All of a sudden, Evangeline screamed and clambered down Shane’s leg and ran to her hidey place. On the outside, a doctor or nurse was shining a light in her eyes. It terrified Evangeline because she always tried to hide from “Uncle” Jonathan wherever it was darkest … under the bed, a closet, the basement, even the attic. He would always get a flashlight and hunt her down, whispering “C’mon, sweetie, give Uncle Jonnie some special lovin’.”

And when he found her….Evangeline came here. It always frightened Jonathan. Not during, but after, when he had to yell, shake, sometimes even slap her. And it was getting harder and harder to get her to come out of it. And when she came back, he would always pick her up and carry to the bathroom, draw a tub of warm water, bathe her with what tenderness he was capable of, then dress her in her favorite jimmies and tuck her into bed with a kiss.

She got down on her knees and climbed into Evangeline’s hidey place. “It’s all right, honey. It’s just the doctor checking our eyes, that’s all.”

“Not Uncle Jonnie?” Evangeline corked a thumb in her mouth and lisped around it.

“No.” Shane said firmly. “Uncle Jonnie’s gone.”

“To the bad place?”

“Yes, Evangeline, to the bad place.”

Shane looked around for the others and found there were only the three: Harky, Devon and Evangeline. “Where’s Shaney?” The other three lowered their eyes and shuffled their feet. To the extent that she could love any part of herself more than the others, Shaney had been her favorite. She had carried the hope and courage and excitement of a young child, the ability to dream and imagine…until she was pulled from the one good foster home she’d had and been put in … That Place.

“Where is she?” Shane repeated.

“She went away,” Devon whispered.

“When?”

“When the bad woman hurt you. She cried for a long time, and then she went away.”

Even here, Shane could feel the loss. She threw her head back and wailed. For a moment, the pain made it to the surface, and flickered across her face. Fortunately, none of the ER staff were there to see it. She sat down and gathered her Littles to her, held them, rocking and crooning and took them deeper down, where it was even safer.

-x-

Dr. Lenore Varga walked in, clipboard in hand, and studied the woman lying on the gurney. She read the resident’s notes and found he’d done a thorough job. No signs of trauma, neurological insult, reflexes normal, basic blood chemistry normal … everything normal except that the patient was about as lively as a corpse. Dr. Barkin came in behind her, as she walked to the bedside and began to examine Shane for herself, paying particularly close attention to her eyes, nose, throat. “Did you do a toxicology screen?”

“Not yet.”

“Order one now.”

“She doesn’t have any….”

“I know, but take a look at her nasal septum. This girl’s been snorting something for a long time. She may not have been high before she crashed, but she’s a user all right.”

Dr. Barkin nodded and left the cubicle. Dr. Varga sat down in the chair beside Shane and looked at her intently. Dr. Varga tapped her pen against her lips, a nervous habit, and flipped through her mental card index of possible diagnoses.

It wasn’t so much WHAT was wrong with her patient that concerned her as much as WHY. What had driven this young woman so far underground, in the absence of anything other than the emotional trauma of a breakup? It didn’t add up.

“So, Ms. McCutcheon, where the hell did you go? And more importantly, why are you there instead of here?” If Shane heard her, she gave no indication.