Author's Note: Thanks to awesome BluCrayons! Great beta. Be sure to check out her stories. They're great and I know you all will love them. She's currently working on "Playing House" and "Mike's Sweet Young Thing". They are both absolutely terrific stories and I know she'd love to hear your feedback!
Chapter 34: Starting a Plan
Over the next few days, Mike tried to walk across the room a few times, but he didn't feel like he was really making any progress. Each time he stood, he felt pain shoot through his entire leg. He relied heavily on Peter and Rose for support so as not to fall over. He very nearly fell most times, but one of the two of them always caught him before he could really fall. Micky, however, was getting noticeably better each day. He had more energy to move around and could do a lot of things on his own now.
"Take it easy, Mike," Rose said as Mike got frustrated when he once again stumbled from the pain shooting through his leg.
"This isn't helping," Mike said. "I'm not getting any better."
"Yes, you are," Rose said. "You just can't see it. It takes time for this stuff to heal."
"You're going a little faster each day," Davy offered.
"If you say so," Mike grumbled irritably. He took another step forward, feeling the familiar pain in his knee, but he trudged forward anyway. He completed the two laps that Rose had him doing every day.
"There you go, Mike," Micky encouraged. "You are getting better. Just don't give up, buddy."
"Thanks, Micky," Mike said as Sarah emerged from the bathroom where she'd been washing up. She had the first aid kit in her hand and set it down next to Micky as Rose helped Mike lie down on his bed. She then rolled up his pant leg and began massaging his leg and knee as she always did after their walks.
"We should change your dressings now," Sarah smiled as she gave Micky a quick kiss. "Davy, why don't you come help me. I can show you what you need to do."
"Why?" Micky asked. "Do you think you're going somewhere?"
"No, but just in case," Sarah said. "You never know what's gonna happen and it's better to be prepared than sorry."
"I wanna help anyway," Davy said rushing over glad he'd finally be able to do something to help. Mike could tell how frustrated he'd been not being able to help. He really was too short to help Mike with his walking and Sarah had usually been the one to change Micky's dressings out. The most he'd done was help keep Mike and Micky clean, even though neither of them liked getting a sponge bath very much. Peter sat on the edge of Mike's bed listening closely so he would know what to do, too. Mike only hoped it never came to that.
"Alright," Micky said and sat up to allow Sarah to take his old bandages off.
"First thing you do is take the old bandages off," Sarah said.
"Right," Davy said helping her. "Then put the burn cream and antiseptic on."
"Not quite," Sarah said. "You have to check the wounds first. Make sure they look good."
"How does a burn look good?" Davy asked a little skeptically.
"She means you have to make sure it's not discolored or puffy," Micky laughed. "If it looks green or puffy or anything like that, it means there's an infection forming."
"Oh," Davy said.
"See this one?" Sarah smiled pointing to one of Micky's burns. Mike could see from the next bed that the blistering had gone down a lot, but it still made him sick to his stomach to see them.
"That looks gross," Davy muttered.
"Yes, but that's how they're supposed to look," Sarah said. "No signs of infection. You also want to check and make sure they're getting better."
"Ok," Davy said picking up the bottle of antiseptic. "Then the burn cream and antiseptic."
"Yes, but not too much," Sarah said taking the bottle from Davy. "You only wanna use a little bit." She opened the bottle and suddenly her face contorted into one of disgust. She set the bottle down and quickly dashed off to the bathroom again.
"Sarah?!" Micky called after her, but had moved too quickly. He wasn't at full strength yet, so he hissed in pain a little trying to get up too fast.
"Sit; I got it," Rose ordered Micky and darted off after Sarah.
"What was that?" Peter asked.
"Well, this does smell pretty bad," Davy said taking the bottle and sniffing it. "I think I might be sick smelling it."
"I don't think it's that," Micky said. "She's been using that on me for two weeks."
"I don't think she's feeling well," Mike said. "I've heard her throw up a lot the last few days. She's probably getting sick. Maybe we should ask for some cold medicine."
"Maybe," Micky said. When Shirley or Cole brought them food the past few weeks, they would sneer and ask if they needed anything else like more bandages or anything. They'd needed a refill once, and they'd brought some back within the hour. Claire really was wanting them to heal before she started torturing them again. After a few minutes, Rose and Sarah came out of the bathroom.
"You ok, sweetie?" Micky asked.
"Yeah," Sarah answered. "Think I'm just a little sick. The smell of that just got to me. I'm fine."
"If you're sure," Micky answered, though he sounded like he was a little skeptical.
"Fine," Sarah said. "Davy, would you mind finishing that up? Just put a little bit on his cuts. About the size of a nickel."
"Ok," Davy said doing as instructed. Mike glanced at Rose and could almost see a look of worry on her face. Mike thought about saying something, but decided he'd ask Rose later. Davy quickly finished changing Micky's bandages as Rose resumed massaging Mike's leg. The rest of the day was spent fairly normally, or at least what had become normal over the last few weeks. They tried talking through multiple scenarios on ways to escape, but all of them ended in failure. Even if they had a chance to reduce the number of people they had to fight against, they didn't have any weapons to fight with. And they were all pretty sure that fighting with their bare hands wouldn't work.
At the end of the day, Shirley brought them more sandwiches and asked once again if they needed anything. She left after no one said anything. Even though Mike had suggested cold medicine for Sarah, she'd told them she'd be fine without and not to ask as it might show Claire she was a little weak. Davy disseminated the sandwiches and then plopped down on the bed across from Mike rather hard causing the bed to squeak.
"Ow," Davy muttered.
"You ok?" Peter asked worriedly.
"Yeah, just old mattresses," Davy answered. "Spring poked me."
"Davy, you're a genius!" Rose exclaimed leaving her sandwich alone on the bed next to Mike and running over to one of the unused mattresses.
"I am?" Davy asked.
"What's going on?" Mike asked confused.
"The beds are made of metal," Micky answered catching on with an excited gleam in his eye.
"So?" Peter said clearly not following. But it clicked for Mike.
"So people make weapons out of beds in prisons all the time," Mike answered.
"They're called shanks or shivs," Rose answered running her hand over the mattress, feeling where all the metal was. "They do it with lots of items, but mostly bed springs."
"It won't work," Sarah said.
"Why not?" Micky asked.
"They're not very effective," Sarah answered. "Trust me. The coils on those are old and too small to really do anything."
"Have you tried?" Micky asked.
"Not me personally," Sarah answered. "My roommate. She had spent a few years in prison before coming here. She'd seen other prisoners make stuff like that and tried it. When one of the orderlies came in to bring us for inspection, she stabbed him in the stomach. All it really did was piss him off. It hurt him and made him bleed, but he strangled her till she passed out and dragged her out. I never saw her again after that."
"That's because she stabbed him in the stomach, for one," Rose said. "There's more fat in the stomach. Less chance of getting anything substantial. You wanna incapacitate or kill someone with a sharp object, you aim for the chest wall or the face. Second, we can make them more effective."
"How are you gonna do that?" Peter asked.
"If we strip the whole bed, we can get several springs out of it," Rose answered. "Twist them together to make the weapon bigger. Maybe even extra ends to do a bigger area of damage."
"We'd have to hide that," Mike said. "I think they'd notice if they saw a disassembled mattress, they'd know something was up."
"Right," Micky said. "It'll take time to make them anyway. But as we take the springs out, we can stuff the mattress with other material to hide that. Maybe the bandages or something."
"Ok, so where do we hide this weapon?" Davy asked.
"In the mattress," Rose answered. "There's one that's not used at all anymore. We can make several of them and use them when the time is right."
"And when will that be?" Peter asked.
"When Claire leaves to go find Hope," Micky said. "Their numbers will at least be smaller then."
"Right," Rose said. "So we wait until they come bring us food, stab whoever comes in, steal their keys and leave."
"Wait," Mike said. "I can't leave without Heather. I'm not leaving my child with her."
"Which is why I was thinking we wait to "tell" them where Hope is for a few months," Micky said.
"Why does that matter?" Peter asked.
"Yeah, I don't wanna see them torture you for another few months," Davy agreed.
"Because she's 5 and a half months pregnant," Rose said. "If we told them now, there is every possibility that she could go with them and if we escape without taking her with us, Mike'll never see his kid."
"So we wait until she's too far along to travel," Micky said.
"When's that?" Davy asked.
"Close to the end of the pregnancy," Micky answered. "Hence why we have to wait a few months. The closer we can push it to her delivery date, the better chance we have of knowing she'll still be here when we make our escape."
"And how do you plan on taking her with us?" Mike asked.
"By force," Rose said.
"Without hurting her?" Mike asked.
"We can hurt her without hurting the baby," Micky said. "Trust me, Mike. I'm not going to let anything happen to your baby. I promise." Mike sighed heavily. He did trust Micky, but he didn't trust fate. They'd rarely ever had one of their plans go off without a hitch. What if something happened during their escape? What if it didn't work at all and they were caught or one of them was hurt or killed during the escape?
"Mike, there's gonna be risk in whatever plan we try," Rose said reassuringly. "But we have to try. If we don't, we'll be stuck here forever. And your baby will be lost to her forever."
"I know," Mike sighed. "Thank you." Rose smiled and started trying to tear open the mattress to get to the spring. Davy and Peter went over to try and help her. They didn't really have any way of cutting open the mattress so they tried to push the springs up a little from the inside. It took about half an hour between the three of them, but they finally got a spring to break loose and poke through the mattress.
"Yes!" Davy exclaimed excitedly tearing at the rest of the material around it to free the spring entirely. "Now how do we turn this into a weapon?"
"Careful," Rose said pushing his hand away as he tried to dig into the mattress. "It's already sharp to start with at it's breaking point and God only knows how filthy it is. If you get cut and get infected, they'll know we're up to something."
"Sorry, just a little excited we finally have a solution to get out of here," Davy said backing away.
"We'll have to bend them," Rose said. "That's gonna require a lot of strength and time because they're not very pliable, but we flatten them out as much as we can, then wrap them around each other. It's late. You guys go to bed."
"What about you?" Micky asked.
"I'll go to bed in a little bit," Rose answered. "I just wanna get started on this."
"Alright," Micky said curling up under the covers and pulling Sarah close to him. "Just be careful." Mike lied down as well trying to ignore the dull throbbing in his knee. Dozens of different scenarios about how things could go terribly wrong raced through his mind barring him from sleep. After a while, he felt Rose come sit down next to him and opened his eyes.
"Something told me you'd be the only one awake," she whispered.
"I can't stop thinking about how this can backfire on us," Mike admitted.
"So just stop thinking," Rose said leaning down to kiss him. Mike had to admit that when she kissed him, his brain really did cease to function. All he felt was her. Her lips on his. Her tongue dancing with his. He was so far gone that he couldn't help a slight groan escape his lips as he felt his pants tighten a little. Rose pulled away from him and smiled radiantly. "I knew that would work."
"Thanks," Mike smiled trying to move to hide just how tight his pants were getting. All it did was cause more pain to shoot through his leg as his kneecap popped in and out of place again.
"Will you stop that," Rose said sternly. "Every time you move your leg, it's just gonna hurt."
"I know," Mike answered as Rose crawled under the covers with him.
"Hey, what happened earlier with Sarah?" Mike asked as she rested her head next to his.
"Nothing," Rose answered.
"She got sick," Mike countered. "And you came out looking worried."
"It's nothing, Mike," Rose said. "She's just a little sick. I'm worried about all of us. Now go to sleep." Mike could tell she wasn't telling him something, but decided it was best not to argue. He let the issue drop feeling that it would play itself out when it needed to. Hopefully there was nothing more behind it than just a little cold. They needed Sarah at full strength if they were going to get out of there. Mike kissed her forehead and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep.
Neither of them had really spoken about what was going on between them, but Mike didn't think they really had to. Everything was said as they held each other close and every time they kissed. He'd felt it from the very first kiss they'd shared months ago, but was too afraid to do anything about it. He understood now what she had meant about real love all those months ago. He knew that he'd only been in lust with Heather. He'd never loved her. He'd met her when he was damaged and she'd taken advantage of that. She knew he was just looking for someone to love him because he'd never felt that by anyone in his life before. But Rose was different. He knew he loved her and she loved him.