“Jayla!” Maria welcomed the nurse, with outstretched arms for a hug and a smile that wavered only a little bit.

Mel let out a shaky breath, glad to see the storm was past. Or at least was on the point of waning. Jayla seemed just as delighted to see the girl, and quietly told Mel that since she was off duty she could stay awhile if she wanted to take a moment to grab a cup a coffee. Nurse-speak for “Go pull yourself together.”

Mel suspected she looked as much of a mess as Maria did.

Today had felt nearly impossible. There were hard days in the jungle, but the emotional rollercoaster of today was exhausting. Mel had held Maria while she cried, comforting her. It was tough enough to lose a parent, but to be called a fool for trying to save your own father, regardless of his foolishness…the whole thing was horrific. Just seeing the poor girl in so much pain had brought Mel to tears right alongside her. Only Mel couldn’t cry pretty to save her life, so she knew her face was blotchy and red. She probably had salt lines running down from her nose that she didn’t even want to think about.

Thankfully the sadness hadn’t sidetracked Mel for too long. As she’d held Maria, comforted her, she’d passed through shock, then anger, and then into something colder, something that seethed in her breast. As Maria cried herself out, and then descended into sobbing hiccups where she’d told Mel over and over in two languages that she had good parents, and that she was a good girl, Mel had been biding her time.

Someone was going to pay for this.

With Jayla in charge, Mel saw her chance. She washed her face in the attached bathroom and slipped out, cheerfully babbling about coffee and how she’d be right back, when in truth she was girding herself for battle, one very specific casualty in mind.

The moment she’d hit the hallway, Mel dug into her pocket for her phone.

“Hello?”

“Kenneth, you disgusting, selfish bastard!”

“Mom? Back from the dead, are you?”

“Don’t joke around with me, Kenneth!” she hissed, suddenly aware there were staff at the nurses’ station who were more than a little interested in what she had to say. “Not after what you pulled.”

“What I pulled? Melissa, you’re the one playing games. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find out where the girl was being kept? I believe you’re trying to hide her from me.”

Mel’s mouth opened and closed. “Of course I’m hiding her!” she hissed. Only her awareness of being in a hospital kept the volume at a manageable level. She nearly choked on the effort to keep it at a lower decibel.

Kenneth cleared his throat, all calm reasonableness. “May I remind you, Doctor, that you are the child’s physician and NOT her guardian. Her mother signed a waiver stating that Doctors International was to be acting in all ways as the child’s guardian during this trip, a right for which we paid a high price in getting her visa approved as quickly as we did.”

Mel found a small waiting room, thankfully empty. “YOU TRAUMATIZED HER!” Her low heels clicked against the worn tile as she paced. Why’d she even wear them?

“I made her famous! She’s a household name by now, Mel! She’s the sweetest and cutest thing–except for that nasty burn on her cheek, but we can do some before and after shots. She’s captured the heart of the internet, Mel! I’m already getting phone calls from donors who hadn’t every heard of us before. I can—”

“You sent your goons in to tear her apart for money?” Of course, she knew that already; they’d had this conversation, but there had been a time when she’d respected Kenneth. Had thought that his vision of saving the world was something worth leaving everything to follow.

“Really, Mel? All I had was some distance shots of you and your boyfriend playing doctor, nothing with the girl. More’s the shame…”

She almost dropped the phone. “Excuse me?”

“I told you that I was trying to make arrangements to interview you all, when you could be there to help the girl, but you shoved her in the back of that mausoleum and didn’t let her see the light of day since you got there. All the press could get was you and him kissing on the front step.”

The press.

Pictures of her and Brant kissing.

Following her.

Whatever feelings of goodwill she’d ever had for her old friend ‘Kenny’ dried up in that moment. That did it. She was done. Beyond done. “Kenneth, I swear—”

“Mel, listen to me. This is a non-profit organization. How do you not get that? We live and die by donations: of money, of time, of goodwill. You’ve been asking for new equipment, supplies, medicine, where do you think these things come from? You’re not the only one needing things to save lives. This little girl will save lives, Mel. Ariel is solid gold!”

“Her name’s Maria! And you’d cut her down and melt her in minute if you believed that.”

Kenny sighed. “Yes, Mel, yes. I’m using her to further our goals, I’m exploiting her to fund and finance clinics all over the world and put needed medicine and experienced doctors into the hands of people who would otherwise never see a pill or a shot or a vaccine. I’m using her as much as you are. Now get off your high horse.”

“I’m not using her,” Mel spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not taking advantage of the poor…”

“You’re not? Really? Would you have left for a whirlwind trip to see your rich boyfriend if it wasn’t for her? She was your excuse, Mel. She was your justification for dropping your responsibilities and running off to play house.”

“How dare you…” Her words trailed off, lost as to how to finish that sentence.

“How dare I? How dare I what? How dare you, or him? How dare any of us? I didn’t want the girl traumatized; if the press was heavy-handed, I regret that, I really do. However, you’d better understand something: her getting help was as much DI as it was the noble Dr. Layton. Your clinic you’re so proud of is sole and total property of DI, you are an employee of DI, and everything you have to proud of stems from us.”

“No more.” Mel spat into the phone. “Stop, or I’ll quit and never come back to Belize.”

“If you quit now, Mel, you’ll have no further access to the girl.”

Mel sank into a chair. Hard. “Excuse me?”

“You’re with her because and only because you are a Doctors International doctor. When your employment ends, so does your responsibility and your association with our patient. Ours, not yours. You quit DI, and you’ve no more right to that child than any stranger wandering up and down the hallways.”

“You wouldn’t…” Her protest was barely more than a whisper.

“I would. Mel, the child is funding a full clinic. Think about that. There will be a clinic somewhere on the planet that was never there before because this girl smiles pretty and has such charm. People will no longer die from chicken pox and measles and polio, and all the other common diseases we don’t even think about anymore, because we have immunizations they don’t. Now they will. All because of your girl.”

Her shoulders slumped. “The price is too high, you bastard,” she spat, though the fight had gone out of her. He had her. And he knew it.

The question was, where did that leave her? Or Maria?

“There isn’t too high a price to save lives, Mel. If you really have a big heart, get your boyfriend to throw some of his mother’s money our way. That’s how it works, Mel. You want to quit? Quit. But then you go home. Not to Belize; that’s ours. Go home to wherever it was you came from, and don’t bother to say goodbye to the girl. She’s ours.”

The line went dead, and a very cold chill ran down Mel’s spine.

She’s a household name by now. Kenneth’s voice echoed in her ears. Mel turned to her phone again, pulling up a web browser and typing in ‘Maria.’ The phone helpfully added several last names: an actress, a gymnast, a sportscaster. Mel breathed a bit easier, then paused and added a space and the word “face.”

Her screen exploded. #GirlWithoutaFace shot to the top. #Faceless, #BurnedJungleGirl. It was everywhere. She looked down the hall toward Maria’s closed door, and tried to reconcile the child hiding in that room with the…the freak show being blasted over the internet.

Nausea forming in her belly, Mel began to read.

Jungle Girl Without a Face

Born and raised in the wilds of Belize, little Maria had sparse, if any exposure, to the equally dense jungle of the internet, but she’s quickly taking it by storm. After getting her picture posted with an interview for Salacious on-line magazine, this jungle girl’s story has gone viral.

It was another day for her father who came home drunk, as was his habit. It was late at night when he fell into a stupor, and set fire to the very couch he was lying on. Maria and her mother and the rest of the family managed to escape their burning home, but the girl with the generous heart ran back in to save the man who had savagely beat her and her brother…

Mel closed her eyes. What the hell? The article wasn’t even anywhere near the truth. This wasn’t the man who had raised that little girl. Maria’s tearful cries about his decency, his kindness, echoed in Mel’s memory. Maybe the man hadn’t exactly deserved the high praise Maria heaped upon him, but didn’t that little girl have a right to not have her family life strewn all over the internet for the world to see?

There was nothing in any of the articles about the rampant poverty Maria’s family had lived in. Jobs weren’t always easy to come by. Someone should have written about the hopelessness that being without work can instill in a man trying to support his family. Or what it was like to see big resorts and think it meant work, only to find out that the corporations were bringing in help from overseas. Booze was cheap and plentiful; it was the only thing that was in the remote villages that could make a man forget. So, her father drank too much and too often. It was wrong. It was fatal, and it almost cost the lives of the very people he had tried to support. But he never hit anyone. The only person he ever fought with was himself, reeling and bleeding under every assault from the bottle that left him as unconscious as if he’d been in a brawl.

Maria was a gentle soul, despite her father’s weakness. Yet she still loved him, even more since his death. Now she was scarred, without a parent, and alone in a strange world and this…this pubescent on a keyboard was vilifying her father and calling her little more than a wild foundling raised by apes.

There’s a limit, Kenneth! Doctors International could save all the lives on the planet, but if it cost a child her soul the price was too high.

She tabbed to the next result listed.

BURNED JUNGLE PRINCESS TO GET NEW FACE

A young girl from the wilds of Belize has been brought to the big city for a very special reason: a new smile. The pint-sized hero lost half of her face (ouch!) when trying to save her father from forest fire in the jungle. Sorry to say, Daddy didn’t make it, but the spunky little tyke got herself hurt trying.

She’s in L.A., now, to have her injuries restored so she can wow the jungle and ride the zebras again just like she once…

 

Mel got off the page as quickly as she could. It was supposed to be a professional site—it had all the markings of an adult page, but it read like something from a child’s book. Not a book written for children, a book written by children. There was not a single thing in there that had any indication that the writer had even read the article she’d plagiarized.

She scrolled through more.

JUNGLE GIRL GETS FACE LIFT WHILE AMERICANS WAIT FOR MEDICAL ATTENTION

That one wasn’t even worth clicking on.

GOOD SAMARITIAN DOCTOR IS SON OF FAMOUS ACTRESS

Mel paused and read the title again. Then began reading the article.

Brant Layton, a prominent L.A. plastic surgeon, has paid the bill for the mysterious Jungle Girl’s passage and stay, and plans to perform reconstructive surgery on her for free. That’s right folks, FREE.

According to informed sources at the medical center where Dr. Layton works, the doctor has taken it on himself to pay for the entire thing. Of course, money may not be an object when your father was once the head of a Hollywood studio and your mother is…wait for it…Linda Phelps.

Yes, that Linda Phelps. It appears that her little boy is all grown up and working in a profession that should keep her looking youthful for years.

However, Dr. Layton’s sacrifice isn’t limited to his time and money. According to our sources, Layton was a full partner in a prestigious and prominent surgical office with some of the most respected reconstructive surgeons in the business.

Yes, the operative word being was. It seems that there was a parting of the ways earlier today.

Mel checked the timestamp. The article was written less than 15 minutes ago. That was the way of the internet—instant news, print to fit. But wait, Brant wasn’t in the medical group? She thought back to that scene in his office. The man who’d come in late, looking angry. Just what the heck had happened in there?

She looked down the hallway, wishing he would return, wondering where he’d disappeared to.

He’d been livid when he heard about what happened to Maria, then stormed off without a word. Of course, they’d been fighting. She felt guilty about it now. With all that was happening with Maria and Kenneth, and all their noble and good plans being dissected over the internet by people without any idea.

And if this whole thing about his being fired was true…

I’m an idiot. An absolute idiot.

It had been petty jealousy. She admitted as much to herself. The money, the girls, the social circles she could never hope to be in…well maybe she’d overreacted a little bit.

Maybe a lot.

He doesn’t deserve that from me.

The article she was reading had a link to Linda Phelps, and a link to another article about Brant. Mel followed the new link, wondering why she’d never researched him before.

Maybe because it never occurred to you that he was just that famous. Even after that whole hotel debacle. Remember that?

Mel winced.

Yeah, she was an idiot.

GOOD SAMARITAN FACE DOC HAS BIG SECRET

Maybe she should have quit while she was ahead. There were things on the internet that she was better off not seeing. And something like this…it was sensationalist garbage, right? Inaccurate. Like the stories about Maria.

But she read anyway.

And clicked other links. And read those.

No.

Not him.

Not him.

Mel re-read the original article and found her hand was over her mouth with no memory of it getting there. No memory of slipping to the floor, curled in fetal position, clutching her phone like it was some sort of talisman.

“No. No.”

She checked the time stamp.

“No, no, please no.” Mel closed her eyes, curled around herself.