Chapter 4

Lance could feel movement underneath his body and slowly opened his eyes to a bright flooding white light in his eyes. He then tried to turn his head, but found it impossible because of the neck brace on him. Lance’s eyes shot all the way open and he attempted to scream, but choked on his tongue as it was pushed back by the gag in his mouth. He felt tears running down his cheeks as he plead silently to know why he was wearing a neck brace, when a face came up in front of him, blocking the light from his eyes. It was that of a middle aged woman, but it was mostly covered up by a surgical mask, and he tried to scream again as he finally realized what was going on. He saw a hand reach up to remove the mask, and the tears rushed on faster when he noticed that her fingers were covered in blood; probably his blood.

“I think the anesthetic is wearing off, Doctor. He’s awake.” Another face came over into his field of vision, and it looked him straight in the eye. The face of the doctor that he knew was doing this to him scared Lance, and he gagged on his own tongue.

“Shit. He’s choking. Anesthetic!” Lance continued choking, and felt like throwing up when a hand grabbed the gag from his mouth and pried his jaws apart. It then reached into his mouth and tugged on his tongue to stop the choking. When he had caught his breath, the gag was replaced, and another needle was jabbed into his side, putting him to sleep again.

“What do you think he’s dreaming about now?” Johnson whispered as they both watched the broken young man, who had recently curled up into a ball.

“I don’t know. Why does it matter?”

“Oh. I guess it doesn’t, but I’m just curious. I was just wondering about it.” They both watched longer as Lance’s body shivered uncontrollably, and jerked as if cold.

He looked through the darkness around him, remembering his surgery that morning and realized immediately where he was; isolation. Patients were often times taken into isolation after surgeries, but he could never figure out why. He cursed to himself and curled up into a ball when he realized that they had not even left him with his clothes or a blanket. He was so cold, and he rubbed his stomach tenderly to feel the stitches that he knew would be there. They stung when he touched them, but he continued rubbing his fingers over them anyway, like he always did. He had to, because he knew how lucky he was to be in isolation without a straightjacket. Lance felt the need to take advantage of his opportunity to touch anywhere on his body at will. It really was a great privilege for him. It was a long incision this time, longer than they usually were.

“What is that on his stomach?”

“What?” Both men leaned forward to inspect the exposed stomach of their kidnapper, and Marns fell back as Johnson continued squinting in the dark.

“They look like scars. Deep ones.”

“Where do you think he got them? The hospital?”

“Why the fuck do you care so much about this guy, Johnson?!”

“I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem right that he was put through all of that, ya know?”

“Whatever.”

“Let them go! Let them go!” Lance peered between the window shades on one of his few free hours at the protesters outside. There were about fifteen people holding picket signs and passing out flyers in the parking lot as they screamed out their chants toward the hospital staff. A few doctors were out there too, screaming back.

“These people are clinically insane and need our help!”

“No, they don’t. You’re hurting them, not helping him!” There was a person with a video camcorder down on the street as well, and Lance watched the whole thing from his window. The lead protester pointed up at Lance and shouted.

“Look at that man’s face! He is in constant pain! You can tell from here that pain fills his eyes!” The camera turned toward him, and Lance ran from the window in fright.

“ That is Lance Bass! He is a convicted murderer! He belongs here!” Lance went to sit on a couch as the screaming continued. They were using bullhorns, so he could hear every word from the room upstairs. He knew that the protesters were only trying to help, but he really didn’t want to be dragged into it, and he knew that they would not accomplish anything through their screaming and sign waving.

“Do you think that it really would be better in prison or in a hospital like the one that he went to?”

“Johnson, why are you asking so many questions about this?!”

“I don’t know. I was just wondering, because I’ve never been to either one, and people always seem to want to plead insanity if they’ve killed anyone, but the way he talks about it, it seems like it would be better not to. He makes it sound like a living hell in there, and when he talks about it he always says that he would rather die than go back. If he feels that strongly about it, then it must be worse than a prison, right?” They both sat in silence watching Lance twitch uncontrollably in his sleep as he was obviously being tortured through another dream.

“How long has he been asleep? It seems like we woke up hours ago.”

“I don’t know. I can’t look at my watch, but what does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Just curious, I guess.”

Chapter 5