A/N: This chapter was created by me and Ian Equinox. So half the credit goes to him. And a reviewer pointed out that I put that Jeremiah was seven in some chapters and nine in others. He's seven. I'll go back and change the age.

Chapter 14-Hospital Horror

Jeremiah made tiny whimpering sounds as he rolled his head from side to side as he tried to sleep that night. Those hospital beds aren't comfortable to him at all and the mediciny smell kept him awake because of his headaches. His whimpers got louder and louder as doctors and nurses passed the room with alarmed looks on their faces. Zack and Cody had their tired faces pressed up against the window, their eyes filled with drowsiness and worry.

He woke up with a dazed vision. He looked around, and could make out people. Angels? A white hand reached towards him, and touched his cheek. The hand felt rubber. It was a glove. The rest of the room was too white for Jeremiah to be able to make anything out. He closed his eyes, and then reopened them. Four angels stood in front of him, holding a tray, and there was something on it. Food possibly? Jeremiah could hear distant voices, but couldn't decipher what they were saying, or even what language they spoke. He closed his eyes and reopened them, and things were clearer. He rubbed his eyes until he could see clearly and he fully came back to his senses. The moment he looked to see where he was, and what was in front of him, he felt something inside him sink.

There were no angels. He was in the hospital. In front of him were doctors. Holding a tray of food…or poison. Yes, it was poison. It had to be. They had given up on him and wanted to kill him. That had to be it. They were going to kill him. End his being. Finish him. A doctor, a girl, smiling at him, moved the tray towards him. He backed further into his pillow, trying to stay away from the very substance that would kill him. The doctor of course, was oblivious to this as she hadn't interacted with Jeremiah before. And that's what nearly got Jeremiah killed.

Panicking, Jeremiah did the only thing he could do. He started kicking and screaming, trying to frighten the doctors away from him. He started shouting "It's poison!" and managed to get the doctors to back up from him about an inch. He kicked the tray out of the doctor's hand and it landed on her shirt. He pulled any wires that were connected to him off and jumped out of bed and ran out of the room. As he got into the hall, he looked to both of his sides and didn't see any of the Martins. He saw an elevator at the end of the long hallway so he decided to run to his left. He was almost at the elevator as he noticed the doctors had almost caught up with him. Lucky for Jeremiah, one of them tripped when in the room which slowed them down quite a bit. It was enough for Jeremiah to quickly jump in an elevator as the doors were closing and evade the doctors for now. He looked around and quickly pushed the button for the roof.

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"But we have to make sure he's ok!" Cody shrieked. "We have to!"

"Please let us in there! Please!" Zack begged as he wrapped his arm around his brother's sobbing shoulders. He stiffened once he felt another hand on his shoulder and turned to see his mother standing behind them with a tired look on her face.

"C'mon boys. Jeremiah will be ok. You need your rest," she said as she rubbed Cody's shoulder.

"But Jeremiah needs us!" Cody protested, but he let out a yawn and rubbed his eyes, his face reflecting drowsiness. "We need to (yawn) stay with him."

"Well, you guys can stay here tonight, but you'll have to sleep in the waiting room. Ok?"

"Oh-kaaaaay," Zack and Cody sighed in unison as they allowed Carey to lead them away from their brother's hospital room and to the waiting room. The sounds of Jeremiah's fear filled screams echoed in their heads and were engraved in their brains as they drifted off into a light sleep.

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Jeremiah pushed the button labeled "R" and continued pushing it so that the doctors couldn't stop the elevator from going up. Jeremiah's regained his breath as he reached the roof. He ran to the edge of it and looked down. Everyone at ground level looked like a bunch of little ants, each scurrying to do the various tasks needed to complete their day. As he thought of jumping off to kill himself, he thought of the Martins. If they really loved me they would be here right now. But they are evil. Everyone's evil! Even Sarah! I hate her! I hate everything! It's all –

"Jeremiah!!" yelled a woman. Jeremiah turned around and saw the Martins along with the doctors.

"Jeremiah!! You get down from there right this instant!" yelled Carey. She started crying and fell to her knees. "Please Jeremiah! Don't do this! I can't lose you! I love you!" Cody hugged his mom along with Zack while the doctor's tried to persuade Jeremiah to come back to them.

Jeremiah thought of everything that had happened to him. Being hit by his mom, left behind, exiled. He had been forced to cross dress, and many things that it hurt him to think about. Tears started rolling down his cheek, and he turned around. He bent his knees, closed his eyes, and jumped. He heard screams behind him, and heard footsteps. But it wouldn't matter now. He had seconds to live. He felt the wind blow his hair up towards the heavens and all his clothes pointed up. As he was in the air falling, he felt something wrap around his arm and he was pulled backwards. He opened his eyes and hit the hard concrete on his back, scraping his arm. He looked and saw the doctor who tried to give him the poison looking at him, panting. Everyone instantly ran towards Jeremiah, Carey sighing in relief, having gotten through one of the most nightmarish moments of her life. The doctors sighed in relief was well, knowing that Jeremiah wasn't on the ground below with broken bones and completely dead. Jeremiah weakly fought everyone around him, but two doctors grabbed him by the feet and two by the arms, and the Martins watched as he was pulled downstairs, and watched as they disappeared behind the wall as he was going back to his hospital room. Too tired to resist, he rest his eyes, and quickly fell back asleep.

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Jeremiah woke up a week and a half later with sunlight streaming into the room. His head pounded as he sat up, along with his hand with the IV in it and the spot under the bandage where he got the shot the night before. But that didn't hurt as much as his heart.

'I thought my life would be easier now that I decided to stay alive and live with a family that was going to take care of me. I guess I was wrong. They don't care. They didn't help me last night. Maybe I should just…'

His thoughts suddenly ended as the door to his hospital room opened and Zack and Cody walked in with smiles on their faces. Cody had a bouquet of flowers in his hands and he put it in water in the vase as Zack pulled up a chair and sat by the bed. Cody looked around the room and saw food stacked up on a tray in the corner.

"Jeremiah, are you not eating?" He asked in a worried tone.

"It's poison," He replied bluntly as he glared up at the ceiling.

"It's not poison. The doctors wouldn't poison you. You really need to eat something."

"You can't make me!" Jeremiah spat in a challenging tone. Cody visibly recoiled in shock. Zack's eyes narrowed as he took a deep breath to calm himself. He could never stand it if someone insulted or yelled at his brother and lately, his anger was becoming a problem.

"Jeremiah, please, I don't want you to get sick. I don't want anything bad to happen to you. You have to eat something."

"NO!"

"What's wrong?" Cody asked in a small voice.

Jeremiah stayed silent as he glared down at his hands. Cody stared at him while Zack just sat there with a bored expression on his face. Finally Jeremiah responded, "You abandoned me. You left me here….to get me hurt. They hurt me and you didn't care at all! You didn't care at all!"

"But we do care," Cody whispered, close to tears.

"NO YOU DON"T!" Jeremiah screamed. "YOU DON'T! YOU DON'T! YOU DON'T!"

He started to scream as loud as he could and a doctor suddenly rushed in. He ushered Zack and Cody out of the door where Cody was protesting. Zack was trying to get back into the room because he was screaming at Jeremiah as he shouted back at Zack; faces both red, throats sore. Zack cursed loudly as he kicked a nearby chair. Cody begged him to stop, but he was in too much rage. Finally, Cody did the only thing he could do.

He slapped Zack.

Hard.

Across the cheek.

Zack was momentarily frozen as he raised a shaky hand to his red and stinging cheek. He turned his head and gazed at Cody in disbelief; Cody was breathing heavily as he wiped tears from his eyes and glared at Zack intensely. Zack lowered his eyes from Cody's gaze; it scared him.

"Why did you-?" Zack started.

"I hit you because you're being a bastard!" Cody hissed as Zack's mouth dropped open.

"I'm being a-?"

"Yes. A bastard! Ever since Jeremiah came to live with us all you have done is hate him for no reason. Sure, he was destructive in the beginning, but he's changed. And when he's in the hospital scared you start to yell at him!"

"Cody…I just-"

"I don't want to hear it, Zackary!"

Zack winced visibly as Cody stomped off down the hall, pushing people out of his way. He slowly shook his head as he started to make his way down the hall. But a black figure pushed past him and sprinted down the hall. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that it was Jeremiah sprinting down the hallway. He called after him but Jeremiah didn't turn around. He just kept right on running as the doctors came out of the hospital room with scared looks on their faces; blood on their hands and arms.

"What's going on? Why'd Jeremiah run away like that?" Zack asked as he watched the boy turn the corner.

"He says he's can't take it anymore," a doctor responded.

"What do you mean 'he can't take it anymore?'" Zack questioned as he narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"He can't take the pain anymore. He says he can't keep living his life not knowing who is telling the truth or what a lie is anymore. Stay here kid, we'll find him."

The doctors ran after Jeremiah as fast as they could, but the kid's legs carried him away a lot faster than they could reach him. Jeremiah reached the elevator and he looked around and quickly pushed the button for the ground floor. The doctors disappeared behind the big, metal doors as the elevator shifted towards the ground floor. Jeremiah smiled as he heard loud noises come from the doors, like the sound you hear when four people run into a big metal door.

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"Damn it, where could that kid have gone?!" said Doctor Blalock.

"He could've gone anywhere in the hospital. What if he left the hospital and something bad happens to him? What do we tell the family!?" Doctor Kalarjian, the woman who tried to feed Jeremiah, thought about the situation. "Sir, I think we might have to split up. We have to find this child at all costs before something happens to him."

"Me and Kalarjian share the same sentiments Doctor Blalock," said Dr. Smith.

"OK," started Doctor Blalock. "Me and Johnson here will search outside, while you and Dr. Kalarjian search the inside of the hospital."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

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Jeremiah ran out of the hospital and into the busy streets of Boston. He could go one of four ways now. To his left, where he would just be wandering into unknown territory, to his right, where he would be doing the same thing, and forwards, where he would be doing the same thing as well, or back to the hospital, where he would be given poison to eat. Anything beats going back to the hospital. Jeremiah sprinted to his left as fast as his legs would take him. He didn't stop until he got to a group of people waiting at a bus stop. After a minute, the bus finally came and he blended in with the crowd and got on for free. He smiled as the bus turned a corner and drove away from the hospital, then relaxed in his seat and decided to wait to see how far away he could get from the hospital before he had to disembark from the bus.

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Dr. Kalarjian and Dr. Smith both waited for the elevator to come back up, and then went down to the lobby in pursuit of Jeremiah. They walked in and saw a bunch of families waiting around for their loved ones to return to them, and a couple of doctors walking into various rooms to do what they were needed for. Kalarjian looked in the girls bathroom while Smith looked in the boys bathroom. Both searches were fruitless. No Jeremiah. They continued searching throughout the lobby, and finally decided to check the elevators to see if the boy was staking out in one of them. They found nothing. Both doctors met up after checking the elevators to share the same news, and they fell into a state of despair.

Doctor Blalock and Dr. Johnson ran outside the hospital in search of Jeremiah but couldn't see him. It was already dusk, and it would be dark very soon. "Johnson, if we don't find the child by dark we will call the police." Dr. Johnson nodded and the two split up in search of Jeremiah.

Doctor Johnson ran forward, crossing the street and barely avoiding being hit by a car. He looked around for anyone who might look like Jeremiah, but didn't see anyone. He looked everywhere, in stores, alleys(Which was a dangerous and dumb thing to do, but Doctor Johnson figured it was either this or his job), and the streets. He finally met back at the hospital with Dr. Blalock.

Doctor Blalock ran to his right looking for Jeremiah, but found no one who looked anywhere near what Jeremiah looked like. Seeing as Jeremiah couldn't go far, and the fact that there was a huge wooden fence that would be too tall for Jeremiah to climb to his right, and the skies becoming dark, Doctor Blalock ran back to the hospital to wait for Doctor Johnson and call the police.

The four doctors met up outside the hospital, and shared the same news. Dr. Blalock notified the police, and they were going to be on the streets searching for Jeremiah. After the notification, the doctors had to decide who would and how they would tell the Martins about their missing son. In the end, they decided they would all be in the presence of the Martins when they informed them of their missing son, so they would all share the guilt and feeling of being the bearer of bad news equally. Depressed, they walked back into the hospital to go tell the Martins.

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Boston Police Station

Jake was new to the police force, and had just been assigned his first task. "Locate a missing child and bring him back to the police station so that his family can pick him up." Jake was worried he wouldn't find the child, and that if he got hurt it would be all his fault, but felt a little better after hearing that there would be other members of the force, three to be exact, that would be on the lookout as well. Of course, Jake was the only one who would be out actually hunting down Jeremiah; while the other three would just be told that if they see him to bring him in to the station. There had been no picture, but he had been described well. They were all told that he thought that everyone was going to hurt him, and if the thought he was going to be hurt, he would kick and scream. They were also told that he thought all food was poison, so if any food was offered to him he would instantly assume that they were evil as well. That kid must be freaking nuts. I wonder what could've happened to him to make him like this. Jake opened the door and got in his car, then slowly drove out of the parking lot and went to search for the kid.

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JEREMIAH

AGE: 7

ADDRESS:

SUITE 2330, TIPTON HOTEL

1253 TIPTON LANE

BOSTON, MASACHUSETTS

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Officer Jake looked at his computer screen, and thought over what information he had been given. "The kid escaped the Boston Hospital. He's only nine, so he couldn't have gotten far. It's your job to find him and bring him back home." This really sucked. He was out late at night to find some kid, while his kid was at home with his wife wondering where the dad was. He just had to become a police officer. All because his dad wanted him to. Angry, Jake pushed on the pedal a little harder, making the car go faster, but still well within the speed limit. As he got into the main streets of Boston, around the hospital, he slowed down and started to look around for the kid, so he could just get him home and then go home himself to go to sleep.