by Lexy Timms
“Listen,” Taylor said reasonably. “We won’t involve you, no one has to know.”
The old woman barked a quick laugh and looked around. They had certainly become the center of attention. Several women had stopped stirring what looked like laundry in a large pot over an open fire. A handful of men looked up, their eyes sharp, glittering.
It wouldn’t take much to incite a riot. Angelica swallowed hard and pressed ahead regardless. “The girl might be in danger.”
The old woman laughed. “No danger until you help! Then everyone in danger! So now you help again? Get everyone dead?”
There was an outburst of noise at that. Agitated murmuring. Discussion erupting in a half-dozen languages.
“Where is she?” Angelica begged with open hands, a plea that could be understood in any language.
The old woman sighed and straightened. She looked Angelica in her eyes and said, “Gone. Taken. They take all her people; she was last one.”
“Taken where?” Taylor asked, stepping forward, one hand on her shoulder as if to say: ‘She’s under my protection’ or maybe more primitively, ‘This is mine.’
Not that she minded. Tigers were possessive that way, and she was comfortable enough with who she was that she could find the thrill in the belonging to someone else without feeling like she was losing any of who she was as a person in the act of being his.
His mate.
She shook herself out of that particular line of thinking and focused on the matter at hand.
The woman only looked around and then shrugged. “I really not know. This time, I don’t. Just taken. Mostly they take female, kill male, but not always. Soldiers come in night. She gone.”
Angelica looked to Taylor, thinking of their earlier conversation. “Slavers?”
“No,” the woman said, interrupting with an impatient wave of her hand. “No slavers. Men break her, beat her, then wait and see. She get better. Now she gone.” She moved slowly into the tent behind her, sitting down on a cot, her back to them. “Go. I know nothing at all. Go!” She pulled her threadbare shawl around bony shoulders.
The frailty phenotype can be used as a marker indicating a critical threshold in decline of homeostatic reserve, or the redundancy of physiologic functions present in human systems used to overcome acute and chronic health insults...
“Listen, come to the clinic; you’ll be safer there.” Angelica reached for her shoulder, but the old woman slapped her hand and spewed words that could only be insults in any language. “I say go away. You deaf and you stupid? I dead now, because of you. You get the girl, me? I die. Now get away from me!”
“But...”
The old woman screamed and batted at her. “I know nothing! I don’t know! Go away! Leave me!”
Taylor grabbed Angelica and steered her out of the tent, away from the crowd which parted before them, a sea of faces showing anger and distrust.
“We can’t just leave her here!” Angelica cried, stumbling in Taylor’s wake, still trying to go back, to right this whole thing somehow.
“Yes, we can,” Taylor insisted, pulling her along and out of the camp proper. “And we will. She told us as much as she knew, even though it might cost her life to do so. We can’t help her, not without losing the girl and all her people, whoever they might be.”
“You think someone will really kill her?” Angelica had assumed the woman was being dramatic.
“She does,” he answered, his expression grim. “But she was still willing to talk.”
“If I put her in the clinic.”
“The girl, Charra, was in the clinic!” he shot back and stopped, drawing her around to face him. They were standing in the shade of a tree, alone, away from the people of the camp and from the hospital staff. Somehow, they’d wound up at the edge of the city, not far from the sanity of civilized life. “There is no place to put her, no place safe. We can only hope she’s wrong and that there isn’t a great conspiracy behind all of this.”
“But what if she’s right? What if they kill her, whoever they are?”
“Then we find out who they are. And we expose them and keep them from hurting anyone else.”
Angelica stared at a passing bus. The whole thing felt surreal, that they should be talking like this in this day and age. “How do we do that?” Her voice wavered as fear clutched at her throat, making it hard to breathe. The cost was too high. Even the loss of one life was too high.
“I have no idea,” Taylor admitted, his expression fierce. “But I’m not going to let that stop me.”
Chapter 8
“Well, for what it’s worth...” Angelica turned on the lights and the little apartment flickered to life. It was small, about the size of a standard hotel room but, she told him with a certain amount of delight, it had its own bathroom and, oddly, the shower was large.
He looked around, trying to get a sense of this place she called home.
There was a kitchenette tucked into a corner and room for two chairs, comfortable, overstuffed antiques from the ‘70s, shedding white fluffy padding from three or four open seams. There was a table that did duty for eating, studying, holding various things that should be kept off the floor that looked as though it was currently being used in each capacity. He reached out and picked up an empty flower pot before discovering the desiccated remains of some sort of a plant.
“It was a welcome gift when I arrived,” Angelica said with a sigh. “Never give a plant to a doctor; we’re never home long enough to water the damn thing.”
He set it back down again. “Mental note, don’t get your girl a puppy.” He smiled, trying to take away some of the tension that had been emanating from her since he’d arrived. He could feel it and hated that she wasn’t in her element. She should be. This place had style written all over it. Just that missing kid...
She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him again. “You’ve had a very long day and a longer trip. You probably haven’t even seen a bed in, what, 24 hours?”
“Something like that,” he agreed, though he’d been trying not to think about it. The few hours’ sleep he’d gotten on the plane over the Atlantic had hardly counted. He’d woken up with each bit of turbulence, positive that the flying heap that passed for an airplane was going down.
“So, tell me something, oh, great feline: are you tired or hungry? Which is more pressing?”
“Wait,” Taylor said, tangling fingers in her hair to tilt her head back that he might kiss her, “what happened to horny? Why is that off the list?”
“Because asking if you’re horny is like asking a dog if it likes raw steak. It’s a stupid question.” She grabbed his ass cheeks and squeezed. “But in the meantime, let’s talk about things that are actually optional and not necessary. You know, like food and rest.”
“I had a snack on the way in,” he said hesitantly, “but it wasn’t very good.”
“Local food?”
“Very.”
“You need to be careful around here,” Angelica cautioned and made a face. “The food isn’t always fresh out here.”
“Oh, this was fresh.”
Angelica looked at him a moment. He could see the moment it connected in the way her pupils contracted and her face scrunched up. “Ew.” She lifted one hand, scrubbing at her lips with the back of it. “And I kissed you. Ew.” He swatted her backside and she laughed. “All right, let’s see if we can find you something a bit different. Here’s an idea, what if we apply heat and cook the meat? What do you think?”
“I think you’re going to get the other side smacked in a moment.”
She smiled up at him and stuck out her tongue. “Save it for after,” she teased, and laughed as his eyebrow rose.
Damn, he loved her laugh.
She took the bag from him and dropped it on the bed. She took his hand next and left the apartment again, heading down a corridor to a flight of stairs going down, stopping at a door marked STAFF ONLY.
They entered a room with several
tables and a window to a kitchen. The kitchen was open on one side and people were serving themselves. These were staff members, janitorial, maintenance, soldiers. In this room the medical professionals were isolated from the rest. Most of them were nurses, though not all, and Angelica introduced him as they wended their way to the window.
“Some of the staff eat out at the mess hall with the refugees. Mostly the locals and a few diehard types who insist that they refuse to eat better than the people they’re treating. It’s absolute foolishness; the food is bad everywhere, though we get more here and need it. We’re working long, hard hours and need to keep our strength up if we’re going to do our jobs,” Angelica explained as she ushered him toward the line that snaked away from the window.
“Melinda,” Angelica called to a middle-aged woman with short mousy brown hair who was drowsing over her stew at a nearby table. “Melinda, this is Taylor, my fiancé.”
“How do you do?” The woman smiled. It was a tired smile, as though she was still half asleep, but it was genuine all the same. Melinda’s eyes were half shut and the bags under her eyes obvious.
“A pleasure, Doctor.” Taylor said, returning the handshake. “Angelica has spoken highly of you.”
“Really?” Melinda seemed to smile a touch brighter, shaking off her stupor and sitting straighter. “Well, that’s very flattering.” She turned to Angelica and placed a hand on her arm. “Thank you.”
“You’ve been here a while, is that right?” Taylor was perhaps being a little too blunt, pressing for information too soon after the introductions, but after the day he’d had maybe he could be forgiven the impatience. Besides, it fit well with his reporter cover.
“Oh, my.” She thought for a moment. “I suppose it depends on how you define ‘a while’, but four years is certainly a brief time in some respects and an eternity in others.” Her eyes took on a sad cast, as though she carried the burdens of the entire refugee camp on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, and he genuinely meant the apology. “I didn’t mean to touch on a topic that was tender.”
“Oh, no.” She snorted, and waved her hands as if to erase the suggestion. “I do the bulk of the surgical work here and it gets to be a bit of a blur. It’s usually the same problems all the time, lots of injuries and attacks from other people who have been crammed into small living space and lost everything. One’s heart goes out to them, but...” She took a deep breath, “you do as much as you can with what you have and pray it’s enough at the end of the day.” She shook her head. “And what is it that you do, Mr...”
“Mann, Taylor Mann.” He held out a hand for her to shake which she took, pressing cold fingers to his only briefly. “I’m a reporter for the Boston Globe by trade, but I’m here on personal business. I happened to be in the neighborhood.”
Melinda laughed and drew back her hand, letting it linger on Taylor’s forearm. “In the neighborhood,” she repeated. “That’s funny. Listen, though, you should really write something about this place.” She waved her hands again. It was like they were trapped on the ends of her arms and were forever trying to break free of their confinement by flapping around. “A little publicity might get some international attention down here and maybe we can get some actual help for these refugees.”
“Well, I can write it,” Taylor said dubiously, “but I can’t guarantee my editor will print it. There’s a considerable bias here.” He reached over and took Angelica’s hand and kissed it.
“Oh, how cavalier!” Melinda actually squealed like a little girl. “I love it! Doctor, hold on to this one with both hands; he’s a gem.” She got up and patted them both on the shoulder. “Or I’ll take him.” She laughed again and waved, taking her tray and heading out of the lunchroom, pausing only to bus the dirty dishes at the station near the door.
Taylor looked at Angelica, his face a study in confusion.
“I should have warned you...” Angelica murmured.
“Yeah,” Taylor agreed, “that would have been nice.”
“But then I would have had to miss the expression on your face.”
Taylor showed her another expression and she bit her lower lip and went to the window of the kitchen, the rest of the line having already moved through. Taylor was looking for a menu or list of sorts, but a plate piled with potatoes and gravy and meat was dropped down on the sill in front of Angelica. She picked it up without a word, the person who delivered it long gone. Taylor took his place at the window and his own plate landed hard enough to splatter gravy in his direction. He jumped back to avoid being drenched and bumped into someone behind him.
Sometimes he truly did feel much too large for this world.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” he said, turning around to make sure he hadn’t inadvertently squashed a hobbit or something.
“No, no, my fault entirely!” Not quite a hobbit but not far off, a balding, heavyset man with thick glasses jumped back out of the way and then laughed awkwardly when he realized who Taylor was with. He adjusted his glasses before holding out his hand. “I should introduce myself; in fact, I came here for that express purpose. That is, to introduce myself. I mean why I was standing here just now, not why I came to Africa. I’m Tony Webb. Dr. Tony Webb, M.D.” He stuck out his hand and Taylor took it in his, wondering if a Vulcan salute might be more appropriate.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Doctor,” Taylor said, blinking a little and wondering at just how many strange characters were doctors out here.
Or maybe that was a prerequisite for wanting to work in a medical clinic halfway around the world from home.
“Oh, no,” Tony insisted. “No, Angelica has said wonderful things about you and anyone who can turn the head of someone as pretty and smart as she is has got to be someone special. Not that you aren’t. I mean that you are, because you did.”
“What’s your specialty, Doctor?” Taylor interrupted before the doctor found a way to put the other foot in his mouth with the first one.
“Oh, I uh... I study infections and tropical diseases and that sort of thing. This is kind of the best place in the world for jungle diseases because, well, you know... it’s an actual jungle and there’s a lot of it about. Disease that is, not jungle. Although there is a lot of jungle around, too, but that wasn’t really what I meant.” Dr. Webb blinked and licked his lips, as though he only just discovered he’d been talking.
Taylor shot a glance at Angelica and raised an eyebrow.
“I heard that you got called into Manchester’s office,” Dr. Webb said suddenly to Angelica. “Don’t worry, we all get called in once in a while. He tends to forget this a volunteer organization and we can leave anytime we want to. And I’ll have you know, he makes us want to on a regular basis. Melinda and me, that is, not the nurses, although it could be the nurses, too. I don’t really know, I don’t talk to them. Not that there’s anything wrong with talking to nurses. I do talk to them in a professional manner, I just don’t know them off work, I mean not to talk to—”
“Why don’t you?” Taylor interrupted.
“Talk to nurses?” Tony blinked. “I don’t...I don’t know...I don’t...”
“No, I mean why don’t you leave if Dr. Manchester is so difficult to work with?”
“Well,” Tony said, stroking his coat nervously and puffing his cheeks as he thought, “where else am I going to be able to study such wonders as I have here?”
“Wonders?”
“Yes.” He licked his lips and looked between Taylor and Angelica. “You might not think that infections and jungle diseases are wonderful, but I can assure you that I am studying things that—” He stopped and blinked. “I rather like my field of study,” he said finally.
“I meant no offense, Doctor. I know how aggravating it can be to have to work for someone who doesn’t see eye to eye with your vision.”
“Yes. It can be. Yes. But worth it. Worth it. Yes. Excuse me.” He nodded to Angelica. “Don’t take it personally, my dear, it’s jus
t his way, he’s just...” Tony swallowed, as though he literally swallowed words yet unspoken. Without another word leaving his lips, without pleasantries of any kind, he turned and strode out of the lunch room.
“Ok, that I couldn’t have warned you about. I have never seen the man like that before.”
Taylor looked after him, noting the man’s odd gait, like he was being chased. “Think he could have gotten into the medicine cabinet?”
“No.” Angelica seemed a little distracted as she led Taylor to an empty table. When she looked up at him her eyes reflected her confusion. “He’s always been a little chatty, but not like that.”
“He’s a bit... peculiar, then?” Taylor sat down and stared at his plate. “What am I eating?”
“Glop on powdered mashed potatoes.”
“I take it you don’t have a nutritionist on-site?”
“We did. I think she imploded.”
Truthfully, the food wasn’t as bad as most school lunches and only a little worse than Marine Corps survival rations. It was hot, and filling and Taylor played the part of the vacationing reporter through six more introductions. Nurses, an anesthesiologist, an x-ray tech, and a rather disarming phlebotomist.
After lunch, Angelica confessed to showing him off to the people she worked with. “You’re cute!” she insisted as they climbed the stairs. “Of course I’m going to show you off; I want everyone to see what a catch I snagged.”
“What you ‘snagged’?” he asked as they left the stairs and entered the hallway to her apartment.
“Hell yeah,” she said mischievously as she unlocked her door. “I dug the trap myself. Caught me a tiger. OW!” She spun around. “Did you really just spank me?” She was on the verge of outrage and giggling.
Taylor loved that look on her and tried to maintain a straight face. He failed. “No,” he said. “That was a drive-by spanking; I don’t know who that was, but it wasn’t me.”
She stuck out her tongue and opened the door. “HEY!”