She’d be scared, confused, disoriented. Her mind would feel detached from her body, at least at first. There’d be blank spots, and the questions that had to be asked would drop into some of them.
The mind, she knew, protected itself from horror when it could.
To wake in the hospital, with the machines, the pain, the strange faces. What could the mind do but hide?
What’s your name?
They’d asked her that. It was the first thing they’d asked her. Doctors and cops, standing over the gurney while she’d stared up at them.
What’s your name, little girl?
The phrase sent her heart racing, made her try to curl up into herself. Little girl. Terrible things happened to little girls.
They’d thought at first she was mute, either physically or psychologically. But she could speak. She just didn’t know the answers.
The cop hadn’t looked mean. He’d come after the doctors and the others in flapping white coats or pale green smocks.
She’d learned later that it had been the police who’d brought her out of the alley where she’d hidden. She didn’t remember it, but she had been told.
Her first memory was of the light over her head, burning into her eyes. And the dull, detached pressure of her broken arm being set.
She was filthy with sweat, dirt, and dried blood.
They spoke gently to her, those strangers, as they poked and prodded. But like the cop, the smiles didn’t reach their eyes. Those were grim or aloof, filled with pity or questions.
When they went down, down to where she’d been torn, she fought like an animal. Teeth, nails, with the howling screams of a wounded animal.
That’s when the nurse had cried. A tear sliding down her cheek as she helped hold her down until the calmer in the pressure syringe could be administered.
What’s your name? the cop had asked her when she’d drifted back. Where do you live? Who hurt you?
She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know. She closed her eyes and tried to go away again.
Sometimes the drugs let her slip under. But if they took her too deep the air was cold, cold, cold and smeared dirty red. She was afraid, more afraid down there than of the strangers with their quiet questions.
Sometimes, when she was in that cold place, someone was with her. Candy breath and fingers that skittered over her skin like the roaches that skittered across the floor when the lights came on.
When those fingers were on her, even the drug couldn’t stop her screams.
They thought she couldn’t hear them, couldn’t understand when they spoke in their hushed murmurs.
Beaten, raped. Long-term sexual and physical abuse. Suffering from malnutrition, dehydration, severe physical and emotional trauma.
She’s lucky to have survived.
Bastard who did this ought to be cut into little pieces.
One more victim. World’s full of them.
No identity records. We’re calling her Eve. Eve Dallas.
She woke with a jolt when the car stopped, stared blankly at the dark stone of the house, the glow of lights against the glass.
Her hands were shaking.
Fatigue, she told herself. Just fatigue. If she related to Moniqua Cline, it was only natural. One mo
re tool, she thought as she climbed out of the car, in the investigation.