Chapter 4 - Behind Bars
I lunged across the hospital room with the speed of a terrified mother with absolutely nothing left to lose.
I grabbed Nurse Rebecca tightly by the collar of her medical scrubs and slammed her forcefully against the cold wall.
She shrieked loudly in genuine panic, desperately trying to push my heavy weight off her shoulders.
I reached blindly for the intravenous line connected to my husband’s arm and violently ripped the plastic tube completely out of his vein.
Blood began to instantly pool on his white bedsheets, but I knew I had stopped the mysterious yellow liquid from reaching his heart.
Heavy footsteps pounded rapidly down the hospital hallway, and three massive security guards burst through the door.
They grabbed me aggressively by the waist and dragged me physically out of the room as I kicked and screamed wildly.
Nurse Rebecca dramatically fell to the floor, fake crying loudly and claiming I had tried to murder her in cold blood.
Within ten minutes, I was handcuffed tightly, read my Miranda rights, and thrown into the back of a freezing police cruiser.
I sat in a dark, damp holding cell at the local precinct for hours, shivering violently in my thin winter sweater.
The heavy steel door finally clattered open, and a tall, surprisingly gentle-looking police officer stepped inside.
He introduced himself quietly as Officer Miller and handed me a warm cup of cheap, bitter coffee.
"You have one free phone call, but I strongly suggest you use it to contact a very good defense attorney," he advised me softly.
"I don't need a lawyer, I just need to know where my daughters are," I pleaded, gripping the warm paper cup desperately.
Miller sighed heavily, looking down at the concrete floor before meeting my desperate gaze.
"They were transported safely to an emergency foster home across town, but they will be perfectly fine for the night," he assured me.
I begged him to let me use the precinct phone to call my father, hoping he had finally grown a spine.
Miller nodded sympathetically, unlocking my steel handcuffs and leading me to a heavy black telephone on the main desk.
I dialed my parents' home number with violently shaking fingers and prayed to God my father would answer.
The line rang four times before I heard the quiet, trembling voice of my dad on the other end.
"Dad, you have to tell the police the truth about what mom did to us tonight," I whispered desperately into the receiver.
I heard him take a sharp, ragged breath, followed quickly by the distinct sound of a grown man crying.
"I am so incredibly sorry, sweetie," he sobbed quietly into the phone.
"What did you do, Dad?" I asked, a fresh wave of terrifying dread washing over my tired body.
"Your mother forced me to sign an emergency temporary guardianship petition an hour ago," he confessed miserably.
My mind completely reeled as I realized my mother was rapidly escalating her hostile takeover of my children.
"A judge would never approve that in the middle of the night without a formal hearing," I argued confidently.
"She didn't use a real judge, she heavily bribed a corrupt county clerk to forge the official state seals," he revealed.
I gripped the heavy phone so hard my knuckles popped painfully.
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"Where is she right now?" I demanded, my voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly whisper.
"She is currently standing in the driveway of the foster home, showing the fake papers to the social worker to take the girls away," he cried.
