Story code: ST-001861
Part 2: The Golden Ticket
Chloe dragged her sleeve across her mouth, leaving a smear of bile on the gray fabric of her collar. “What are you doing?” Her voice was a ragged whisper, stripped of its usual defiance.
Linda did not flinch. She nudged a tangled phone charger with the toe of her slipper. “Looking for your insurance card. If you’re going to vomit all over my hallway, I’m taking you to urgent care. I can’t afford to call an ambulance.”
Chloe’s eyes darted from Linda’s face to the spilled contents of the duffel bag. She did not care about the clothes or the crushed saltines. She dropped to her knees, her pale hands frantically digging through the empty canvas compartments. “Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Linda kept her right hand buried deep in her cardigan pocket, her knuckles white as they curled around the sharp edges of the blister pack. The foil felt warm against her skin.
“The pouch. The little black pouch.” Chloe’s breathing turned shallow, edging toward hyperventilation. She dumped the entire bag upside down, shaking it until the heavy brass zippers clattered against the worn living room carpet. “Mom. What did you do with it?”
Linda looked down at her daughter. She noted the dark, bruised circles under Chloe’s eyes, the way her collarbones protruded sharply beneath the ruined shirt. It had been nearly a year since they last spoke, a year of silence while Linda’s body withered under the paclitaxel drips. Now, Chloe had brought a ten-thousand-dollar golden ticket straight into her living room.
“If you’re looking for your stash, I flushed it,” Linda said.
Chloe froze. The remaining color completely drained from her face, leaving her looking like a corpse under the harsh overhead lights. “You didn’t.”
“I will not have street drugs in this house.” Linda delivered the lie with the practiced, iron-clad sternness she had used when Chloe was a teenager. It felt hollow now, especially with the bright red foreclosure notice sitting on the kitchen counter mere feet away, but it achieved the desired effect.
“They aren’t drugs to get high!” Chloe screamed, her voice cracking as she scrambled upward. She grabbed Linda’s forearms. Linda winced as Chloe’s grip dug into her thinning skin, right over the bruised veins from yesterday’s blood draw. “Mom, you have to tell me you didn’t flush them. I already took the first pill yesterday at the clinic. If I don’t take the rest, I could hemorrhage. I could get sepsis.”
Linda stared at her. *At the clinic.* The European manifest had said nothing about a local clinic.
“What clinic?” Linda demanded, shaking off Chloe’s hands.
Chloe stumbled backward into the edge of the scratched coffee table. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, bending forward. “The free clinic downtown. The one on Elm. They couldn’t do the procedure because of the new state laws. But someone there… a nurse… she had a stash from an NGO. She gave them to me. She walked me through the first step. I just needed a place to hide for the weekend to finish it.”
The state bounty law was crystal clear. It was not just the doctors who were liable. It was the drivers, the donors, the friends, and the medical staff who provided the means. A minimum of ten thousand dollars per infraction in civil court. No criminal burden of proof was required, just a preponderance of evidence.
Linda’s chemo port throbbed against her collarbone. Ten thousand dollars would stop the bank. It would pay for the radiation she needed if her current regimen failed.
“A nurse,” Linda repeated, her voice perfectly level, carefully masking the adrenaline spiking in her chest. “A registered nurse risked her license to hand out illegal chemical abortifacients to a college dropout?”
Chloe burst into tears, her body folding inward as a fresh wave of severe cramps hit her. She sank onto the couch, pulling her knees to her chest. “Her name is Brenda. She said she helps girls who can’t afford to drive across the state line. She even paid for my Uber here.”
*Brenda.*
Linda felt the floorboards seem to tilt beneath her slippers. Brenda was not just a nurse at the downtown free clinic. Brenda was the head oncology nurse at St. Jude’s outpatient center. Brenda was the woman who squeezed Linda’s hand during her painful port access procedures, who quietly slipped Linda extra anti-nausea samples when Medicare denied the prescription. Brenda, with the warm smile and the two kids in middle school.
If Linda filed the civil suit, Brenda would be ruined. Bankrupted. Stripped of her nursing license and publicly disgraced.
Linda looked at the foreclosure notice on the counter. Brenda had a husband with a software salary. Brenda wasn’t dying. Brenda wasn’t losing her home in fourteen days.
“Did you text her?” Linda asked, her tone shifting to one of motherly concern. “How do you know when to take the next dose if you left the instructions in the bag?”
“She’s been messaging me on a secure app,” Chloe sobbed, rocking back and forth. “She told me exactly what to do. Mom, please. Please tell me you didn’t flush them. I’m begging you. I’m so scared.”
Linda’s thumb traced the hexagonal shapes through the foil in her pocket. She had the pills. But without evidence, her word against Brenda’s wouldn’t stand up in civil court, especially since Brenda used an encrypted app. Linda needed to see those messages. She needed screenshots.
“I didn’t flush them,” Linda said softly.
Chloe stopped rocking. She looked up, desperate hope fracturing the terror in her eyes. “You have them?”
“I put them in my medicine cabinet. I was going to call the police,” Linda lied smoothly. “But you’re my daughter. I’m not going to let you bleed out on my couch.”
Chloe let out a pathetic, shuddering sigh of relief. “Can I have them?”
“You are in no state to read medical dosages,” Linda said, crossing her arms to keep her pocket hidden. “Where is your phone?”
Chloe frowned, clutching her stomach as another cramp seized her. “Why?”
“Because if this Brenda gave you instructions on an app, I need to read them to make sure I don’t give you the wrong amount at the wrong time. The European paper you had in there was smeared with sweat. I couldn’t read a damn word of it.” Linda held out her hand. “Give me the phone, Chloe. I need to see exactly what this nurse told you to do.”
Chloe hesitated, her thumb hovering over her front pocket as if guarding a terrible secret. But another cramp tore through her abdomen, forcing a wet gasp from her throat. She pulled out her smartphone, pressing her thumb to the glass to unlock it before handing it over.
Linda took the device. The screen glowed, illuminating a chat thread with a contact simply named ‘B’.
*Take the misoprostol 24-48 hours after the mifepristone. Let them dissolve under your tongue.*
Below that, Brenda had sent a screenshot of an Uber receipt, paying for a ride directly to Linda’s address. It was perfect. It was a ten-thousand-dollar lawsuit, complete with timestamps and a digital paper trail.
Linda’s thumb hovered over the buttons to take a screenshot. But before she could press down, a new message bubble popped up on the screen.
*Chloe, I just checked your ultrasound file again. You didn’t tell me you were over twelve weeks. Do NOT take the second pills. It is not safe at home at this stage. I am coming to get you.*
Linda stared at the glowing text, the silence of the house suddenly deafening. If Brenda showed up to stop the procedure, Linda would have the physical proof walking right through her front door. But if Linda gave Chloe the pills right now, before Brenda arrived, she could prove the nurse’s intervention caused whatever horrifying medical emergency was about to unfold.