Treasure Ch. 01-05

The three left, leaving Mark watching his wife as she bonded with the little redheaded girl who had already stolen their hearts. Whatever it took, he vowed, he would do it. They would be a family.

When the knock came on the door and they had to hand her back to Melody, they barely made it out of the room before Dawn broke down. She cried the whole way home on the back of the bike for her little Treasure by the side of the road.

Six Months Later

"The minor child Jane Doe is hereby declared to be abandoned under Minnesota Statute 260(C)301 and the parental rights of her have been terminated," the Family Court Judge said as he signed the papers. "I understand there is a petition for adoption?"

"There is, your honor," the attorney said.

"Bring it forward." The bailiff brought the petition to him as he looked at the Social Services representative. "Will the petitioners stand, please."

Mark and Dawn stood nervously, their foster daughter in front of them. Mark was in his State Trooper uniform as the hearing had been on short notice and he had to come to court directly from his patrol. Dawn was in a dark blue dress, and Treasure in a matching dress with her red hair braided back. "Mark and Dawn Olson, your honor."

"It is your wish to adopt the minor child?"

"Yes sir. We have loved her since we found her and have cared for her the past four months as her foster parents." Treasure lifted her hands to him, and he kissed her cheek as she hugged his neck.

"Does the State concur," he asked Melody.

"The State has no objection, your honor. The Olsons have provided adequate care for the minor child as foster parents and she has bonded with them."

He looked at the little girl and smiled. "What is your name, little girl?"

"Trea-sure," she said with a smile.

"Treasure, do you want them to be your forever parents?"

"Yes, please," she said as Dawn hugged her, her arms wrapping around her husband's waist.

"The adoption is approved," he said. "What name would you like on her birth certificate?"

"Treasure Charlotte Olson," Mark said.

"Is her birthdate known?" He was looking down at the papers.

"No, your honor. The pediatrician thinks she was about a year old when she was found, so we are asking for a birthdate of October 9^th, 1999," Mark replied.

"Anniversary of you finding her." He wrote a few more things on the form. "Congratulations, Trooper and Mrs. Olson, and to you, young Treasure. May your family be blessed and happy."

"Thank you, your honor." The judge gaveled the proceedings to an end, and the family and friends in the gallery rushed forward to congratulate the new family.

"I'm yours now, no more moving," Treasure asked her Mommy.

"You're our daughter now," Dawn said as she kissed her.

Ch. 3

2012, Rochester, Minnesota

The precocious pony-tailed and red-haired freshman striker was starting to really piss off the two varsity defenders on her side. Five times in the first half of the scrimmage she had gotten free behind them or made them look stupid with her moves.

"REA!" The center midfielder with the blond ponytail called her best friend and teammate over during a break. Treasure, who had gone by Rea since elementary school, huddled with Jenny and her teammates as the coach talked to the Varsity players. The two freshmen at Rochester John Marshall were the only ones from their class still playing with the older students, the rest of their classmates having been sent to the Freshman team on another field. Jenny and Rea had played together for five years, and both showed the talent to be not just good, but great players. Jenny's growth spurt over the last year, to just under five foot ten, gave her an advantage in the air. The five foot four Rea was smaller but had great ball-handling skills and was faster than lightning. "Their left back can't catch you. The next time I get the ball in our end, make a run for the right corner of the penalty area. Just stay onside," she said as the coach whistled them out of the time out.

"They aren't manning me up, so I'll move towards the middle then break to the corner," she said with a smile before they bumped fists and got into place. The goal kick went to the left side, and Rea worked her way between the defenders as the midfielder brought the ball up towards the center line. The zone defenders lost her across the middle, and a quick look at Jenny had her moving to fill the hole she created by running across the zone. Rea got the ball, pushing it out to a streaking Jenny down the right side while she ran the gap between the center back and the striker.

She didn't need to raise her hand, she was quick, and Jenny was precise. The return pass was right on target, and after controlling it she cooly fired the ball into the net from twelve yards out.

The coach blew the whistle and went to chew out his defenders while Rea's team celebrated her goal. This was only a scrimmage, but they were beating the Varsity starters and it felt damn good. "Nice shot, Rea," Jenny said.

"Thanks Jenny," she said as they jogged back to the middle. "Do you think we can make the team?"

"I don't know," she said. "Becky was all-conference at right striker last year, and she's a senior. There's so many good players here, but if they can't handle us, they have to let us stay, right?"

"Right!"

The two went back into position as the older players kicked off. Working the ball around the top of the penalty area, Jenny stepped in front of a pass and started the counterattack. The moment she was clear, her left foot sent a long ball curling down the right side of the field.

Rea had been moving slowly along the back line, moving away from the frustrated left back, and as soon as she saw Jenny wind up she broke down the right side. Her timing was perfect, the offside flag stayed down, and she was racing towards the ball as it bounced along the grass. The goalkeeper started to come out, then thought better of it as the ball slowed. Rea controlled it with the first touch when it was still ten yards from the penalty area and steered it towards goal when she felt her hair get pulled, hard, and she fell hard to the ground. She rolled a few times, stopping and glaring at the senior who had pulled her down on a breakaway. "What the hell, Denise?"

"Stay down, Rea. You don't belong here, go back with the kids on the Freshman team."

Rea jumped to her feet as their teammates gathered around them. "Don't get pissed off at me because I'm beating you like a drumline."

The coach was blowing his whistle, running over from the far sidelines, trying to stop this before it got out of hand. "PENALTY!" He ran over and looked at Denise. "That would get you a red card in a game, Williams. It has no place on our fields. NEWMAN! Take her place."

Rea smiled as the coach walked away with the ball to set up the penalty kick. "Thanks for the goal, Denise. Have fun on junior varsity."

"BITCH! You're not wanted on this team, you've never been wanted!"

Rea brought her hands to her head as a sudden pain knifed through her temples. "TEACH HER RESPECT," the voice said in her head told her. The voice always came with pain, she didn't like it, and she didn't like what it was telling her. For the last year she had been ignoring it, but with each month the pain got worse. She looked up, suddenly dizzy, and stumbled back a little into her teammates.

"Don't cry, carrot-top," another girl said.

Denise laughed. "Fucking trash by the side of the road, never worth keeping." The other seniors joined her, which only made the pain worse.

Suddenly, Rea's posture changed. Her hands moved in front of her, and she crouched slightly before launching herself at the taller and bigger defender. Her left hand grabbed her throat as her momentum knocked the bigger girl onto her ass. Rea followed her down, her right fist pounding the smugness out of her face with blow after blow. She ignored the scratches on her face and arms as the girl tried to defend herself. She didn't hear the screams or the whistles as she beat her tormentor into a pulp. When her right arm was grabbed, she lunged forward and bit down onto her shoulder.

Denise screamed in pain as Rea's teeth broke skin and tore into the muscles. Rea was growling, shaking her head, and it took four people to tear her off and subdue her. She thrashed on the ground, the blood on her face and shirt mixing with the red stripes on her white practice uniform.

As soon as it came, it was over. The pain was gone, she stopped struggling, and passed out.

"CALL 911," the coach said as he held a towel over Denise's mangled shoulder.

The team stood around, wondering what the hell just happened, as Jenny knelt by her friend and cried.

State Patrol Captain Mark Olson put the call logs from the previous night into the outbox before moving on to the next thing on his pile. The adoption of Treasure had pushed him to find a job with less danger and more predictable hours, and he had made Lieutenant six years ago and had been transferred to the Rochester patrol headquarters. When the Commander had retired last year, Mark was the choice to replace him.

They moved from Duluth to Rochester, home of the famous Mayo Clinic, and bought a walkout rambler in a quiet neighborhood. The weather was better, and Dawn was able to keep her license up by taking extra shifts at the clinic while Treasure was in school or at night. Their lives had been truly blessed, at least until this point and this phone call. His cellphone rang, it was Dawn's number. "Hi baby, what's going on?"

"TREASURE HAS BEEN ARRESTED," Dawn yelled as she tried to catch her breath.

"What? Where?"

"I'm going to the hospital now, she attacked a student and they say she's hurt too. You need to meet me there NOW."

Shit. "I'm on my way." He grabbed his hat and took his sidearm out of the drawer, sliding it into his holster. "Family emergency," he told the desk Sergeant as he ran out through the office. Jumping into his cruiser, he hit the lights and roared out onto Highway 52 towards the emergency room.

He parked in the law enforcement parking out front of the emergency room, next to the city police cruiser, and walked into the lobby. He could see Dawn on the far side of the office, sitting on a chair with her head in his hands, and he moved quickly to his side. "Where's Treasure," he asked.

"They won't let us see her yet," she said. Before he could ask, a door opened, and the Principal came out accompanied by an officer.

"What's going on, Bob?" Mark knew the officer well, they had trained together, and the look on his face said everything.

"She's under arrest for felony assault consummated by battery," Bob said.

Inside the examination room, a terrified Treasure was secured with heavy leather straps to an examination table while a doctor cleaned the scratches on her face and dressed the wounds on her fist. The officers had already taken pictures, not that there was any doubt as to what had happened.

When she had regained consciousness, just in time to see a bloody and beaten Denise being loaded onto a gurney, she had thrown up all over herself. The assistant coach wiped it off with a towel, since she couldn't move her arms with the handcuffs already on. Her teammates were looking at her with anger and disgust, and even her best friend looked at her with fear in her eyes. "Why?"

Jenny waited for an answer, and Rea didn't have one.

She couldn't remember doing anything.

The officer in the room watched her carefully to make sure she didn't lash out at the staff, but no one said anything to her that was not related to her injuries. She focused on the conversation in the hallway. Since she was twelve, her hearing had been better than anyone's, and that was a curse in her mind. The other students could go through the day, ignorant of the jabs and jokes at their expense, the cause of the sudden laughter a mystery to them. Rea heard every whispered conversation, even from across the room. A door was nothing.

"There was an incident on the soccer field between your daughter and another student. The Coach said she was pulled down from behind by her hair, and the two exchanged words. He thought it was over when Treasure attacked her viciously. She choked her, punched her a number of times in the face, then bit her shoulder."

"Bit her?" Mark sounded shocked.

"Rather badly, she was taken away in the first ambulance. She's in surgery right now."

"Oh Jesus," Dawn said.

"The coaches managed to separate the two, then Treasure blacked out. She was still out when the first officer arrived but woke up a minute later. She threw up and says she doesn't know what happened," the principal said.

"Doesn't know? Like she doesn't know why she did it?"

The officer picked it up. "No, she says she doesn't remember any of it. The last thing she remembers was standing up after she was pulled to the ground."

The doctor came out of the room, and everyone turned to her. "How is she?"

"She appears to be all right, but I have some concerns," she said. "She reported getting a sudden headache and memory loss, and she passed out followed by throwing up. I didn't see any other indicators of a head injury, but it's likely she had a concussion from hitting the ground. We are sending her for an MRI, to rule out that and other potential issues."

"Oh god, my baby," Dawn said.

"I'm also requesting a psychiatric consult," he said. "She has no history of violent outbursts? Anger issues?"

"No, she's been a great kid," Mark said. "This was the last thing I ever expected to hear."

"That is even more reason to have her talk to someone," he said.

"Can we see her?"

"Of course. She is under arrest, so the restraints have to stay in place and the officer won't leave the room, but you have a few minutes until the MRI is available."

He walked off, and Bob put his hand on Mark's shoulder. "Take a moment to collect yourselves, she's scared to death in there." Mark took a deep breath, took Dawn's hand in his and knocked.

Mark's heart fell as he opened the door to see his Treasure strapped to the table in a hospital gown, tears rolling down her face into the gauze bandage on the right side of her face. "Daddy," she cried.

He crossed the room and engulfed her in a hug, Dawn at his side. "It will be all right, honey. We're here."

"Daddy..." Her sobs were causing her to get hickups now. "They are looking at me like I'm a monster. I wouldn't do that! I don't even remember what happened!"

Dawn put her hand on the side of her head, her own tears flowing. "It's going to be all right, my Treasure. We'll get through this."

They comforted her until she was transferred to a gurney, her wrists restrained, and pushed out the door to Radiology. Mark held a sobbing Dawn to his side as the doors closed.

Their nightmare was just beginning.

Ch. 4

Treasure lay motionless in the big machine, her mind trying desperately to figure out how things had gone so wrong so quickly. The game played in her head over and over; the foul, the talking, the pain in her head, then nothing. Nothing until she woke up in handcuffs on the field.

"I'm going crazy," she thought to herself.

"You're not crazy, I'm with you," the voice said. She felt the sharp pain in her head and shook it from side to side as her eyes closed.

"Treasure, you need to stop moving, the scan doesn't work if you move," a voice said over the intercom. The pain subsided, and she stopped. The machine started to hum again, and she went back to her thoughts.

What happened wasn't her. She wouldn't do that, not what she said they did, but the taste of blood in her mouth and the looks of her teammates told her differently. The voice was the one who had told her to teach her respect, but this was too much. If she wouldn't do it, and the voice made her, maybe she really was going crazy.

She tried to relax as the machine did its work; the more she moved, the longer it would take. The doctors had to find out what was wrong with her and fix it!

It seemed like forever before she was moved out of the machine and wheeled to a room. She saw the words "Psychiatric Ward, Authorized Personnel Only" on the sign as they entered, and she was taken to a room with no windows and padding on the walls. A metal sink, a toilet and a bed were the only things in the room. The orderlies removed her from the gurney and sat her in the bed with her wrists attached to the rails. "What's going on," she asked timidly as they finished up.

"You're getting the help you need," a doctor in a white coat said from the doorway. "I'm Doctor Thompson, and I'd like to talk to you about what happened today." He was older, probably in his fifties, with stringy grey hair that reminded her of Einstein and thick glasses.

"Where are my parents?"

"They are with the other doctors right now. Mike, remove her restraints and wait outside please." Treasure picked up on his hesitation, these people were afraid of a fourteen-year old girl.

Of course, given what they said she did, maybe they were right to be afraid of her.

The man unbuckled the restraints and walked to the door. "I'll be watching," he said seriously, then closed the door. There was no chair, so the doctor sat at the end of the bed as she pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. The room must have been soundproofed, because Treasure could barely hear anything outside the room. Only their heartbeats and breathing could be heard, hers was rapid and she was sweating. "How is Denise?"

"The girl you attacked?" Rea nodded, looking down at her hands. "She's recovering from surgery. She will live, but she will always bear the scars."

Rea started to cry. She'd hurt someone bad, she had ruined her life over nothing. "I'm sorry, I didn't... I don't want to... God, I don't know what happened!"

"Why don't you tell me about the game," he said. And she did. She told him about the play, and how angry she was to be pulled down by the hair. How she thanked her for the goal and goaded her about being demoted to junior varsity because she couldn't stop her. How Denise told her she wasn't wanted. Then she told him about the voice in her head that told her to teach Denise some respect, and the pain that came with it. How she blacked out, and woke up horrified at what she had done.

"Have you heard this voice before?"

She nodded. "The first time was in September of last year. I was walking home, and there was a pain in my head; I fell to the sidewalk, screaming in pain. It told me to prepare, then it and the pain were gone." He wrote in his pad. "It was two months before it came again, then it started happening monthly. Since August, it's been happening once a week."

"What does it say?"

"It tells me not to listen when I hear other people say mean things about me. It tells me to be strong, to prepare. That I am better than them. This last time it told me I wasn't crazy, that she was with me."

"Last time? Before the attack?"

"No, during my MRI. I was trying to remember what happened, and I was telling myself if people looked at me like I was crazy, maybe I am. She told me I wasn't, but the pain was still there." She unloaded everything she had been keeping back from her parents and friends; all her insecurities, her anger at the comments she would hear, the rejection she still felt over how she was abandoned. When she was done talking, hours must have passed because the doctor had filled up his notebook.

There was a knock at the door, and the orderly came in with a tray. Chicken nuggets, barbecue sauce, fries and a milk. "Sorry Doc, but the kitchen is closing, and she hasn't eaten yet." Her stomach growled, making her realize just how hungry she was.