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Chapter or Story
Alicin Wonderland
Part 13
Day 2 - 1996 Recovery, Discovery
=====
When Patrice opened her eyes, it was very early Saturday morning. Rolling her head slowly from side to side, she checked for stiffness and, to her dismay, found some in her neck. With eyes closed, she lifted her head from its resting place on the back of the small sofa and lowered it to her chest for another stretch. Not too much pain there, she noted. Next she began to rotate her slender ankles one at a time, enjoying the release of tension as the pebble-like bones that defined the joint popped and snapped as they slid past one another. It wasn’t until she attempted to bend her knees and flex her hips that she became aware of the weight in her lap. Her eyes snapped open and her gaze fell upon Angelo’s smiling mug. ”And just how long have you been awake?” she smiled back at him.
The empath sat up and turned to sit cross-legged, facing her. His smile broadened and he chuckled, but said nothing.
“Uh-oh,” was the doctor’s sheepish response. She pulled the silver clip from her ponytail and raked her fingers through her hair.
“You snore,” he informed her suddenly.
“So do you, my good man!” she grinned back.
“Angelo won’t tell,” he assured her with a toothy grin.
“Neither will Dr. Patrice,” she mimicked. She whacked him on the shoulder with the small pillow she pulled from behind her back and crossed the wet floor to her desk.
Patrice was in the middle of the room when she felt a soft thump between her shoulder blades. She turned sharply to face a still-smiling Angelo who shrugged and explained casually, “Throw pillow.” They both laughed out loud.
Angelo followed the doctor to her desk, but did not sit down in either guest chair. He listened as Dr. Patrice spoke into the phone, asking someone in Maintenance to please come make repairs to the damaged heating system in her office. When she finished with the call, he spoke.
“Where’s Alicin?” he asked with worry in his voice.
“Somewhere safe with Elinore, where Mr. Raines can’t upset her any further.” There was a pause. “You care for her very much, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, hanging his head, “very much.” His last words were almost inaudible.
“Can you remember how you know her?”
He nodded and laid out an explanation filled with failed starts and long pauses when he struggled to find the right words. “Long time ago. There was crying in the tunnels. Alicin cried. Afraid of noises. Afraid of dark. Afraid of him.”
“Mr. Raines?”
“Not sure.” His eyes looked so sad.
“That’s okay, Angelo. Please. Go on.”
“Angelo followed the crying. Found her. So tiny. Afraid of Angelo. Angelo stayed in tunnel a long time. Just talking. One day Alicin says, ‘Okay!’ Then friends.”
“Until…?”
“Not sure.” He shook his head in frustration. Their older years together were on the edge of his memory, just out of reach. He sighed heavily.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember just yet. You will.”
“Don’t think so.” The doubt in his voice was strong.
“Oh, I’m sure of it.” Her tone was suddenly gentle and caring. “Events coupled with powerful emotions make for very strong memories, Angelo. Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. If you had any emotionally charged experiences with Alicin, those events are more strongly imprinted on your brain than ordinary occurrences. Try to picture each memory as a tiny groove on the surface of your brain. Your ‘Alicin grooves’ go deeper than any of the others because you have strong feelings about her. They’d be harder to erase, if you will, than lesser ones. My prediction is that the memories will return when you least expect them, probably when you’re not even thinking about her.” She slipped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a small hug. He did not pull away from her.
“Angelo can remember?” Hope had crept into his voice and taken a seat in the corner.
Dr. Patrice smiled at him. “Yes, you can, dear. And you will, given time. If I were a betting woman, I’d put money on it!”
“A doctor is taking care of Sydney,” he said abruptly, apparently finished with the last conversation.
“You’ve seen him?” Patrice asked with worried interest.
“Not long. Sydney has fever…very hot! Room is cold. Helps Sydney sleep. No feelings…just…sleep. A doctor said so.”
“Was he awake at all?”
Angelo simply shook his head. “Not awake. Too sick, still.”
The doctor released a long sigh as she rose from her chair. “I need to go check on him soon.”
“I know,” Angelo acknowledged, as if he understood the full burden of her comment.
“But first,” she said, “let’s find Alicin and Elinore, shall we?”
=====
As they exited the doctor’s office, Angelo and Patrice nearly collided with the two women they were looking for, causing cries of surprise that gave way to the laughter of relief. Naomi and Joanna came out from behind the duty desk, while Sam (whose two bruised eyes made him look like a raccoon, thanks to Jerry Wurth) acknowledged the narrowly averted pile-up with a grin and returned his attention to the security monitor before him.
Naomi spoke first. “Where were you?”
“The little office around the corner, out of harm’s way, or so we thought!” Elinore shot Alicin a knowing look and the slightest of smiles, but she could not hide the twinkle in her eyes.
Alicin acknowledged the brief glance by unfocusing her eyes for a second, just enough to look slightly deranged. The momentary look was enough to elicit a snorty laugh from Elinore. That was so easy, Alicin thought. She smiled innocently while the others were trying to figure out what was wrong with the young nurse.
“I’m sorry,” Elinore laughed, trying to regain self-control. “It’s just that…” Here she pointed a finger at Alicin, who never broke her ingenuous façade, looking for all the world like just another interested bystander. “We crawled under the desk when the first shot was fired.” She waggled her hand back and forth between herself and Alicin, taking a deep breath to put off another laughing jag. “Well, Alicin panicked, so she was the first one in…I mean under…and then I squeezed…under…and tried to calm her down. Then there was a second shot and we both sort of jumped and smashed our heads on the bottom of the desk. Oooh, man, that still hurts! I don’t know about you, Alicin but my neck is killing me.” She purposely avoided turning to look at the young researcher. “I don’t think there’s any concussion here, and I really could use a couple of aspirins right about now! If you don’t mind, Dr. Patrice, I’d like to get some from my purse in the file room.”
The doctor dismissed Elinore with a nod of her head and turned her attention to Alicin, only to find her patient missing from the group. Her look of alarm was answered with another grin from Sam (and now Earl) at the security monitor and a nod toward the door to Alicin’s room. In next instant, Dr. Patrice noticed that Angelo was also missing. She beamed a brief smile at the men, shaking her head slowly as she approached the door. She lifted her hand to knock on the smooth wood with the backs of her fingers.
Inside, the two friends sat, trying to piece together what had happened a few short hours ago. Angelo held Alicin’s hands as she detailed her encounter with Mr. Raines, including the doctor’s interruption, Joanna’s rescue, Naomi and Joanna being locked in a closet and Elinore spiriting her away to the little office. She added her own take on what had happened around the corner. While Angelo was amused by Alicin’s account of trying to catch the ‘stars’, he was relieved to know that she had not hurt herself seriously and told her so. He also made it clear that he did not believe the part about Elinore hearing Elvis Pretzel singing into his blue suede shoes. Then Angelo informed his friend that she had a headache and pain in her cervical vertebrae and advised her to ask her doctor for a pain reliever.
“Would you stop that, Timmy?” she asked with a bit of attitude as she withdrew her hands from his grasp.
“What?” he asked, feigning innocence and clearly amused at Alicin’s expense.
“Oooh! Like you don’t know, Timothy David,” she accused with narrowed eyes, unaware of her manner of addressing him.
Angelo looked at her blankly, trying to keep a straight face, like when they were children.
“THIS!” she spat. She held up both hands and wiggled all the fingers at once.
Angelo mimicked her motion, added a crooked smile and gave her a questioning look, but said nothing. This little exchange was all about them and he was enjoying it hugely.
“Oh…Just…Stop it!” she wailed and batted his hands out of the air. “Just once, I’D like to be the first person to announce how I feel and to decide what to do about it! Do you know how spooky this is?” Her fingers were moving again. “I’m telling you Timmy, don’t…do it…again!” She punctuated her little tirade with a pouty bottom lip.
The sight of her raised the distant memory of a similar exchange in a room he hadn’t seen since he was three years old. That time it had been his own pouting face that inspired the words he was about to say. Angelo placed his index finger ever so gently on Alicin’s lip and warned her tenderly, “Don’t trip on that.”
She was on him in a heartbeat, toppling her unsuspecting friend to the floor and pinning him hard to the sculptured pile. “Take it back, Timmy!” she smiled at him.
“No!” he crowed, fending off the ensuing flurry of slaps. “Let go!”
“Not ‘til you take it back!” she threatened through the clenched teeth of a long-ago six-year-old.
“NO!” Weak from laughing, he arched his body and managed to push her off, but somehow ended up on the bottom again. He’d been here a few times before, he now remembered. The memories made him laugh even harder, causing Alicin to redouble her efforts to wipe the silly smile off his face.
Then something changed. Alicin’s domination of him became more urgent, more serious…more dangerous. Without warning, she pulled handfuls of his hair so viciously that he cried out in pain. She wrapped her hands around his neck and squeezed hard, fingers digging into his skin. He pulled at her wrists, gasping for air. In return she butted his face just below the eye with her forehead, causing him to lose hold. All the while she shouted at him, “Stop it! Stop It! STOP IT!” Alicin was astride Angelo’s hips, swinging her fists wildly at him, when she felt powerful arms wrap around her upper body, pulling her down into bear hug. She tried to use her legs for leverage to topple onto her side, but stronger ones captured them and held them tightly. She was trapped.
Suddenly, Angelo was experiencing, as if through her eyes, the violence visited upon his friend in the past several days. The sight terrified him and he cried out, fearing for his life. The attacker’s eyes were cold and heartless and he felt naked and vulnerable under their scrutiny. Angelo felt the cold steel of this animal’s service revolver pressing against her neck and could smell breath that reeked of cigarettes and break-room coffee. There was a stinging pain now on his shoulder and the muscles in his lower body burned from Alicin’s struggles against her foe. As he felt the assailant’s hands yanking at her meager clothes, Angelo’s insides were one massive bruise that ached with each breath he took and every muscle he tried to move. The attack had degraded steadily to this one evil act, and it had set a match to the young man’s rage. With great determination, Angelo forced himself to look at the face of Alicin’s attacker.
=====
Sam bolted into Alicin’s room, followed by Earl and Dr. Patrice. Naomi, Elinore and Joanna were close on their heels. It took both men to pull Alicin off of Angelo, who then lay on the floor in a heap. Naomi and Joanna lifted his battered body onto the bed and began to look for injuries while Dr. Patrice quickly uncapped a hypo and jabbed it into Alicin’s hip, whereupon the young woman collapsed into the men’s arms.
Elinore watched Sam and Earl place Alicin’s slight form on the chaise. The nurse was visibly shaken by what she had seen on the security monitor across the hall moments earlier. What had begun as a playful exchange between friends had turned ugly. Whatever darkness was in her heart, Alicin had taken it out on her best friend. Only moments before the fight, the researcher had been “goin’ fool”, as the nurse’s Georgia relatives would have put it, teasing her and trying – successfully – to make her laugh at the worst possible moment. Now she wondered what had triggered the change. She also wondered if anyone, Alicin included, really knew.
Angelo was recovering from what had been more of an emotional beating than a physical one, although Alicin had landed a few good punches. He sat up, despite Naomi and Joanna’s chiding, and dangled his feet over the edge of the bed.
Dr. Patrice approached him and took his hands in hers. “What just happened here?”
He looked into her eyes. “Not sure,” he lied.
“Why did she turn on you?”
“Don’t know,” he protested a bit too strongly.
“This is about the attack,” Patrice guessed, nearly certain that she was right.
Angelo broke eye contact and withdrew his hands from the doctor’s grip.
Dr. Patrice took a long, hard look at the man before her. She blinked twice, slowly, and inhaled deeply. Without removing her gaze from Angelo, she announced, “I’ll be in my office if anyone’s looking for me.” Silently, she stepped to the door and entered her sanctum, drawing the door shut behind her.
Once inside, Dr. Patrice poured a shot of scotch and tossed it down, savoring the slow burn as she poured the next one and dispatched it easily as well. Her insides were still quaking and her hands unsteady. Just now, in that other room, she had gazed into the eyes of one of the most complex, enigmatic human beings she knew. Her heart had seized in her chest when his eyes had finally revealed their horrible truth: Angelo knew the identity of Alicin’s attacker.
=====
End Part 13
Alicin Wonderland
Send feedback to lizzkirsch@hotmail.com
Part 13
Day 2 - 1996 Recovery, Discovery
=====
When Patrice opened her eyes, it was very early Saturday morning. Rolling her head slowly from side to side, she checked for stiffness and, to her dismay, found some in her neck. With eyes closed, she lifted her head from its resting place on the back of the small sofa and lowered it to her chest for another stretch. Not too much pain there, she noted. Next she began to rotate her slender ankles one at a time, enjoying the release of tension as the pebble-like bones that defined the joint popped and snapped as they slid past one another. It wasn’t until she attempted to bend her knees and flex her hips that she became aware of the weight in her lap. Her eyes snapped open and her gaze fell upon Angelo’s smiling mug. ”And just how long have you been awake?” she smiled back at him.
The empath sat up and turned to sit cross-legged, facing her. His smile broadened and he chuckled, but said nothing.
“Uh-oh,” was the doctor’s sheepish response. She pulled the silver clip from her ponytail and raked her fingers through her hair.
“You snore,” he informed her suddenly.
“So do you, my good man!” she grinned back.
“Angelo won’t tell,” he assured her with a toothy grin.
“Neither will Dr. Patrice,” she mimicked. She whacked him on the shoulder with the small pillow she pulled from behind her back and crossed the wet floor to her desk.
Patrice was in the middle of the room when she felt a soft thump between her shoulder blades. She turned sharply to face a still-smiling Angelo who shrugged and explained casually, “Throw pillow.” They both laughed out loud.
Angelo followed the doctor to her desk, but did not sit down in either guest chair. He listened as Dr. Patrice spoke into the phone, asking someone in Maintenance to please come make repairs to the damaged heating system in her office. When she finished with the call, he spoke.
“Where’s Alicin?” he asked with worry in his voice.
“Somewhere safe with Elinore, where Mr. Raines can’t upset her any further.” There was a pause. “You care for her very much, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said, hanging his head, “very much.” His last words were almost inaudible.
“Can you remember how you know her?”
He nodded and laid out an explanation filled with failed starts and long pauses when he struggled to find the right words. “Long time ago. There was crying in the tunnels. Alicin cried. Afraid of noises. Afraid of dark. Afraid of him.”
“Mr. Raines?”
“Not sure.” His eyes looked so sad.
“That’s okay, Angelo. Please. Go on.”
“Angelo followed the crying. Found her. So tiny. Afraid of Angelo. Angelo stayed in tunnel a long time. Just talking. One day Alicin says, ‘Okay!’ Then friends.”
“Until…?”
“Not sure.” He shook his head in frustration. Their older years together were on the edge of his memory, just out of reach. He sighed heavily.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember just yet. You will.”
“Don’t think so.” The doubt in his voice was strong.
“Oh, I’m sure of it.” Her tone was suddenly gentle and caring. “Events coupled with powerful emotions make for very strong memories, Angelo. Positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. If you had any emotionally charged experiences with Alicin, those events are more strongly imprinted on your brain than ordinary occurrences. Try to picture each memory as a tiny groove on the surface of your brain. Your ‘Alicin grooves’ go deeper than any of the others because you have strong feelings about her. They’d be harder to erase, if you will, than lesser ones. My prediction is that the memories will return when you least expect them, probably when you’re not even thinking about her.” She slipped an arm around his shoulders and gave him a small hug. He did not pull away from her.
“Angelo can remember?” Hope had crept into his voice and taken a seat in the corner.
Dr. Patrice smiled at him. “Yes, you can, dear. And you will, given time. If I were a betting woman, I’d put money on it!”
“A doctor is taking care of Sydney,” he said abruptly, apparently finished with the last conversation.
“You’ve seen him?” Patrice asked with worried interest.
“Not long. Sydney has fever…very hot! Room is cold. Helps Sydney sleep. No feelings…just…sleep. A doctor said so.”
“Was he awake at all?”
Angelo simply shook his head. “Not awake. Too sick, still.”
The doctor released a long sigh as she rose from her chair. “I need to go check on him soon.”
“I know,” Angelo acknowledged, as if he understood the full burden of her comment.
“But first,” she said, “let’s find Alicin and Elinore, shall we?”
=====
As they exited the doctor’s office, Angelo and Patrice nearly collided with the two women they were looking for, causing cries of surprise that gave way to the laughter of relief. Naomi and Joanna came out from behind the duty desk, while Sam (whose two bruised eyes made him look like a raccoon, thanks to Jerry Wurth) acknowledged the narrowly averted pile-up with a grin and returned his attention to the security monitor before him.
Naomi spoke first. “Where were you?”
“The little office around the corner, out of harm’s way, or so we thought!” Elinore shot Alicin a knowing look and the slightest of smiles, but she could not hide the twinkle in her eyes.
Alicin acknowledged the brief glance by unfocusing her eyes for a second, just enough to look slightly deranged. The momentary look was enough to elicit a snorty laugh from Elinore. That was so easy, Alicin thought. She smiled innocently while the others were trying to figure out what was wrong with the young nurse.
“I’m sorry,” Elinore laughed, trying to regain self-control. “It’s just that…” Here she pointed a finger at Alicin, who never broke her ingenuous façade, looking for all the world like just another interested bystander. “We crawled under the desk when the first shot was fired.” She waggled her hand back and forth between herself and Alicin, taking a deep breath to put off another laughing jag. “Well, Alicin panicked, so she was the first one in…I mean under…and then I squeezed…under…and tried to calm her down. Then there was a second shot and we both sort of jumped and smashed our heads on the bottom of the desk. Oooh, man, that still hurts! I don’t know about you, Alicin but my neck is killing me.” She purposely avoided turning to look at the young researcher. “I don’t think there’s any concussion here, and I really could use a couple of aspirins right about now! If you don’t mind, Dr. Patrice, I’d like to get some from my purse in the file room.”
The doctor dismissed Elinore with a nod of her head and turned her attention to Alicin, only to find her patient missing from the group. Her look of alarm was answered with another grin from Sam (and now Earl) at the security monitor and a nod toward the door to Alicin’s room. In next instant, Dr. Patrice noticed that Angelo was also missing. She beamed a brief smile at the men, shaking her head slowly as she approached the door. She lifted her hand to knock on the smooth wood with the backs of her fingers.
Inside, the two friends sat, trying to piece together what had happened a few short hours ago. Angelo held Alicin’s hands as she detailed her encounter with Mr. Raines, including the doctor’s interruption, Joanna’s rescue, Naomi and Joanna being locked in a closet and Elinore spiriting her away to the little office. She added her own take on what had happened around the corner. While Angelo was amused by Alicin’s account of trying to catch the ‘stars’, he was relieved to know that she had not hurt herself seriously and told her so. He also made it clear that he did not believe the part about Elinore hearing Elvis Pretzel singing into his blue suede shoes. Then Angelo informed his friend that she had a headache and pain in her cervical vertebrae and advised her to ask her doctor for a pain reliever.
“Would you stop that, Timmy?” she asked with a bit of attitude as she withdrew her hands from his grasp.
“What?” he asked, feigning innocence and clearly amused at Alicin’s expense.
“Oooh! Like you don’t know, Timothy David,” she accused with narrowed eyes, unaware of her manner of addressing him.
Angelo looked at her blankly, trying to keep a straight face, like when they were children.
“THIS!” she spat. She held up both hands and wiggled all the fingers at once.
Angelo mimicked her motion, added a crooked smile and gave her a questioning look, but said nothing. This little exchange was all about them and he was enjoying it hugely.
“Oh…Just…Stop it!” she wailed and batted his hands out of the air. “Just once, I’D like to be the first person to announce how I feel and to decide what to do about it! Do you know how spooky this is?” Her fingers were moving again. “I’m telling you Timmy, don’t…do it…again!” She punctuated her little tirade with a pouty bottom lip.
The sight of her raised the distant memory of a similar exchange in a room he hadn’t seen since he was three years old. That time it had been his own pouting face that inspired the words he was about to say. Angelo placed his index finger ever so gently on Alicin’s lip and warned her tenderly, “Don’t trip on that.”
She was on him in a heartbeat, toppling her unsuspecting friend to the floor and pinning him hard to the sculptured pile. “Take it back, Timmy!” she smiled at him.
“No!” he crowed, fending off the ensuing flurry of slaps. “Let go!”
“Not ‘til you take it back!” she threatened through the clenched teeth of a long-ago six-year-old.
“NO!” Weak from laughing, he arched his body and managed to push her off, but somehow ended up on the bottom again. He’d been here a few times before, he now remembered. The memories made him laugh even harder, causing Alicin to redouble her efforts to wipe the silly smile off his face.
Then something changed. Alicin’s domination of him became more urgent, more serious…more dangerous. Without warning, she pulled handfuls of his hair so viciously that he cried out in pain. She wrapped her hands around his neck and squeezed hard, fingers digging into his skin. He pulled at her wrists, gasping for air. In return she butted his face just below the eye with her forehead, causing him to lose hold. All the while she shouted at him, “Stop it! Stop It! STOP IT!” Alicin was astride Angelo’s hips, swinging her fists wildly at him, when she felt powerful arms wrap around her upper body, pulling her down into bear hug. She tried to use her legs for leverage to topple onto her side, but stronger ones captured them and held them tightly. She was trapped.
Suddenly, Angelo was experiencing, as if through her eyes, the violence visited upon his friend in the past several days. The sight terrified him and he cried out, fearing for his life. The attacker’s eyes were cold and heartless and he felt naked and vulnerable under their scrutiny. Angelo felt the cold steel of this animal’s service revolver pressing against her neck and could smell breath that reeked of cigarettes and break-room coffee. There was a stinging pain now on his shoulder and the muscles in his lower body burned from Alicin’s struggles against her foe. As he felt the assailant’s hands yanking at her meager clothes, Angelo’s insides were one massive bruise that ached with each breath he took and every muscle he tried to move. The attack had degraded steadily to this one evil act, and it had set a match to the young man’s rage. With great determination, Angelo forced himself to look at the face of Alicin’s attacker.
=====
Sam bolted into Alicin’s room, followed by Earl and Dr. Patrice. Naomi, Elinore and Joanna were close on their heels. It took both men to pull Alicin off of Angelo, who then lay on the floor in a heap. Naomi and Joanna lifted his battered body onto the bed and began to look for injuries while Dr. Patrice quickly uncapped a hypo and jabbed it into Alicin’s hip, whereupon the young woman collapsed into the men’s arms.
Elinore watched Sam and Earl place Alicin’s slight form on the chaise. The nurse was visibly shaken by what she had seen on the security monitor across the hall moments earlier. What had begun as a playful exchange between friends had turned ugly. Whatever darkness was in her heart, Alicin had taken it out on her best friend. Only moments before the fight, the researcher had been “goin’ fool”, as the nurse’s Georgia relatives would have put it, teasing her and trying – successfully – to make her laugh at the worst possible moment. Now she wondered what had triggered the change. She also wondered if anyone, Alicin included, really knew.
Angelo was recovering from what had been more of an emotional beating than a physical one, although Alicin had landed a few good punches. He sat up, despite Naomi and Joanna’s chiding, and dangled his feet over the edge of the bed.
Dr. Patrice approached him and took his hands in hers. “What just happened here?”
He looked into her eyes. “Not sure,” he lied.
“Why did she turn on you?”
“Don’t know,” he protested a bit too strongly.
“This is about the attack,” Patrice guessed, nearly certain that she was right.
Angelo broke eye contact and withdrew his hands from the doctor’s grip.
Dr. Patrice took a long, hard look at the man before her. She blinked twice, slowly, and inhaled deeply. Without removing her gaze from Angelo, she announced, “I’ll be in my office if anyone’s looking for me.” Silently, she stepped to the door and entered her sanctum, drawing the door shut behind her.
Once inside, Dr. Patrice poured a shot of scotch and tossed it down, savoring the slow burn as she poured the next one and dispatched it easily as well. Her insides were still quaking and her hands unsteady. Just now, in that other room, she had gazed into the eyes of one of the most complex, enigmatic human beings she knew. Her heart had seized in her chest when his eyes had finally revealed their horrible truth: Angelo knew the identity of Alicin’s attacker.
=====
End Part 13
Alicin Wonderland
Send feedback to lizzkirsch@hotmail.com
