Dishonoring Jack

Chapter Thirty Eight

 The sun had already cast its warm golden rays across the bed when Jack finally emerged from her restless slumber. Despite the events of the previous day, Jack had slept halfway through the morning, exhausted from the reckless run to the Bookers' and the rescue inside the burning house. Her eyelids fluttered open and for a moment, everything was alright. Donovan wasn't in jail. Titus wasn't dead. She wasn't hopeless.

It was just another Thursday, but then her memories of the previous day returned with the force of a freight train. Donovan had been arrested and was awaiting trial; if she did not find a way to stop them, the mayor and Max Slate would make sure he was executed for his alleged crimes. I have to stop them.

Jack jerked up out of the bed but was paralyzed by the pain coursing through her back, her arms, her legs, her head. She froze, gripping the edge of the bed with her fingers, and closed her eyes. It took a few long minutes to ease herself from the bed in the room she had shared with Hannah the night before. Hannah was already up and gone, and Jack had the small bedroom to herself. She rose from the bed, her body stiff and her skin aching and dry. Corrie had left her a plain linen dress and Jack slipped it on.

I finally feel as old as my years, she thought as the dress restly snugly on her waist and shoulders, too tight on her more robust frame. Jack tied her shoes and tried to clear her frantic, wandering thoughts. Today, she needed to talk with her sister and Christina. Perhaps Oliver was hiding something, or maybe they had overheard a conversation between him and Max Slate. Maybe they could uncover something--anything--that would give them the chance to vindicate Donovan.

Jack slipped down the hallway, her boots clattering on the hardwood floor, and she eased herself down the spiraling staircase to the first floor of the practice where Dr. Benjamin and Corrie tended to the wounded soldiers sent home to recover. The men on their cots littered the floor and a few smiled up at Jack as she descended. One man even opened his mouth to greet her, but something in her expression stopped him. Jack was grateful for the absence of a mirror as she stepped through the men.

"The doctor, is he here?"

One of the men, a boy scarcely out of adolescence with a mop of sandy hair and a cleft chin, nodded. "He's in the back with Mrs. Benjamin."

"And Christina? I mean, Miss Walker? Is she here?"

The boy gave a longing sigh. "No, ma'am. She hasn't come by yet."

Jack suppressed a grin. Leave it to Christina to have every man in the practice fall in love with her. Jack picked her way through the men and wandered into the back where the surgery rooms and supplies resided.

"Dr. B? Corrie?"

Jack could hear their anxious murmuring, and she knew that they were talking about her. They were probably concerned for her sanity after she ran into a burning building. Jack snorted at the thought, and opened the door to the supply closet that enclosed them.

"There you are," she cried, interrupting Corrie and her husband's earnest conversation. The two parted and looked to Jack with guilty expressions on their face.

"Good morning, Jack," Corrie said, brushing a strand of copper hair behind her ear. "How are you feeling? Are you hungry?"

The girl touched Jack's shoulder, but she brushed it away. She didn't need any more coddling; she needed help in saving Donovan's life. "Oh, I'm fine. Were you talking about Donovan? Do you have a plan?"

Corrie and Dr. Benjamin exchanged a glance, and Jack almost rolled her eyes. Though she was ten years their senior, they still treated her like a child at times. Jack rolled forward onto the balls of her feet; she wished they would stop feeling sorry for her and help her.