passed. Still nothing.
Walking over to the bathroom door, he tapped lightly. “Jaci? Are you okay in there?” He waited, ear close to the door. No answer. He tried the knob. It was locked. He pounded with the side of his fist this time “Jaci. Open the door,” he shouted, trying to force back the feeling of dread that crept up his spine.
Xander covered the three strides it took to get to the kitchen in seconds, and was back at the bathroom door, butter knife in hand, to unlock it.
He swung the door open and found her sitting on the floor between the tub and toilet. She was in a paper clinic gown, with her bare legs tucked up in front of her and her head drooping forward.
“Jaci?” He stepped in and lifted her chin so he could get a good look at her. She was an alarming shade of gray. An empty prescription bottle sat on the closed lid of the toilet.
“Goddammit,” he yelled, as he fell to his knees, pulling her toward him, and then whirling her around until he held her upright, with her back to his chest, and his arm wrapped around her waist.
“Brady,” he barked, loudly. “She’s OD’ing on painkillers.” He lifted the lid of the toilet, sending the pill bottle flying, and leaned her forward over the bowl. Her head bobbled on her neck as he stuck his fingers down her throat. The reflex was immediate as the contents of her stomach expelled into the bowl. A smattering of partially dissolved tablets plopped into the water, decorating the bottom of the bowl with light blue dots. He made her vomit again and again until nothing came up anymore. Then, he scooped her up and carried her to the bed.
Xander laid her down and felt her neck at the carotid. Slow, lazy thumps surged underneath the pad of his finger. Her chest rose and fell in long labored breaths.
He looked at her ashen face and the dusky circles under her eyes. His heart bloomed with the need to ease her anguish and protect her from the rest of the world. It was clear that the last twenty-four hours had destroyed her.
Xander’s hand was on its way up to touch his ear bud to call Brady, when he walked through the apartment door, closing and locking it behind him. He dug through the bag he carried, finally pulling out a syringe. “Narcan,” he said, holding it up before popping the cover off the needle and injecting her. “That’s all I got in my bag of tricks.” He met Xander’s eyes. “I’m out of here, but I’ll be listening in case you need anything,” he said, turning around and walking back through the apartment door.
He stood in the darkened room with his blood boiling. His chest heaved as he raked a hand through his hair and paced back and forth next to the bed.
Then focusing on Jaci’s form, Xander brushed a lock of hair from her face. Her skin began to lose some of the deathly gray pallor it exhibited only a minute before. Already, she looked better. She was going to survive this.
His panic dulled enough for other emotions to seep in. “Holy fucking hell. Dammit.” He stormed, knocking a chair over and kicking it across the room. Then, he sat heavily in the one remaining by the table, leaning over, elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Air rushed savagely in and out of his lungs. He attempted to calm the fury he felt, taking long minutes to recover from the massive adrenaline surge.
Finally somewhat calmed, he took a deep breath and looked up at Jaci’s unconscious body. This was his fault. He hadn’t been here. She didn’t know that she already had family here, had someone who cared about her, who would take care of her.
Well, there was absolutely no chance she’d get the opportunity to do something like this again. She was going to see just how seriously he took his responsibility.
Xander stripped down to his underwear and slid into the bed. He grasped Jaci’s wrist firmly. She wouldn’t be going anywhere without him knowing about it.
Soon, the hens on the Sit-In Team would take over. And the leader of the hen parade, Caroline, would be trying to shoo him out. He grunted. Good luck with that.
3
She wasn’t dead.
Disappointment settled, cold and painful, in the pit of Jaci’s stomach.
When she learned there was no hospital in the Amber Zone and that she’d be transported back to the apartment after her sterilization, she’d been shocked. But she eventually realized that they gave her the easy out she’d been searching for. The clinic staff provided a bottle of painkillers to take home.
But it hadn’t worked.
She cracked open her eyes. A quick sweep of the room told her it was dark outside. It was hard to see anything other than all the women who surrounded her. There were several in bed with her, touching her, comforting her. Jaci’s head was on a pillow in a woman’s lap.
“It’s okay, Jaci. We’re all here for you,” someone whispered in her ear. It was the person caressing her hair.
“Are you my roommate?” Jaci’s throat was dry, her voice gravelly.
“No, I’m Caroline.”
“Why are all these people here?”
“Jenna from the sterilization clinic sent a u-com about you.”
“They sent a universal com about me?”
“Only to building seventeen. It’s standard procedure.”
“So, everybody in the building…knows?” Jaci paused. “How humiliating,” she whispered more to herself than anybody else in the room.
“Shhh, don’t worry about that.” Caroline raised her up so she could take a sip of water from a straw somebody else held to her mouth. “Oh, before I forget, your assigned com is on the night table when you’re ready for it. A lot of our numbers have already been downloaded in.
“I would tell you everybody else’s name, but you wouldn’t remember them right now anyway.” Caroline was still gently raking Jaci’s hair with her fingertips. “Tomorrow, you’ll feel much better and we’ll all have plenty of time to talk. For now, relax. We’re not going anywhere tonight.”
For the rest of the evening Jaci succumbed to a hazy flurry of women everywhere.
She fell into a bizarre funhouse sleep with oddly realistic and suffocating dreams. Pain woke her occasionally, and each time she opened her eyes, she was still surrounded by women. Later, they slept with her. A tangle of females covered the big bed, their bodies pressing close to her and each other. It seemed like a dozen hands reached out, touching her. Their vigilance kept her prisoner in a cocoon of female flesh. The oddity of their behavior drove away her immediate despair and provided brief moments of respite from the amalgam of physical and emotional pain.
When Jaci woke up the next morning with a clearer head, Caroline and another woman, Emily, whose name she remembered only because of her purple-tipped hair, were still there. She recognized the two other women present, but she couldn’t remember their names.
“How are you feeling?” Caroline asked when she realized Jaci was awake.
She pegged the woman with a foggy gaze, “Okay, considering.”
“Didn’t they send home any pain meds with you? I couldn’t find any.”
“I don’t know,” Jaci lied, closing her eyes.
“I brought some that were left over from other sit-ins when I couldn’t find yours. Do you want one?”
“Yes,” she croaked through parched lips. “Numb would be nice right now.”
Caroline walked to the counter separating the living area from the kitchen and shook a couple of tablets from a bottle. She returned with a glass of water and two tablets in her hand. Jaci accepted them wincing slightly as she sat up enough to take the pills.
“Thanks for staying with me, but you guys don’t have to stay anymore. I’m sure you have better things to do.”
“Nope.