As I Fade (One Breath at a Time: Book 1) (16 page)

“
Pento what?” I didn’t like the sound of that. “Wait, what? Did you say I’ve been here for ten days? You’ve been sedating me...for ten days?” My mind raced out of control, shocked by the news. “I’ve been sleeping for ten flipping days. Are you kidding me?” I had no idea I had been there that long, and in my condition I didn’t think to ask the specifics of how long I had been there. I just assumed it was an overnight stay. My heart flipped. Where the hell were my family and friends? Over ten days I had been there, and no one was here to claim me. None of this made sense.

“
Yes we have, you were in critical condition and there was no other choice.”

“
Oh Lord...are you serious? Why haven’t you told me this? I can’t believe that I’ve been here for ten fucking days!” Oops! I dropped the F-bomb, but didn’t really care at that point. The doctor did though. His eyes widened, and his jaw muscles clenched. He was utterly shocked by my sailor’s tongue. “Ouch, sorry,” I said, flashing him an apologetic smile. “I need to get discharged...I’m fine now.”

“
I don’t think—”

Without a thought, I spoke over him and blurted out, “Oh my God, my agent is going to
kill me.
I need to get out of here—my deadline is up for the first draft!.” At that time, I hadn’t realized that one of my short-term memories had just come back.

“
You’re truly over-reacting. Ten days in the condition you were in is actually brief and your speedy recovery is
remarkable,
” he punctuated the word. “We still don’t understand how your wounds have healed so quickly. Your healing factor is comparable to something out of a futuristic novel.” He chuckled. “Miss Eden, most of our patients are with us for months, sometimes years, depending on the severity of their mental condition, of course.” His voice blurred in my conscious mind.

The doctor didn’t understand, ten days in the life of a writer was an eternity: eight pages a day, times ten days were eighty pages, and when you factor in 500 pages per novel in a trilogy, everyday counts—do the math—and that was only the first draft, then the editing process begins, and maybe another rewrite—more editing—more rewrites, it’s a never ending story.

Panic swallowed me whole because I had no idea were I’d left off in the making of my trilogy. I gingerly pulled myself to an upright position, throwing the blanket back. Shock riddled through me when I saw the condition of my body. Jesus H. Christ, my legs were swollen and covered in so many shades of bruises. Red, purple, black and blue marks—some had faded to that nasty yellow color.

What exactly happened to me?
I’d had enough...being there for ten days was bullshit! Everything was bullshit! In my opinion, this hospital was riddled with incompetence. I must have been in some kind of ward for the homeless, or where they treated uninsured patients, receiving this kind of treatment. Didn’t I have any rights? Could they administer medical treatments against my will, even now that I was coherent?

“
Miss Eden, I’m sorry, but you are far from fine,” he protested, gently pressing me back into the bed.

“
Please get your hands off me. Now!” I bellowed, waving my hands into the air toward him. He immediately leaned out of my reach. “You don’t understand! I have a major deadline, and if I don’t have a good excuse for missing it...my agent won’t think twice about throwing me under the bus.” I inadvertently lied without thinking.

Jack was my agent. Wow, I had forgotten that; how funny, but suddenly remembered he represented me now. He would never truly betray me. He could be a bulldog at times, but not when it came to me. I rattled on, reinforcing my protest, hoping that the doctor would relent and release me. “I really need to get out of here...or I’m seriously a dead woman.”

“You work for a secret agent? And he’s going to kill you? What are you saying?” His eyes widened to the size of golf balls.

“
What? No—he’s not a secret agent...but please don’t ask me about my project, it’s confidential. Where’s that phone? I need to call him
ASAP
. He’s probably going ape-shit by now—if I don’t call him soon, I’m so dead—like dead, as in six-feet under.”

I grappled with the thin hospital robe, trying to hold it closed in the back and swung my legs over the edge of the bed to stand.

“You need to be still. Your body is in no shape to stand. Your injuries are not completely healed. Not to mention, I believe you are still suffering from the shock of receiving such horrible injuries, and I want to evaluate you further.”

“
I don’t mean any disrespect. But, how can you give me a mental diagnosis without having done your so-called
‘evaluation’
first.” I added quotations around the word with my fingers. “Or even knowing what had caused my injuries? Seriously, I really need to go. Can I just get the sign-out forms now? I will follow-up with my family doctor—Christophe Thereon, apparently he’s fairly renowned here in Paris.”

“
Hmm, I’ve never heard of him.” He paused. “I’m sorry Miss Eden, but I cannot release you in your condition. In the interim I will try to contact your doctor. But, as I said, we will need to do a forty-eight hour evaluation before I can release you, so let’s just calm down and take this a little slower. I’m really concerned about you. Aside from mumbling Hitler’s name in your sleep, you talked to people that weren’t in the room...now you are saying someone is going to kill you.”

I shook my head, mentally dismissing half of what he was saying
.
“Um. Yeah—but no time for evaluations. If I don’t get out of here soon, like, today, you may as well consider me dead.” I sighed, followed by a half-giggle.

“
So...is this person who is trying to kill you the man that came into your room earlier?”

“
What? No. I told you, I don’t know him from Adam. Besides, no one is trying to kill me. Jeez.” For a doctor he wasn’t very quick.

Quack!
At this point, I wasn’t the best patient in the world.

“
You just said someone is going to kill you. And, well...since you lost your memory. How do you know
he
isn’t the man that is trying to kill you?”

“
Uh?” I shook my head, holding back my laughter. “No, listen...no one is trying to kill me, for real. It’s a figure of speech...you know like in...
eat your heart out
?” I burst into laughter. He stared at me, intently. By the look on his face he was not amused.

“
Miss Eden, you seem to use a lot of dark expressions. That is very disconcerting.” His eyes deadpanned, and lips tightened to a straight line.

What side of the planet am I on?
Certainly I was not in Kansas anymore. I could feel my eyes bugging out of my head. I squared my shoulders, sealed my lips, trying to take on more of a serious approach with him. Holding back my grin, I said, “I think we’re having nothing more than a communication problem.”

“
Perhaps,” he said unreceptively. I noticed his eyes flicked on the clock.

“
Listen...I’m not a violent person at all, and a silly expression shouldn’t determine my state of mind.”

“
I see. I am sorry my diagnosis has upset you.”

I spoke over him. “I’m not upset...but will be if I end up getting sued by the publisher.”

It was evident he wasn’t listening very well, or comprehending my lingo.

“
I haven’t concluded you are violent. All I said...is that you are showing tendencies. You’re definitely manifesting key symptoms of severe shock,” he rattled on. “You are suppressing memories, you’re easily agitated, and showing symptoms of paranoia...if in fact, someone isn’t
really
after you.” He frowned then referenced my chart and then me.

Narrowing my eyes, I focused on peeling back a hangnail on the edge of my cuticle.

“Arrrgh...” I grumbled out of frustration. “I’m not angry,” I protested, speaking louder than I had intended, then immediately caught myself. “Listen, I’m not paranoid or suffering from any of those symptoms—I just need to get home. Besides, I think my memory is coming back.”

“
I’m sorry, but I’m not prepared to release you. At least, not until we feel it is safe for you and for the safety of others, as well. I really think I should report to the authorities the incident with the man that visited you earlier. This is for your own good.”

“
What? Are you kidding me? That’s just stirring up trouble. I told you, I don’t know that man. Furthermore, you’re the one who said he entered my room by accident...remember? You can’t force me to stay here. Please, just give me my damn clothes, so I can get the hell out of here!”

“
Miss Eden, there’s no need for profanity.”

“
Then...” I huffed, relenting when I remembered an old friend’s words of wisdom: you get more honey with bees, wait, that wasn’t it, but close enough. The point was to be sweet. “Please, Doctor Tagorski, may I
please
make a quick phone call,” I asked in the calmest tone that was possible. At best, I figured I would call Nuilley as backup. She wouldn’t put up with anyone’s manhandling—shit. With her by my side, I would have been able to stand up to him, even in my weakened condition.

“
After you’re assessed we’ll make arrangements for telephone privileges.”

“
You have got to be joking. You can’t stop me from leaving...this is ludicrous!” I snarled, forgetting any past experiences where my quick temper would only make matters worse.
Fuck it!
I thought,
who gets injured then ends up imprisoned in a hospital? This is really bullshit!

-12-

What the Hell?

While my temper soared through the roof, he remained calm and composed, almost too composed. He picked up a cord that was tucked in beside the pillow, which I hadn’t noticed earlier.

The next thing I knew the room filled with at least six nurses dressed in traditional white caps and gowns. One of the nurses carried in a small black box with assorted dials on it. A headphone gadget with metal connectors attached to the ends of the wires. The blonde nurse set it down on the side table. Two other nurses rolled in a chair-like bed, upholstered in black rubber.

What the hell?

My eyes widened. I felt my heart begin to thump wildly inside of my chest. I couldn’t believe that less than a few hours ago I had just woken up from a terrible incident, and now I was scared to death.

This totally confirmed that humans could be the most frightening creatures of all. The irony of insanity is sane people do insane things. That was something to which I would give further thought.

“What the hell is going on?” I hissed angrily. No one answered me. They treated me as if I were invisible. I tried to push up to stand, but to no avail, because two large breasted, heavyweight nurses latched onto me and held me down. “Get your fucking hands off me.” I screamed.

“
Katharine, get the restrains,” Dr. Tagorski insisted, his voice lethally calm, staying within the perimeters of his mild demeanor. He called out to another nurse, “Let’s start out low...at 120.”

“
What? Wait! No, please don’t do this,” I cried out, feeling my stomach drop to my knees. Adrenaline surged through my body. The bubble had burst. It was time to get up and go. Where would I run? I felt like a cockroach with nowhere to hide, yet directly in the path of a can of
Raid!
I was gripped with anxiety.

The nurse he called Katharine quickly unbuckled straps from beneath the bed. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty-three or so. Close to my age. When she stood, long strands of her shiny red-hair fell into her face. She swiftly brushed it back, when doing so her eyes caught with mine. I could tell she felt sorry for me.

I needed someone on my side, someone to help me make sense of what was going on.

“
Please, help me,” I mouthed to her as the other nurses scurried around the room, connecting wires into the small box that suddenly seemed larger than me. Impending doom hovered over me; I knew something awful was about to happen.

One of the nurses shimmied behind the table and plugged a thick wire into the wall outlet. A good amount of electricity was needed to power up the little beast. My blood coursed through my veins so fast that it caused my breath to stop. The gates of Hell cracked wide open. I wasn’t ready to give in.

“What is wrong with you? Hold still,” one of the nurses barked angrily.

Yeah, right...I don’t think so!

“Let go of me you...cows!” I wiggled, squirmed, and cursed at the two nurses who held me down. The chaos heightened. “You can’t treat me like some caged lab rat!” Then, the voice of an angel interjected.

“
Doctor Tagorski, may I please have a word with you?” Nurse Katharine daringly asked. He stopped dead in his tracks as if her small voice had the power to momentarily paralyze him. My eyes flashed at them as they stepped out of the chaos.