Whipping Boy

Chapter Thirty-Five

While Alice, Regina, Gold, Zelena, and Chad were working to bring Rogers back within the hospital's basement below, Gothel and Leota arrived within the corridor of the emergency wing above, along with their other two sisters who were both still struggling to recover from the mace in their eyes. They had followed Tilly the best they could after she ran from them and while she wasn't invisible to her mother and her sisters, the girl was fast and knew how to remain invisible from everyone else she might have passed by, especially when she wanted to be.

Unfortunately, they had only lost track of her not far from the hospital. With Rogers being in the condition that he was, Gothel began to suspect the heroes must have brought him there in hope of doing whatever they could to bring their friend back to them through medical means, on account of them having a doctor among them now whom the witches learned some time ago had eventually become privileged to the truth about magic and those he'd met through his fiancée, the former Wicked Witch from Oz.

When the women of the coven walked around, each of them began to question each of the nurses, patients, or anyone else around if they might have seen a young girl with blonde hair and wearing a green colored coat that appeared a bit too big for her, or a small group of people dragging along a tall handsome man with only one hand, who had black hair, facial hair, and wearing all black between them. But everyone simply shook their heads and turned away from the women, or they straightly answered no.

Gothel, still under the identity of Eloise Gardener, then went to speak with the doctor with whom she had an understanding and talked him into having their security team and nurses do a sweep of the hospital in search of her husband and those she suspected were responsible for kidnapping him. Reluctantly, the doctor agreed and their search continued.

When word of the search reached her ears, Nurse Lily Tomko eyed the woman she had been told by Detective Weaver was responsible for hurting his friend and partner coldly, as well as the other women with her, then upon seeing the redness and irritation in one of their eyes, she cautiously approached Minerva and with fake concern she asked, "Excuse me, ma'am, but are you alright? Your eyes… you look like you're in a lot of pain. You should come with me to have them looked at. It won't take long."

Minerva glared at the nurse as she crossly replied, "I'm fine. Thank you. Have you heard the description of the people we're looking for yet? Our sister's husband has been abducted. He was wounded not too long ago and has still been in a lot of pain, so we suspect they might have brought him here."

"I haven't heard," Lily responded while she continued to play dumb in hope of being able to draw her and the others away. "I'm so sorry. What does her husband look like? Or do you have a picture by any chance?"

"He isn't someone who would be hard to miss if he's here," the witch answered in frustration as she pulled a cell phone from her pocket and brought up a picture of Rogers on her screen to show the nurse. "He's quite handsome, as you can see for yourself."

Nurse Tomko looked down at the picture and nodded, the stated, "Indeed he is. Quite handsome. I'm sorry. I certainly haven't seen him around here all night and I've been here for several hours already. It hasn't been too busy, so surely we would have seen him if he came in."

Draya then walked over to them upon seeing her sister talking with the nurse longer than she should have been and retorted, "Unless he was brought in through a different wing, of course. Isn't that right?"

"Right," the woman, whose true identity was taken from her in the curse, sternly replied when she examined the witch now standing in front of her, noticing the irritation in her eyes as well. "What about you? Can I get you anything for your eyes? Mace can be harmful if it's not washed out and the eyes aren't treated carefully."

"We're fine," Minerva's sister responded curtly once again. "Have you seen the man we're looking for, or not? Or the girl we've been describing to everyone here, whom we think is involved in his kidnapping?"

Lily sighed inwardly, and then in frustration she answered, "And I'm telling you… he hasn't been through here or anywhere else throughout this hospital. I've been on all evening so far and it's been a quiet enough night that I would have seen that man, whether he was brought in through here, or through any other corridor. I've been everywhere and right now my feet are killing me. But if you think he's been taken somewhere to be cared for, there is a clinic not too far from here. A clinic, whose doctors and nurses don't ask too many questions. It's possible your friend was taken there."

Draya stared at the nurse for any sign of deception and while it was clear to the witch she was irritated, she couldn't get a hint she was lying, so Draya simply nodded and replied, "Thank you. We'll talk with our sister to see what she's discovered and then we'll be out of your hair."

With that said, the two members of Hyperion Heights' own witch coven walked away from her to find their leader to inform her about the clinic they had learned about from one of the nurses currently on duty. The information had been told to them out of deception in order to draw the witches away from the detective being hid from them down in the basement of the hospital, but not everything Lily had said was a complete lie either. The clinic wasn't far and it's true that those who worked there don't ask a lot of questions about their patients, which made it the likely place someone in the friends of Rogers' situation would go, if Lily didn't already know where they really were.

Lily Tomko kept her eyes carefully on the four women looking for her detective friend's partner the best she could despite being asked to make a visit with a few of the other patients, but finally she watched as each of them left the hospital together nearly an hour later, after they had failed to get what they had come in for.

Once they were gone, the nurse quickly finished up her rounds and walked through the corridors further down to clock out after her shift, before she finally made her way back down into the basement so she could talk with Detective Weaver about Eloise and her coven sisters looking for his partner.

"Nurse Tomko… the look on your face says something's happened," Gold said to her in concern after he stepped outside of the room where the others were continuing to look after Rogers, upon seeing the nurse coming down through the window. "What's wrong?"

"Please… call me Lily," she responded in frustration and concern. "I'm sorry. It's just that… Your partner's wife and her friends were just here looking for him. They're gone now. I told them a lie about how you could have brought him to the clinic a few blocks away to have him cared for, but… If they go there and discover your partner isn't there, they might realize I deceived them and come back. I'm leaving for tonight and will be off for the next few nights, so I'm not worried about myself. But him… and the rest of you…"

Weaver laid his hand over her arm in gratitude while he answered, "Don't worry about us too much. Our friend's awakened and he appears to be a little better than before, though he's still very weak and in pain."

Lily sighed worryingly, as Zelena stepped outside of the room as well upon hearing them talking, then the nurse continued, "If you wish, I can get you some medicine for him… for the pain. And if you have your car, I can show you where you can park around the back of this building, then guide you all to an exit so you can hopefully get him out without being seen by anyone who might try to stop you. I realize your friend's ill, but I'm afraid it's not safe for him to remain here for much longer, in case they decide to come back or you're discovered. We can head back to my apartment and you can care for him there."

"That's very generous of you," Zelena sincerely replied, then glanced over at Gold. "In case who comes back?"

"Eloise and her cult," he curtly responded. "Go tell your sister and fiancé that we're going to need to leave and to help prepare Rogers for travel. Don't worry… we'll be able to get Rogers out of here without jostling him too badly. He'll be able to continue to rest once we're somewhere more safe. If we can get Rogers well enough and back on his feet now that we've helped to restore his most important memories, I doubt Eloise would be foolish enough to attempt to hurt him like this again."

Kelly looked at him in disbelief while she questioned, "Are you certain of that?"

Gold then shook his head as she answered, "No… not really. With Eloise, anything's possible."

By nine o'clock that morning, the heroes were carefully moving Rogers from within the hospital out to Weaver's car after Lily had gotten them a wheelchair to push him in. What none of them knew, was that Gothel was watching them from a window three stories above them after she discovered she and her sisters had been deceived.