I am airlifted to the nearest hospital in Anchorage. There are already news trucks outside. I see flashes and hear slamming doors and voices before I am wheeled on the gurney through the back door and into a private room. Nurses and doctors in salmon-colored scrubs come rushing toward me. I am compelled to roll off the gurney and hide. There are too many people. I want to tell them that I’m fine. I’m a death escapist. There is no need for this many medical professionals or this many tests. Their faces are serious; they are concentrating on saving me. There’s nothing really left for them to save.
Nevertheless, needles slide into my arms over and over until I can’t even feel them anymore. They make me comfortable in a private room, with only an IV to keep me company. The nurses ask how I feel, but I don’t know what to tell them. I know that my heart is beating and that I am not cold anymore. They tell me that I’m dehydrated, undernourished. I want to say, “No shit” but I can’t form words yet. After a few hours they feed me. Or they try to. Simple food that my hollow stomach can handle: bread and something that is white and mushy. I push the food aside and ask for coffee. They say, “No.” When I try to stand up and tell them that I’m getting my own, they bring me coffee.
The police come next. All official looking. I tell them I want to speak to Saphira before I speak to them. They want my statement; they’re clicking the little buttons on the ends of their pens and pushing tape recorders at me, but I stare at them tight lipped until I can speak to Saphira.
“You can speak to her when you’re well enough to come in to the station,” they tell me. A chill runs through my body. They have her. Here.
“That’s when I’ll speak to you, then,” I tell them.
A day before I am discharged I am visited by two doctors; one is an oncologist and the other an orthopedic surgeon. The ortho guy holds up the x-rays they took of my leg.
“The bone didn’t heal straight, which is why you have pain when you put too much pressure on it. I’ve scheduled you for—”
“No,” I tell him.
He brings his eyes to my face. “No?”
“I’m not interested in fixing it. I’ll leave it how it is.” I open the magazine on my lap to signal that the conversation is over.
“Ms. Richards, with all due respect, the irregular fusion of your bone that was caused by the accident will be something that pains you for the rest of your life. You will want to have the surgeries needed to repair it.”
I close my magazine. “I like pain. I like when it lingers. It reminds a person of what they’ve lived through.”
“That’s a very unique perspective,” he says. “But not practical.”
I fling the magazine across the room. It flies with surprising force and hits the door with a healthy thud. Then I pull down my hospital gown—all the way—until the scars on my chest are exposed. He looks like he might pass out.
“I like my scars,” I say. “I earned them. Now, get out.”
As soon as the door shuts behind him, I scream. The nurses come rushing in, but I throw my water jug at them. At the rate I’m going they’re going to put me in the psych ward.
“Get out!” I scream at them. “Stop telling me how to live my life!”I am much nicer to the oncologist. She got my file from the hospital in Seattle and ran the yearly tests that I’d missed during my imprisonment. When she gives me the results she sits on the edge of my bed. It reminds me so much of Isaac that I feel overwhelmed. When she is finished she tells me that I am built to fight; emotionally and physically. I actually smile.
A few days later I am driven to the police station in the back of a police car. It stinks of mold and sweat. I am wearing clothes that the hospital gave me: jeans, an ugly brown sweater and green chucks. The nurses tried to comb through my hair, but eventually they gave up. I asked for scissors and hacked through the rope of it. Now it barely touches my neck. I look stupid, but who cares? I’ve been locked in a house for over a year eating coffee grounds and trying not to die of hypothermia.
When we reach the police station, they put me in a room with a cup of coffee and a bagel. Two detectives come in and try to take my statement.
“Not until I can speak to Saphira,” I say. I don’t know why it’s so important for me to speak to her first. Maybe I think that they won’t hold true to the bargain, and they’ll keep me away from her. Finally, one of the detectives, a tall man who smells like cigarette smoke and says his s’s too softly leads me by the arm to the room where they are holding her. He tells me his name is Detective Garrison. He’s in charge of this case. I wonder if he’s ever seen action like this before.
“Ten minutes,” he says. I nod. I wait until he closes the door before I look at her. She’s ruffled. Her lips are bare of their usual deep red, and her hair is pulling out of a low ponytail. She’s leaning her elbows on the table, her hands clasped in front of her. It’s her typical shrink pose.
“What’s wrong, Saphira? You look like an experiment gone wrong.”
She doesn’t look surprised to see me. In fact, she looks downright peaceful. She knew she’d get caught. She wanted to. Planned it, probably. The realization throws me off. I momentarily forget what I came here to do. I make my way over to the chair opposite her. It screeches against the floor as I pull it out.
My heart is racing. This isn’t how I imagined this going. Her face blurs in and out of my vision. I hear screaming. No. It’s my imagination. We are in a quiet room, painted white, sitting at a metal table. The only sound is silence as we sit contemplating one another, so why do I want to reach up and cover my ears?
“Saphira,” I breathe. She smiles at me. A dragon’s smile. “Why did you do this?”
“Senna Richards. The great fiction writerrr,” she purrs, leaning forward on her elbows. “You don’t rememberrr Westwick.”
Westwick.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were institutionalized, my dear. Three years ago. At Westwick Psychiatric Facility.”
My skin prickles. “That’s a lie.”
“Is it?”
My mouth is dry. My tongue is sticking to the inside of my mouth. I try to shift it around—to the roof of my mouth, the inside of my cheeks, but it sticks, sticks, sticks.
“You had a psychotic break. You tried to kill yourself.”