Royally Flushed

Hospitals Are For the Living, Morgues Are For the Dead.

~Malia~

I had woken up in a hospital plenty of times before, but never had I awoken with my body in such complete and utter shambles, the life almost completely drained out of me.

I opened my eyes to see a familiar looking woman sitting in the corner of my hospital room, her eyes closed and weary looking for some reason. She looked almost exactly like my mom, and that made me want to cry even more.

"Ouch," I stuttered out trying to sit up, which set off a little beeping alarm causing my visitor to sit upright in her seat and her eyes to grow wide with fear.

"Oh, no no no you don't," she said with a thick British accent that puzzled me. How could she look like my family but have an accent from another country?  As far as I knew the only relatives I had resided in the US.

She had the same dark brown hair as mine that was naturally curly, fair skin with a light dusting of freckles, same bright blue eyes. She was my mother's spitting image, which made her my spitting image as well.

I was more than confused when she started talking.

"I know you must be really scared right now but don't worry, Mr. Carmichael was detained and he won't bother you ever again."

I heard the words coming out of her mouth but I couldn't comprehend what they meant.

I looked down at my pale skin encased in casts and gauze and the cuts slashed across my body from the previous lashes and beatings I'd sustained from my step father over the past few months.

"How?" I asked her, skeptical about how some woman who looked like my family but didn't sound like us, would be the answer to my prayers.

"Department of Human Services caught wind that you were being abused, one of your teachers at school notified them and when they called Mr. Carmichael and he said no one lived there, they got suspicious. They sent a unit with two police officers to your house and found him beating you almost to death and they told him to get off of you but he wouldn't so they tasered him and then when he still wouldn't stop they had to use lethal force on him..." she trailed off and I knew where she was going with this.

"So he's dead? Good riddance," I said, the emotions not daring leave my voice.

"Not exactly, he is in critical condition in the ICU, they shot him right above his heart and there is a small chance he might not make it but the doctors are hopeful that he will survive."

"Pity."

She looked at me incredulously. Surely she didn't expect me to feel sorry for the bastard who used and abused me for almost an entire year?

"What? Do you see these scars, these bruises? They are all from him. Not to mention the ones you can't see. Don't judge me for how I react to his pain. If anything he deserves it a million times over."

That shut her up real quick. There was a pressure in my throat that felt thick and heavy, like I was about to cry but I refused to. I sucked it up and swallowed down my grief and my pain, the force of doing so almost making me pass out.

"I wasn't judging, I was just surprised, that's all. I didn't think all of this was from him..." she trailed off.

"Who else would have done it?"

"I don't know I just prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, which you aren't necessarily doing for me."

I snorted.

"Well maybe I would if you told me who you were, or maybe even your first name?"

"I'm sorry, forgive me it's been a long day and a long flight. I'm Marissa Echols, your mother's sister."