Chapter 2 #2
“They were around but not anymore. I am Maya,” the doctor introduced herself to him and also the other staff members nearby. “Both of you are safe now.”
Ricky looked over at Naomi, and she smiled. “Honestly, it’s okay. We’re trying to find your parents, and we’ll get you back to them soon enough.”
He smiled and whispered, “Thank you,” in such a formal tone that it tugged at her heart.
As she went to step back he cried out, “Where are you going?”
“Just to my bed,” she shared, pointing right behind the curtains. “I want you to sleep, and I mean really sleep. So you can feel better tomorrow, okay?”
“And then I can go around the submarine?”
“Only when the doctor says that you’re well enough, but you have to get better first.”
He nodded. She stepped back over to his bedside, pulled the covers up around his shoulders, leaned over, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Just sleep, honey. We’re fine now. I need to get some sleep too.”
He smiled, closed his eyes, and drifted off into a deep slumber.
Dr. Maya stared at her in surprise and whispered, “I wasn’t sure if he was faking it or if something else was going on.”
“The men on board the boat were pretty scary,” Naomi explained. “They kept threatening us, and they’d already beaten us. Plus we saw them force some other people into the water and just sailed away.”
Dr. Maya frowned, nodding. “That’s traumatic for anyone … let alone a child.”
“I don’t know what happened to that pair,” Naomi muttered, shaking her head.
“This was a couple days ago, I guess. I don’t know what to think, but Ricky’s pretty racked up over seeing that.
And being trussed up to the front of that boat was miserable and traumatic.
Between the sun, the wind, being wet all the time with the salt spray, we were freezing.
I don’t know that Ricky will ever go back on the water again. ”
Dr. Maya chuckled. “What he may not yet comprehend is that we’re underwater right now. Hopefully he will come to terms with that when he’s feeling better,” Dr. Maya noted, then left Naomi alone with Trent.
Naomi walked back to her bed and sat down on the side of it. With a happy sigh, she swung the blankets back, tucked herself underneath, and pulled the blankets up as she rested against the pillow.
“Feel better?” Trent asked.
“Lots.” She smiled broadly. “I just had to know that Ricky was doing okay.”
“Sounds like he’s doing better than you.”
“No, we’re both doing fine,” she remarked, trying hard not to wince. “It will just take a long time for those memories to go away.”
He watched her intently and nodded. “But they will. At some point, they will become a bad memory, and eventually they will slide back into the history of your brain and will not be anywhere near as powerful or as difficult for you to deal with.”
“I’m counting on that,” she muttered, hoping that he was right. “These aren’t memories I want to hang on to for very long.”
“Of course not,” he replied. “Do you remember anything about where you were when the people were sent overboard?”
She shrugged. “It was pretty soon after we took off, I think.”
“Any markers around?”
“None that I can think of. Maybe they got picked up. That’s what I told Ricky.
I wish I could tell him that for sure. It would be really good for him to hear because I know he’s really worried.
None of this is like anything he’s ever had to deal with,” she explained.
“It’s been a hard journey for both of us, and Ricky really needs to know that his parents are okay too.
After all, we were to meet them on that dock.
In some ways I think he’s mixed up those people with his parents. ”
“Did it look like his parents?”
She shrugged. “I’ve only seen them a couple times. I wouldn’t have thought they were his parents, but I don’t really remember much. … All of it is still a bit hazy.”
“So, you did see your kidnappers throw two people in the water?”
“Oh, I definitely saw that. It went down somewhere around the time period when I got knocked in the head, and I’ve just been following orders ever since.
” She yawned, trying hard not to but she was sleepy.
“Maybe you could check with the Coast Guard and see if they have time to look for those people thrown overboard.”
“I’ve already called, and we have a couple of our men on it too,” Trent shared. “I can get some planes searching as well.”
“That would be good,” she whispered, settling in her bed. “They didn’t deserve this either.”
“Did you hear any names at all?”
“Linda,” she replied. “One of them was named Linda. I think the other one was her husband, but … I’m not sure about that.”
*
“Good enough. I’ll see what I can do.” With that, he turned and headed back out to speak with the powers that be in this case.
As soon as he walked out of the medical area, two of his men were there waiting for him. They looked at him questioningly.
“Both of them seem to be doing okay,” he told them.
“Anything new?”
“She mentioned someone named Linda was tossed from the boat. She doesn’t know the man’s name.”
“Do we know where they are now?”
“She thinks they were sent overboard to fend for themselves and very much wants search and rescue to get on that.”
“Depends on how long it’s been.”
Kane was always jumping to the worst-case scenario, but Trent totally got where his teammate was coming from.
“We don’t really know. She mentioned it was much closer to shore, so she’s not sure if they may have made it in or not.
She told Ricky that they probably did, but she’s pretty hazy on the details. ”
“I can check on that,” Kane replied. “How’s her mental state?”
“She’s doing okay. She took a few shots to the head, one when she was first forced onto the boat,” he noted.
“I think that headache is giving her some trouble, not to mention the effects of dehydration, windburn, the cables, and the cold. Not to mention that she has a cracked cheekbone, and several hairline cracks on two bones in her left hand. Nothing castable, but all will take some time to heal on their own.”
Kane shook his head. “What the hell?”
“Yeah,” Trent muttered. “They felt they must subdue her in some way.”
“Good God. I mean, subduing her is one thing, but breaking bones is a whole different story.”
“It is, and I still don’t know how that all came about.”
“Dayton and Julius are bringing back their gear,” Stephan piped in. “That may have some answers.”
Kane nodded. “Also an aircraft carrier is not far from here, so they’re heading over there. We will transfer these two to that vessel, and then the sub will head off.”