Page 79 of Redemption
We return the greeting, and Stitch gestures to the small stack of files to the right of the one he’s currently working on. “Full day today?”
Locke shakes his head with a small frown. “Not too bad, just a few test results we need to finalize, there’s the three guys down the hall in quarantine who came in yesterday with fevers, a man with a...”
He continues on with our morning ramble, but my focus diverts to the large filing cabinets at his back. Everything around me silences as clarity takes hold. They keep a file on every resident staying within the Phoenix Rising community. A failsafe to make sure those residing here are immune, healthy, and valuable in some way, shape, or form.
I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner.
I’ve been working on Hawk’s file every day since I came here, and it never even occurred to me that they’d have one on Jax or Aly.
Holy shit, this is the answer. The codex. The key to the metaphorical lock keeping us all here. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that’s where I’ll find my answers—it’s where I’ll findthem—but I can’t do it while these guys are right under my nose.
“That ok with you?” Stitch asks, jarring me back to reality. I blink my mind back into focus as I realize he’s talking to me, but I have no idea what he had asked.
I cough into my fist and redirect the question back at him, “Ahem. Sorry. Still out of it this morning. What was that?”
Stitch smiles, unconcerned, and repeats his question. “Want to check on your patient and then hit room seven? I’m sure you know how to drain a cyst, right?”
“Um, yeah. That sounds fine.”
With a nod, I take the two charts from his outstretched hand and head down the corridor, pausing in front of Hawk’s door.
While I’m eager to visit him, a tremble runs through my body at what he went through. At what I saw in the aftermath. Trauma is obviously difficult on the person who suffered it, but it also leaves a lasting impact on the loved ones surrounding them.
When I found him, I was beyond relieved he was alive. He was relieved as well, but his mannerisms, in those first moments before he recognized me, were filled with absolute misery and horror. He barely saw me through the tiny slits left open behind his contusions and swelling. Yet, when he recognized me, even beyond my disguise, he still smiled. Found the will to be himself even after...everythinghe’s endured.
He was obviously seen by others here before I showed up. Prior to entering the room and offering my own version of care, I read their notes on what had happened to him and what care they’d offered, as well as the annotations of his...trauma gained upon extraction:two black and swollen eyes, a busted lip, a concussion, multiple fractured ribs, and kidney damage. All miraculously acquired upon transport. The veiled truth of the matter, however, is blatantly clear: he was tortured in that dungeon. There were also tests they ran from samples collected while he was unconscious before he was even brought to the Infirmary.
Informed consent is a cornerstone of ethical medical practice. It protects a patient’s autonomy as well as establishing a foundation of trust between patient and provider. There are times when medical procedures are able to be done while a person is unconscious and unable to give consent, but those are limited to life-saving maneuvers. CPR being a prime example.
But what they did to Hawk wasn’t done to save his life. The method of how they managed to obtain those samples when he was unable to state his nonconsent to the act...
It's deplorable.
I don’t even have to ask to know that he knows. The look in his eyes when I first saw him practically confirmed the fact. Yet, he still smiled when he saw me.
Going through something like that has the potential to break a person. To level them to the ground with grief and despair. The loss of their own autonomy? The inability to say no?
Hawk didn’t even have a chance to fight them off.
I saw the raw, reddened rings around his wrists and ankles. The splayed bruising surrounding them indicative of the chains he must have been restrained with. I said nothing in hispresence. Not needing to. Not wanting to remind him of what he went through. Especially after reading the notes on the very bottom of his file. The last mentions of the initial triage.
Male fertility confirmed via semen analysis
With his wrists bound, there was no way he could have voluntarily given that sample. Which means someone else was responsible for collecting it. How? Whether conscious or unconscious, Hawk would be the only person to know that information out of the two of us. And unless he chooses otherwise, I’m going to keep this information that way as well.
Between the two of us.
Because whether or not the others in this medical facility have any sort of ethical morality, I do.
Inhaling one final breath, I lift my hand and push the door open.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Hawk
The tray they gave me for my morning meal sits perched on my lap, the small slice of bread, tiny ramekin of jam, and cup of black coffee remaining untouched. Unwanted. Mocking me.
Especially the beautiful knife the delivery guy forgot to take with him as he left...
