Free STOLEN by DAWN KOPMAN WHIDDEN

and whispered in his left ear. “Dirty.”
    Marty looked deep into his eyes as he struggled against his
arms to get back down from the bed. This time Marty let him go. Sophie went to
stop him, but Marty shook his head. Tristan ran out the door and made his way
down the corridor to the elevator. He got there just as the car landed on the
floor and the doors opened. He slid in between two orderlies as they were getting
out and several people followed him. Hope, Sophie, and Justin and an intern
made it just before the doors shut and they watched him as he pushed the white button
marked 4 . He was headed back to the fourth floor. The same floor he was
running down when Marty first grabbed him. The same floor Marty’s father now was
recuperating in. Coincidently on the same floor, and very close to his dad’s
room, was the man they found in the cabin with the gunshot wounds. He was just
out of surgery and was placed in the recovery room, his condition now listed as
guarded.
    As soon as the elevator arrived at the fourth floor, and the
door opened, Tristan found himself standing directly in front of a replica of
the thigh he sank his teeth into just a few hours earlier. Looking up, his eyes
following the long legs and well-built torso before him, he appeared stunned when
his eyes reached the face of the owner. It was Marty’s face. He was looking
directly into the eyes of Marty’s identical twin brother, Tommy.
    His head twisted back and forth, from Tommy to Marty and
then back again, his mouth opened wide in awe. Suddenly, he broke into a giggle
so infectious everyone started to laugh. Then, as if something magical happened,
he took Marty’s hand in his and pulled him further into the corridor. As he
approached each opened doorway, he drew back the curtains frantically as he
poked his head in, looking to see who occupied each bed.
    In a huff, the biggest female Marty had ever seen, attired
in nurse’s scrubs, came running after them. The I.C.U. nurse began to voice her
objections to all of the activity and began to yell at them, though the
decibels in her voice were barely raised above a whisper.
    “He can’t be in here! None of you can be here. It’s not
visiting hours!” She yelled and whispered at the same time. It was Hope that placed
herself in front of the tree trunk in white, staring the huge woman down, as if
she was David facing the giant. The rest of the entourage just ignored her as they
watched as the kid disappeared into one of the cubicles. As he physically
disappeared from Marty’s view, he stepped up his pace and followed him. Tristan
stopped at the foot of the patient’s bed and his mouth opened wide, and as if
there was a time delay, the word finally came out of him. It wasn’t a scream,
but it was loud. “DIRTY.”
    Marty grabbed him just before he went to grab the breathing
tube that was taped down to the man’s mouth. He had reached him just in time,
as he barely touched the man they believed they had correctly identified as Troy
Blakey. The man was attached to wires and medical apparatuses that beeped and
gave off sucking noises in a hypnotic pattern. His chest area and stomach were
covered in gauze and his chest inflated and deflated along with the rhythm of
the respirator that had been inserted down his throat.
    The nurse whose name tag appropriately read ‘Ms. Grande,’ had
somehow gotten past Hope and pushed her way into the room, made an attempt to grab
Tristan by the crook of his arm. You had to give the kid credit; he was slick,
Marty thought. He was lightning fast. He slipped out from her grasp and made
his way over to the end of the bed, barely managing not to tear out the wires that
were keeping the man alive. Tristan situated himself on the other side of
Blakey and started to tug at the unconscious man’s shoulders. Marty could tell he
was getting angry when he got no reaction, because his shaking became
increasingly more violent and Marty was concerned that something would come