16

Refusing to look at Lo again lest he be reduced to a blubbering mess, Ty carefully carried her out of the house. On the driveway, two of JT’s men were holding Lou between them and shaking him like a maraca. He was carrying a small backpack and a cap. JT was strutting behind them.
“We caught him trying to escape by climbing the back fence sir,” JT said.
“Good,” Lee replied since Ty couldn’t, “the second one is unconscious in the living room. You know what to do.”
JT nodded and walked past them and into the house.
Less than an hour later, Ty laid Lo carefully into the half-full tub in his bathroom and Gem squeezed a dollop of shampoo onto her head and gently massaged it into her scalp carefully. The water around her head became brown very fast and Gem made quick work of washing her hair twice and putting in deep conditioner before emptying the tub, filling it up again and washing out the conditioner. As carefully as possible, she washed Lo with a soft sponge, having to change the grimy water another four times. Finally, when the water was no longer dirty, Ty carried her back out of the tub and put her in a small nightie, laying her beneath the covers in the bed. Immediately her head touched the pillow, she sighed in relief again.
Gem and Ty stood watching her sunken face for another five minutes before Gem spoke up. “I cant believe this is Lo. She looks like bones.”
Ty didn’t reply, just sighed.
“When is Doc coming?” she asked.
“He told Lee he’d be here in the next hour on our way here. So that should be another half hour.”
Doc was their family doctor and surgeon who had treated them since their parents had gotten married. He was the only person Ty could trust to examine Lo after everything.
“I’ll give you some privacy,” Gem said and left the room.
With nobody there, Ty really looked at Lo for the first time since he had picked her up under Lou and Ben’s house. Gem was right; she looked nothing like the woman he knew and loved. A huge knot gradually formed at the back of Ty’s throat, strangling him. He knew that Lo held a lot of physical wounds; he had caught glimpses of them on her waist, backside, breasts, neck, ankles and wrists while Gem had bathed her but what he feared most were the wounds that couldn’t be seen. He feared that Lou had effectively broken her. He feared what he would see when she finally opened her eyes. Would she hate him for not finding her on time? Would she be glad to see him after all this while? He had no idea what to expect. She had been at the mercy of the men who had made her adolescence a living hell and he was no psychiatrist but he knew that would put her on so many levels of fucked up.
“Lo, I’m so sorry,” his voice cracked as he spoke, forcing the words past the knot in his throat even though he knew she couldn’t hear him, “I never should have let you go on your own. I should have forced you to collect the money from me. I never should have cared about that fucking video and I cant believe I was dumb enough not to check the architectural plans of the building. I'm so sorry, my love.”
Carefully, he put his hands on her once full and bouncy hair that now lay flat and stringy on her scalp. Gently, he stroked her hair and willed her to open her eyes and look at him with so much love, the same way she used to look at him before. But of course, her eyes remained closed as her chest rose and sank rhythmically.
Lee knocked and led Doc in along with a nurse and a huge trolley of medical equipment. “I already briefed Doc on the situation, Ty. He’s going to do a full-body check on Lo and take her vitals.”
Ty nodded and exchanged greetings with Doc and the nurse.
“I will need you to excuse while I perform this examination, Ty,” Doc said in his familiar stern voice. Ty and Lee left the room and walked to the kitchen where Gem was making a simple salad.
“Ty, I’m not going to let you run away from eating this salad, no matter what you say,” she said. Ty shook his head and buried his head in his hands. They just couldn’t understand. How could they expect him to eat at a time like this; a time when he knew everything that had happened to the woman he loved was his fault. He was the scum of the earth and deserved to go through all the pain Lo had been through and worse.
“Stop the self-loathing, Ty,” Lee said, cutting into his reverie, “nothing is your fault. You did your best to find her and now you have. Stop hating yourself and just be thankful that she isn’t in a worse state than she is right now. Be grateful that she’s still here.” Ty knew Lee was being insightful and honest but he couldn’t pull himself out of the blame for everything. A part pf him was aware that it didn’t even make any sense and yet, he couldn’t stop.
Almost choking, he forced the salad down and stared blankly at the wall until Doc walked into the kitchen. They all jumped up and waited to hear how Lo was faring and how she would be.
“Well, judging by the tests I have conducted, she will be fine. She has several welts and wounds on her body but nothing that will leave permanent marks. I have already administered a drip that is set up in the room because she may remain unconscious for a few more days as her vitals are extremely low. But the drip will give her the nutrients she will need to recover quickly. My nurse will come by for the next three days to give her necessary injections. I will also prescribe a balm you can buy to rub on her wounds so that they can heal faster.
“But what baffled me the most were the swellings around her vaginal opening. My guess is that she has been forced into sexual intercourse repeatedly without proper or any lubrication. I will also prescribe a salve to be applied for this purpose. The drip will be good for the baby but she cannot begin her antenatal until she is eating proper food again. Once she wakes up, please give me a call immediately. She should not be left alone and the salves must be applied religiously.”
“Doctor,” Ty squeezed out, “how many months pregnant is she?”
“My calculation is about four months, Ty,” Doc said compassionately, “which means she is way overdue for proper ante-natal care. If there are no more questions, I will be going back to the hospital now. Good day.”
They thanked the doctor and he promised that the nurse would be back the next day with the salves and the injections.
After he left, Ty felt a lot better knowing that Lo was going to be alright. As they walked through the house, back to the master bedroom, Gem stated the question that was on all their minds.
“Do you think the baby is yours?”
“I don’t know, Gem. But frankly, I don’t care. The child is Lo’s and that’s all that matters.”
Gem nodded approvingly, “So do you plan on hiring a nurse to watch her till she wakes up?” Ty shook his head furiously. He was going to take care of his woman by himself and he wanted his face to be the first she saw when she woke up, not that of some impassive nurse he had hired.
After a few minutes of standing in silence, Gem and Lee left with their well-wishes and Ty was left alone with Lo and his thoughts.

She felt like she was drowning and as she tried to swim to the surface, there was an invisible force that forced her back down. She had been in this fruitless struggle for as long as she could remember and the only thing that kept her from giving up was the hope that she saw above the surface. It was ethereal and shimmered and glowed down at her. yet, the invisible force dragged her down into the murky bottom. But she continued fighting and she wouldn’t give up.
Slowly, the hope on the surface glowed brighter and she could feel it giving her strength. Then she heard a voice, “Please, Lo. Please.”
The voice sounded so heartbroken and lost and it came from the surface. Her heart yearned to give comfort to whoever was the owner of that eerily familiar voice. She couldn’t quite place it because it seemed gargled but she recognized something about it. The voice caressed her soul and she swam desperately towards it; fighting the invisible force with everything she had.

She was moving again. Ty watched her and held her hand, begging her in a small hoarse voice to open her eyes. Over the past two days, she had been moving and muttering at intervals but she still hadn’t opened her eyes. He had been by her side every second of it with leave only to use the bathroom for nothing more than five minutes. Gem kept him fed and when fatigue took over, he stretched out beside her and slept fitfully, jerking awake every time he felt her so much as twitch.
He still held hope that she would open her eyes and now, slowly, her eyelids peeled open and after a short struggle, she set her full gaze on him.
“Oh my God, Lo,” he said, holding the hand that didn’t have a needle in it and squeezing lightly. Afraid he would break her small hand, he let go and cradled her head instead, “you’re awake.”
Ty had been scared that when Lo woke up, she would look at him with disdain at the fact that he hadn’t rescued her from her kidnappers sooner. But now that she had opened her beautiful eyes, he saw absolutely nothing. Her gaze was blank and emotionless. He didn’t think she was going to say anything to him anytime soon. He took a huge gulp as she lay motionless on the bed, big eyes staring unblinkingly.
Ty tried to meet her eye and saw that he couldn’t do it. Not while she was looking at him with no form of recognition whatsoever. He took a step back and took his cell phone out of his pocket to call Doc.

“She’s doing very well,” Doc announced as he entered the kitchen where Gem, Ty and Lee waited, “was quite feisty when I tried to examine her stomach but other than that, she didn’t give me any trouble. The baby is fine and both mother and child will be doing even much better now that she can eat proper food. Gem, I will email you a list of appropriate foods for her. Once she is good enough to walk, send her over to the hospital so she can start her antenatal. She should also decide on whether she wants a therapist or not.”
Doc’s mention of a therapist for Lo’s PTSD hinted Ty that the doctor had also noticed the lifelessness in her eyes. Before Doc had gotten to the house, Ty had tried to touch Lo’s stomach and she had almost scratched his hand away. That was the only time he saw any expression on her face or in her eyes and it was fierce protectiveness. He had to admire that even after everything, Lo was taking care of the little one how she could.

Over the next few weeks, Lo became healthier and healthier. She started putting on weight and her complexion was getting healthier by the day. The safer she felt in Ty’s house, the more the light moved back into her eyes. Ty had started going back to work but he always made sure he was back home in time to eat dinner with Lo in the room he now considered as their room. They still didn’t know who the baby belonged to but Lo was going for her antenatal frequently via a car and driver Ty provided. She would sometimes join Gem in the kitchen and other times, she would stand at the balcony adjoined to the bedroom and stare out at the grounds. At night, Ty held her close as they slept, being careful not to touch her stomach.
Things were getting better and better, except for the fact that Lo still hadn’t said a word to anybody since she had woken up. She communicated by either shaking or nodding her head, but that was it. Nothing else. And it drove Ty fucking crazy. He wished she would at least talk to him, maybe tell him that she didn’t totally hate him and maybe, just maybe, that the baby was his and not that bastard Lou’s. But he had spoken to Doc and he had been advised to simply wait till Lo was ready to engage speech in her everyday activities.

Lo really wanted to speak, she wanted to talk. She wanted to thank Gem and tell her that her cooking was amazing. She also wanted to apologize for losing her brooch at Lou and Ben’s. She wanted to thank Lee for pursuing the lawsuit against the bastards on her behalf. But most of all, she wanted to ease the pain she saw in Ty’s eyes everytime he came back from work. She wanted to tell him she loved him and that she had missed him.
But it seemed like she had forgotten how to speak. She also didn’t know how to cry anymore but that didn’t bother her at all. There was so much she wanted to say but her speech box would collapse each time she tried to talk and it was getting fucking annoying. After a while, she realized she couldn’t speak in front of others but when she tried speaking in front of the mirror, the words came out albeit hoarse and foreign-sounding but at least they came out. She practiced each morning after Ty left for work, hoping that one day, she would be able to surprise him with her speech. She also read books and watched movies to remind herself what everyday life was life. She also followed Gem when she went shopping just to embrace some normalcy, but of course Gem made her stay in the car at farmers’ markets.