THREE-1
727 Words
THREE
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“If she refuses treatment, there’s nothing I can do.”
Devon could hear the voices, but they were faded and fuzzy. She’d been vaguely aware of them for maybe a minute or two, though her sense of time was off. She felt detached from her own body, like her mind was swimming somewhere else while her figure felt heavy and weak.
Immobile in what she assumed was the bed she’d woken up in when she first arrived here, Devon could barely open her eyes, so she gave up trying. Her mouth was dry, and when she parted her lips, something plastic squeezed between them. It took her a moment to figure out that it was a straw.
“Go on, dearie, drink,” came a female voice and on instinct Devon sucked the cool liquid that was being offered.
“Don’t let her drink too fast,” a male said.
Devon released the straw and opened her eyes enough to see Wren at the end of the bed. Bess was seated beside her. While she did see these images, it still felt as though she were watching the scene rather than existing in the same moment with them.
“Look at her,” Bess said. “She’s burning up.” Bess reached over to shift a wet weight on Devon’s head that was neither hot nor cold. “You have to do something.”
“If she refuses treatment, I can’t touch her.”
Bess scoffed, losing patience. “Boy, don’t give me your ethics now, this poor girl needs help.”
“It’s illegal,” he said. “It’s assault.”
Another sound of impatience left Bess’ lips before she got up from the bed to join the doctor. “Don’t give me that,” she said. “Tell me it’s illegal? How did this girl get here? Of all the things you all do—”
“I don’t break the law, I just... tag along.”
Devon’s eyes closed because it was too much effort to keep them open, and her vision was blurred anyway. She tried her best to focus on sound instead, feeling that it was important to hold on to one point to steady her sanity. Although as the seconds ticked by, she felt more and more like she was sinking.
“You’re going to help that girl. She needs it. Don’t you give me, ‘Do no harm’ and then watch her wither away. There’s something about mental competence, isn’t there? She’s delusional. She’s not in her right mind. If you get her better, she’ll thank you. You don’t have a choice.”
They were talking about her, yet she was too foggy to contribute. “She’ll let me treat her if she meets him,” Wren said. “She said if we showed trust—”
“He won’t come,” Bess said. “You know him better than to expect that. Most of the time it’s a struggle to get him to talk to us. He won’t come.”
“Not even to prevent her death?”
“He won’t come up here, he’ll never lay eyes on her again.”
“I’m supposed to compromise my moral code by forcing treatment on a patient who doesn’t want it.”
“She’s not a standard patient,” Bess said. “You get stubborn about all the wrong things, my boy. He is the way he is.”
“Maybe I’m sick of giving him dispensation for that.”
“Look at all he does for us,” Bess said. “Your issues with your cousin are your own. Would you let an innocent woman die just to prove a point to him?”
Wren didn’t respond. Or maybe he did and Devon didn’t hear it. What she did hear was the word “cousin,” so they were related. The man who’d purchased her was the doctor’s cousin. Holding on to that one small revelation, something she probably wasn’t supposed to have heard.
She opened her lips again, but whatever she meant to say was lost. The heaviness in her body began to consume her mind. Speckles of light became dark, dizziness made her head feel like it was spinning despite her never moving an inch.
Whatever these people had done to her, whatever they planned to do, she was weak and powerless. This could be how they wanted her, but there was genuine worry in their voices. The trouble was, she didn’t know what reality was and what was a dream because nothing seemed tangible anymore, she barely remembered who she was, what she wanted from life. Her dreams and ambitions were gone; surviving had become her primary objective, and today it seemed she was going to fail in that accomplishment.
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- Writer
