"That's right, I know about you two, I've known for quite some time now...and we will talk about that a little later too." Patrick turned to Krieger. "Can you believe I took this kid in, gave him a job... I trusted him to look after my daughter...to be there when I couldn't and what does he do? He lays down with her and shakes my hand with the same hand he touches her with. Disrespecting son-of-a-bitch...I may just have to kill him before I take care of your pig brother."
Jessie's head was reeling and the more he spoke the worse it got. She wanted him to shut up. She wanted to close her eyes and when she opened them, be somewhere else. Hearing laughter and footsteps they all turned to see Langston and Lewis coming back. Lewis was carrying a sledgehammer. Langston was carrying a sledgehammer and a sawed-off shotgun. Her heart pounded in her chest and gooseflesh broke out across her body.
"Please don't hurt him." She didn't realize she said it out loud until The-man-that-looked-like-her-father shot her an angry look and asked her to repeat herself. "I...Dad...Please don't hurt Sal...don't hurt anyone...please, can we just go home...I just want to go home."
Patrick started towards her but changed his mind. "When this is all over, I will deal with you." He said angrily. "I thought you were a lot smarter than this, Jessie, but I see I'm going to have to teach you so much more." Addressing Lewis and Langston he said. "Let's get on with this." Turning to stand face to face with Sal, his voice low and menacing, he leaned in and said. "This could go quickly or I could drag it out all day...cooperate and you get the quick way." He leaned in closer. "Don't make me hurt her, Sal...you know how she is...don't use her to stop me, because it will be bad for her and so much worse for you, just take your punishment and leave her out of it."
"I did it for her, you know, do what you want, but I did it for her...and you. You shouldn't have her here, you son-of-a-bitch...she's not like you, she'll never be like you."
Patrick grabbed Sal by the throat and turned his head towards John. "Then she'll end up like big brother over there." He growled.
Jessie felt faint. She had heard the entire exchange between Sal and The-man-that-looked-like-her-father and she was finding it hard to breathe, she felt like her chest was being squeezed in a vice. 'Just kill me too.' She thought. 'Kill me too, because I've obviously gone crazy and I can't live like this.'
Patrick let go of Sal. "Let's do this. Krieger, hold on to my daughter, I don't want her trying to run out of here."
Krieger pulled Jessie, who was too dazed to fight it, to him and wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides. He rested his chin on her shoulder. "It'll be over before you know it, sweetheart. It'll be hard, but don't let it change you." He whispered.
"Remember what I said," Patrick told Sal. He nodded in Langston and Lewis' direction, giving them the go.
Langston grinned. He moved to one side of Sal while Lewis moved to the other. Sal closed his eyes, his whole body shook in anticipation. Langston raised the sledgehammer above his head and brought it down hard and fast on Sal's barefoot. A second later Lewis did the same to his other foot.
Jessie tried to double over, but Krieger held tight. He could feel her stomach doing flip-flops under his arms and he loosened his hold just a little.
"Getting sick on me would not be such a great idea, sweetheart...just take a deep breath and ride it out."
She didn't know what turned her stomach more the sound of his feet exploding under the sledgehammer or the screams and sounds Sal made afterward. She was not going to make it through this. Her eyes caught the bloody mess on the floor and she felt herself slipping into darkness, only to be yanked back by Patrick, who had pulled her away from Krieger, held her hands out, and put something in them. She could barely hear what he was saying, everything was muffled by the fog in her head, she looked down at her hands and saw the sawed-off shotgun.
"No!" She screamed.
4:30 a.m. The nurse entered Jessie's room to re-start her I.V. medications and nearly dropped them on the floor, startled by what she saw. Jessie was tossing and turning in the bed, tangled in the blankets, completely soaked with sweat, and she was hyperventilating so much her lips were starting to turn blue. She moved quickly to Jessie's bedside and tried to restrain and wake her, but nothing she did worked. She pressed the call button to the nurse's station and told them she needed help and the on-call doctor. Leaving Jessie's side, she tried John.
"Mr. Grant!" She shook him vigorously. "Mr. Grant, I need you to wake up! I need your help."
"Huh...what.." He mumbled groggily still in the grips of the muscle relaxer and painkiller he took.
"Mr. Grant, please wake up...your sister, she's..."
As if on cue, Jessie screamed 'No!' and John jumped out of the chair, ripped from his sleep from the terror-filled scream he heard from Jessie. The nurse went back to her and again tried to restrain and wake her and after he collected himself, John did the same.
"Wake up, Jessie, wake up now! C'mon, wake up for me, Jess!" John pleaded as he tried to hold her, but her being coated with sweat and struggling made it impossible. He pulled the blankets from around her and threw them on the floor, so it was just her and the bottom sheet. "Jessie, c'mon wake up! It's not real, ya hear me?! You know it's not real! Wake up, you can stop it if you wake up!"
Jessie tried to drop the gun, but The-man-who-looked-like-her-father stood behind her and held her hands to it with his. She tried to duck underneath his arms, but he let go of one of her hands, grabbed her by the back of the neck and yanked her back.
"Please, don't make me...please." She begged him.
"Shut up!" Patrick yelled. "Lewis, go wake up my boy over there."
"No, don't!" Jessie watched as Lewis walked over to John and kicked him. "Don't!"
John stirred and Lewis grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up. John mumbled something and Lewis put a gun to his head.
"Just say when." Lewis grinned.
Patrick pulled Jessie against him. "Stop fighting me or, I promise you, big brother's brains go bye-bye." She nodded. "Good. Now, relax your body, loosen your arms up a little, and plant your feet...this thing's got a hell of a kick."
Jessie moved robotically, letting The-man-who-looked-like-her-father maneuver her like she was a posable doll. She stared off into the darkness, in the space between Sal and John, because she couldn't look directly at either of them. She started to wonder if she had the strength to maybe turn the gun in on herself and take them both out when she heard someone call her name. Someone she knew did not belong there. She turned her head towards the voice and blinked, dumbfounded. She closed her eyes and opened them, he was still there, it was really him.
"T.J."
Travis John O'Doyle stood, not ten feet away, in his favorite Batman tee-shirt, denim shorts, and Batman sneakers. He had a summer tan and his hair fell on his forehead in wisps and curls. She couldn't help herself, despite how bad the current situation was, she smiled at him. He smiled back, but then his expression turned serious.
"Jessie, you need to go now. You need to leave here, right now." He told her. His voice was a mixture of desperation and fear.
Jessie looked around at everyone after he spoke. No one seemed to be paying him any attention at all. They didn't seem to be able to see or hear her little brother. "I can't. T.J, get outta here...before he sees you."
Patrick let go of one of her hands long enough to smack her in the back of the head, again. "Pay attention! You can do this, you will do it!"
"It's just a bad dream, Jessie, you can wake up anytime you want to. Wake up now, please, before he makes you hurt Uncle Sal."
Sal, who had not moved or said anything since they destroyed his feet, came to life at the mention of his name and whispered."Listen to him. Listen to T.J." And then, he went back to looking lifeless and fell silent.
"Okay kid, ready? Take a deep breath and hold it...on three let it out." Patrick instructed.
A cold sweat broke out all over her body. "Wait..." Her voice shook.
"Jessie, wake up!" T.J. was yelling now. "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"
"One..." Patrick started counting.
"Wait...Dad..."
"Two..."
"He's not our daddy, Jessie! " T.J. yelled. Tears started to roll down his face. "He's John's daddy! Wake up, Jessie! Please, wake up now!"
"Three..."
Jessie tried to move her hands away, but it was too late and The-man-who-looked-like-her-father was too strong. They squeezed the trigger together, blood and tissue splattered her face and arms, and the recoil took her breath away. She shook violently when she saw the mess the shotgun made of Sal's stomach. Falling to her knees, she looked at the blood and bits of Sal that landed on her and got sick. She threw up until there was nothing left inside her and then collapsed, too weak to hold herself up, on the floor.
Convinced that they could wake her up after they got her under control, the on-call doctor decided to restrain her. They had both legs and one arm in restraints when suddenly her body went rigid like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on her, she started to shake violently, her bladder emptied and her stomach followed soon after.
"Get her on her side!" The doctor yelled, as her stomach rejected its contents. He looked over at John, who had moved away from the bed, so he wasn't in the way of them helping her. "I'm gonna sedate her. This is a bad one, she's embedded herself pretty deep, and the stress is too much for her, she's still recovering."
John nodded wordlessly, completely shaken.
"Let's get a gurney in here." The doctor administered the sedative and Compazine to help settle her stomach. "When she's out we'll move her on to it so the bed could be cleaned and changed, we'll settle her back in once we get her bathed and changed. I'll call Dr. Buccannon as soon as I'm through here." He told John. "I'll let him know what happen. I'm sure he'll want to come in and see her...and talk to you."
John cleared his throat in an effort to steady his voice before he spoke. "Thank you." Was all he could manage.
"Hey, it's scary, I know...she scared me too, but right now she's okay...it's over. We'll do everything we can to help her Mr. Grant."
John nodded. "The sedative...it won't...what if she has another nightmare?"
"Don't worry, she won't. You need R.E.M. to sleep to dream, with Ativan there is no R.E.M...the sleep is too deep. Unless we move her she can't even change her position, she won't move at all. Jessie will sleep and be completely at rest for ten to twelve hours."
"That long?"
"It will be alright, she needs it. The nightmares, are they always that bad?"
"I don't know, I've never seen her like that before."
Patrick put his hand on Jessie's shoulder, as she knelt in front of him. "You did good, kid...don't worry about tossin' your lunch, it happens to everyone the first time, right guys?" Whether it happened to them or not given the look Patrick gave them, they agreed with him. "See? It will get easier, I promise. C'mon now, get up, we have to finish this."
"N...no...I...I can't." Jessie stammered. She felt light-headed and empty. She did it. She couldn't believe she did it, but she did, the evidence was all over her.
"Jessie, I may be a son-of-a-bitch, but even I'm not going to leave Sal like this...he's not dead yet...he's suffering and we need to end it...you need to end it. C'mon, now, get up."
She didn't dare look up to see what he was talking about, instead, she looked over to where T.J. was still standing. He was crying. She looked down a wave of guilt washing over her. "I didn't want to...I'm sorry." She heard footsteps and she thought he had walked away, but when she looked up he was standing at her side. "I'm sorry, T.J., I'm sorry."
"It's not real, Jessie...you didn't hurt Sal, that man did...Langston. None of this is real...they're all gone...even...even daddy. That's not him, Jessie, you know that. This is all made up...it's a bad dream."
"I feel funny, likes something's pulling me away." She no longer felt her father's hand on her shoulder, but she never felt him move it away, it just disappeared. She looked behind her, he was gone, and so were the others, including John. Hesitantly, she looked up, in front of her, there was no sign of Sal at all. The hook, the chain, it was gone. Everything was gone, except for a shadow that was moving along the floor and getting closer.
"You wouldn't wake up, so they gave you something...the shadow...it will help you, don't be afraid."
"Will you stay with me until it comes?"
He nodded and smiled. Sitting down next to her, he reached over and slid his hand into hers. "He was mean...John's daddy...that's why daddy couldn't come for you. John's daddy wouldn't let him." He looked at her, his eyes brimming with tears and fear. "You can't think about him anymore...don't think about him anymore...he'll hurt you...he'll change you...please, don't think about him anymore, Jessie, please..." He hugged her fiercely. "I love you, please don't. It's not your fault...none of it was your fault."
"I don't want you to go..." Her voice sounded far away, even to her. 'The shadow must be closer.' She thought. 'It's getting darker.' She could feel herself being pulled to it like a magnet. "Stay with me, T.J., please."
But, he was gone and the shadow was on top of her now, warm and welcoming, drawing her in with the promise of peace. She was tired and needed to let go, she let it swallow her up.
Tbc...
