We Band Together

Chapter 4

Emma's POV***

"Emma? Sweetheart can you open your eyes for me?" Squinting, I open my eyes slightly, only to be met with concerned faces from Nurse Jackson, Leo, Jordi, and Dash.

"Oh thank the Lord." Nurse Jackson throws her arms around me shaking body, I gratefully wrap my arms around pulling her in closer to me. Nurse Jackson has been my nurse for the past five years. She has always been there for me and I know she will always be there no matter what.

"You came back for me," I cry into her shoulder. She strokes my hair soothingly.

"I told you I would," she says.

I stare at her from glossy eyes, that same, calming voice, and sympathetic smile stares back.

"Boys, can you go back to your room for a while? Emma and I are going to have a little chat." Leo glances back at me, I could see small beads of sweat on his bushy eyebrows, but his eyes were understanding, and motions to the other boys.

"Come on guys, let's... Go find Brittany and see if we can got some ice cream." He says, trying to come up with an excuse to leave. Jordi and Dash mumble okays, and they walk/ wheel out, leaving me alone with Nurse Jackson.

"Emma, are you okay?" she starts.

I nod, refusing to meet her gaze. "Can you tell me what was going on through your head?" I stare out of the widow, watching two birds flutter playfully in the air. Her voice was in her head, it was Her locking me in that room.

She takes a swig from the whiskey bottle and then a drag from her cigarette. Her chocolate hair was pulled on top of her head, into a bun, straggling pieces fall from the sides. Her eyes were bloodshot and droopy, her lips cracked and dry.

"EMMA!" I hurry down my wooden stairs, with each step they threaten to break from rotting wood and termite damage.

I stand in front of her, my hands shaking slightly. "Yes, Ma'am?" I ask, using the proper terminology she requires me to use.

"There are dishes on the table and in the sink." She spits, flicking the end of the cigarette onto the floor.

I stutter, "I... uh... I was doing my homework first and then I was going to put them away. My teachers were getting suspicious because I-."

"Your teachers were getting suspicious?! You telling them things, girl?!" she pulls me close to her, I can taste the stale alcohol on her breath, the smoky smell escaping from her mouth.

"No! I didn't tell them anything!" She slaps me across the face, hard. I grit my teeth, trying not to show her that she was causing me pain. Pain was weakness, and in this battle weakness was something you DID NOT want to show.

"You lying to me? You know what I do to liars Emma." Of course I know what she does to liars, it's happened to me multiple times when I had "lied".

"No! I'm not lying!" She grips my hair and yanks it back.

"You know, even if you did tell and they came and took you nobody would want you." She pauses, opening the dreaded basement door. She drags me by the hair down the stairs and throws me onto the cement floor. "You want to know why?" she asks. I'm guessing that is a rhetorical question so I just lay motionless on the floor. She cackles, "Because you're a pathetic, hideous excuse for a child." I cry silently to myself. I try telling myself that she is the liar, but it doesn't work. I open my eyes and my mom is standing there in front of me, holding a floor mirror, one that you would hang on the wall or the back of the door, and places it in front of me. "Now you can stare at your hideous self and learn how to be a little more presentable in public for the duration of your punishment." She leans the mirror against the wall, and stumbles up the stairs. She slams the door behind her and locks it. That clicking noise rings in my ears. I moved slowly in front of the mirror and I did stare at myself. I pick a part every flaw that I see. I did that for five days straight, until I see my mother again.

"I saw her. I could hear her voice, and it just brought me back," I pause, wiping a tear that had escaped my eye off my cheek, "It just brought me back to that night. I thought you weren't coming back for me Nurse Jackson. You locked me in. You locked me into the room Nurse Jackson! Why would you do that?!" my voice going from scared and sad, to angry.

"Emma, I had no choice," she says, putting a hand on my knee, "You were in danger, I had to do that to keep you safe."

"Why?! What happened?!" I shout, pushing off the bed and standing up.

She hesitates, "There was a man threatening the safety of the hospital so we had to put everyone in lockdown."

"But who was it!"

Leo's POV***

After Nurse Jackson came in and took over from Emma, we boys obviously didn't go see if we could get ice cream, we went to see Kara to see if she had seen anything.

Jordi knocks on her door before walking in, me and Dash following suit.

"Dude, where have you been? I have been trapped in this prison for hours!" she groans, continuing to flip through her magazine.

"We were with Emma."

She looks up, sitting up from her slouching position. "Emma? Does she know that guy was screaming her name?" we look at each other.

"What man?"

"You didn't hear that guy screaming her name outside of the nurses' station?" we all shake our heads, what man?

"You boys must be deaf. This old man, he looked like forty was out here screaming her name like his life depended on it. After a while it got really annoying so I put my headphones in."

"We were a floor down! How were we supposed to hear? Who was he?" Jordi shouts.

We all look at her expectantly. "I don't know! Who visits her?"

Jordi looks at me and Dash. Finally, after a minute of silence, I speak up. "Nobody I don't think. The only person I have ever seen with her that doesn't work in the hospital is some man named Thomas."

"Yeah, he comes like every six months and takes her out to lunch," Dash adds.

"Yea, but she never told me who it was." I say.

"Me either."

"What does "Thomas" look like?" Kara asks, putting air quotation marks around Thomas.

"He has like chocolate color hair on his head and really bad side burns."

"Yea that's not the same guy."

"Where is Emma?" Kara suddenly asks.

"With Nurse Jackson, she sort of had a panic attack during the lockdown." Jordi answers.

"Well maybe we should go ask her."