Like Sheep
Chapter Five
"You know, life fractures all of us into little pieces. It harms us, but it's how we glue those fractures back together that makes us stronger." - Carrie Jones
3 Days Later
Amber's head hurt, as if someone had put a nail between her eyes. She lay in a foreign bed, with
no memory of where she was; she stayed still with her eyes closed, having awoken but unable to
open them. They were heavy, and felt swollen. She felt a cloth over her right eye.
Without opening her eyes, and without moving, she began to sense her surroundings. Under her
fingertips she could feel smooth sheets; they smelled clean, and like rubbing alcohol. The bed
under her was a little stiff and cold, as if she had just recently been placed there. It took her a
moment to realize that she was cold: her skin was as frigid as ice.
Amber concentrated on feeling her skin. She breathed in slowly through her nose, wincing at the
sudden stab of pain between her eyes, and focused on just feeling. She became aware of needles
in her arms, and something heavy against her left leg.
Finally, finally, Amber struggled to open her eyes. Through her left eye she took in a sterile, neat
hospital room, with some heart-shaped "Get-Well-Soon!" balloons floating in the corner across
from the door.
Amber's memory was fuzzy, at best. She couldn't remember how she had gotten to the hospital,
or where she was. And she wasn't in pain, although…..she couldn't figure out how she knew she
was supposed to be in pain. The eye covering began to itch.
As she moved to touch the bandage over her eye, a warm hand covered her own.
"You need to leave it, sweetie," a voice murmured gently.
"Victoria?" Amber croaked. Her voice was raspy from disuse.
"Yeah, I'm here," Victoria confirmed, giving Amber's hand a firm squeeze.
"Where am I?" Amber groaned. "What time is it?"
Victoria moved around to where Amber could see her clearly, bringing her wheeled-chair around
with her.
"You're in Gotham General," her pink-haired friend said quietly. "You've been here for a while."
"How long?"
Victoria hesitated, but then answered, "About three days. You slept most of the time, and you
were given some heavy-duty pain killers….Do you remember anything?"
Amber was floored by shock. Three days? She'd been in the hospital for three days? Her mother
must be furious. During her undercover operation, Amber had been staying at a friend's
apartment while he was out of town trying a court case in California, and had managed to call
her mother every other day to check in. If she had been out of sorts for three whole days…. She
didn't even want to think about that.
"Amber?" Victoria questioned.
"Hu-what?"
"Can you remember anything? Anything at all? The doctors were afraid you would have acute
memory loss from the trauma to your head."
"Trauma?" Amber said slowly. "What trauma?"
Victoria's face fell. "You don't remember then?"
"Remember what?" Amber snapped. "How the hell did I get here anyway? Why am I here?"
The other girl took a deep breath. "Try to remember. Do you remember working at the circus?"
Amber nodded, irritation plain in her only visible eye.
"Okay, think back to a few days ago….You got a text message from Max. Do you remember the
test message?"
Amber fought to recall what it had said. She was silent for a few minutes, thinking hard, and
finally she remembered losing her phone….and being happy that the operation was almost over….
"It said that you guys would be coming on Wednesday," Amber recounted. "Right?"
"Yes, that's good. Try to remember what happened on Wednesday," Victoria encouraged.
The blonde once again lapsed into silence. She stared at the get-well balloons and studied the
patterns of colors on them. The sounds from the hospital hallways outside leaked into her ears,
filling them with noise.
She remembered….Screaming….but that wasn't it. She was missing something, something
important that came before then.
Her eye shifted to looking out through the blinds into the hallway. She saw nurses and doctors
scrambling to and fro; saw some of them laughing, others carrying clipboards or assisting
patients back to their rooms. Victoria waited patiently, with a sad expression on her face, for
Amber to say something.
The blonde shut her eyes, her eyebrows scrunching together despite her migraine, and fought to
remember. She recalled letting Victoria and the others in through the gate; how they had
requested a megaphone; Peter catching Victoria with Amber-
Peter.
"Peter," Amber said doubtfully. "I remember Peter….."
"What was Peter doing?" Victoria whispered.
Amber was perplexed. "He….you put your arm around me…. He thought we were dating."
Victoria deflated. "What happened next?" she sighed. She had a strange feeling forming within
her: it was like hope that Amber wouldn't remember what had transpired, but also grim
realization that she had to remember….and then despair when Victoria came to the conclusion
that, just as she had failed to protect her best friend from that monster, Peter, she was also unable
to save her from the truth.
Amber frowned. "You were in the big top, with the megaphone….Nathaniel was there-,"
"Nathaniel?" Victoria asked sharply.
"Yeah, why?"
Victoria stood and walked to the corner with the balloons. She grabbed one of the strings and
yanked a balloon forward, which had been in the back of the cluster. It had daisies printed upon
its surface, and firework-like explosions. A note was attached to it. Victoria got the note and
gave it to Amber with a trembling hand.
El, the note read,
I'm sorry. And I'm sorry about the daisies too. You always said you hated them, but it was all I could find at short
notice. I am so sorry. Please forgive me.
Nathaniel
After Amber had read the note aloud to Victoria, her friend asked, "Why do you hate daisies?"
Amber shrugged. "I just…do. When I was a kid, my grandma grew daisies in her garden and
would work on them for hours. She was an avid gardener." Amber rolled her eye. "I just never
found them pretty. I liked roses, and one day I bought a yellow rose and planted it beside her
daisies. The next day I came out to water it and it had been ripped out of the ground and thrown
in a pile of grass clippings. I asked my grandmother about it and she said that she didn't want
roses taking up her daisies' "root room". Ever since then I've despised daisies."
Victoria was quiet as Amber reread the note to herself. Her frown from before returned, and
deepened.
"What is he apologizing for?" Amber asked incredulously.
"The same thing I'm apologizing for," Victoria whispered with tears forming in her dark brown
eyes. "I didn't protect you, like I said I would. I promised Max you would be okay, that nothing
was going to happen to you….and I was wrong."
Now Amber was confused. "What are you talking about? What do mean you didn't protect me?
Protect me from what?"
Victoria let out a sob, but quickly gained control over herself. Amber stared at her, horrified: she
hated seeing people cry. It made her uncomfortable.
"You still don't remember? Don't you remember how you got this-," Victoria motioned to
Amber's eye, "or that horrid thing on your chest?"
"My-my chest…?" Amber murmured. She reached a hand up to pull the fabric of the hospital's
nightshirt down, her left eye searching for any type of blemish on her chest. She was confronted
with a pristine white bandage on the left side of her breasts, just below her collarbone.
"What the hell?" Amber said.
Victoria moved back to her seat, taking Amber's pale, cold hand back into her own. "Amber,
please," she pleaded tearfully, "please try to remember."
A sick feeling swept through the blonde. "I'm not going to like it, am I? The thing that happened
to me?"
Victoria licked her lips and gave her a hopeless smile that turned out looking like a grimace. "No,
sweetie. You're not."
At that moment, the door opened and a woman poked her head in. She had dark hair and a dark
complexion, of obvious Hispanic descent.
"Miss Riley? May I ask you a few questions concerning the events of Wednesday night?"
"Who are you?" Victoria demanded.
"My name is Detective Anna Ramirez with Gotham PD."
"How did you even know she was awake?"
The detective offered a brief smile and came a little farther into the hospital room. "I've been out
here a while. I came by to visit my mother and thought I'd check in again to see how you were
doing."
"Well you wasted your time," Victoria said icily. "She doesn't remember what happened."
"I can wait," Ramirez said calmly, unfazed by the pink-haired girl's hostility.
"I'd rather you didn't," Victoria snarled. "She's under enough stress from trying to remember
what happened, and she doesn't need to be harassed by your questions. So please leave."
Ramirez looked from Victoria to Amber. "I'll be right outside when you decide you want to talk
about it," she said gently. "I understand it's very hard for you, so, please, take your time."
Victoria glared at her as she turned to leave. "Don't hold your breath!" she called after the
detective.
"What's your deal?" Amber asked wearily.
Victoria shrugged and turned intense, kind eyes on Amber again.
Amber accepted that she wasn't going to get an answer and concentrated once more on
remembering what had happened to her.
"You had just seen Nathaniel in the big top," Victoria offered gently. Amber nodded.
She remembered walking….she had to get her stuff before all hell broke loose…. She retrieved her
bag, but instead of joining the other animal rights' activists, she headed further into the heart of
the circus. She had wanted to see the elephants before she left. She entered the elephants' tent-
"Oh god," Amber whispered. Tears began to fill her eyes, wetting the bandage over her right eye.
"Oh god," she repeated.
Victoria closed her eyes in grim anguish and leaned her head back. Amber remembered now.
And even though Victoria knew that it was crucial for her to remember, she still felt responsible
for the burden her friend now had to bear.
Tears began to silently stream down Amber's face, and her eye bandage soon became damp. She
reached a hand up to touch her right eye, sobs shaking her shoulders as she tried to quell them.
She remembered now: she remembered the screams of the elephants, and the screams of the
people outside when cops had stormed the circus; she remembered Sudesh getting struck in the
face; she remembered Nathaniel trying to protect her by throwing Peter off of her….She
remembered everything.
}~*~{
Detective Ramirez settled herself on Victoria's vacated chair, looking around the room and
finding it empty of the pink-haired girl. Amber sat up in her bed, supported by numerous
pillows, with her gaze aimed straight ahead. She did not acknowledge the detective since she
had entered the room, her eyes trained instead on the white wall ahead of her.
"Where's your friend?" Ramirez asked in a friendly manner in an attempt to break the ice.
"I sent her away," was the low reply. It came in a detached tone.
"Oh," was all the detective could say. She shifted in her seat, hating that she had to make this
poor girl relive her grief once again.
"I'm sorry for your loss," she told the blonde gently.
"Thank you," Amber said mechanically. Her voice was a monotone that showed no emotion.
Ramirez thought it seemed like the girl was still in shock.
"What is your name and age?" she asked, beginning her routine questioning.
"Amber America Riley, age twenty."
"You're still very young," Ramirez commented. "You recently graduated college?"
"Community, yes."
"Are you planning on going back to school?"
Amber, startled, looked at her finally. "What?"
"I mean, do you plan on going to a four year college? Finish your education?"
"I….start in three weeks."
"Oh okay," Ramirez smiled. "You have something to look forward to then."
Amber was silent.
A heavy feeling came over the detective. "I've already been briefed on what you were doing at
Petrofsky's Wonder Circus by your superior, Max. I think it's very brave what you did."
Her answer was more silence. Amber by then had returned to staring at the wall.
"I have a, uh, list here," the detective began, unfolding a piece of paper, "of some of the animals
that were killed on Wednesday-,"
"You mean the elephants."
Ramirez looked up quickly. "Yes."
"Why do you want to know?"
"Animal trafficking is big in Gotham, and we're trying to stop it-,"
"You're busy trying to find the Joker."
"But…." Ramirez took a deep breath. "I, at least, am still committed to stopping it, and I could use
your help."
She took Amber's silence to be her consent and hurriedly pushed forward. "I have, uh, another
list of some elephants that were reported as having been smuggled into the country," she said as
she dug around in her bag. "I only have the names of the elephants from Petrofsky's, not their
ages, so I was hoping I would run the names and descriptions by you and we could cross
reference these sources and come up with an accurate, final list. Max said that you, uh, worked
with the elephants, so…."
Amber gave a short nod and Ramirez began to read:
"Specimen One, by name of Bella-,"
"That was the matriarch's second daughter," Amber interrupted. "She was the mother of
Sudesh."
"The baby boy?"
"Yes."
Ramirez grew uncomfortable. "Specimen One, name Bella….deceased."
Amber's head whipped around to look at her. "She's dead?"
The detective nodded. "Bullet between the eyes was the end of her. Her death was quick, if that's
any consolation."
Silence.
"Specimen Two, name of Jennifer-,"
"That's the newest elephant, brought from a different herd in Thailand."
Ramirez was shocked. "How do you know it was Thailand specifically?"
"When she arrived she was wearing a type of collar that a specific elephant reserve in Thailand
puts on its elephants. She was stolen from the reserve and then brought here."
"Okay then," the detective murmured as she crossed the name off the list.
"Is she alive?"
"She made it, yes. She had a flesh wound on her left front leg, but she should recover just fine."
And so it went: Detective Ramirez ran through the list of elephants, making comments here and
there. For the most part, not many elephants had died. Amber had to repress a sob when the
matriarch of the herd came up; but her real anxiety came at the end of the list.
"Specimen Fifteen, Sudesh, deceased."
"What?" Amber demanded.
Ramirez looked upset, and apologetic. "I'm afraid the baby was shot. There was nothing that
could have been done to save him. I'm so, so sorry."
At that moment, something changed in Amber. It was slow at first, like the changing of the tide.
She grew enraged, and yet coldly calm. Her heartbeat accelerated dramatically to the point that
the heart monitors began screeching and nurses ran in to stabilize her. Detective Ramirez left at
the insistence of the nurses, but left her calling card on the table by the door.
As Ramirez walked away from the hospital room, her heart felt heavy. Her own eyes began to
prick and tingle with tears, but she hurriedly brushed them away.
"Poor kid," she murmured and stepped into the fading light of the sun.