Now what?

 

When I come to, Belinda is hovering over me.  Her nostrils flare with anger as she snarls, "If it were up to me you'd be dead already." 

 

I look to my left and right before realizing that I'm in the tavern. Someone has tended to the wound on my leg. 

 

It's Jim.

 

He doesn't smile when we make eye contact, and so I know there has been a shift in our relationship, but none-the-less I thank him for helping with my wound.

 

He simply nods.

 

I let the silence creep in to create a buffer between me and the discomfort before I think to ask, "Where's the baby?"

 

No one answers.

 

The smell of the hospital engulfed in flames enters into my awareness and I look pleadingly around the room for answers.  Eventually someone speaks.

 

"Donna has the baby," they say.

 

I try not to make more conversation than necessary.  I tell myself they've torched the hospital to remove any reminder of the slaughter that occurred and try my best to push away the thought that I was left for dead.

 

"I want to see the baby!" I yell a moment later when my anxiety has escalated to a point where I can no longer control my speech.

 

They all look at each other and make some sort of consensus that isn't obvious to me.  A  minute later Belinda storms out of the tavern in a huff and I'm left with Jim sitting next to me in silence.

 

"Please don't hate me," I say to him once I'm certain that no one is paying attention.

 

He doesn't respond right away, but simply looks at me through a musky layer of fatigue and tells me with his eyes that he doesn't.  A moment later his eyes confide that he feels betrayed.

 

"She needed my help.  She didn't kill me when she had the chance," I plead but he goes silent into the recesses of his mind again.  He's on a different continuum.

 

I reach out my hand to tell him that I'm sorry, but he pulls his away and so I sit there in silence until the next sequence of events unfold.

 

As I wait I think about Maria, the baby, the town, and how I no longer fit.  I wonder if they will throw me into the inferno, and then I wonder why they haven't? My mind twists and contorts a litany of thoughts that wander aimlessly throughout my consciousness unable to offer any comfort.

 

When the door to the tavern opens again, Donna enters holding Maria's baby.  She's disgruntled and I can tell that she's struggling to come to a decision.  I smile at her awkwardly.  At least she has the decency to offer me an honest look of disgust.

 

As Donna makes her way towards me I take a deep breath and hope that this will somehow turn out in my favour.  Before I have a chance to accurately assess the situation the baby cries.  A long and healthy cry.  And I take relief in knowing that its life was spared -- for now.

But if the look in Donna's eyes is any indication of what is about to unfold, neither that baby nor myself will be safe for much longer.  And so, I take a deep breath and try to navigate my anxious thoughts into some sort of a solution before it is too late.