Chapter 2: Between the Earth and Sky; Cries of A Dying Heart

                I woke up to a dull beeping to my left. A heart monitor registering that I was, indeed, alive. My head was swimming with a blend of sedatives I cannot even begin to name and my arms were bound down to the bed. I slowly opened my eyes to a dimly lit room. I knew I was in a private care facility. The kind of place you bring famous starlets to when they need to hide some kind of strange addiction to drugs or alcohol. Calvin had spared no expense for my recovery.

                I looked to my left, my brain registered the heart monitor and tubes and wires extending out of my arm. Calvin, my father, was sitting in a chair about 5 feet away, his hand resting against his forehead, dead asleep. He had left work for this. Perhaps the thought of losing me had been enough to shock him from his stupor. I did not know and I was afraid of the answer he would give me so I resolved myself to not asking.

 

                “Calvin..?” My voice came out hoarse, dry and soft. How long had they kept me under? I glanced down my arms to my wrists for signs I had tried to hurt myself and saw nothing. No bandages. No marks of any kind. I didn't even feel like I had been attacked at this point. I wasn't hurting at all. I passed this off as a result of the medication and the heavy sedatives I had been on
               Calvin instantly stirred at the sound of my voice furthering the thought my my near-death experience has saved his own life. “Natalyia… You’re awake?” My father blinked a few times, got up and pulled the chair closer to the bed, laying his hand over mine. “How do you feel?”
                “Like someone tried to kill me. My head feels all fuzzy and I... What day is it?” I croaked this entire phrase out to him and he produced a small bottle with water and lifted it to my lips and I gulped the water down without questioning. “Why am I being held down like this?”

                “Nat… They’ve had you sedated for nearly three days now. Every time you woke up you would just start screaming about talons…” The heart monitor registered an increased rhythm at this. “We didn’t know what to do other than to help you sleep. The doctors only just now agreed a couple hours ago to start pulling you out of it to see if you would be… Calmer.” He was distressed. He did not know how to lose another person in his family.
                My eyes were swimming with tears. My Talon was dead. I had not forgotten this fact only had been hoping, praying and thinking in my deadened state that, by some miracle, he would come back to me. We had just gotten so close to being more normal and natural and that had been ripped from us. I felt inhuman all over again and now no one would be there to pull me back from it.
                “Nat… Why do you keep screaming about talons? Do you remember anything from the other night? Any details..?”
                I could only shake my head. I was not ready to talk about these things because I could not remember them myself. I also was not ready to tell Calvin that I had been seeing someone and had not brought it to his attention. “So why talons..?” he was pressing the issues and I had never, in my whole life, wanted to just lay back down and pass back out.
                “It’s a name, Calvin. Not an object. That’s the other person who was in my apartment when I called the police. He was hurt… an-“I could not finish. It hurt that much to say it, to admit it out loud, to deaden the last resources of my attachment to humanity. I watched as he lowered his head. I think he understood then where this was going.

                “I see. I’m sorry. I haven’t been allowed near the investigation outside of using my influence to get a detective unfamiliar with you onto the case. I wanted someone who was… Unaware of your history.” He hesitated with my past, but had accepted it. I think, in his heart, he was still hoping I would want to get involved with the family business and run his establishment but that had never been in my interest.
 


                We both sat there in an uneasy silence and then a woman shuffled into the room, smiling at me. “I see you’re awake. How are you feeling Miss Breckenridge?” I just kind of shrugged at her not really knowing how or what I should feel. Physically, I knew I was going to be fine but I knew my mental state was going to slip away from me.

                She just kind of nodded at me, “Would you like me to remove the restraining straps?” I nodded and she proceeded to undo the buckling, humming as she went. I really was not in the mood for someone so cheerful. She turned, took my chart from the wall and proceeded to check things off down a list. Then she placed her hand over my other one, smiled softly and spoke gently, “It’ll be ok, Miss Breckenridge. “ Then she left the room. I had never felt like crying in my life and now I just wanted to lie down, sleep and never wake up. Calvin pat my hand and I looked to him.
                “They’ll catch him, Nat. They always catch them.” He tried so hard to smile for me but I could tell he wished I knew more. “You really don’t remember anything at all? What about the man who was with you that night..? Could he have done something?”

                “Dad... I was dating Talon.” I sighed. “And he wouldn’t have done anything to hurt me.” I knew this information would hurt him and it immediately registered and he pulled away from me and leaned back in his chair.
                “I didn’t know you two had been seeing one another…”
                “It was… Kind of recent… We’d actually just agreed to be ‘together’ the night…” I went silent again and Calvin just nodded. 

 

                “I get it. I’m sorry, Nat. it appears you’ve inherited my curse of relationships just... Not going the way you want them to.” He kept staring at his lap and we both just sat there, breathing and awkwardly trying not to think, until there was a light knock at the door frame.
                “Sorry. I don’t want to intrude but… I’ve been waiting to talk to her for several days now. We can’t wait any longer, Mr. Breckenridge.” His voice was steady, authoritative. He wore a long over-coat. His hair was the sandy blonde type you expect of a-typical surfer boys that drive over from California in the winter seasons for heavy partying and one night stands. He had those ridiculously blue eyes that looked like they were formed from ice.

                I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.

                Calvin sighed, nodded. “I understand, detective, but she has just woken up and has already told me she doesn’t remember a thing.” The man looked from the door to me and back again and then shut it behind himself and then addressed me as if my father was not even there.

                “Miss Br-“ I held my hand up.
                “Natalyia. I don’t go under my family name. Natalyia will be just fine.” I sat up a little straighter and he sighed.
                “Natalyia then. I’m Detective Mason Winterlys. I’ve been assigned to your case and I need to ask you important questions about the other night. Anything you can possibly remember might help us catch the bastard that did this.” He was serious. He never looked away from me or acted like he did not care. He was genuine.
                He CLEARLY had not seen my arrest record and I kind of laughed in spite of everything. He raised an eyebrow. I suppose most people don’t laugh when cops ask them questions, especially in this particular situation. “Natalyia..?”

                “Forgive me… I just… Don’t usually get along with the police.”   
                “Yeah I’ve got a stack of documents and an entire precinct laughing at me for taking the case." My stomach dropped. So he knew then and I sighed. my case would go unsolved. I felt my tears starting up again and covered my face. 
                 He groaned softly,"Yes, I know. However, that doesn’t change the fact that what happened to you and your boyfriend shouldn’t happen to anyone, anywhere at any time.” He pulled a chair up to the side of my bed and took of his coat and sat down and rested his elbows on his knees and stared at me hard. I let my hands rest on my stomach. “So.” He exhaled, staring me down intensely. 
               “Do you remember anything that might help us catch the bastard that attacked you and your boyfriend and almost claimed both your lives..?”

                The heart monitor registered a skip in my heartbeat followed by a rapid increase in beeping. I was breathing harder and I faced him.
                “Say that again.”  I was gripping my bed covers, my knuckles white as the sheets I had been sleeping in.
                Mason looked from me to my father and then back again. “You didn’t know? He didn’t tell you?” I heard my father exhale loudly to my other side and I turned to face him. “Why didn’t you tell me!? You knew about him this whole time?!?” I nearly screamed at him.
                “Yes, Nat. I knew. I was hoping you would forget... Or not remember... Because no one knows where he IS, Nat… He’s alive, yes. But we don’t know where he’s gone.” The detective attempted to save my father then.
                “His parents claimed him just last night and took him cross country to another hospital to give him better care. When we called over there this morning…. That hospital told us they have no record of a Talon Grece ever having been admitted.”