A/N – WARNING: Ok not that there hasn't been enough gore already in this little tale but Don dreams about what Shelly did to him. It is described in detail and you may want to be aware of that. This is the visual version of what Charlie heard being done to Jon back in chapter twelve. I felt that it was necessary to set up what will be happening with Don over the course of the rest of the story.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
A slight dark haired, olive skinned man in a janitor's jumpsuit pushed a bucket down the hallway of the hospital unit. He stopped at the lavatory and put up the yellow sign warning in two languages that the floor was wet as he pulled the mop from the bucket and began to wipe down the floor. Agent Hawkins sat outside Don's room on a small stool and gave the man a close look registering his features before going back to writing on a report pad on his lap.
Once the janitor had finished this bathroom he stowed the mop in the bucket and proceeded down the hall toward the agent sitting on the stool. As the man passed the room that was being guarded he gave the agent and the room a curious look, noting the room number before moving on.
Agent Hawkins once again noted the height, weight, skin tone, hair and eye color of the janitor. The tag on the man's jumpsuit read Carlos Rameriz. The picture was faded and the tag was curled at the edges as though it had maybe gone through the wash by accident once or twice.
Hawkins wasn't surprised to see the man give him a curious look. It was not particularly usual to see someone sitting outside of a patient room. It would have been obvious to anyone that he was guarding the occupant even though he did not have a police uniform on. He made note of the janitor's name and description in his note pad and didn't give the little man any more thought as he continued to write his report.
After he first woke from his ordeal, Don had found comfort in the close and constant presence of his family. He had always been so self reliant, ever since childhood, but when he found himself in a situation where he felt utterly helpless having his father and Charlie so near bolstered his spirits and helped to keep the fear humming deep inside of him at bay.
Ever since his family left that morning he thought about was how Charlie and his father were fairing. He knew that Megan would make sure that they were well protected and that eased his mind but he felt scared and vulnerable without them by his side.
Don drifted in and out of sleep over the course of the day. His temperature had reached a high of 101.4 and the incision and vacuum bandage on his chest was a constant source of either pain or itchiness. He had to remind himself constantly to try not to scratch because every time that did, it would cause red hot waves of pain to course through his chest and unwelcome memories to invade his mind.
When he was awake he thought about his family, his co-workers, the case and the updates that Megan had given him, anything to push the thoughts of Shelly's twisted smile from his mind. He tried vainly to remain awake as much as possible because in his sleep she visited him with her hands covered in his own blood and the fear that he kept buried so deep that even he didn't fully comprehend it's scope would begin to rise up trying to consume him.
Every time he succumbed to sleep he would wake bathed in sweat panting hard and have buzzers sounding to alert the staff to his dramatically increased heart rate. Dr. Hammell prescribed a mild sedative to try and calm him but that only intensified the situation for Don. He was finding it harder to ward off sleep and the torment that it would bring.
Finally around five in the afternoon Don could hold out no longer against the sedative and he fell into a drug deepened sleep, a sleep that he couldn't wake himself from easily. He was trapped in his mind as the horror he endured played out in full color.
When Shelly stroked his chest before she started to work on him he felt more anger than fear. She taunted him as she picked up the scalpel and pressed it down against his chest near the base of his neck.
'This is the price that a traitorous man pays when he sets out to destroy the life of someone else.'
With slow deliberate pressure she pressed the blade down into his skin and dragged the blade downward. It wasn't as sharp as it should have been and the flesh tore as the first incision was made causing a wave of prickly pain to course through his chest. It was then that Don's anger morphed quickly into fear as the realization finally hit home.
'I'm going to die here in this room. She is going to cut my heart out while I watch. No one is coming, it's too late.'
As she almost lovingly continued to cut over and over until she had sliced through skin, muscle, connective tissue and finally the fascia covering the surface of the bone. The pain was beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life, including the two times he had been shot. The smell of his own blood was suffocating him. At the rate she was going he silently prayed that he would bleed to death before she could finish with him.
Don had begun to fade in and out of consciousness but was brought back abruptly by the strong smell of ammonia. She used her fingers to pull at the edges of the wound she had made. She slid them under the skin and muscle and tugged the tissue up away from the bone causing new waves of agony to erupt.
She slid her fingers up and down the length of the breast bone under the flesh detaching it with tearing sounds from the edges of the sternum and rib cage. Don passed out again at this new assault on his tortured body only to be brought round once again by the acrid odor of the smelling salts.
The retractor that she lifted up and carefully put together making sure Don could see every detail looked more like some medieval instrument of torture than a surgical implement to Don.
She reached into the wound again and lifted the skin to fit the curved edges of the retractor blades under the tissue and against the smooth surface of the bone. She bent down and kissed Don on the lips then. He tried to turn his head away from her but she bit his lip between her teeth and applied just enough pressure to keep his head still without breaking the skin.
She stood back up and smiled down at the agent and slowly began to turn the crank handle on the retractor separating the blades. As his wounded flesh spread apart; pain was no longer an adequate term to describe what he felt. Never in his life had he screamed they way he did at that moment. She laughed as he screamed which had the effect of intensifying his fear. This woman had reduced him to a victim. He begged her to stop; Don never begged. He pleaded with God to end his suffering; Don was not an openly religious man.
When she used that same knife to begin to cut a grove down the center of his breast bone he couldn't understand how a person could have nerves in bone but it was like a white hot sword scraping along his entire being.
This woman had changed his core self. He was no longer strong and self reliant; he was no longer brave. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and be held by his parent and rocked to sleep. He wanted his mother to tell him that the monster wasn't real and that everything would be fine, but the monster was real and she was standing here before him stripping away not only his flesh, but his very soul.
Colby had taken up the post of watchman shortly after Don had fallen asleep. The heart monitor began to beep faster drawing his attention then Don screamed echoing the screeching alarms on the heart monitor. Colby flew into the room with his gun raised, looking for the agent's assailant.
Don was thrashing his head back and forth and Colby moved quickly to the bed holstering his weapon. He grabbed Don's hand as his eyes opened suddenly. Don looked down and saw the foam bandaging and the tube running from his chest and his eyes opened wide in terror. Not being able to move the arm that Colby was holding he instinctively reached with his left hand and yanked the tube out along with a good amount of the foam packing the wound.
This sent a wave of pain that caused Don to scream again in agony while Colby grabbed his left arm to keep him from doing any more damage to the wound on his chest.
"We need help in here! Don! Stop, you're safe now! Don, its Colby!"
Don's eyes were glazed with the sedative and wild from the nightmare. Colby recognized these symptoms having seen them from soldiers in an acute flashback. He kept a strong hold on Don arms but tried to get the agent to focus on his face. He needed to bring him back from the precipice of the delusion.
"Don, look at me! Look at me, its over. This isn't where you think it is. This isn't that storeroom."
Don did look at Colby and the panic began to fade slightly from his eyes. Dr. Hammell who was just getting ready to leave and two nurses came charging into the room. Colby still had Don's arms in a tight grip and didn't move right away when the hospital personnel entered. Don was responding and he wasn't going to let him go until Don knew where he was.
"Don, you're in the hospital."
"Colby?"
Don looked around then down at his chest. The wound was open and bleeding which made no sense to him. Then he looked over at his left hand and saw that he still clutched the foam bandage and suction tube. His head began to spin and his eyes rolled up as everything went black.
Colby stepped back immediately so that Dr. Hammell and the nursing staff could begin to assess the damage as he moved cautiously out of the room and dialed Megan's number. Megan arrived at the hospital within thirty minutes of Colby's call. Don had been given a strong sedative and Dr. Hammell stepped out of the room to speak to Megan.
"Agent Reeves, I know that you wanted to move him tonight but that just can't happen at this time. Luckily your other agent stopped him from doing any truly serious damage but this is going to set him back quite a bit. When he tore the foam bandaging out the adhesive tore a horizontal gash off of the chest incision. I have sutured it and re-applied the VAC bandage. I understand that Agent Eppes was tied down and tortured but if he is allowed to pull at that bandage again he could cause a far more serious injury. I don't want to do this, but I am going to have to order the use of restraints."
Colby stepped forward and spoke. "It's only because he was asleep and dreaming. If we tie him down the flash backs will get worse. I've seen this kind of post traumatic stress before. If he has a nightmare and wakes up tied down it will only intensify the effect."
"I'm sorry, sir, but there really is no other choice. Agent Eppes could have seriously injured himself this evening, and in fact did do enough damage that he will not be going anywhere any time soon. The only good outcome of this is that I was able to see that the infection is indeed clearing and the deeper tissues of the wound have begun to heal. There is no new necrotic tissue and granulation tissue has begun forming. Now all we have to do is ward off any new infections and hope that the additional tear doesn't cause problems with the healing process of the vertical incision."
This complicated matters for Megan. She had planned on moving Don to Huntington in the wee hours of the morning but now it appeared that he was going to have to stay where he was. She decided to have Colby stay in the room with Don to prevent any further problems. She told Dr. Hammel that she would arrange for a psychological evaluation for him. She did not want anyone outside of the nurses spacifically cleared for this floor to have access to Don.
The fact that one of Saborgia's known assciates, Tommy Torpe, had turned up to see Shelly Arbury twice during the course of the day confirmed in her mind that a contract had been put out on the Eppes' brothers. She had David running down all of the known snitches associated with Saborgia to try and confirm this fact.
She decided to stay at the hospital with Don until he woke up. He came out of the sedation by nine in the evening confused and in pain. She held his hand until he focused on her face. When he tried to bring his hand up to his face he found that he was unable to move it more than a few inches and panic set in. He started pulling on the restraints that were tied to the sides of the bed.
"What the hell? Megan why am I tied up? What's going on? Let me go! Untie me!"
"Don, calm down." Megan brought her hand up to his face and stroked it gently to try and get him to look at her.
"You woke up screaming earlier and pulled the bandage off your chest. In the process you did some damage and the doctor had to suture up a new tear that was caused. Don, the restraints are for your protection. You have to calm down or they won't be coming off any time soon."
Don squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his head into the pillow. He used all of his will power to relax his muscles and put on a face of composed calm. The desire to move his arms was nearly overpowering but he remained in tight control. He opened his eyes again and focused on Megan's face.
"Megan I…
…Isn't there some other way?"
"Don, you seriously hurt yourself. They can't risk you doing that again. I'm sorry."
"It's the dreams."
Don didn't want to talk about this but he needed to have his freedom. Shelly had truly made him a victim even of his own mind. He glanced over at Colby sitting in the corner and without even being asked Colby got up and stepped out of the room.
"Megan, I'm fine when I'm awake. It's when I fall asleep; I'm in that storeroom again. I can't make that go away. But when I'm awake I'm in control, I won't hurt myself. Please tell them I am all right if I'm awake."
There was a pleading look in Don's eyes that sent a wave of pain through her heart. She had never seen that look in Don Eppes' eyes before and she never wanted to again.
"I'm not sure I can do that, Don."
"Look, I'll take a psych evaluation. I'll talk to anyone you want me to talk to, I'll do what ever is necessary but when I am awake I need to be free. I won't fight the restraints if I'm sleeping OK? But not when I'm awake."
Megan sat back studying Don's face and his eyes. It is true that he had not had any waking episodes. He had only lost control when in the throws of the nightmare of his torture.
"All right Don, I'll talk to Dr. Hammell. I'm going to have the agent assigned to you moved into the room rather than out in the hall. When you fall asleep the wrist restraints go on."
Don breathed a sigh of relief.
"And you will have that psych evaluation when you are feeling a little better. That will be non-negotiable."
"How are Dad and Charlie?"
"They're fine; it's you I'm concerned about. It's late and you need to get some rest. These will stay on for right now, because you are going to get some sleep whether you want to or not. I'll talk to Dr. Hammell about taking them off while you are awake and since there will be an agent actually in the room I'm pretty sure I can convince him to agree."
"Thanks Megan."
She smiled at Don and patted his shoulder gently.
"Don't mention it. I'll be back tomorrow to check on you all right?"
Don forced a smile and replied, "Only if you bring more of that Nut House Mocha."
Megan stood up grinning. "You got it boss. Get some rest."
Don took a few deep breaths and concentrated on relaxing every muscle in his body. There was nothing he could do about the wrist restraints for the moment and a small voice inside his mind told him that if he had hurt himself that badly then they really should be in place. How could he have come to this? How did he end up reduced to being tied down so that he would be a danger to himself, waking up screaming like a frightened little boy in the dark of night? A burning coal of anger seethed deep down inside of him. Shelly Arbury would burn in hell for her actions. He would personally see to that and he would sit front and center when they put the needle in her arm.
