I'm in my cell, waiting for House to get here when Tritter brings in another woman and introduces her as my cell mate. She's twitching and itchy and her eyes are glassy; she's completely tweaked. There are other open cells to put her in, but he's trying to punish me by shoving a crackhead in with me. He smiles and walks away.

For about an hour, the woman sits on the floor with her head and back against the wall. She rocks her head back and forth, muttering. She's probably in her late thirties, her hair a matted, dirty mess. She's wearing several mismatched layers of frayed, torn, filthy clothes and she smells like garbage.

She's so skinny, it's frightening. I don't deny that I myself am too thin, but I know if you could see her without clothes, you'd see her ribs and her hips as if her skin were draped over her bones. I wonder how she came to this. At one point she was a baby and a toddler and a child; maybe even a loved child. Did she come to this by birth or did she come to this by puberty or did she come to this by a later mental illness or tragedy?

She struggles to her feet after a while and asks me a question and I ignore her; I have no patience for her nonsense. She asks again, louder, and I ignore her again. Out of nowhere, her fist connects with my right eye and the pain is an explosion. I'm knocked back and hit the concrete floor, the crack of my head on the floor resonating throughout the cell and I see stars.

The crackhead climbs on top of me, screaming, calling me Allie and asking where her money is as her bony fingers close around my throat. I claw at her hands as they tighten and press against my windpipe. I can't breathe and my lungs are burning, needing air desperately. I wonder if this is how I'll end, strangled by a crackhead in jail. I suppose perhaps it's appropriate after the life I've led.

I hear shouting suddenly and the jingle of keys as someone tries to get into the cell. I'm fighting to hold onto consciousness, but I feel it slowly slipping away. Relief finally comes when the woman is pried off of me and I'm rewarded with gasps of air. I roll over onto my side, nauseous, and I throw up, coughing and trying to breathe at the same time.

House rushes over to me and I stand shakily, my legs like Jell-O, wiping my mouth on the back of my hand. Stacy is in the doorway, appalled, and a deputy has the crackhead in handcuffs. She's screaming and violent, kicking out and trying to free herself, yelling about Allie and money. My face is throbbing and my neck is sore and my throat burns when I take a breath. This day has gone from normal to shit to complete insanity.

House is concerned, looking over me and asking me if I'm okay. I push past him and past Stacy and storm over to Tritter. I yell at him and ask him what he was thinking, trying to get to me by putting a crackhead in the cell with me. I wonder if he knew that she was violent, I wonder if we looked into her files if there would be a history of psychiatric illness or violence or assault. He says nothing as I rant and rave about the problem with wrath and trying to get revenge when the wrong-doing was so long ago and means nothing. I continue to shout, telling him I'm going to sue him till he doesn't even have a shirt on his back, sue the department for negligence and harassment and he just stares at me.

I want to know what he's looking at and from behind me, House says I'm bleeding. I feel it hot and wet, running down my neck and I don't remember what it's from. It's coming from a tender spot at the back of my head and there's some running out of my right ear. Now I feel how woozy I really am. The world rocks back and forth and gets dark and my knees give out and I fall.

The last thing I see is the ceiling and the last thing I hear is House shouting my name.

xXxXx

I get near the cell and I see Henri on the floor, a dirty woman sitting on her chest, her hands on her throat. I scream at the deputy to open the fucking door before Henri is killed. She's clawing at the hands around her neck and slowly the clawing becomes slower and weaker. Her eyes are fluttering and I think she's about to lose consciousness.

The deputy finally opens the door and grabs the homeless woman around the waist and hauls her up and drags her out of the cell. Henri gasps for breath and turns over and vomits. I hobble over to her, intending to kneel down and hold her but she pushes herself up and stands. She looks a little unsteady and I look her over, concerned

Her eye is starting to swell; she's been hit and will have quite an awful shiner later. Her throat looks red and that'll be bruised, too. I'm angry that someone would do this to her, that Tritter would let this happen to her. This has crossed the line and he will pay. I ask her if she's okay and she walks away and starts laying it on Tritter.

She accuses him of doing this on purpose and knowing that the crackhead was violent. She tells him that she's going to sue him and the department and I know that's exactly what I want to do now. I look down and on the floor where she'd been lying down, next to her vomit, is a bright smear of blood. She hit her head. The vomit could be a sign of a concussion or worse.

I look up at her and Tritter is staring at her, not saying anything and I see why. The back of her head is matted with blood and it's running down her neck. Her right ear is also dripping with blood and I'm filled with dread. I tell her she's bleeding and her hand goes to the back of her head, where she gingerly feels around. Her fingers go to her ear and come back wet with the blood.

She looks up and she's about to loose consciousness. Her eyes roll up in the back of her head and her knees buckle, bringing her to the ground. I shout her name and cradle her head as she falls so she doesn't hit her head again. I tell Tritter to call an ambulance and that he'd better pray she's okay or I'll come after him.

I'm riding in the ambulance, holding her hand and I haven't been this scared in a long time. At least the last time she was in the hospital, she was awake the entire time and it wasn't something that could be life-threatening. It's hard to tell if it's a skull fracture or just a concussion; it's possible the bruising near her eye and ears is from what the crackhead did to her, or it could mean a fracture.

Cameron meets us at the door of the ER and I tell her not to fuck this up. She tells me to back off so she can do the examination. Henri's hooked up to an IV and she opens her eyes but she's disoriented. Cameron uses her flashlight on her eyes and one pupil is bigger than the other. Henri has no recollection of what happened after the crackhead punched her. Cameron decides it's a concussion, but I tell her to do a CT scan to ensure there's no fracture or brain injury. As Henri's nose and right ear start bleeding as she's heading to her scan, she becomes frantic. I know there's something wrong and I try my best to get her calm so we can get a clear CT scan.

There's a hairline fracture in her skull and all we can do for her head is make sure it doesn't get worse and give her pain meds. I'm infuriated. This happened because of me; this happened because a cop couldn't deal with the fact that I got away with my pain and the solution to my pain. I will sue him into the ground unless I lose my control and kill him first. Henri is everything to me.