Page 4 of Rescuing Baylee

Baylee imagined being back on the farm where she’d grown up. She and her sister had milked cows and goats and had chores to do, but it had been the most beautiful place on earth to her. It had broken her heart to leave when she was in junior high, but her dad had gotten relocated to Texas.

She’d gone back to the farm as often as she could until her grandparents had died, and the farm had been sold. On that last trip, she’d climbed the hill behind the house and sat in the wildflowers, letting the sun warm her sad heart. It had been idyllic and perfect.

The men switched, and she felt another cut across her face, then a blinding streak of fire down her arm. She screamed out, but they just shoved against her harder, pressing her head to the gurney. They wanted her to cry out. Blood was pooling beneath her cheek and obscuring her vision. They had cut her eyebrow that time, and she couldn’t blink the blood away fast enough. The sheet had absorbed what it could and was spreading, but there was nothing she could do. They still had her arms behind her back. The first man was laughing, and he reached out to squeeze her breast painfully as the second man used her.

She thought a third man joined them, because there was more laughter, and words spoken in Pashtun that she didn’t recognize. She thought the third man used her as well, but she wasn’t sure, because her mind was hazing in and out, and she struggled to keep hold of her dream. Some part of her was planning her retribution, though. Even pressed to the gurney, she could see the knife they’d used to cut her. It was less than two feet away from her face, her own blood glinting on the blade, obviously left there as a threat.

The third man finished, slapping her ass as he pulled away. The three of them were laughing as he walked out the door,thanking them for the good time, and her face flamed. They hadn’t even bothered to close the door.

Pain radiated through her like a drumbeat, and the men were talking amongst themselves, laughing occasionally. One of them kept rubbing her ass, and the other man cut a hank of her blond hair to tuck into his pocket. A trophy for the hard work they’d put in. Baylee could feel their seed dripping out of her body, and the anger built.

As soon as they let go of her arms, she curled them forward on the gurney, praying the blood flow would return before they thought to retrieve the knife. She sniffled against the mattress, pretending to be withdrawn, because that was what they expected. The two men were so used to rape that they had worked out a system.

As soon as she could clench her fist without needles in her skin, she started doing a check of the rest of her body. Her legs were fine. They would hold her when she needed them. Her pants were down around her feet, though. She would have to be careful not to trip. Her face throbbed with its own heartbeat, but it would not stop her. She tried to blink away the blood in her eye, but it continued to flow.

Drawing in two great big gulps of air, she jerked up off the gurney. Grabbing the knife, she spun to the right, slashing at neck height. She hit the second man as perfectly as she could have wanted, his throat slicing cleanly. Blood sprayed, and he slapped his hands over his throat, his eyes wide as he stumbled away. But she knew he was a dead man walking. The first man, the one that had started it all, moved in from her right, and Baylee knew she had microseconds. Pushing with both feet, she jumped toward him, her knife hand stabbing into the soft skin of his gut. Then she pressed up as hard as she could. Even as his fists beat at her head and shoulders, she dug the knife in as hard as she could. They crashed to the floor, and Baylee withdrew theknife and stabbed again under his armpit. She hit bone, so she drew back and stabbed again.

The man’s struggles were slowing, and she knew she had to have hit something vital with her first strike. He was gasping for breath, wheezing, and she knew one lung was gone. But she continued to plunge the knife in, over and over again, until his hands dropped away, and he quieted.

She pushed away from him quickly, disgusted to even be touching him. She dropped the knife to the floor and looked at herself. She was like something out of a horror movie.

Olivia was on the floor a few feet away, unconscious. Baylee knew her friend needed help, but she had to care for herself first. She had to get them off her body.

Not even caring that the door was standing wide open to anyone who walked through the hall, she stripped off her clothes as she walked across the room. There were scrubs in the laundry bag. Yes, they were dirty and someone else had worn them, but at that point, she didn’t care as long as she got the men off of her. She returned to the trash can they’d peed in and did her best to clean up, using bandages.

Her cheek was bleeding steadily, and it felt so weird. Like she had flaps hanging, or something. She knew she didn’t, but it was open to the air, and it needed closed. She taped a couple of thick bandages to her face, hissing with pain as she tried to pull the sides together. The cut through her eyebrow had stopped bleeding, but she took a minute to wet a bandage with saline and wipe her eye clear. Then she dressed in the dirty scrubs, pulling the string tight around her waist.

Taking a steadying breath, then another, Baylee looked at the men she’d killed. She felt nothing for them. At some point, she might feel regret for taking two lives, because it was diametrically opposed to everything she did in life, but that point wasn’t right now. If her luck held, no one would even noticethem. She went to the door and peered out, but she couldn’t see anything. Carefully, she pushed the door mostly closed.

Now that they were a little bit safer, she had to check on Olivia. Before she did, though, she grabbed the weapons the men had been carrying and hauled them over. And she found the man who had cut her hair. She grabbed the hank from his breast pocket and stuffed it in her own pocket. She still felt very exposed, but she went to Olivia and kneeled beside her. The woman was out cold. Fear lancing through Baylee’s heart, she checked Liv’s pupils. Yes, definitely a concussion. Had they punched her again. She scanned her body and gasped.

“Oh, no,” she breathed.

Olivia’s right leg was bent at a terrible angle, and there was a puddle of blood beneath her. Baylee hadn’t realized it was Olivia’s blood. Leaning over, she gasped. Olivia had a compound fracture of the lower leg, and it was leaking a steady stream of blood. Baylee scrambled to her feet, lurching for bandages. In her mind, though, she knew something more drastic would have to be done.

“No, bandages first. Get the bleeding stopped. Then reassess.”

But the bleeding didn’t stop. With the way the break was positioned, Baylee had a feeling the anterior tibial artery had been severed. Tears flowed then, because she knew she had a heart ripping decision to make. If they were literally in a working hospital, there was a chance they could save Liv’s leg, but they weren’t. They were hostages with little to no hope of rescue, and Liv’s leg was a ticking time bomb. If she didn’t repair it herself, she was going to have to put a tourniquet on it.

She started an IV, knowing Liv would need fluids. And she added as much pain medication as she thought was safe.

Baylee stood for a minute, more torn than she’d ever been before. It was hard to think through the pain throbbing throughher body. Olivia would die if she did nothing. Baylee had never done surgery before, but she’d seen it done and assisted hundreds of times. Did she have the ability to do it herself?

“I have to try,” she whispered. She grabbed a surgical tray, setting it close to their little nest, then she stacked items around her, within reach, blocking the view from the door. She set one weapon down by Olivia’s feet, also within reach if someone came in. Then she got to work.

The artery was shredded, though, and she knew it was a lost cause. Olivia was losing even more blood, and Baylee knew she was at a crossroads. If she didn’t tourniquet Liv’s leg, she would die. There was no doubt in her mind. Knowing that she would forever be impacting Liv’s future, she put the tourniquet on her lower leg, tightening it down until the bleeding stopped.

Baylee bandaged the fracture as well as she could. She’d just finished when the bombing started up again.

Olivia jerked, but didn’t wake. Baylee sat on the floor next to Liv, her eyes going to the tourniquet on her leg again and again. Without a doubt, this decision bothered her more than killing her rapists.

The bombing continued, and she didn’t understand why it was even happening. Were the American forces fighting back? Whatever the reason, no one entered the room looking for care. Maybe they’d killed everyone they’d been torturing.

Terrible thoughts roamed through her mind, and she worried that Liv would never wake. A few times she roused a little, usually when the bomb blasts went off, but she stayed unconscious. The bombing seemed to get closer and closer, and then there was weapons fire. Some of it sounded like it was right outside the hospital.

Then, more than two hours after she’d been injured, Olivia opened her eyes.

“I didn’t think you’d wake up,” Baylee cried, holding her hand.