Before Dawn. Morgan Rice

tears began to fall in torrents.

      “We have to inform your parents,” the woman said. “You’re legally a child.” Then her voice softened. “Kate, I’m going to ask you something important and I want you to really think about how you answer. Nod yes if you agree with what I say and shake your head no if you don’t. Kate, do your parents hurt you?”

      Kate swallowed, her throat sore against the tube. How she desperately wanted to nod yes. But her life didn’t constitute abuse, not in the way that woman meant. At least, she didn’t think so anyway. But did abuse always have to mean punches and kicks, or could it mean being deprived of food, being ostracized for no reason, being ignored on your birthday? Kate didn’t fully know. And though she was aware that a simple nod of the head now could set a whole chain of events in motion, could perhaps even see her taken from her home and placed with people who didn’t despise her and wanted her to go to college, there was always Max to think about. She couldn’t put him through that kind of trauma, he was just a kid.

      She shook her head.

      The woman nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer. She probably thought Kate was some silly teenage runaway. That she’d gone out thrill seeking and got herself nearly killed and was trying to avoid being disciplined.

      “I’ll make the call,” the woman said, standing and smoothing down her skirt.

      She left and Kate realized she was alone for the first time. The tube in her throat was absolutely maddening. It itched like crazy. And she desperately wanted to be able to speak. She needed to ask someone where Elijah was. She remembered being cradled in his arms. Why didn’t he come with her in the ambulance? It must have been him who’d called it.

      Kate managed to sit up in her hospital bed, finally getting herself a decent view of the ward. It was filled with other people asleep. She realized they were all in comas, just like how she was supposed to be. They’d wheeled her here expecting her to be out until whatever swelling that her brain may have had had gone down. But her body had completely rejected the drugs.

      Her bones had healed too. That’s what the doctor had said. Every bone in her arm –ulna, radius, humerus – had been shattered and yet she felt no pain at all. In fact, her arms were working perfectly well. She could rotate her hands in front of her and wiggle all her fingers. In fact… she reached to her mouth and found the strange plastic mouthpiece. She wedged her fingers under it and began to pull.

      The tube started sliding up out of her throat. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but she kept pulling until the whole thing was out. At last she could take a proper breath for herself. She threw the tube to the floor, glad to be rid of it.

      The next thing irritating her was the IV in her arm. She ripped off the plaster securing it in place and tugged the needle out. Blood appeared from her skin and she licked it up instinctively.

      Without the tubes and wires, she felt much more comfortable, and much more able to assess the situation. Her body felt different but not in a bad way. There was no pain anywhere at all. The only discomfort she was aware of now that the tube was out was a gnawing sensation in her stomach. She was starving. Was that a usual thing to feel after a near death experience?

      She touched her body through the thin paper dress. Everything was where it was supposed to be. She felt a little annoyed that they’d probably cut all her clothes off in order to check for wounds that weren’t really there. But… how hadn’t she sustained any injuries? No cracked ribs or punctured lungs. No ruptured organs at all. It was all so confusing.

      She noticed then that her backpack had been wheeled in with her. She reached down and found her book from Amy covered in the squished chocolate from Dinah. Then right at the bottom she found her cell phone. She’d never been allowed a smartphone like Madison, so she had one of those cheap yet indestructible ones. Luckily, it had survived the accident.

      She grabbed it and texted Amy first, partly because her name was quicker to get to and partly because she was her closest friend of the three.

      Hit by car. Totally fine. Plz find Elijah.

      She hit send and waited. A few seconds passed before she got her reply.

      WHAT!?!?!??!

      Kate sighed. Clearly Amy wasn’t going to listen to her when she said she was totally fine. She texted back.

      Honestly, no big deal. Nothing broken. Plz plz plz find Elijah.

      Amy’s reply arrived moments later.

      Ur clearly sick!! Where r u?

      Frustrated, Kate put her phone down on the bed beside her. She desperately needed to find Elijah and ask him what was going on. She was certain he would know.

      Just then, she noticed the doctors approaching the bed. They’d found another one, an older man with white hair, and they were striding purposefully toward her. When they saw her sitting up, with the tube on the ground and the IV drip lying on the bed, they stopped where they were.

      “Is this some kind of joke?” the new, white-haired doctor said.

      The others shook their heads emphatically. “I was with her the second she got out of the ambulance. The paramedics said she’d flatlined but when she came out of the ambulance she was breathing.”

      “She’d had two doses of propofol,” the other added.

      “How is she sitting up like that?” the white-haired doctor said.

      Kate started to get very frustrated with the way they were talking about her rather than to her. She was the one who’d just been through a traumatic experience and they were treating her like a circus freak show act.

      “Hi,” she said, relieved to find the tube had done nothing bad to her throat. “I think I’m feeling better now. Can I go home? I don’t see the point in worrying my family.”

      She started to get up but the doctors ushered her down.

      “No, wait. I’m sorry but you can’t go until we’ve tested you. You might have brain damage.”

      “I’m pretty sure I don’t,” Kate said. “Want me to say the alphabet backwards or something?”

      The doctor with the white hair looked at the others, astounded. Finally, he asked the question that was on everyone’s lips:

      “What are you?”

      CHAPTER SIX

      Kate’s parents didn’t arrive at the hospital until several hours later. Her dad hadn’t been able to (or hadn’t wanted to) leave work early. Her mom, despite being the one to receive the initial call from the hospital, had been “too busy.” It was around seven p.m. by the time anyone from her family came to see her. The hospital had even tried appealing to Madison, who at eighteen was the closest thing they could find to an “adult” next of kin. But she was too busy with an “important” cheerleading competition after school – clearly far more important than her sister’s life – and she hadn’t come.

      During that time, various doctors and nurses had been in and out to see Kate, each as baffled as the last. In the end they decided that she was playing some kind of sick joke, that she’d faked the accident to get attention, a sentiment her parents shared when they finally arrived.

      “There’s nothing wrong with your daughter at all,” the doctors told her mom and dad. “Not physically anyway. But attention seeking to this extent is suggestive of some type of psychological disturbance.”