“Hopefully, it will come to you soon.” Leading me out of the room, he takes me up a floor to where the cells are. “You’re not under arrest, but we can detain you for seventy-two hours.” Come the chilling words of the man I trusted enough to follow into the lion’s den.
“This is some bullshit.” Watching as he cuts the zip ties and looks down at me with the ice blue of his Shelby gaze, I feel a chill run through me — this man will kill me if he thinks I have anything to do with the death of that child.
“After that little stunt you and Kandie pulled, the Feds rededicated themselves to this area. They put someone on it who has a vested interest in this area and child exploitation. Someone who is tenacious and brilliant. Someone whose own sister was lost to it. You just met her. I suggest you either come clean or have a good ass alibi for the time that kid was found.” Stepping back, he leaves me in the empty cell block.
The jail is old. The lights flicker. They must be set to dim automatically. Walking over the thin cot that’s bolted to the wall, I squeeze my body back on the bed until I feel the cinderblocks pressed against my spine.
A clap of thunder makes me jolt, causing my tummy to bottom out. “No, no, no, no.” Rocking back and forth trying to quell the panic rising in me, I wish Kandie were here. She always seems to escape the jail. People speculate it’s Ulysses doing but some of us remember how she used to be seen walking around within a few hours of an arrest back before he returned from the Seals.
A bombardment of rain starts pelting the building. Nothing has knocked this jail down in the more than a hundred years it’s stood since it was built by the enslaved. Tonight seems to be the night that it may be leveled.
There’s a crash right outside the window. Is it just a limb or the ancient sycamore, whose roots run so deep they said removing it would tear up the foundation?
The blanket folded at the end of the bed seems sketchy but smells clean is my only comfort. Still rocking, I pull it close, smelling the cottony fresh scent of the fabric softener.
Lightning strikes and a boom resounds. The lights flash hard and then go out. Screams from the past pound in my ears as if it’s happening again. Shooting up from the bed, thinking of nothing but escape, I crash into the bars again and again — my sanity a thing of mist and fading sorrow as the thin, lifeless wrist looms in the forefront of my mind, beckoned by long-gone ghosts.
Crashing and crashing again until I fall into the looming darkness.
“Shhh,take it easy. You did a real number on yourself, hunnie.” Bright light pierces my eyes, sending blinding shards of pain into my brain.
“Argh,” I cry, trying to raise my hands, but they won’t budge.
“Turn the light down please, we don’t need it anymore.” Comes the soothing tones of Dr. Everything. Then — “Can you give us a moment?”
“Sure.” I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s Ulysses, nor do I miss how loaded with hesitation and concern that one word is.
“Hey, can you tell me your name and where you are?” She questions when I’m able to peek my eyes open.
“Sabine Toussaint, prizon.” Nodding, though I said it in Haitian Creole, she continues, “Can you tell me what happened? You were alone when all this happened.”
Not knowing what happened or what ‘all this’ means but I still have a pretty good idea — what always happens when I have night terrors or waking terrors, what I term my panic attacks.
“I hurt myself.” My voice sounds small, like I’m still that nine-year-old little girl again, needing her big protector of a guardian to come save her — this time from herself.
“Have you been seeing anyone for your panic attacks and night-terrors since you returned? I know you’ve had a lot of changes in your life recently, and that can be very triggering.” Dr. Mimi Love-Spencer — now Rosas — says, concern clear in her tone.
“Ah, I’ve had a lot going on.” I try to sit up.
“Hold on, not so fast.” Stepping closer, she unstraps my hands. There is a dull throb pulsating in my knuckles. Both hands are bandaged. They hurt and feel swollen. There goes my work for the next couple of days. I hope my fingers aren’t broken.
“No breaks or sprains. Just bruised up real good. Was it being in the cell or the thunder and lightning that started all this?” I love the way she takes me out of it, like the weather actually broke free, but the building seems to be just fine.
I’m no longer in the cell Ulysses left me in but the infirmary. It’s pristine, smelling of antiseptic and bleach.
“Since when have you started coming to the jail?” I ask instead of answering her questions.
“Since Kandie called me telling me to hightail it over here because you were having a spell in the jail. She was on the phone with U when it started. I came straight here as I was leaving the medical center. No one knows what happened but me, her and Ulysses.” Her words bring me comfort for all of two seconds until it dawns on me that Kandie, our tipsy baker and resident town gossip, was on the phone with her not boyfriend the Sheriff, when I threw a fit in the dang jail. Everyone will know about by tomorrow.
Going to jail for a tattoo artist is not a bad mark on my name or will affect my clientele which hails from both sides of the law but being thought of as unstable well that doesn’t bode well for asking people to let you put sharp objects into their skin like piercing needles and tattoos needles.
“She’s not going to tell anyone.” Dr. Mimi says, reading the worry on my face. “She’s good at keeping family business, and she definitely sees you as family after what you did for Easy.
“Um, okay.” Still doubtful, I watch as she writes on a prescription pad.
“This will help with the concussion you gave yourself banging your head against the bars. There’s a small laceration, but I didn’t need to stitch it. It’s being held together with liquid bandage. When you get home, don’t get it wet.” Scribbling some more, she gives me two prescriptions. Then deadeyes me. “Make the appointment with Dr. Kensington. I don’t want to have to sign an order for psychiatric hold.”
“Dr. Mimi—” I start to protest, but she shakes her head, cutting me off.
