hopefully they will know what is wrong." Kyle sat back and nodded.
However, Jessi didn't come back soon. They waited for two hours in silence. Nicole dazed off and on, but Kyle was wide awake. No nurses or doctors even came in the room to give them an update about what was happening. It was three in the morning and Kyle was becoming anxious. He wanted to ask Nicole what he should do, but she too had finally just dozed off into sleep.
"Can I help you?" a woman at the front desk of the ER asked as Kyle approached her.
"Would you be able to tell me the status of Jessi Taylor's MRI?" Kyle asked politely. The woman began clicking through her computer.
"Jessi Taylor... let's see," she muttered as she scrolled through the files. "Ah, here she is," she said before pausing with a quizzical expression on her face.
"What's wrong?" Kyle asked, his heart starting to race.
"My file here indicates that Jessi Taylor checked out over 45 minutes ago," the woman said.
"What?" Kyle said, confused. "You must be looking at the wrong file. Jessi went down to get an MRI- she was in a coma, there's no way she would have checked out." The woman checked the computer.
"No, see, right here," she pointed to the screen. "She was discharged by her doctor."
"That's not possible," Kyle told her, getting frustrated. "Where's Dr. Saunders?"
"Dr. Saunders?" the woman on the other side of the desk said. "Her last patient checked out so she went home to get some sleep."
"This gentleman says she took her patient down to an MRI and never came back," the first woman told the second.
"That's strange," the second replied.
"Maybe Jessi woke up and went home too?" the first woman suggested, looking at Kyle now. The tone of her voice made it sound like even she didn't believe her own optimism. Kyle groaned and left the desk, running down the hallway, following the map signs to the MRI room.
"Excuse me," Kyle said to a doctor getting ready to walk his patient into the room. "Have you seen Dr. Saunders down here? She was supposed to have a patient getting an MRI." The doctor looked confused.
"I'm sorry, Doctor Who?" he asked. Kyle rolled his eyes and started running through the halls again, peering into every room he passed, listening carefully for the two heartbeats he was so used to listening to every day.
He didn't see or hear anything. Was Jessi really gone? Would she really just leave after waking up? It was possible, but very unlikely. He ran back up the stairs and found a security guard in the hallway near Jessi's room.
"Can you help me?" Kyle asked. The security guard looked a little preoccupied, but he couldn't say no to Kyle.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"My girlfriend went down for an MRI but never came back. The front desk said she checked out and the doctor went home, but I don't see how that's possible.," Kyle explained.
"If the front desk said she checked out then she checked out," the guard said.
"Can you just, maybe check the cameras to confirm?" Kyle asked desperately.
"Look, kid. If I could, I would," the guard started. "But our whole system has been on the fritz for 2 hours. The surveillance cameras haven't even been working... I can barely use my walkie talkied. If the file said she was discharged, she probably went home. Why don't you check, and if she's not there, call the police."
Kyle made his way quickly back to Jessi's room. He noticed a janitor was trying to clean up, and was asking the Trager's to leave.
"Kyle, what's going on?" Nicole asked sleepily.
"Jessi's gone," Kyle told her.
"I need you to please leave, another patient needs this room," the janitor interrupted. Kyle gestured for the Trager's to follow him out.
"What do you mean Jessi's gone?" Stephen asked. As they all left the room, the janitor stopped them.
"Don't forget your flowers," he said, handing them a vase of flowers.
"Who sent flowers already?" Josh asked, rubbing his eyes and taking the flowers, following everyone down the hallway.
"I didn't see anyone bring flowers," Nicole stated.
"They must have been dropped off when we were all sleeping," suggested Stephen.
"Let me see," Kyle said, grabbing the vase and taking a look at the greeting card. He read it out loud. "We would like to thank you for your involuntary contribution to our experiment. We will take care of your loved one as our own and return her when finished with our trials. If you wish her to return alive, no contact may be filed with law enforcement." The note was signed by a strange looking symbol that Kyle had never seen before. He looked up. The Trager's appeared just as shocked as he was.
"What does that mean?" Josh said, now awake and alert.
"It sounds like someone's taken Jessi," Stephen said.
"Why?" Josh said.
"I don't know," answered Nicole. "But we need to call the police."
"Wait," Kyle said. "I don't want to risk calling the police. We don't know anything about who took her and what they do. They could really hurt her and we can't let that happen. We should try to figure this out on our own."
"And how do you supposed we do that?" Josh asked.
"I- I don't know," Kyle answered. "We'll figure it out."