GRIEVOUS VENGEANCE

CHAPTER 33

They were waiting outside the emergency room. It's been almost two hours since Berna was brought in. The hospital is busy. Nurses are walking here and there, some are almost running.

"What's taking them so long?" Janine walked back and forth of the corridor. "It's been two hours since she was sent to the emergency room." She sat down on the chair at the waiting area.

"I hope they can save the baby," Jackie said. "She really wants to keep her baby. I saw it in her eyes last week."

"Let's pray for the best. That's all we can do for now." Marvin placed his hands in his pocket and leaned on the wall."

An old woman rushed towards the emergency room door, peeking at the small window but couldn't see anything. Another woman, younger than the first one also rushed towards the door.

"Where is my daughter?" the latter asked. "Where's my baby?"

"I can't see anything from here," the old woman said. "Berna..."

"Ma'am, excuse me," Janine said to the two ladies. They both turned around and looked at her, frowning.

"You are wearing the same ID as my daughter. Is she your classmate?" the younger lady said.She pointed at the ID card attached on her chest pocket. "I'm Berna's Mom, Helga. She's my Mom, Natty, Berna's granny."

"I'm Janine. This is Mark. She's Jackie and that's Marvin," she introduced everyone to Berna's mom. "We actually don't know her personally, but we saw what happened to her in school that's why we rushed her to this hospital."

"Thank you for helping my baby," Berna's mom said. "What happened to her? Why was she rushed here?"

Janine looked at Jackie to help her explain the situation. Jackie stepped forward. "It's a little personal, but I think you should know. She's pregnant and the irresponsible guy dumped her earlier. He pushed her too hard that made her fall on the ground, then she bled."

Berna's mom buried her face in her hand and cried. "No! Why does this always happen to our family?"

"Where is that man?" Berna's granny is calm but her tone speaks authority. "I will sue him."

"I'm sorry, Ma'am, but he quickly left before seeing Berna's bleeding. He took off with a new woman to fool." Jackie chuckled. Janine pinched her side that made her jumped. "What? I just said the truth!"

"Men really just make women cry." She looked at Mark and Marvin. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

"We understand, Ma'am," Mark said. Marvin gave an awkward smile to the lady.

The doctor from the emergency room went out. "Who's the relatives of the patient, Bernadette Sarmiento?"

"I'm her mother," Helga quickly said. She stood up and went closer to the doctor.

"I'm her grandmother." The old lady also rushed to listen to what the doctor needed to say.

"She's out of danger now. She lost a lot of blood but glad she was brought in immediately, and the hospital has new stocks of type A. She needs to stay in the hospital for a few more days. However, I'm sorry, the baby didn't survive. She had a miscarriage. She was 14 weeks pregnant. It was a baby girl if she survived. We will transfer her to the private room in a while. If you will excuse me." The doctor left them.

"No... Berna..." Mrs. Sarmiento suddenly sat down in the chair, feeling helpless and weak.

"At least our Berna is safe. We need to take care of her for now and help her get through with this,"

Berna's granny said. Her mom nodded in agreement.

"Thank you for attending and helping my daughter. You saved my daughter's life."

"We did what's right, Ma'am. We're happy she's fine, but her baby..." Janine felt a lump in her throat. She feels bad for the little angel.

"We will look after her, kids. You probably need to go home and do what your need to do." She smiled at them. "We're grateful."

"Okay, Ma'am. We'll go ahead. We're sure she's in good hands now." Janine held Jackie's hand. They all walked out of the hospital.

"Let's go for now. We'll drop you home," Marvin said. "We'll stay there in your house, too, for dinner if it's okay? Your mama's cooking is the best."

"Sure," Janine agreed "Mama brought fresh vegetables from the province."

"I will have to pass by to a car wash tomorrow and have everything cleaned up," Mark said. He opened the car door and peaked at the blood stain on the car seat and carpet. It all dried up.

"We dropped her books." Janine forgot their advice to not touch anything from strangers. She bent and picked Berna's books from the car floor. She suddenly fell on Mark's arms. She saw a vision of a scary creature, too close to her face. It was angry. It has full of hatred in its eyes. She just saw a quick vision. She held her forehead and wiped the cold sweat.

"Janine!" Mark called her. He touched her cheek to wake her up. "We told you not to touch anything!"

"I-I'm sorry, I forgot. Besides, Berna's safe now." She was catching her breath. She inhaled deeply and slowly released the air. "I didn't lose consciousness this time, probably because it was just a quick vision."

"What did you see?" Marvin asked.

"It was a face of a scary creature. I think it's a woman. She has a long , wavy and messy hair. Her eyes were all black and her flesh on her face is visible. She has two small horns on her forehead. She's too close to my face!" Janine could still remember how the scary woman looked like.

"That's creepy. Who could be it?" Jackie asked. They both exchanged glances.

"I hope nothing will happen to Berna. We didn't save her for nothing, right?" Janine held her chest. "But I don't think it was her. There was no similarity whatsoever. But why would I see it after holding her book?"

"We can talk about it later. Let's leave this place for now,' Marvin said. They all hopped in the car and left the hospital.