Treasure

(trigger warning- sexual assault scene)

Two men opened the door to Treasure’s room after midnight, the dark corridors not enough to show their features on the second Monday night of February. “She’s out cold, right?”

“Yep, she got a heavy sedative at ten because she has been having nightmares. She won’t know a thing. I’ve done this for years, but most aren’t as young and tight as this one is. I’d have done this earlier, but she had her mouth wired shut until a few days ago. If you can keep your fucking mouth shut, we can do this again. Fifty bucks a night. Did you take care of the camera?” He looked in the corner where the surveillance camera pointed at the bed.

“Yeah, it’s frozen. Don’t worry; nobody ever looks at these things. If they do, they’ll just think it’s a computer problem.”

The men stepped over to the bed. The young woman was on her back, her wrists and ankles buckled into leather restraints strapped to the bed. It was enough to allow her to move slightly, yet keep her and the staff safe. Treasure Olson could be dangerous, and everyone knew about the girl she had almost killed with her teeth. The restraints were for everyone’s safety. The men hovered over her, then with a nod, one of them pulled the sheet down.

Treasure wore a nightgown, and the bigger of the two leaned over and moved his hand under it, squeezing her breast. She didn’t move. “See? Dead to the world.”

“Good enough for me,” the second man said. He unzipped his fly, jacking himself to hardness as he watched the big man expose her body to them. He moved close to the bed, waiting for him to move back so he could use that sweet little mouth.

The first man leaned down to suck on her nipple as his hand moved to her sex. She moaned loudly, and he moved his left hand to her mouth to keep her quiet. She bit down hard on his fingers, causing him to scream. “FUCK! Shit! Get her fucking mouth open, you idiot!”

The second man tried, but her head was shaking back and forth. The big man was crying as he tried to pull it free, but she wouldn’t let go. When his hand came free, his left pinky and ring finger were missing. “Sonofabitch!” The second man grabbed the sheet, wrapping it around his bloody hand.

The commotion attracted the attention of the night floor nurse. She took a look at the two orderlies, only one of which was supposed to be here. She sent them down to the emergency room while she checked Treasure.

The young girl’s face had blood on it, and the finger with the wedding ring lay by her head. The girl had something in her mouth; the nurse turned her head, and Treasure spit a severed pinky onto the sheet. She immediately stopped struggling against the straps and went back into a deep sleep. More people arrived in response to her calls. The chewed-up digits were placed on ice and sent down the Emergency Room.

“What the hell happened here, Nurse Morgan,” Doctor Thompson said as he rushed into the room.

“I don’t know, Collins said he was checking on her because she was making noise and she bit him,” she said.

“Unbelievable.” He looked over his patient; she was out cold, but her nightgown was pushed down to expose her chest, and the thin sheet over her was gone. “How the hell does she expose herself while in full restraints?”

“I don’t know, Doctor. The only thing I know for sure is that she bit his fingers off. I found one in her mouth when I arrived.”

“Monitor her, but don’t touch her until I tell you it’s all right. Whatever you do, don’t go near her teeth.” He checked her chart, verifying her dosage. “She’ll be out for another four to six hours. When she wakes, we’ll see if she remembers anything about what happened. Don’t let anyone in the room until the police arrive.” He walked out of the room, heading to the front desk. His first call was to 911 to report a possible sexual assault, the second to the Hospital Duty Officer.

Treasure didn’t deserve this; none of his patients did. He was shaking as he hung up the phone; the hospital wouldn’t be doing the investigation this time, the police would. He went back to the room to check on his patient, who was still sleeping soundly.

When the detectives arrived, he could see the anger on their faces as he told them who the victim was. “God, can that girl catch a break,” Detective Jensen said.

“She doesn’t deserve this,” Detective Jones said as he got to the room. “I need a female nurse or officer in the room with me at all times.” He pulled out a camera, taking photos of her and the room.

“I need the surveillance footage of the room,” Detective Jensen said to the security officer who had brought them up to the floor.

“It’s downstairs, I’ll show you,” he said and led him off.

Detective Jones pulled out some evidence bags and a sealed packet of swabs. “I need to swipe for blood and DNA,” he said. “I’ll put it in the bag, then seal and sign it.” He put on latex gloves, then used cotton balls to swipe up some blood from her chin. One of the female patrol officers showed up, and he had her swab what looked like saliva tracks on her breasts. “Wasn’t there a sheet on the bed?”

“Yes, Mr. Collins had his hand wrapped in it.”

He sealed up that packet, then turned to the females, pulling out some larger evidence bags and placing them on the bedside table. “I’m going to go down to the ER to get statements and take that into evidence. Officer Williams, when the nurse changes her out of that nightgown and changes the sheets, I need them in evidence bags. Nurse, you can clean her face and chest, but I need a doctor to examine her and perform a rape kit if indicated.”

He left them to that as he walked to the elevator. The sight of Treasure, unconscious and helpless in the restraints, had him shaking with rage. He was going to make sure the two men were convicted. He hoped to hell Dawn Olson got herself a good lawyer and sued the hell out of this hospital for what they let happen to her.

--

Charles looked over the information on Charlotte, legal name Treasure Olson, that their investigators had uncovered. He shook with rage at the latest offense; two men had sexually assaulted her as she lay helpless in the hospital. Thankfully, her mother had her transferred her to a facility in St. Paul. Logging on to Skype, he called his son. “Hi Martin, did you get the latest on Charlotte?”

“I did,” he said with barely-controlled anger. “Dad, we need to get her out of there. The longer this goes on, the more damage those drugs will do to her wolf, not to mention her mental state.”

“I know, but the rules are strict. I can’t expose myself to humans, and I can’t just take her, or I’m no better than Todd.”

“Don’t be a Todd,” Mitch said with a laugh. “Do you have what you need?”

“We’re keeping an eye on Treasure and her mother. There isn’t much going on while she’s in the hospital. We put a bug in her room, and one of our men is a janitor on that wing now. Our team set up in a nearby hotel.”

“Good, Dad. We can’t let anything happen to her now.”

“I just hope I can convince her to come home where she can be whole, maybe for the first time in her life.”

“I love you, Dad. I have to go, more Pack drama to deal with.”

Charles laughed. “I remember those days. Go, I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

Treasure shivered against the cold as she sat in the wheelchair, waiting for her Mom to drive her car around to pick her up. She had entered the psychiatric ward at the Mayo Clinic the first week in January, and now she was leaving Regions Hospital in St. Paul in the first week of March. The coldest part of winter had passed while she was locked away in the hospitals, and now she was coming out to the snowiest part. Six inches of wet snow had fallen the night before, and parts of the lots hadn’t been plowed yet. “Good luck, Rea,” the nurse said as the car stopped in front of her.

“Thank you, Nurse Miller,” she said as she stood up. Mom had taken her art supplies home yesterday, and she had left a painting of her favorite nurses at the nursing station as she left. They had been so helpful to her over the past month since her sudden arrival.

When her Mom had found out about the sexual assault while she slept, she had her transferred to the Twin Cities hospital by dinnertime that night. The police investigation and DNA testing proved the men had molested her, and both had pleaded guilty last week. The hospital was eager to put the incident behind them and quickly settled with her lawyer. The $750,000 settlement would cover her college and anything else she would need. It was waiting in a bank account for her.

She got into the car and buckled the seatbelt, placing the bag with her new drugs in the back seat. It had taken them a few weeks to find the right mix, the one that hid the voice while letting her function. After she woke up the morning of the attack, it was talking to her. “We did nothing wrong,” it told her.

“We bit a man’s fingers off,” she argued, the pain coming forward, but she was too tired to fight it.

“No man should touch us except our mate,” the voice said. The pain went away, and she only told the doctors at the new hospital she heard it. She told no one what the voice said to her. The voice confused her, and she already felt terrible about hurting someone again, even if they did deserve it.

Since the voices and the pain didn’t return, Treasure got to go home. She had therapy sessions three times a week now. Her Mom gave her the tracking necklace again, and she had to keep up her drug therapy, but she was going HOME. It felt great.

They arrived home to a dark house, and her Mom pulled into the garage. They went directly into the kitchen. She didn’t say anything, but Rea was kind of disappointed nobody was there to greet them. Of course, who would want to be there? She had only ONE friend, Jenny, and she was at basketball practice. Her grandmother was back in Florida. Nobody else in this town wanted to be with her.

Tears started to flow as she realized she was even more alone than she was before. “Treasure, it’s going to be all right.” Her Mom pulled her into a hug as she let out the tears.

When she finished crying, her Mom made hot chocolate, and they went to sit in the living room. She had removed all of the reminders of her husband, making the big house seem even more empty and impersonal. Rea took a sip, then set it down and looked at her Mom. “I don’t want to live here anymore. I don’t want to be ME anymore,” she said. “I wish we could just go somewhere else, where I’d have a different name, and nobody would know me or what I did. I just want to be NORMAL again.”

“Oh, honey,” her Mom said. “Where would we go?”

“Away from here,” she said. “Look at this place. It’s too big for us, and what is keeping us here anyway? We have no relatives here. Most of your friends were friends with Dad, and I can go to college anywhere. I miss Grandma, and I sure won’t miss that six inches of white stuff out there.”

Dawn thought about it; she had her husband’s survivor benefits. Her nursing license would transfer to another state, and she missed her mother too. “Let me call a realtor in the morning,” she said. “You’re right. Even if we stayed here, this house has too many memories.”

“Mom? Can we go back to your maiden name, and legally change my name to Rea?”

“I’ll call our lawyer in the morning, honey.” She brought her daughter into a hug. It was for the best; this town had hurt her, just as much as it hurt her daughter. She’d never get a break, and she never would escape the whispered comments and looks. “We’ll just disappear together.”