Read my Lips
Chapter 23
"You're a doctor, can't you just sign me out?," Eliana asked.
She flashed a smile at Spencer from where she was sitting, cross legged on her hospital bed with Kevin Lynch across from her. They were playing a game of cards and eating green jello from small plastic cups. Eliana was wearing her own clothes, leggings and an oversized hoodie, courtesy of the bag Kevin went to her house and packed for her before he left DC. And under the hospital issue blanket that was covering her lap, there was a small, well worn pink plush rabbit. Spencer only got a brief glimpse of the stuffed animal. When he entered the room, Eliana hid it under her blanket as fast as she could.
"I'm not a medical doctor," Spencer reminded her with a smile back and a shake of his head. He was working his way through a cup of hospital issue rainbow sherbert. "You know that," he added, catching her eye as his smile widened.
Eliana pushed air through her pursed lips, making a sound that resembled a tea kettle spitting air. "I know," she agreed, ticking her head towards the door to her hospital room. "But they don't need to know. Just sign me out. And if I look like I'm going to drop dead, you can bring me right back." Eliana's brave facade of jokes and teasing quickly crumbled. And she glanced at the door again and added, "They keep looking at me like I'm a circus sideshow. And they keep touching me. I hate it here."
Spencer set what remained of his sherbert down on the small table next to him before he rose from his chair. He lowered himself down onto the edge of Eliana's hospital bed and wrapped his arm around her. She sighed, letting the tension out of her body as she relaxed into him. "The doctor will be by in a little while to check on you. I promise I'll talk to her," Spencer whispered, pressing a kiss into her hair before he returned to his seat. Eliana followed him with her dark eyes. Then she turned her attention back to the card game, slapping her cards down on the plastic tray table and announcing her victory.
"Gin!"
With all the drugs that were still in her system, it was no surprise that Eliana woke up feeling disoriented. She put up with all the poking and prodding and repeated questions for about an hour or two before she started to get noticeably agitated. Everything that happened to her during her captivity was flooding back in a tangled jumble of horrific memories. When a male doctor entered the room with another male intern and started touching her arms without asking first, that's when Eliana finally broke down and started sobbing. Spencer stood up, pushing between her and the doctor. But it was Eliana's father that sent both him and his intern scurrying from the room, never to return. The hospital only sent female staff into Eliana's room after that. But that didn't stop her from jumping every time the door opened.
In Spencer's opinion, Eliana's constant state of vigilance was completely justified. Casanova was still out there. And there was a reasonable probability that he was a doctor. He might even work at this hospital. Just the thought of it was stressing Spencer out. He couldn't stand to see Eliana in distress. And he was on the verge of doing just what she asked him to do and signing her out against medical advice. The only thing stopping him was Eliana's father. The man wasn't trying to hear any of either of their nonsense. Eliana nearly died. And her father didn't think she had any business out of her bed, let alone out of the hospital. There were local police stationed outside her room. Her father had military guards stationed outside the room. And both he and Spencer were in her room with her. Eliana was perfectly safe, regardless of whether she felt that way or not. Spencer didn't agree. But he also didn't want to cause any further rift with Aleksander, especially now that the tension between them seemed to have lessened. He decided his best bet was to make his case to Eliana's doctor and see if he could get the woman to discharge her.
Spencer hated to admit it, but the whole situation was also frustrating him in his role as a member of the BAU. There were still another half dozen women missing. Eliana was the only person that saw the man who took them and lived to tell about it. She didn't get a look at Casanova's face. He was wearing a mask. But she was able to confirm that he was a white male with a muscular physique and a controlling personality. And Spencer was certain she knew a lot more than that. Eliana knew what Casanova's voice sounded like, his eye color, how he smelled, and too many other small bits of information to count. She might even know where she was being held, or enough details about the place that his team could put the rest of it together. Spencer knew he needed to sit her down and let Derek use his soft speaking memory recall technique. But that wasn't going to happen while she was focused on watching the door to her room like a hawk.
"It's me."
Eliana's father announced himself before he entered the room. He had a bag of takeout food in one hand and a cardboard carrier full of drinks in the other. Eliana and Kevin quickly cleared their playing cards off the table. Her father set the drinks down first. And Spencer stifled a laugh when Eliana pulled one of the coffees from the holder. She managed to get a healthy gulp down before her father snatched the drink away. With her body still working the drugs out of her system, the doctor didn't think adding more in the way of caffeine was a good idea.
"I got you an herbal tea," her father huffed. He put the sipped coffee back and shoved the proper cup at her, ignoring her sigh of disappointment. The rest of the drinks were quickly whisked away out of her reach and placed on the small table next to Spencer's empty sherbert cup.
For a while, the room was quiet aside from the crinkling of the paper that the deli sandwiches were wrapped in. One side of Eliana's jaw was still swollen and sore. So she ate her grilled cheese by tearing off tiny pieces of sandwich and dunking them into her tomato soup until the bread was soft. She licked the soup off the tips of her fingers after each bite. The process was somehow dainty looking and messy at the same time. It reminded Spencer of the videos Penelope liked to watch, the ones of chipmunks and hamsters eating. Except Eliana was cuter than a chipmunk. Spencer didn't realize he was staring until her father cleared his throat and flashed a warning look at him.
Before the situation could get too awkward, Eliana's doctor entered the room. Spencer waited with baited breath as the doctor checked her over, taking her blood pressure and shining a tiny light into each of her eyes. She offered Eliana pain medication and something to help her sleep. Eliana promptly declined both, and requested for about the hundredth time to be allowed to leave the hospital.
"I'd rather keep you under observation for one more night," the doctor countered. "But everything looks good. You're healing well. The drugs have been flushed from your system. And I think you've spent enough time being forced to stay somewhere you'd rather not be."
The doctor directed the rest of her instructions to Spencer and Eliana's father. She gave them a list of things to watch for. If Eliana fainted or vomitted, if her speech started slurring, if she had another bad panic attack like the one that morning, or if she started having trouble breathing, they were instructed to bring her back to the hospital immediately. One of Eliana's feet was bandaged and the doctor didn't want her walking more than a few steps at a time on it until the long jagged cut on her instep was healed.
"It's going to take me some time to write her prescriptions and get her discharge paperwork together," the doctor explained. "That will give you some time to figure out what you're going to do about the circus outside."
Eliana glanced towards the window with her dark brows knitted together. Then she swung her legs over the edge of the hospital cot. Both Spencer and her father jumped up to help her. But she waved them both off, grabbing for her hospital issue wheelchair instead. She braced her knee in the center of the seat, and then used her good foot to propel herself over to the window.
On the street below, there was a mob of journalists and news reporters. They had been joined by a crowd of people. Spencer knew a few of them were family members of the other missing women. But most were just nosy fools that wanted to get a photo of Eliana on their phones so they could post it to social media. The story hit the national news before she even woke up. At some point after that, someone figured out that he and Eliana were romantically involved. This was making the story even more exciting to the general public. And Spencer suspected the hospital staff were leaking information to the press, yet another reason he wanted Eliana the hell out of there. Wild theories and badly photoshopped pictures were circulating. Everyone wanted to get a glimpse of the woman that escaped from the monster's lair.
While Eliana stared down out of the window, Spencer got his phone out and called JJ. Not only was Casanova following the investigation in the news, it was obvious by now that he was personally stalking Spencer. Casanova kidnapped Eliana from his apartment. And he stuck his calling card under the door of Spencer's hotel room. If Spencer or Eliana made a statement to the news, there was no doubt in his mind that Casanova would be watching. And there had to be a way they could use that to their advantage.
