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Voices around me stir me awake, and I slowly open my eyes to find a nurse and doctor talking to each other.
“Oh, there she is. How are you feeling, dear?” the redheaded nurse from before asks me. I look at her badge and see her name is Diana, but I don’t answer her. She helps me sit up; my head still throbs, but less than it did before. I’m sore, and my body aches.
“Hi, my name is Dr. Berton. Do you know where you are?” Dr. Berton is a tall man, probably in his fifties if I had to guess. His black-rimmed glasses outline his dark hair, but his blue eyes stand out against his face.
My lips stay shut. I nod but don’t give him anything else besides that.
“Can you tell me your name?” Dr. Berton asks, his brows furrowing in concern.
My head drops. I just want to leave. I don’t want to have a conversation with him or anyone. Talking won’t do anything. I can’t remember anything, so my words would be empty anyway. My fingernails dig into the palm of my hand. I don’t respond.
“Okay, but you do know your name?” I look up and see him tilting his head to the side as he asks.
Again, I stare at him. Afraid to respond, afraid to hear my own voice. Fearful of reality.
“What about if you write it down for me? I just would rather have something to call you other than the woman in room 529. Can you write down your name for me? Please?” His voice softens.
My eyes look down at my hands lying on the hospital blanket. I wring them together, my mind still trying to play catch up. Mystomach starts to turn, a wave of nausea hitting me, and in an instant, I turn my head and vomit over the side of the bed. The nurse tries to grab a vomit bag, but she doesn’t get to me in time.
Tears fill my eyes as my anxiety starts to ramp up.
“You are going to experience some withdrawal symptoms. We think you were drugged with opioids.” Dr. Berton stands at the end of the bed. “We are going to get you started on some Clonidine to help with some of the symptoms. But we do not know how long you were being given the opioid, so we may need to change it up depending on how you go through the withdrawal. The Clonidine won’t get rid of the cravings for the drugs, but it will help with some of the anxiety and other symptoms. We will watch you over the next few hours, and if we need to add Methadone or Buprenorphine to help with the detox, we can.”
I cough as the acid taste covers my throat and tongue. My chest feels tight, and I can feel my breaths coming short and fast. Drugs. Sir had drugged me, time and time again. And now I was really feeling the effects.
“Calm down, sweetie.” The nurse comes up beside me. “Take a deep breath and just relax. You are safe here,” she tries to assure me.
I try to blow out long, deep breaths. My eyes water, and I swipe the tears away.
Dr. Berton lets out a sigh. “We promise we will help you through this, but please let us help you. Write a name on this paper for me. Let’s start there. Let’s focus on that right now.”
He flips over a piece of paper on the clipboard he has in his hands and grabs a pen from the front pocket of his white coat. He hands it to me and then steps back a bit to give me some space. I take the pen into my left hand and hesitate. My hand shakes as I hold it.
If he’s asking my name, there’s a chance my captor isn’t here. Do I risk giving him my name? Will the devil find me?
I bite my lip as I look down at the paper and shake as I place the tip on the paper. My handwriting is sloppy and unsteady. But you can clearly see the letters R-a-e-l-y-n.
I hand back the clipboard, and he looks down at my chicken scratch. “Raelyn. Thank you. Now, I know you may not be comfortable with what we are about to talk about, so I have asked Nurse Diana to stay here with the both of us. Is that okay?”
I nod.
He proceeds with my approval. “Do you know what happened at all, Raelyn?”
I frown, as my memories are so mixed. I don’t know what is truly reality. Shaking my head, I look down at my hands in my lap in defeat.
Dr. Berton grimaces. “For starters, you were in a fire. The house you were in. But tests show that you are okay from the aspect of the fire, besides a little smoke inhalation, but you will easily recover from that. But what I am concerned about is the bruising we found both in and out of you. As well as the detox from the opioids.”
The sound of his shoes causes me to look up. I see him pull over a laptop on a cart. He pulls up some things, and they look like bones. I inwardly cringe. That’s me?
“You have extensive bruising all over your body. A lot of bruising in the stomach and vaginal area. There’s some blunt-force trauma to your head, as well. Track marks along your skin from needles. You also have some broken ribs, and it looks like you had a broken nose.” He clears his throat.
Tears slip out of the corners of my eyes. My nose was broken by my captor. I tried to escape and run away from him one day. I reached for the doorknob to the room, and he pulled me back by my hair, dragging me back to the middle of the room.
He began beating me with his closed fist. Punching me in my stomach, hitting my ribs and my face. I heard an audiblecrackwhen his fist connected with my nose. There was intense pain, and I saw stars. Blood gushed from my face as he got up and left me on the floor screaming and crying.
I swipe my tears away and look up at the doctor. I nod, though I don’t even know what I’m acknowledging.
“Raelyn, we would like to do a rape kit. We think you were sexually assaulted, and the kit will help the police catch who did it,” Dr. Berton says softly.