Page 20 of Liberating Lily

She took Lily’s blood pressure. And while she stirred slightly, she didn’t open her eyes.

Michaela’s frown deepened. “Do you know if she’s on any medication?”

“Yeah, she keeps saying that she needs her pills. She’s worried she’ll hurt me if she doesn’t have them. She said that her nervous system gets overloaded and she lashes out. However, she doesn’t seem to know what she’s taking and she often looks blank and out of it.”

“She doesn’t have the pills on her, then?” Michaela asked.

“No, Gareth is trying to get hold of them.”

“Right, I want to be informed as soon as you know what they are. She’s pale and her blood pressure’s very low. I want to take some blood, but not while she’s sleeping and could wake up suddenly.”

“Just do it,” he commanded. “I’ll hold her arm down.”

The older woman frowned up at him, but she knew better than to protest.

He was the boss, after all.

So she got the needle ready, and he held Lily’s arm as she took blood. Lily let out a soft whimper, but she didn’t wake up.

“Okay, let’s look under the bandages at her scratches,” Michaela said once she was finished. “She got dirt on the wounds?”

He nodded as she checked Lily’s hands.

“Keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t get infected. Make sure you clean and re-bandage them. I think she’s also underweight. Her lips are dry, and her skin doesn’t really bounce back when pinched, which means she could be dehydrated too. Infection could get hold of her easily. So you need to keep an eye on that. There isn’t much more I can offer without the results of the blood tests and knowing what medication she’s on. Hopefully she’s just exhausted and needs the sleep, but if the sleep goes on for too long, then she may need to go to the hospital.”

His first reaction was to say ‘no hospital,’ but if that was what she needed, then he had to provide it, because nothing could happen to Lily.

So he nodded. “I’ll keep a close eye on her.”

“I’m sure you will. Just be careful with her. She seems fragile. And if she’s hurting herself, she will need some trained help.”

He walked with her to the door just as his phone beeped.

He opened the message from Gareth, glancing down at the photo of the white pill bottle he held.

“This is the medication she’s on. Gareth got it from her handbag.” He turned his phone around to show her the image.

Michaela frowned. “According to this bottle, it’s just a light sedative. Something you’d take to get yourself off to sleep.”

“So it wouldn’t make her more docile or blank? Out of it? It wouldn’t cause any sort of memory loss?”

“Not unless she was taking high doses of it. Could she have been abusing them?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I wouldn’t have thought so. Lily usually likes to follow the rules.”

“I think we should get the pills tested, just to make sure that what’s in the bottle is the same as what is written on the outside.”

He nodded. “Do you have somewhere we can do that safely?”

“Yeah, I do. But it might take a few days.”

“Make it happen.”

After she left, he called Gareth and told him to drop off a sample of the pills to Michaela’s office.

And then bring the rest, along with Lily’s handbag, to him.

Then he returned to the living room.