by Piper Dow
Kelly whirled on David. "Why? I could have calmed him down!" The doctor injected the second needle before Kelly could object. "What are you doing to him now?"
David shook his head. "Kelly, this is for his safety as much as everyone else's. Matt has panic attacks. What he just went through would be enough to put anyone over the edge, and we need to attend to safety, first."
"Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the room while we get him ready for transport." The doctor's manner was cool and professional.
Tears of frustration spilled down Kelly's cheeks and she scrubbed them away, grinding her teeth. A technician was already preparing to put an IV needle into the back of Matt's hand. She moved quickly and efficiently, her face a mask.
"Can I ride in the ambulance with him?" Kelly pleaded, allowing David to move her out of the way. She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. There was a high-pitched whine in her ears, and her head was suddenly floating, oddly weightless. She saw David reach for her, concern across his face, then knew no more.
Chapter forty-one
Kelly was camping. The people in the next site were being too loud. It was barely past dawn, and she hadn't slept well. Her sleeping bag must be over a tree root or something. She kept hitting her arm on something hard.
"It's okay, she's coming out of it."
Who was coming out of it? He didn't make any sense. Wait a minute—who was he? Why did he sound so close?
She opened her eyes, blinking against the piercing brightness. She wasn't camping, she was in a vehicle. She tried to sit up, but a strap across her chest held her down.
"You're in an ambulance. We need you to stay calm, okay? Do you think you can do that?" A man with a thick salt and pepper mustache and close-cropped hair leaned over her. He reached for her wrist and held on, taking her pulse.
"What happened?" Kelly's eyes swept around the cabin, taking in the cabinets mounted near the roof and the dark windows. She turned her head and saw Matt lying on a stretcher next to her. Memories flooded in—their escape, the emergency room, the doctor sedating Matt. She turned puzzled eyes back to the paramedic. "Why am I on a stretcher? Did they drug me, too?"
He released her wrist, placing her hand back on her belly and patting it. "No, you passed out in the hall. We thought it best to bring you like this, just in case."
Kelly trembled, her muscles spasming. The paramedic leaned over her, peering into her eyes as he swept a pen light past to test for contraction. "I want you to take some nice slow breaths, okay? That's right, slow and easy." He smiled easily down at her. "You're going to be safe now."
He clambered around Matt's stretcher to sit in the seat on the other side of the ambulance and began checking Matt's vital signs.
Kelly's eyes followed a IV line from where it was taped on the back of Matt's hand up to a bag of clear fluid hanging from a hook overhead. They must be keeping him sedated for the trip, to make sure he didn't wake up while they had him strapped down. Her eyes roamed the cabin slowly before falling on the paramedic again.
"Are you with the task force?"
He shot her a quick look before resuming his count. Returning Matt's wrist to the side of the stretcher, he jotted something down on a clipboard. "No."
Kelly thought he would leave it at that, but after making an adjustment to the IV drip rate he sat back in his seat and regarded her carefully.
"I don't work for the task force, but we do work along side them," he said, gauging her reaction.
Kelly let that sink in. "Are you a Shade, or a Light?" He had to be one, because he couldn't do this job as a Terat, right?
He gave a depreciating smile. "I'm a Light. My sister Dawn, she's a Shade. My dad was, too."
Kelly nodded. She thought of what Sam had told Dad about the girls she was caring for while their mother was in rehab. "I thought Shades don't tell anyone what they are? Like, even in their family? So how do you know about your dad and sister?"
The man gazed absently above Kelly, staring at the window. "They don't, really. I mean, I didn't figure it out until I was a teenager. My sister is messy, so at first it didn't seem so unusual finding her clothes in the woods near the house. But my parents got divorced, and my mother found an apartment uptown. It's a lot harder for Shades to pull off living uptown."
Kelly nodded, thinking. "Did your mother know? About them being Shades?"
He shook his head. "No. She still doesn't." He was quiet for a moment. "Some guys saw Dawn and attacked her. She ended up in the ER. My dad was talking to her and the doctors asked him to leave so they could do an exam. She had told him enough. He left the hospital and went after them."
Kelly's heart dropped to her stomach. "Terats?"
He shook his head. "No, Dawn doesn't think they were. Just common-variety garbage. But, Dawn was a daddy's girl, and they hurt her. He found them before anyone else did."
"I'm sorry." Kelly couldn't think of anything else to say.
He tore his eyes from the window and met her gaze. "Just remember—Shades aren't all like the monsters who did this to you, anymore than gene-typical people are all safe." He gave her half a smile. "I've got some paperwork to finish before we transfer you guys. We should be there in about 15 minutes. Let me know if you need anything, okay?"
He pulled a tablet from a duffel bag at his side and flipped its case open. Kelly remained quiet, watching him for a few minutes before resting her eyes on Matt's still motionless body.
Chapter forty-two
Matt's pulse pounded in his ears, his temples—his whole body thrummed with rage and frustration. They had drugged him, again! They wanted him to trust them, and then they stabbed him with another needle to drug him so they could get what they wanted.
He had a sudden image of the Hulk. In the comic, he would get so angry he couldn't control it and would turn huge and green and pound things into smithereens. Matt couldn't come up with the words to express his fury, but suddenly there was nobody he could identify with more than the Hulk.
He paced his room, fisting his hands. He had a whole room to himself, with a real bed and great big windows overlooking a garden. It was a nice enough room, one he would have been happy to use at a hotel for a night or so. He wasn't happy to have it now, though.
He bellowed in rage. Grabbing the chair, he swung it overhead and threw it at the window. It bounced off, just like it had the last two times he'd thrown it. "Let me out of here!" He screamed it at the ceiling, the walls, the stupid unbreakable windows. He screamed it until his throat was raw and hoarse, and he sank down on the floor with his back against the wall, curling his arms over his head.
"WHY WON'T YOU LET ME see Matt?" Kelly turned suspicious eyes on the doctor, keeping her arms firmly crossed. "No, I'm not doing any more blood tests until I see Matt."
"Kelly, there are privacy regulations we're required to uphold. We've been over this. Our protocol requires protective custody—"
Kelly cut her off. "Screw your protocol. This isn't about privacy— I'm not asking you to tell me about his health information, I'm asking you to let me see him. Matt and I came in here together, in the same ambulance. I don't need protection from him." She took a deep breath, trying to calm her racing heart, but the doctor's pressed lips and narrowed eyes made her furious. "I'm done. I signed your papers, I've let you run your tests, but you've done nothing for me. I want to see Matt!"
Dr. Martins frowned and crossed her own arms. "Kelly, the tests that the Morganzers conducted—"
"I know about their tests! I was there, remember?" She stepped away from the doctor and waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not participating anymore. I get to see Matt or I'm done."
She strode over to the windows and turned her back to the room. She pretended to gaze out at the garden as she focused her eyes on the faint reflection of the room in the window. She wouldn't put it past these people to jab her with a drug-filled syringe.
"You know, you're not any better than the Morganzers. You're actually worse! They nev
er pretended they were trying to keep us safe, they were upfront right from the beginning that they meant us harm." She spoke her venom-filled words to the window, but saw from the doctor's sudden stiffened posture that her barb had hit.
She saw the door close as the doctor left but didn't turn around. She rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes. She fought against the tears, swallowing a lump in her throat.
What was going on? Where was Matt—was he dead, and they just didn't want to tell her? Had he turned into a Shade and gotten stuck, unable to shift back, like Fred? What weren't they saying?
When they learned she would be in the hospital for a few days, Kelly's parents had stopped at home to gather come clothes and her laptop before driving to the facility. They had arrived shortly after the ambulance delivered Matt and Kelly and made sure she was settled. Kelly thought she would be able to see Matt in the morning, so she had let herself relax in her parents care for the moment.
When she woke in the morning, her doorknob wouldn't turn. She'd tried again, jiggling it frantically in case it was just stuck. No, she was locked in. Panic engulfed her, filling her ears with the sound of her racing pulse and her mouth with bile. She banged frantically on the door, sobbing with relief when Dr. Martins appeared. She spouted words like "protective custody" and "informed consent" and suggested Kelly shouldn't worry, she was safe. All day, Kelly's questions about Matt had been politely rebuffed.
Well, Kelly was done waiting. She spun from the window and strode to the door. She grabbed the knob and turned, anticipating the same resistance from being locked in she had found yesterday. To her surprise, it turned easily in her hand and she pulled the door open. She hesitated only briefly, her shock at being free causing a moment of indecision in how to proceed.
Stepping into the hallway, Kelly assessed her position. Her room was in the middle of a hallway lined with doors. To her left, her hall met another in a T intersection. To her right, the hallway turned a corner. She could see shadows moving as someone approached the corner and heard quiet voices coming down the hall. Kelly ducked back into her room and partially closed the door as she listened, eager for a clue on which direction to investigate.
"...thought it best to err on the side of abundant caution. I wasn't apprised on the lab values until this morning. We did release the door, but you can see from the report, the glucocorticoid receptor values show what would be considered increased sensitivity."
The voices had drawn closer. Kelly hesitated, then opened the door wide. She'd rather boldly push for answers than be caught eavesdropping. Dr. Martins and a man in a gray suit and speckled turquoise tie paused in the hall just outside her room.
Dr. Martins' eyes flicked to Kelly and back to the sheaf of papers she proffered to the man. "Ms. Griffin raised a valid point this morning that I believe we should consider, given that we know what stress can do to a body in transition."
Kelly's heart leapt. Her gaze darted between the two as she scrambled to figure out if this was good news or bad.
The man cleared his throat and raised his eyes from the page to meet Kelly's gaze. He moved the papers to his left hand and held out his right in greeting. "Ms. Griffin, I'm Dennis Stelart. I'm one of the administrators here. Dr. Martins has been filling me in on your situation."
Kelly hastily shook his extended hand. Her attention took in Dr. Martins' placid expression before returning to Mr. Stelart's face.
"She has briefed me on your experience with your sister's transformation, and your requests to see," he scanned the page in his hand, "Matthew." His eyes returned to her face and he continued. "There are some things you should know before we proceed. May we come in?"
Kelly stepped back into her room and waited for the others to follow. Her hands were sweating, and her lungs felt like she hadn't had a decent breath in days. Matt must still be alive, or they wouldn't be here, right? But their tones were so serious.
"Is Matt stuck in Shadeform? Is that what you're afraid to tell me?" Their confused expressions told her she was wrong. She wiped her hands on the sides of her hospital johnny.
"Kelly, you rightly pointed out to me this morning that you and Matthew both experienced the past week together, and in fact, came to us in the same ambulance. However, what you didn't share was the attack by the Shade." Dr. Martins' face still gave nothing away. "Matthew has not transitioned, and we still do not know for sure that he will. He has been unwilling to cooperate with us since he arrived." She lifted a hand to forestall Kelly's outburst.
"I know you don't agree with our methods, but we are completely within the law with regard to preventative detention. I know that you will agree with me that the public is better kept safe by our containment of potential Shades who have never been taught how to shift between forms." She paused, and added, "As are those Shades."
Kelly swallowed her retort. What would Matt do if he did suddenly shift in his tent and couldn't figure out how to shift back to human form? Sam had stayed in her coyote form for days before being able to shift back, and she had been surrounded by other Shades who could help her.
"You said he hasn't shifted. What if he isn't going to? How long do you plan to keep him locked up? It was over a month before my sister shifted her first time! You can't keep him locked up that long," she protested.
"Well, why don't we see if we can get him to cooperate with us, let us run some tests and see what his blood shows us, before we start worrying about what might come weeks from now," Mr. Stelart spread his hands out as though to indicate they had nothing to hide.
Kelly hesitated, trying to think. She hated the thought of Matt being detained. Her eyes drifted over Mr. Stelart's hands, still holding the papers, and she remembered the conversation she had interrupted when she opened her door.
"What values show increased sensitivity? You said you haven't run any tests on Matt's blood yet." Her chest tightened, making it hard to breathe again. "Are those my test results?"
WAS THAT SOMETHING?
Matt didn't move, wasn't going to let them know he was aware of them, but he listened harder. It sounded like someone was on the other side of the door. What were they going to try to do to him now? Curiosity finally got the better of him and he risked turning his face to the door. Kelly's face in the little window had him scrambling to his feet and racing to the door.
His heart raced, alight with hope. She had found him! He gripped the door handle and tried it again, but it remained unmovable. Kelly's lips were moving and Matt knew she must be saying something, but he couldn't make out her words. He shook his head and cupped his hand to his ear, showing her he couldn't hear her. Frustrated, he strode to the chair and hurled it at the window again to show her how the glass wouldn't break.
KELLY BOUNCED ON HER feet as Dr. Martins slid her pass card down the slot on the side of the electromagnetic reader on the wall next to Matt's door. As soon as she heard the click she wrenched the door handle and pushed the door open. Matt's arms wrapped around her in a bear hug that she fervently returned, heart racing.
She backed up, searching him for any injuries. She didn't see anything new, but that didn't mean anything.
"Are you okay?" She wiped her face with the back of her hand, her relief spilling down her cheeks again.
Matt nodded, shook his head, then reached for her again. She let him, feeling his desperation to the depth of her core. She led him over to sit on the edge of the unmade bed, unwilling to let go of his hand.
"How did you get them to let you in?" Matt's voice was raw and hoarse.
Kelly gave a short laugh. "I've been cooperating with them, but I said I'll only continue if they let me see you." She heaved a sigh, drinking in his face. She didn't want to tell him what she suspected, but he needed to know. "How's your leg, where the cat bit you?"
He shrugged. "Not as bad as I thought it would be. It itches, but that doctor said it's already healing. She said I'll probably only have a small scar."
Kelly's heart thudd
ed so loudly she was sure Matt must be able to hear it. She smiled, trying to keep her lips from trembling. She used the controls for the hospital bed to lift the head as high as it would go, buying time to get herself under control, then motioned for Matt to move around so they could both lean back and put their feet up.
"Matt, I never told you about my sister, did I?" He shook his head. She smiled, this time a wide smile fueled by warm memories. "Samantha's my best friend. She's a couple of years older than me. When we were little, she was always the one who wanted to be an airplane pilot, or a nurse, or a teacher. She taught me to write my name when I was three. She used to let me be play dolls with her, even when I broke her favorite doll by throwing her out the window reenacting a movie scene."
Kelly shifted a little on the bed so she could look fully at Matt. "Sam's strong, and filled with faith, and the most loving person you could ever meet. She's also a Shade."
Chapter forty-three
Kelly hung up the phone, a frown creasing her brow. Mom said she and Dad would be up to see Kelly before the weekend, which was great. But, was there something in her tone of voice that tugged at Kelly's subconscious? She tried to tease it out, but couldn't quite put her finger on it. Something was definitely going on, though, she was sure of it.
She walked absently down the hall and through the propped-open double doors, passing her new room and going straight to Matt's. She hadn't been able to convince them to move Matt to her ward because of the risk he might cause to the other patients if he turned, but they'd done the next best thing and moved her to the reinforced room next to his. He still wasn't permitted to roam the halls freely but they had agreed to unlock the door—with the stipulation that it would be closed if he showed signs of an imminent turn.
Kelly was pretty sure he was going to.
She knocked on the open door before walking in. Matt dropped the book he was reading onto his chest and scooted up on the bed to make room for her to sit down. He'd succeeded in breaking the chair, if not the window, in one of his fits of rage while locked in.