November, 1989

The floor was hard.

That was all she could think about. Anything was better than thinking about the pain happening when her baby was. Her hands shook as she felt her face, touched the gold dust skin and came away with blood. He had cut her. She wasn’t aware that she was whimpering. She wasn’t aware that she lay in the pretty blue dress she bought. The blue dress she had saved for, the one she lusted after for months until finally she struck gold and found it on sale for thirty dollars. Of course when he found out, when he held the receipt in his hands she had paled. He had stared at the dress, the elegant lace meternity dress that fit her perfectly. His hand had come out of no where. The back of it slammed against her cheeck and blood flew in a perfect, graceful arc from her mouth to the wall. When she looked back at him, his fist struck her nose and she felt it break. Her head tilted back and she tasted blood on her tongue, heard his words, and felt herself fall.

Her mind instantly went to the baby. It was because of the baby he stopped hitting her. She was eight months and three weeks pregnant. How do you land on your back without harming your child? Her hands flew out and slapped the floor, absorbing the impact but her hips struck next. When they did her mouth opened and a gush of blood and words gurgled from her mouth. The pain started and he left.

She had only lay on the floor for about half an hour, but for her it was hours. Hours she spent, laying spread-eagled on thee floor, gushing blood from her mouth and feeling stabbing pains in her abdomen.

She blinked at the ceiling, the dirty yellow ceiling that one day might have been white and didn’t have any moldy black leaks. Her mind played back her own life, from the time she lay eyes on him, she was fourteen and hopelessly in love. Now she was eighteen, married, beaten, and pregnant. How?

She bit her lip and closed her eyes again. What if its a dream? It had to be a dream right? This was too much pain be real. When did she start screaming?

Her throat was hoarse, as air forced itself out in painful, rasping screams. She heard footsteps. She saw the boy from across the hall, a fifteen year old sweetheart that always asked if he could help carry her groceries up. She screamed, her eyes shutting tight, and her neck arching.

She had no sense of time, she was just focused on him, heard his voice, him pleading and the clatter of a phone. Then his hand was gripping hers, a fifteen year old angel. She was no longer screaming, but whimpering, weeping and shaking. He was saying something.

“Please, please, please hold on. Please don’t die, please!” Gentle blue eyes filled with panic, and despair, yet she felt an odd sort of peacefulness coming.

She shook her head, blinking out the darkness that threatened to sweep her under, and gripped his hand tighter, hardly aware that she was breathing too fast to be right. She cringed when the door slammed open, and expected to see him there, and nearly wept when an aumbulance driver stepped through.

“Jesus.” H said and watched as his two colleages knelt beside the woman. His eyes studied her face, she was strangely beautiful. Chocolate brown eyes and soft looking gold hair. Even with the blood she looked lovely. He grabbed the arm of the boy who had called who kept mumbling under his breath and clutched her let go and walked blindly where ever the driver led him. Just outside the door, out sight, but not out of earshot.

“Kid?” he asked cautiously. Even as a just an ambulance driver, he knew the kid was in bad shape. He wasnt of any relation to the woman

“Please.” he whispered looking at his shirt.

“Hey. Kid!” He yelled, and watched life and reason flood the kid’s eyes. His skin was still pale and his mouth was slack with shock.

“What.” It was a statement, but the driver didn’t waste any time.

“Who is she?” He asked, and looked into the room, where the woman was whimpering, and the doctor was muttering instructions to his nurse. He heard the metallic clinks of tool or whatever the hell you call those things. He didn’t know, he was just a damn ambulance driver.

“Lili.” The name was said so soft, it was like a sigh.

“Excuse me?”

The boy cleared his throat and glanced at the doorway where just out of sight, the woman lay on the floor. “Lili- Elizabeth. Elizabeth Toliver. Is she alright? Will she be alright?” he started for the room, but froze when the wail of a baby cut through the air. then the fast, urgent voices of the doctors. The nurse was taking care of the baby, and Lili had stopped whimpering. The minute the thought passed through his mind an odd silence filled the room and the hall. It seemed as if if he strained hard enough he could hear her breathing. Her shallow, rattling breaths that stopped after a few minutes. He took the last step to clear the doorway and stared at her. She lay with odd stillness of the dead and the baby, a girl, was wrapped in blue blankets, she was oddly silent and still.

For a second he thought the baby had died as well, but then it stirred. Could it feel its mother was dead?

The doctor stared at him, pity staining his eyes as he packed up. The boy entered a haze the second his eyes went back to Lili. Her face, bloody and bruised looked serene, was fixed on his mind for the rest of the day, through the police questioning, to second her body was being lifted in the stretcher, covered in a white sheet. His eyes went to the baby and he knelt by her. She was clean and perfect yet why did he feel as if something was wrong with her?

The police was talking in loud voices, the room was being photographed and the boy sat on the pitiful kitchen table with the baby in front of him. Officer Todd, a pretty blonde, surveyed the room, not missing one detail. She was on her way to becoming a detective, and she was damn good at it. The boy, Nicholai, had given a pretty accurate description of the man, the woman’s husband, and they were out looking for him right now. He had even given the name of the bar he usually went after beating the hell out of his wife.

“Murder charges?” a deputy asked her and she nodded. It all fit, but her gaze went back to the boy who sat staring at the baby. “What are we going to do with the baby?”

“Call social services I guess. We already have a statement from the doctor saying that the child is healthy and perfect.” she said and made her way to the boy.

“Her name’s Izzy. Short for Isabel. She always liked that name.” the boy said.

“Okay.” Officer Todd said, then knelt down so the boy had to look down at her. “Listen, anything that happened here, stays in here okay?”

“I won’t tell anyone.” he mumbled, suddenly angry. The baby stirred.

“Alright. We have to give Izzy to Social Services, you know that right?” she inwardly winced when the boy suddenly started to cry. The tear streaks on his face that had dried up suddenly were wet again.

“Why? I can take care of her.” His arms went protectively around the baby and he stared at Todd, his gaze defiant, daring her to take the baby away.

“Your parents might not want to.” she said and watched him deflate.

“They wont. They complain about me.” he said.

“I need you to go back to your apartment, okay? We have to clean up here.” she said and stood up, ready to go back to her colleage.

“Will you lock him up?” The questions stopped Todd for a brief second before looking at the kid in the eyes.

“When we find him.” The boy looked down for a moment and nodded. He stood and the child stirred. He walked out of the apartment, his head down, hands in his pockets.

“Bad idea.” Officer Bill Madsen said. He studied Officer Nancy Todd and appreciated the way she lifted her chin in defiance.

“We have enough.” She said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“He might get out in less than three months.” He retorted.

“Fine. He’s still getting locked up.” She answered, and walked past him, stepping crefully over the yellow tape. She went to the window where she saw the familiar black Social Services car. She watched the pair, a woman she recognized from her last case, and a tall man with dark hair. She looked back at Bill and jerked her head. He nodded and went downstairs, to greet them. They would take the baby, Izzy, away and she would be lost to another family. She would become a file in a gray cabinet. She went back to the baby who lay quietly, undoubtedly hungry, yet never made a noise. The only sign that she was alive was occasionall stirring and the way the little fingers clenched and clung to the blue stared down at the baby and felt a chill start in her spine. She shivered and swallowed agaisnt the feeling of wrongness. She turned away and fixed a no-bullshit expression on her face while Social Services questioned them. They took the baby away, and she closed the case.

She didn’t know if it was just a hunch, but she knew she would see the child again. And she didn’t think it was to say hello.