Have Faith

Chapter 17: Hitting A Snag

"Kayla!" Sophia exclaimed. "Now we're just waiting on Abby." She looked me over. "Why are you wet?"

"I don't know," I confessed. "They were shooting at me, so at first I thought it was blood, but I'm not bleeding."

"They were shooting at you?" Sophia looked at me worriedly.

"Yeah, but I'm okay. They didn't get me. It was really scary, though." I reached into the folds in my uniform to get the medicine, and quickly realized what the mess was. "Um, Sophia? I think they shot one of the bottles." I pulled out the two remaining bottles and the glass shards of the broken one.

"Oh no!" Sophia exclaimed. "Do you think we'll have enough?"

"I hope so," I answered. "Abby's bringing more, so we should be okay.  How long have you been up here?"

"Since they called us to go to our work stations," Sophia answered somewhat distractedly; as she was trying to unscrew the lid to one of the bottles.  "When they called us to go, I snuck around back and climbed up.  It's been really boring up here by myself.  Um, Kayla," Sophia said suddenly, "I think we have a problem." She had gotten the two bottles open and was peering inside. "This one has pills, but the other one has liquid." I looked inside and saw that she was right.

"Why would it be different? What, are we supposed to drink the liquid?" I was very perplexed. I picked up one of the liquid bottles to read the label on the back. In small letters on the bottom it said, "Use By Injection Only."

"Sophia, this means one of these bottles is worthless! There's no way we can sneak a syringe out of that place!"

"Why not?" Sophia asked. "They inject you with tuberculosis, so they must have a lot. I'm sure they wouldn't miss one."

"But they only use one on each of us," I explained. "The doctor would notice if I stole it. Plus, think about how risky it would be to keep an uncapped needle in my pocket."

Just then, Abby came up. She was out of breath.

"Abby!" I cried. "Did you get the Isoniazid?"

In response, she pulled out more bottles of the drug from her pockets. She had managed to grab four, all of which were intact.

"Good, now open them," Sophia said. "Kayla and I discovered a little problem."

Abby did as she said, and sure enough, half of her haul was liquid as well.

"Well this is just great!" I exclaimed in frustration. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"How much do you think we're going to need to cure the tuberculosis?" Abby asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Sophia replied. "Why don't we ask the nice doctor we talked to last night?"

"We can't," I responded.  "You've been gone for hours, and Abby and I ran from the Nazis, so if any of us go back, we'll be shot for sure."

"Looks like we're going to have to figure out an escape plan soon!" Abby said.

"For now, let's focus on this cure," I said, attempting to bring us back on track.  "We can't ask the doctor, so we'll just have to wing it.  Let's try taking one pill a day and go from there.  I don't want to risk an overdose, but I also don't want to starve to death up here."

"Okay, we can start with that," Abby agreed.  "Should we take the first one now?"

"Yes."  Together, we each swallowed a pill, which was not the easiest feat, considering the frequent coughing attacks we were both having.

"What now?" Sophia wondered.

"Now, we wait," I answered, then began to worry.  There weren't many pills.  What would we do when they were gone? 

I let out a sigh.  We would just have to wait and hope that the medicine would be sufficient.