Everything happened so fast.

One moment she was struggling toward the ER and she was being wheeled on a wheelchair the next. And then she was on a stretcher, surrounded by different sounds.

She could barely make out what everyone else was doing. She tried to speak but no one seemed to hear her.

Finally, someone was talking to her, asking questions of who she was, where she had been, what really happened, was there anyone she wanted to call?

“Yes, yes,” she said through clenched teeth. She was fighting the darkness that was about to close in on her. She had to tell them about Devin. Someone had to go after him and save him.

“Ma’am, what is your name?” the nurse asked again.

Hope blinked twice against the light on the ceiling. She could hear clattering somewhere and someone else was giving orders she could barely comprehend.

“Police, call the police,” she managed to utter between breaths. “Devin, you have to save Devin.”

“Ma’am, can you tell us your name?” the voice had become urgent when she mentioned the police.

“Hope. Hope Madden.” There was a short period of silence from the voice and the activities around her continued for some time. And then everyone stopped for a few more seconds when her name sank in their heads. Someone gasped, “Oh my god!” while another voice ordered, “Call the police. Now! And I need a STAT MRI.” Someone else asked, “Are you suspecting internal hemorrhage?”

Hope couldn’t understand them. Her mind was on other more important concerns. “Mom. Call my mom.”

“Your mom?” the voice beside her asked again.

Hope swallowed. “Mom. Gina Madden. Police. Devin…”

“Hope, you have to relax,” a different voice said from her other side. “We need you to relax, okay? Someone is calling the police now. The police will then contact your mother. Right now, we need to focus on you. We are going to do some tests to make sure that you are okay. Were you beaten? Tortured?”

She nodded. “Devin. Help Devin.”

“Hope, you have to stay calm. The police are coming. We have to make you ready for them, okay? We’ll do some tests and you can trust us, okay?”

“No other people. Doctors. Nurses. No other,” she said under her breath.

“Yes. No other people can come near you.”

The best she could do at that moment was to trust the voices. If she lived through this, she’d know she did the right thing.

*****

Devin was not feeling good.

No one had touched him yet.

Not a finger was laid on him.

And it made him even more anxious.

Burton and the other two men with him had a plan.

“When is the torture going to start?” he finally asked.

Burton did not look up from the paper he was reading but he smiled and said, “We’re waiting for someone. Hang in there, Frye. Just don’t forget to remember where you hid the documents and everything will be good.”

“You mean for all of you. I’ll be dead the second you have the documents in your hands.”

Burton flipped the paper to the next page. “You might be right. But it won’t be a painful death— that I can assure you.”

As the waiting continued, Devin tried to think of any possible way he could save his own life. He was tied to a chair—the same one Hope was sitting on hours ago. He couldn’t think of any. Maybe this was the end for him after all. Maybe his purpose was to save Hope.

*****

Hope opened her eyes and was suddenly blinded by the light. She closed it again.

She could hear a beeping sound from overhead. She could feel the warm pillow below her head. But she did not dare move any part of her body covered by the comforter. How she lived through everything, she didn’t know. She turned her head to one side and she saw the window and the dark sky outside. It was raining and raindrops splattered against the glass. Devin crossed her mind and she started to panic.

Her body sat on the bed before she even thought about it and then she saw her mother.

Her movement stirred Gina Madden from her sleep and when she opened her eyes, she flew off the chair she was sitting on and before Hope knew it, she was in her mother’s embrace.

Tears pooled her eyes as she stifled a moan. Her nose ran, but she could not even move her hand to wipe them. Her mother was shaking, her face buried in the crook of Hope’s neck.

“You’re alive. I knew you’re alive,” her mother kept saying, as if trying to convince herself that she was not living a dream. “You’re here. You’re alive.”

Hope did not say anything. She didn’t know what to say.

When her mother finally pulled away, she saw the tears were still running down her cheeks. And hers seemed endless too. Gina Madden cupped Hope’s swollen face and gently wiped the tears with her thumb ever so gently. The pain Hope felt from her bruises mirrored in her mother’s face. “I will never let you out of my sight ever again.” Her mother’s lips quivered as she said it. “Whoever did this to you, whoever they are, they are going to pay.” Anger layered the hurt in her mother’s voice and Hope wanted to slap herself for not saying anything. No words could escape her mouth. Looking at her mother’s tortured look brought not only her own suffering but also the woman’s. She had seen her mother live on national television, begging the authorities to keep on searching for her for years and she could only imagine the desperation the woman had gone through.

She should have just gone home the moment she was out of Carl’s home. If she did, her mother would be hurting less. And Devin would not be where he was right now.

“Mom,” she finally managed to croak, remembering her last picture of Devin inside that van. “The police. I want to talk to the police.”

Her mother was shaking her head even before she said the last word. “No. You will talk to them when you are ready. When you are physically okay.” Gina Madden’s voice was firm, reminding Hope of the woman who had raised her alone for fifteen years before she disappeared. She missed that voice. She missed every pitch and tone of her mother’s voice.

But she shook her head. “I need to talk to the police. Devin needs my help!”

“Devin? Who’s Devin?”

“I’ll explain if you call the police.”

Her mother met her strong gaze and for a moment they did the same thing they used to do ten years ago: argue with their eyes. And this time, she won because Gina Madden sighed in defeat. “Okay. Ten minutes. That’s all I am going to give you.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, pulling away from her mother. “Please, call them now.”

Her mother stared at her with concern. “Hope, honey, you have been through a lot, I know it. I don’t think you should be talking to the police this soon. As much as I want to kill whoever did this to you, whoever took you away, I want you to be better first. I failed as a mother when you went missing. You disappeared right before my eyes and I did not even lift a finger to help you. I can’t let that happen again—” her mother started crying again and Hope reached out her good hand to console her.

“Mom, no one is to blame to what happened to me but that bastard, okay? I am here. I am safe. No one is going to get to me. I just want to talk to the police because a friend of mine is in danger right now and he needs my help. I got here safe because of him and now I don’t know if he is okay.”

Confusion was painted all over her mother’s face but she nodded anyway. She backed away to the door and said, “I’ll call them now. One of them is actually waiting outside until you are ready.”

Hope nodded and watched her mother disappear outside to call the officer.

*****

Devin was just given the best meal he had had for days. At first he didn’t want to touch it, but he figured no one would dare poison him while his secret was still his own.

When his meal was over, Burton took it away. The other guy was watching the news and he could hear Hope’s name everywhere. It was just like when those three women from Ohio were finally freed. It was an instant sensation and now, it was Hope. The media had been camping outside the very same hospital Devin had been last night and it seemed that not one of them had the intent of leaving soon. It only meant one thing: Hope was still inside.

He had heard different reports and theories as to what really happened to Hope, but she—or anyone close to her—had not given a statement yet. The police would not talk, leaving everyone to spend their time wondering and making up theories.

Devin’s head looked up when the door opened and Burton came in. This time, he was not alone. A man wearing a coat and tie was with him. He was smiling at Devin as he came in. Devin knew that face. He had seen it many times.

*****

“Where do you think they took him?”

That was the problem. She didn’t know where. “I just know they took me to some kind of a cheap motel. Not very far from here, maybe, because they dropped me here in a short time. I don’t know if they went back there with Devin, but you should at least try.”

The officer looked at Hope with a blank expression on his face. “Miss Madden, it will be very difficult for us to track him—”

“Then call the FBI! They know Devin! He’s under witness protection. Let me talk to one of them!” She was getting desperate. Devin should have told her more. And then her eyes lit up. “Burton! His name is Burton! Devin knows him but he turned out to be working for the people who are after Devin. You have got to tell the FBI!”

The officer turned to look at her mother at the corner of the room, a look of concern on his face.

“You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’ve gone crazy? That whatever happened to me made me mad? I am not crazy! I am telling you the truth! Check the cameras outside the ER! A van dropped me here and they left with Devin in it! He came to save me and now he is in danger!” She turned to her mother pleadingly and Gina Madden flew to her side and took her hand without a word. “Mom, tell them. Tell them about the motel, how you got there and did not find me! I was there! I was waiting for you but other people took me, people who were after Devin!”

“Is that true?” the officer asked Gina Madden.

Her mother nodded. “I filed a report on this. You should check your records.”

The officer nodded and got up. “I will try to look into it,” he told Hope. “We will try to talk with the bureau, but that’s all we can do for now until actual evidence shows up.”

Hope was angry. How could they doubt her words? If they wanted evidence, they might not get any and if they would, it might already be too late for Devin.

“You need to rest, sweetheart. Please, do it for me,” her mother pleaded when the officer exited the room.

Hope let her mother guide her back on the bed. “They have to save him,” she said.

“I’ll call them every now and then. I will tell you of any updates when you wake up. For now, please, just sleep. The doctors said you need a lot of rest for your wounds to heal. You’re lucky there was no internal bleeding. But you still need a lot of rest.”

She just nodded and closed her eyes as her mother smoothed her hair.

“When you get out of here, the first thing I will do is dye your hair black. I hate your blond locks right now.”

Hope smiled faintly. It was her first real one for days.