Blood Born Read online

  She didn’t know why she was so afraid other than from the certainty she’d missed something. Her years of experience in reproductive medicine provided no comfort. On the contrary, as she pushed past the door with the “Restricted Access” sign on her daughter’s wing—and now she realized why the sign was there—she feared she understood why Daniella’s stomach had hurt when pressed, and why the girl had been so terribly hungry. . . .

  Her daughter was turned away from the door when she entered the room. Daniella’s hip rose and fell in time with her breathing. Still here; still alive. Thank God. And even better: the cervical collar had been removed. Perhaps her injuries weren’t so serious after all.

  “Daniella?”

  Daniella was staring at the brilliant summer afternoon visible through the window. The bandages taped across her head shone clean and white.

  Margaret placed a hand on her daughter’s hip. The hope grew in her that Daniella would be all right, that she wasn’t pregnant and hadn’t heard anything about the other girls. By Monday, her head injury would be on the mend and she’d be released and could return to summer school. Margaret would find a psychologist to help Daniella over the trauma of being raped. In time, her little girl would bounce right back like she always had.

  But most of all, besides hope, Margaret felt a profound relief. She was here now, and Daniella was fine. The great tragedy she’d imagined while away that morning hadn’t occurred.

  Mopping sweat off her forehead from her mad dash, Margaret tried again: “Daniella, honey, how are you?”

  Her daughter finally looked away from the window. She searched Margaret’s face, then opened her mouth.

  And shrieked.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Nothing would calm Daniella down.

  First she screamed about how she was pregnant with Eric Gensler’s baby and she could already feel it growing inside her. Then she screamed and cried some more about being raped. If she calmed down, it was only long enough to demand food before she went berserk all over again. It was all Margaret could do to restrain the girl from rolling off the bed and cracking her head back open. She wondered with growing dread how much worse Daniella’s hysteria would be when she learned the identity of the real father.

  Nurse Kimball, the only staff member who deigned to drop by as this transpired, was about as helpful as a tumor. Standing at the door with her hands on her oversized hips, she said, “Daniella, if you don’t calm down, the doctor left orders that I can strap you down like a mental patient. Is that what you want?”

  Margaret felt like belting the bitch. “Just get her a sedative. Please?”

  To her surprise, the nurse returned a minute later with exactly what she’d asked for. Apparently, Kimball had orders on hand for sedatives as well.

  Later, Margaret spoke with the woman in the hallway. As much as it pained her to do so, she patched things up with her—but only so she could find out what happened to make Daniella so upset.

  Kimball reported that Dr. Sharma had come to see Daniella that morning. Margaret figured this was at about the same time the monster tried to squeeze her head off by the lake. In a calm voice, Sharma had informed Daniella that her blood results showed she was the equivalent of two months pregnant.

  Daniella, to her credit, had also remained calm—at least at first. She’d had the presence of mind to argue she’d been a virgin until last night, so she couldn’t be two months pregnant. Sharma responded that the results spoke for themselves, then turned on his heel and left the room.

  “That son of a bitch.” Margaret thumped the hallway chair railing with a fist. She crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall. Her whole body thrummed with anger.

  “I’m sorry, I wish it was different,” Kimball said. “I paged our rape counselor to help us with this, but she never showed up. As it was, Daniella started screaming and cursing and throwing things. I tried to calm her down, just like you did, but it got so bad that Dr. Sharma authorized me to use restraints at my discretion. I haven’t done so yet—just been threatening to—and that’s worked fine so far.” She made an imploring expression.

  “I’ll thank you not to threaten my daughter anymore. She’s been through enough already.”

  “Then she’ll have to control herself.”

  Margaret uncrossed her arms, enjoying how the gesture made the nurse flinch. “Does she know yet about the pregnancies of the other rape victims? About their abnormal symptoms?”

  Kimball gaped. “How do you know about that?”

  “Detective Randall told me. Everything. So answer my question. Does Daniella know or not?”

  “No. And until the doctors are sure she has the same thing, maybe she shouldn’t. I can’t imagine what her reaction would be.”

  Remembering the monster and its huge genitalia, Margaret thought, Sister, you don’t know the half of it. She glanced into Daniella’s room to see the girl lying on her side again, facing the window. Margaret listened for a moment and heard her crying.

  “All right, where is this doctor? Sharma. I want to talk to him.”

  “He’s down in the delivery suites. One of the other girls who was raped just went into labor.”

  Margaret stared at her. Detective Randall had said the first victim was raped only a week ago. Just what in the fuck was going on here? “Okay then, when does Dr. Bowen’s shift start?”

  “This evening, but he’s here already. He came in early to help Dr. Sharma. I’ll leave messages with both of them to see you. All right?”

  Margaret took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “I hate that expression: ‘all right.’”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That one, too. And you’re excused.”

  The nurse hesitated a moment before shaking her head and walking off. She mumbled something that sounded like, “Bitch.”

  Margaret sighed. Okay, fine. I’m being too hard on her, but this is my daughter.

  She returned to Daniella’s bedside. The girl was asleep when she entered, not unusual for a pregnancy, and that bothered her. She was still hoping Sharma was mistaken about the blood test.

  She gently shook the girl’s shoulder. “Hey, sweetie.”

  Daniella opened her eyes. “What happened to your neck? It’s all red.”

  Margaret blinked. “What?” She felt her throat—and winced at the soreness there.

  She fled to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Red welts from the monster’s fingers were clearly visible in the white expanse of her nascent double chin. The marks would be terrible bruises by tomorrow, impossible to hide.

  Daniella’s bed made a motorized whine as she raised the head to sit up. “Mom?”

  Margaret swallowed—which brought an uncomfortable sense of fullness to her throat—and returned to the main room. “It’s okay, honey. It’s . . . well, it’s a long story.” She sat down in an armchair for visitors, hoping Daniella didn’t notice how she winced from the new backache.

  Daniella hugged herself around her stomach and stared at the points of her knees under the bedsheet. Margaret waited for the inevitable follow-up question—what ‘long story’?—and wasn’t sure how she would answer.

  But the silence stretched, then grew uncomfortable. Well, dammit, maybe she should just go ahead and tell her all of it: the news about who or what had really raped her; what had happened that morning at Eric Gensler’s house; and what was happening with the pregnant girls down the hall who, according to Randall, were growing babies at over thirty times the normal rate, a claim Margaret’s professional sensibilities insisted was impossible. Just let the shit fly and be done with it.

  Only she couldn’t. Nurse Kimball was right. She needed to wait until she could interrogate Doctors Sharma and Bowen and make certain of Daniella’s condition.

  Or was she using that as an excuse not to level with her? With any other patient who’d been exposed to a reproductive disease—and that’s what this was, a reproductive disease—she would simply spit out the news. Oh, she wou
ld be sympathetic to the patient’s emotional well-being, certainly, but candor was normally best in these situations—not to mention a way to avoid getting sued later for failure to disclose.

  But this was her daughter, who needed to be protected and who possibly couldn’t even handle the news. The nurse was right. Plus, there was the consideration that she couldn’t just dump these revelations on Daniella and walk away, secure in her own professional detachment, as she would be with any other patient. No professional detachment existed here.

  Margaret sighed and wished for a strong cup of coffee—and not the Insta Puke-a kind, either. She hadn’t felt this helpless since her days at Henry’s bedside at the hospice.

  No, this is different. Daniella’s going to survive.

  “Mom?”

  Here we go. “Yes?”

  Daniella’s eyes were red and filled with tears. Her lips shook as she said, “Do you . . . think I’m a slut?”

  “No. No, honey!” Margaret was at her side in a flash, hugging her. “I would never think that. You’re not a slut.”

  Daniella took a deep breath, then released a sob. She returned the hug with surprising fierceness. Margaret had to brace herself from losing her balance and falling over the bed.

  “Oh, he hurt me so much, Mommy. Hurt so much. . . .”

  She only called her “Mommy” when it was really bad, like on the day her father died. Margaret swallowed again, and this time it felt like a baseball was lodged in her throat. She wiped tears out of her eyes before Daniella could see. She needed to be strong for her. As hard as that was, though, it was still better than having to explain the marks on her throat.

  “It’s okay, honey. I’m here for you. None of this is your fault.”

  Eventually, Daniella calmed down. She complained that she had a headache. Margaret said she wasn’t surprised, then ordered her to lower the bed and rest. Once Daniella was settled, she moistened a washcloth and laid it over her daughter’s forehead and eyes. She planned to request Tylenol, which was safe for pregnant women—or pregnant girls, as the case may be.

  These simple acts were enough to shift Margaret back into doctor mode, and soon she was taking Daniella’s pulse and counting her respirations. Both were a bit rapid, and Daniella seemed feverish. Well then, just add it to the list of things to discuss with the doctors, right below why have you been lying to us?

  She peeked under Daniella’s bandages to see that the scalp wounds and bites on her shoulder and neck didn’t appear to be infected. The antibiotics had done their job. Just seeing the injuries brought back images from the lake and made her angry. That thing was never touching her daughter again.

  She also debated whether to conduct a neuro-status check by asking Daniella routine questions about how she’d arrived here, but the mother inside her vetoed it. Don’t traumatize her by making her remember. Besides, Daniella no longer seemed as confused as she’d been in the emergency room.

  The day dragged on without sign of the doctors. Complaining of breast soreness, Daniella refused to put on the T-shirt and sweatpants brought for her until Margaret said it was okay not to wear the bra. She also became flatulent, and her skin was itchy and dry. Every half hour or so, she rose from the hospital bed—supported by Margaret the first couple times since she was still dizzy from the concussion—to urinate. Again, Margaret grimaced at these signs of pregnancy. At one point, Margaret remembered her keys were still in the ignition of her car, back in the parking garage. She knew she should retrieve them, but she didn’t want to leave her daughter’s side for even that long.

  Daniella had already drawn the line at how intimately her mother could examine her as the unofficial doctor (“No way I’ll let you look down there”), so that afternoon Margaret had to holler through the closed bathroom door: “Honey? Will you examine your vagina for me? Tell me if there’s any discharge.”

  “Mom, please! They’ll hear you.”

  “I’m a doctor. And there’s no one else here.”

  “That’s so gross.”

  “I’m concerned about yeast infection and UTI. Does it burn when you pee pee?”

  “‘Pee pee’? Are you serious? How can you use words like ‘vagina’ and then talk to me like I’m eight years olllchh—”

  Daniella’s retching cut off her words. Margaret swept open the door to find her dry heaving into the trash can.

  “Mom, get out!”

  “Oh, damn. You have morning sickness.”

  Daniella’s eyes went wide. “What? Already? B-but it just happened last night. How can I have—”

  Another heave into the trash interrupted her.

  Margaret ground her teeth, helpless to explain the symptoms of an accelerated pregnancy without revealing everything. How the fuck did the blastocyst implant so quickly? This wasn’t possible. There had to be another explanation.

  “Look, honey, just sit there until you feel better. I’m going down to the vending machine to get you some crackers. The best way to deal with it is to keep something in your stomach.”

  “Good, I’m hungry. But Mom . . .”

  Margaret fled before Daniella could finish her question—afraid of what she might ask.

  A few minutes later, she was on her way back from the visitor lounge with two packets of peanut butter crackers and a Coke. She walked slowly, hoping to encounter a doctor. Where the hell were they? She peered through a window and frowned at the oblivious happiness of children playing in an interior courtyard.

  At the nursing desk, Kimball was seated at a computer and scowling at the screen, sausage fingers typing with more force than necessary. As she hunched forward in her chair, the nurse’s padding of body fat gave her the impression of wearing a winter coat beneath her uniform. Her computer seemed like a child’s toy in relation to her bulk. She paused to slap the side of the monitor before glancing at Margaret. “Yes?”

  “My daughter has a headache. Can we get her some Tylenol?”

  “All right, I’ll ask one of the doctors when they’re back.”

  “Look, I am a doctor. I specialize in reproductive medicine.”

  Kimball’s lips pressed into a line.

  Margaret instantly saw where this was going and raised her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’m out of line. I’ve been out of line.”

  Kimball stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “All right. And I’m sorry about how I spoke to your daughter. I could’ve been more sensitive.”

  Margaret looked away, tears rising. “I’m just her mother here, not a doctor. But she just really needs some Tylenol—and of course you have to speak to her doctor first.”

  “That must be hard right now,” Kimball said.

  “What, to be a doctor?”

  “No, a mother.”

  Margaret deflated. Her shoulders slumped, and she found herself staring at the floor. The tears spilled over, and she angrily wiped them away.

  When she looked up, Kimball was standing beside her, patting her shoulder. “You know, the parents of some of the other girls have been coming in and out. Maybe you should say hi to them.”

  “Thanks.” Margaret nodded. “Thanks, I will.”

  Kimball gestured down the hallway. “There’s two patients down there. A new one who came in last night—” Margaret blinked at this news, “and another who’s been here a few days. You can’t miss them—they’re the only other people on this wing. We’ve been trying to limit who comes through here for obvious reasons.”

  Margaret glanced at the clock over the nursing station: almost six p.m. “Any word from the doctors yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Did I hear you right that it’s one of the victims who’s giving birth? When was she raped?”

  “About a week ago.”

  Margaret felt dizzy and had to grip the desk for support.

  Kimball reached for her. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “I’m okay, I’m just—” She took a deep breath and let it out. “I want to ask the doctors about
Daniella’s pregnancy test.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  She hesitated, almost feeling silly. “I just . . . want to know definitively. Is she really pregnant? And is she like the others? Is Daniella going to give birth in a week?”

  “They did a quantitative hCG test. I saw the results myself. She has the levels of a woman two months out—and that was at eight o’clock this morning. How long ago was she raped?”

  Margaret felt drained again. She hardly heard her own whisper: “Just last night.”

  Depression and panic settled onto her with the weight of two decades of medical experience. In some ways, it was worse than nearly getting killed. There was no question anymore that Daniella was pregnant and who or what the father was. A quantitative hCG test measured the exact amount of human chorionic gonadotropin circulating in the bloodstream. HCG was a pregnancy hormone that peaked in the first eight to ten weeks. But it normally took at least a week after fertilization and a day after implantation for it to even register.

  What the nurse was saying was impossible.

  Margaret cleared her throat with difficulty. “And you’re sure it’s not a mole or teratoma?” Placental moles and ovarian tumors could also cause high hCG levels.

  “That’s always a possibility,” Kimball said, “but these symptoms are consistent with the other patients. I’m sure they’ll schedule a sonogram when they’re back to make sure there’s really a fetus.”

  Fetus. Never had the term bothered her before now. It seemed like a dirty word. Margaret took a deep breath and let it out. “When the doctors get back, I’d rather talk to them about RU-486.”

  “Abortion pills?” Kimball shook her head. “They tried that with the first two victims, but the tablets didn’t have any effect.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  Kimball grimaced and looked away. For the first time, Margaret noticed the shadows hanging under the nurse’s eyes and pitied her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Kimball said. “I’m breaching patient confidentiality.”