“Jonquille.” Flame whispered her name. “What did you do?”
Jonquille knew she didn’t have much time. She skirted around the dying guard and climbed onto the bed. “I came to help you. You’re so sick and I can’t stand it.”
Flame shook her head. “You have to get out of here before someone sees you. No one can ever know that you were here tonight. Never tell anyone, not even one of the other girls. Do you understand me? I mean it. Whitney can never know you did this.”
Jonquille already knew that. She ignored Flame’s fierce protection of her. They all treated her like she was a baby or didn’t have a brain. She was smart. Smarter than some of the way older girls, but she wasn’t going to point that out to them and hurt their feelings. She put her palms over Flame’s body and immediately felt the difference in her cells.
Her breath hissed out of her. Whitney had introduced a different kind of cancer. This wasn’t going to be healed with the chemotherapy he was using. He was making her suffer needlessly. Did he know it? Jonquille could only surmise he did. She began to fix what she could. It was a slow process, and the cancer had spread.
Flame suddenly caught at her and shook her, dragging her back to the awful-smelling room. It reeked of vomit, urine and death. Jonquille was terribly weak. So much so that she collapsed on the bed, feeling as if she couldn’t move, couldn’t lift her arms. Flame had tears running down her face.
“Baby, listen to me. I’m too weak to get you to the vent. You have to do it now. I know you feel like you can’t move, but you don’t have a choice. They can’t find you in here. Get to the vent and pull the grille up. Go, Jonquille. Hurry. Go.” Flame poured command into her voice.
Jonquille rolled off the bed to the floor and continued rolling until she was at the wall where the grille hung down. She forced one arm over her head and pulled with the setae. Fortunately, it didn’t require strength to use setae to climb. She managed to make it up to the vent and slide inside feetfirst, pulling the grate closed behind her so she could twist the screw into place. She laid her head down and waited.
It didn’t take long for Jerry to return. Flame must have been aware of his measured tread coming down the hall toward the room and she’d forced Jonquille to halt her healing session. Jerry flung open the door and took a step inside, and the expression on his face went straight to comprehension and horror as he took in the sight of Flame at the end of the bed with her torn panties and Vern on the floor with his cargo pants open and his genitals exposed.
Swearing, Jerry rushed to Flame. “Did he hurt you? I shouldn’t have left you. Did he hurt you? I swear to God, I didn’t know what he was going to do.” He had a phone out. “I need a nurse in here now. Send Colleen.”
Colleen was the one nurse the girls all liked. She was the most compassionate. She tried the hardest to be kind, no matter how much Whitney wanted the adults to distance themselves from the girls. They knew she wouldn’t last long—the nice ones never did. Whitney wouldn’t tolerate them once he realized they would help the girls. He was afraid they would get too close and might help them escape or give too much of the outside world to them.
“We need a doctor. It looks like Vern suffered a heart attack. He’s dead.” Jerry’s voice was cold when he added the last. He put his phone away and went to the bathroom to get another wet cloth for Flame. “I’d cover you up, honey, but I want Colleen to see exactly what that bastard was trying to do to you, just in case someone accuses you of killing him. They seem to think you girls can kill anyone.”
Colleen came running in, skidding to a halt as she took in the scene, one hand going to her throat, the other reaching toward Flame. “Baby. Did he touch you? Did that horrible man touch you?” She moved around Jerry, reaching for the sheet only to discover it was damp. “This is a disgrace. She should never have been left like this. My God, these people are animals.”
“Shh, Colleen,” Jerry cautioned. “This place has ears and eyes everywhere. Can you take pictures and then clean her up? I’ll take pictures of him. We can exchange them so they can’t destroy them. She didn’t kill him. There isn’t any way. She’s too damned weak. I never should have left her alone with him. I’ve never been good with puke. I have this stupid reaction.” He sounded ashamed as he took out his cell and crouched down, taking a series of photographs of Vern.