I groan. My head hurts so much. “Connie...”

“Oh, thank my good and loving God! Brian, you’re back with us, Brian!” I hear a click. “Doctor McFadden, C5 STAT!”

“...my head hurts.” I try to turn my head to the left, but it hurts too much to do that. “OW!”

“Stay still, Brian, Doctor McFadden will be here in a minute.”

I hear a door opening and closing, then footsteps of someone hurrying to the side of my bed.

“Doctor McFadden! Brian’s spirit went back into his body. He’s awake! His B.P. is back up, almost normal range. He called me ‘Connie’ so he remembers.”

I can’t see any detail. I gasp because of the pain. “My head hurts so much. I can’t turn it ‘cause it hurts too much. Can I have something for it? Please?”

I hear his voice saying something to Connie. I recognize it. I have this recollection of talking to him, but thing are starting to get foggy because of the pain. My head hurts so much, so much. “Let me see,” I hear him say. Footsteps again, this time around to the right side of the bed. I see him. With my eyes. I begin to remember a dream. Or was it a dream?

“I’ve increased the rate of flow of your morphine drip. That should help. It’ll take a few minutes. Can you see me?”

“Yes. But everything is blurry.”

“How many fingers?” He holds up his fingers in front of my eyes.

“Four. No, three.” My eyes are even more blurry for things that are close up.

“Good. I held up three fingers, Brian. Do you remember giving me your phone number and the names of your parents?”

“Uh huh.”

“Your parents are on the way here. They should arrive in about four hours. Do you remember when I told you that?”

“I’m starting to remember. I remember you, you’re Doctor McFadden. I remember being outside of my body. Talking to you and Connie. Telling you my address and phone number and about Quin and what happened to me. And the pain is starting to be less already.”

I yawned. “I’m getting sleepy. When my folks get here be sure to wake me up if I’m asleep.”

“Brian, the police will be here in a few minutes. Do you want to talk to them?”

That woke me up. “Yeah, I want to talk to the police. I want to make sure Quin and those two other assholes can’t hurt anyone else. Ever. And I know doing that will make me feel better.”

“You’re probably going to fall asleep because of the morphine drip. Are you sure you want to talk to the police when you’re groggy?”

“I don’t know. I suppose I could tell them about what Quin did to me, and say I’m falling asleep and tell them to come back in a few hours, so my folks will be here when they come back. I’d really like my folks here when I talk to the police if they start asking a lot of questions.”

“Tell you what,” Doctor McFadden grinned, “I’ll give you five minutes then I’ll tell them you’ve been sedated and can’t talk to them anymore, and that your folks will be here in five hours and they should return then. How’s that?”

“But I thought you just said my folks would be here in four hours.”

“Yes, but wouldn’t you like an hour or so with your folks before you have to talk to the police again?”

“Oh. Yeah. Cool. That’s a good idea. Thanks.”

“How are you feeling now, Brian?”

“My headache isn’t as bad, but the side of my head and around my left eye still hurts a lot. The other pains in my body are okay, except for my left arm which still hurts like there’s a knife stuck in it, and my butt hurts a lot too.”

“We had to put a plate in your arm to hold the bones in place while they heal. You have a multiple skull fracture, and the morphine isn’t going to completely deaden the pain from either fracture. The left side of your face is badly bruised, and you have cuts and scrapes that are healing but the deep ones will continue to hurt for a while. You have deep bruising on your left shoulder and chest. You were raped anally and there’s some tearing, but the pain from that should start to fade. As you continue to get more morphine in your bloodstream up to the limit I set it will eventually make you sleep, and that’s a good thing. The body heals better when you’re sleeping.”

His cell phone buzzed, and he looked at the screen. “The police have arrived. I’ll go out and talk to them, tell them that you have a lot of pain and you’ve being sedated, and that they have five minutes then they’ll have to come back in five hours when your folks are here and you’re not groggy from the morphine.”

Doctor McFadden left the room, and I lay there wondering how much I remembered about what happened to me that I could tell them. And it wouldn’t do much good anyway, because Quin and his buddies would be back in Oklahoma.

I must have dozed off for a few minutes because the sound of voices in the corridor woke me. Doctor McFadden led two men in suits into the room and they stood at the left side of my bed. I figured that they were detectives, not beat cops, because they weren’t wearing uniforms, and they had badges pinned to the front of their jackets. Hey, I watch CSI.

“Brian, are you awake?”

“Yeah. Uh....” My mouth and throat were dry, and it took a couple of seconds to get my voice back. “Mouth’s dry and I’m thirsty....”

“Here, open your mouth and let me swab it, then I’ll give you a little water.” Doctor McFadden rubbed the inside of my cheeks and my tongue with the swab, and the slight lemon flavor and the wetness were great, just what I needed.

“Thanks.” I drank a little water through the straw, and swished it around in my mouth. That was even better than the swab. “A little more?” He nodded, and I sucked some more and swallowed it.

“Brian, this is Captain Roy McVerrity and Detective Wayne Daley of the Wetherford Police Department. They have a few questions to ask about what happened to you. I told them they have five minutes, not any longer, and that they can come back after your parents arrive. Normally they’d have to wait until then anyway, but you said you wanted to talk to them. Is that correct?”

“Yes, I for sure want to talk to them. Right now.”

Doctor McFadden turned to the two detectives. “I want to make sure that you understand that Brian almost died from his injuries. It’s a miracle that he’s here and aware and able to talk to you. I don’t want you to upset him. He went through a very traumatic ordeal, has been in a coma for almost seven days, and his recovery is more important than getting information from him now instead of later. Understand?”

“I do, John. You know me and Wayne well enough to know that we’ll consider Brian’s wellbeing as our first priority.”

Dr. McFadden looked at me. “Brian, if you start feeling weak, or upset, just let me know and we’ll terminate this interview. Okay?”

“Yeah. But I really wanna tell them what happened so they can get those guys right away.”

The doctor looked at the detectives, “Five minutes. Let’s get this started so Brian can get back to sleep.” I was sort of surprised that he was staying.

I tried to turn my head to the left. “OW!” The detectives looked concerned. “Uh, sorry, this side of my head still hurts a lot. Uh... could you maybe come around to the other side of the bed?”

“Sure. You just take it easy, son.” They walked around to the two chairs on the right side of the bed and sat down, and I slowly turned my head in that direction. Doctor McFadden stood on the left side of the bed, his hand on my shoulder. That felt good, it made me feel more confident about talking to the police.

“Brian, I’m Detective Wayne Daley. We’d like to record our interview with you. Do you give us your permission to record this interview?”

“Yes.”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out one of those little digital recorders and pushed some of the buttons, then spoke into it, holding it like a microphone.

“Interview with Brian Anderson, Thursday, February 18, 2008, at 12:57 p.m. Interviewers are Detective Wayne Daley and Captain Roy McVerrity. The interview is being conducted at Campbell Memorial Hospital in Weatherford, Texas, where Brian Anderson is a patient in the intensive care unit. Brian, please state your full name, the address, city, and state where you live, your home telephone number, your age, your date of birth, where you were born, and the names of your parents or guardians and their addresses if they are different than yours.”

“My name is Brian Gregory Anderson. I’m fifteen. I live at 22810 Cedar Creek Road in Edmond, Oklahoma. My phone number is 405-555-7271. Uh, what were the other questions you asked?” The detective repeated the other questions, one at a time, and I answered them.

“Brian Anderson is a juvenile. He has personally requested this interview, and is doing so of his free will and without an advocate present. Is that correct, Brian?”

 “Yes, that’s correct.”

“Doctor John McFadden is Brian Anderson’s attending physician at Campbell Memorial Hospital, and is present as a witness to this interview. Doctor McFadden, please state your full name, address, and telephone number.”

The doctor gave Detective Daley his name and address and they asked him other stuff about what he did at the hospital and then about my condition and what my injuries were and my operation, so I didn’t pay much attention.

Captain McVerrity asked me questions about what happened, and I answered them. He asked about a lot of the stuff I’d already told Doctor McFadden and Connie earlier, but of course he didn’t know that I’d told them, and anyway he needed to hear the answers from me.

“Have you ever been friends with Quinten Santoni or his friends?”

“No to both, they’re not the kind you make friends with. I just stay out of their way.”

“Did you have any classes with them?”

“No, I’m a sophomore and they’re juniors.”

Have you ever had any problems with Quinten Santoni or his friends in the past?”

“No.”

“Are they in a gang?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know how old they are?”

“They’re juniors, so maybe 16 or 17, but that’s just a guess, I don’t really know.”

He asked a lot of questions about what happened just before, during, and just after they grabbed me and pulled me into Quin’s car.

“Did you go with Quinten Santoni voluntarily?”

“NO!”

“Did Quinten Santoni or his friends ask you if you wanted a ride?”

“No. Grant was in the passenger seat and when they pulled over and stopped he hollered at me something like, ‘Hey, faggot! Get in and we’ll give you a real good time,’ and he pumped his arm, like, up and down meaning, uh, you know, having sex. I hollered back ‘I’m not a faggot like you guys, so I’m not interested,’ and Quin hollered, ‘Yeah, well, you’ll see what we do to any faggots we come across.’ I figured they wouldn’t do anything like right there on the street with other cars and houses and stuff, but Grant and Tom jumped out and dragged me onto the floor in the back seat and pushed me down and sort of stomped on me until I stopped trying to get away, and Quin drove us to his house.”

“Are you a homosexual?”

“No, I’m not gay,” and I emphasized the word ‘gay’.

“Are Quinten Santoni and his friends homosexuals?”

“I don’t know, but they raped me, so I guess they must be.”

“Have you ever been in Quinten Santoni’s house, any of its outbuildings, or anywhere on the property before?”

“No, but I know where it is because I have a friend who lives a couple of houses down from Quin and she told me that’s where he lives. He’s sort of famous, that’s famous in a bad way, around here. Uh, I mean, around where I live in Edmond.”

“Who were the other two boys with Quinten Santoni?”

“Tom Calloway was the one in the back seat keeping me pinned to the floor with his feet. The other guy was Grant something. I don’t know his last name. He was in the front seat, on the passenger side.”

They asked me for details about what happened in the hatchery.

“When they arrived at Quinten Santoni’s home with you, how did you know that where they took you a hatchery?”

“There were baby chickens in boxes with plastic covers and they were making a lot of peeping noises. It smelled like chicken poop.”

They asked about the rape, but I said I didn’t even know it happened until Doctor McFadden told me.

“What did Quinten Santoni hit you with?”

“I don’t know, I never saw it, or maybe I’ve forgotten, but there were a bunch of tools on the table so maybe he used one of them. Maybe a hammer, I sort of remember seeing a hammer on the table. Then everything went black. I guess they knocked me out.”

“Do you remember anything else, like being driven to Texas?”

“I don’t remember anything that happened after they knocked me out. What I do remember is that I left my fingerprints in Quin’s car and the table leg in the chicken hatchery. When they first grabbed me and I was on the floor in the car I pressed my fingers and the palm of my hand against a smooth piece of metal under the driver’s seat. At the hatchery I pressed my fingers on one of the legs of the table. It was metal, too. They might have wiped off the table leg, but they wouldn’t know that I left my fingerprints in the car. I got the idea from watching CSI.” I saw them grin when I said that.

It seemed like the interview had taken a lot more than five minutes and I started to fade. I guess Doctor McFadden saw that, and told them that their time was up. He said they could come back in about five hours, and that my folks should be at the hospital by then.

The detectives thanked me, and they told me that a detective from the Edmond police department was on his way to interview me, and an FBI agent from Dallas as well.

“FBI? Why the FBI?”

Captain McVerrity grinned; it was sort of a smirk. “Those guys that attacked you are in major trouble. They beat you, kidnapped you, crossed the state line from Oklahoma into Texas, and dumped you where you might not have been found except for that farmer. All of those are felonies, including attempted murder. Also you were kidnapped and transported across state lines during the commission of a felony, so that make this a Federal offense. Those guys don’t know the amount of hurt they’ve created for themselves.”

That made me grin, just thinking about Quin and Tom and Grant in prison. Then the morphine took over and I fell asleep.