by Kallysten
The nurse at the admission desk tried to insist they fill in the obligatory paperwork, but Eli gave her an icy look and found a room for Calden himself.
Within minutes, Samford was coming down to the ER from her office upstairs. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw Calden was her patient, but she recovered quickly and listened to Eli’s description of Calden’s symptoms.
“He was complaining about a headache yesterday,” she said thoughtfully as she took Calden’s vitals. “I thought he was trying to get out of a routine appendectomy. You know how he is. But maybe it was more than that.”
Calden’s eyes were open, and he appeared to be listening, but he didn’t react in the slightest to Samford’s quiet words; Eli’s worry climbed higher.
“What do you think?” Eli asked, although he knew it was much too early for her to have a definite diagnosis.
Samford refused to say what she had in mind. Instead, with a gentle smile, she took Eli’s good arm and guided him out of the room, relegating him to the waiting room. She’d have let a colleague stay if he hadn’t known their patient, but he was there as Calden’s friend, so she kicked him out with a reminder that he’d need family permission to get access to records. Still, she couldn’t hide from him what kind of tests she was performing. MRI. CT scan. Lumbar puncture. She suspected encephalitis, Eli realized with a pang.
She was only following protocol—Eli knew that and he would have done the same in her place—but he still felt absolutely no remorse in giving a call to the one person who could cut through the red tape with a wave of her hand.
“This is Eli Wright. Calden’s in the hospital,” he said when Lana picked up the call. He hadn’t called Calden’s mother in a couple of years, not since his overdose, but he’d kept her number. It could always be useful to have a direct line to the person basically in charge of running the city. “I’m guessing encephalitis, but I’m not his doctor and don’t technically have a right to see his records because I’m not family.” He spit the word as though it tasted foul. After all this time, he and Calden were as good as family.
“Encephalitis,” she said after a brief silence. “That’s… serious, isn’t it?”
“It can be when it’s not treated quickly enough. I’m not sure how long he sat on his sofa with that headache. He might still be there if I hadn’t come by.”
He didn’t add the last of it, the part that made the acid in his stomach roil and burn his throat. He might have been in the hospital faster if I hadn’t been too annoyed to think like a proper doctor.
“Are you coming in?” he said instead.
“I can’t right now. I’m in the middle of a strategy meeting. But I’ll send someone to sort things out.”
Seventeen minutes later, a soldier breezed in, clad in his full parade uniform. Eli heard him demand to talk to the person in charge of Calden Hayes. When Samford asked him how she could help, he demanded that she accompany him to Eli’s direct supervisor. Eli had long since given up on being surprised at the way Lana and her people operated.
Whatever the soldier had to say didn’t take long. Five minutes later, he was marching back through the same corridor again. He paused briefly by Eli and recited, “You’re in charge of medical decisions regarding Doctor Hayes until General Hayes is able to come here herself. That should be tomorrow morning, unless the demon attack anticipated for tonight extends beyond sunrise. She wants you to call and leave a message with her secretary if anything changes. Not her private line, but her secretary.”
He handed Eli a card with a number and left without another word.
Moments later, Samford returned and gave directions for Calden to be transferred to a different room. He was asleep, or more probably sedated, and much too pale against the starched sheets. When Eli followed, no one stopped him, and when he asked for an update, he actually received answers. Samford was still waiting for final results to come back, although Calden had been given a first dose of medication. Waiting too long could prove critical. It was as Eli had supposed, but it felt different to know rather than guess.
He sat in Calden’s room, rewinding the afternoon in his mind, playing the ‘what if’ game. It wouldn’t help anything, of course, but he had to wonder. What if he hadn’t waited so long at the café? What if he had simply left when it had become clear Calden wouldn’t show up, rather than actually having lunch by himself in spite of Lola’s pointed glares every time she passed by his table? What if he hadn’t let his annoyance blind him and had realized sooner that this might be more serious than a simple headache?
Logically, he knew he’d acted as fast as he could in the circumstances. But this wasn’t a logical situation, this wasn’t a patient he could look at neutrally. This was Calden.
When his phone rang, he felt a stab of guilt that he’d forgotten to turn it off, despite the policy he was in charge of enforcing. At first he thought it had to be Lana, but when he saw it was Bryce, he slipped out to the waiting room to take the call.
“Where are you?” Bryce asked as soon as he picked up. “Our appointment is in ten minutes.”
Shit.
Covering his face with one hand, Eli braced himself for the fight he knew was coming.
“Love, I’m sorry, I won’t be able to make it. I’m at the hospital.” He paused, and his voice was a little quieter when he said, “Calden is ill.”
Absolute silence answered him.
“We’re still waiting for the tests to come back,” he said, “but we’re pretty sure it’s encephalitis.”
“We?” Bryce said coolly. “Who’s we? Surely you’re not his doctor.”
“No, but—”
“Then let his doctors do their job. I’m already there. I’ll tell her you’ll only be a little late for the appointment.”
Eli couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less at that moment than go talk about the state of his seven-month-old marriage to a soft-spoken therapist at least ten years younger than he was and who, he suspected, had never been in a long-term relationship herself.
“I can’t,” he said, his voice firming up as he clenched his fist at his side. “We’ll have to reschedule.”
“Eli—”
“He could die, okay? Or he could get brain damage.” He knew which of these two outcomes Calden would think was worse.
“You watched him die once,” Bryce snapped. “Wasn’t that enough?”
Eli sucked in a breath and resolutely kept his eyes open. He didn’t need to watch Calden flatline on a hospital bed behind his eyelids yet again, not when Calden was in a hospital bed right now.
“I’m sorry,” Bryce said after a few seconds and even sounded like he meant it. “But honestly, why does it have to be you? It’s always you, Eli. That’s well beyond the call of duty of a friend or hospital coordinator.”
Eli knew he’d always gone above and beyond for Calden. It had never bothered him. Not even after Bryce had started pointing it out.
“His mother’s busy, and there’s no one else. I’ll give you a call in the morning. Love you.”
“Love you,” Bryce repeated. The words felt empty, recited by rote. He ended the call.
Eli turned off the phone completely before returning to Calden’s room. He was surprised to find him awake, not so surprised that he was drowsy and disorientated.
“Eli. I wanna go home. I don’t like hospitals.”
“I know,” Eli said with a slight smile, helping the nurse to get him to lie down again. “We’ll get you home as soon as you’re better, I promise. But for now you need to stay here. All right?”
“But what if there’s a demon attack?” Calden’s eyes burned, feverish. “What if I’m needed in surgery?”
“Well, you’re already in the hospital, aren’t you?” Eli played along in a soothing voice, patting his hand. “If need be, we’ll get you to the OR in no time. Until then…”
But Calden’s eyes were closed again. Eli sat down and got ready for what promised to be a long night.
November 14th
Calden closes his eyes tightly, but it doesn’t help. He has a feeling nothing can help at this point. Not on day three.
Nothing but sleep, and sleep is the last thing he wants right now.
He’s been awake for sixty-eight hours. That’s still far from the ninety-six hours that Eli decided was his limit. And even further from the nine days his diary says is his record. A hundred hours more. So much he could do in a hundred hours…
But according to Eli, that nine-day stretch was at the cost of a full blown paranoia–slash–psychosis episode caused by hallucinations he refused to describe. Calden doesn’t remember those hallucinations—obviously—but he has a fairly good idea what they were like. Probably the same thing he’s seeing and hearing now.
“Just kill yourself, already. And do it for real this time.”
Shaking his head, he opens his eyes again and pulls out his phone. He sent Eli home to get some rest four hours ago, but now he wishes he hadn’t insisted, wishes there’d been free beds somewhere in the hospital. It seemed like the best thing to do at the time. Eli was falling asleep on his feet, and another night in a chair or on the floor in his office would only have made his arm worse. He never complained about it, but Calden could see it in every movement he made, in the tightness at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Eli being in pain is not conducive to Calden doing his best work, so he argued and pleaded, and after wringing a promise out of Calden, Eli finally relented.
And now, after getting too little sleep, he’s going to cross the city again in the middle of the night while an attack is underway to come back to Calden.
Gritting his teeth, Calden fulfills his promise and types a single word. Hallucinations. And continues to ignore Riley.
It’s only seconds before Eli’s answer comes in. On my way.
Annoyed with himself, his body, his brain, the situation, the demons, the entire world, Calden pockets his phone and rakes the fingers of both his hands through his hair.
“Still at your beck and call, then? Poor Eli. Poor, poor Eli. You’re the one who can’t remember, but he’s reliving the same thing over and over right along with you. How long until he tires of it?”
“He won’t,” Calden snaps, remembering the words on Eli’s chest. Marker rather than tattoo, and Eli explained why, but what if there was another reason for the lack of permanence, what if—
Riley laughs, her phantom steps hitting the floor what feels like inches away. Calden could swear he can smell her perfume, that blend of lilac and roses she liked so much. If anything, it confirms what he already knows. She’s not there. She can’t be. She ran out of that favorite perfume long before she died.
“Are you sure?” she asks in her singsong voice, the one she always used to tease Calden, but it was never as cruel as this. “Really, really sure? Do you have all the information to predict what he will or will not do?”
Calden resolutely keeps his back to her and glares at the images in front of him, as though by looking harder he’ll be able to treat the patient better.
“He won’t,” he repeats more quietly, absently stroking his chest with two fingers.
Behind him, the feet of a chair scrape against the floor, and Caroline wakes up.
“Huh? What? Did you—”
“No, I didn’t say anything,” Calden interrupted. “Why don’t you just go home already? Your snoring is irritating. You’re of no use to anyone if you can’t keep up.”
“Tss tss. She wasn’t snoring. Don’t tell me you’re hallucinating her, too, Calden. So much for our special bond.”
“I wasn’t snoring,” Caroline echoes.
Her chair scrapes the floor again. When she stands, her back cracks audibly. It makes Calden’s own back twinge in sympathy. He’d like to sit, to lie down, but he’s afraid if he does either he’ll be asleep in moments. With heavy steps, Caroline comes to stand by Calden, her arms crossed over her chest. She’s in scrubs, and the pale green does little for her complexion.
“What do we have?” she asks, yawning, as she looks at the images pinned to the wall.
“You tell me,” Calden demands. “What do you see? Tell me like I have no idea what’s going on.”
Caroline turns to frown at him, her mouth already opening for an altogether predictable question. Damn, Calden walked straight into that one. He’s just so damn tired. Riley laughs again behind them.
“I’m fine,” he says gruffly. “I wasn’t the one napping. And I’m not the one who’ll have to drill into this poor guy’s head again and try to save what’s left of his brain.”
Frustrated, he turns his back to the images. He could do this. If he was well rested, if the demon attack hadn’t started three days ago, if casualties hadn’t been streaming in ever since, overwhelming the hospital, requiring every surgeon to put in extra hours, including Calden himself, he could have opened that soldier’s cranium, found whatever the surgeon who operated on him six hours ago missed, and in a few months the poor idiot would have been ready to go back to the battlefront and try to get himself killed properly.
But Calden is tired. Too tired. And admitting it is killing him.
Before he can walk away, Caroline rests a hand, heavily wrinkled but perfectly steady, on his arm.
“So… You’re not going to assist?” she asks quietly.
Assist. That’s what they call it when Calden has been awake too long to be trusted with a medical instrument anymore. So he just stands there, right by the actual surgeon, and gives advice the surgeon tries not to resent him for because they all know he’s the best in the hospital, even now.
It’s all Calden can do not to jerk himself free.
“Eli’s on his way,” he says sharply in guise of answer. “I’m rather certain he’ll insist I need to go home. So if it’s all the same for you, I’d rather talk about how many holes you’ll have to drill to save that guy than discuss my hallucinations.”
Damn it! He didn’t mean to say that. It’s a rule in the diary, at the top of the page devoted to dealing with anyone at the hospital: Never, ever mention hallucinations. They will send you home faster than you can claim you were joking.
Not that anyone would believe he can joke about that particular topic. Or maybe Eli; he knows Calden well enough to appreciate his jokes, even when they’re terrible.
“Oh, come on, Calden. You know what a slip like that means. There’s no shame in admitting you’re exhausted. It won’t kill you to sleep for just a minute, will it? Although you know I wouldn’t mind if you did kill yourself. I’ve been waiting all this time for you to join me. We were supposed to always be together, remember? You’re not going to break your promise again, are you? You already fucked me over once. Twice would be a bit much.”
Caroline’s hand falls away from his arm, and Calden doesn’t know whether to be relieved or irritated. That point of contact was unwanted, but it was also something solid, something real, something to cling to. He braces himself for Caroline’s rebuke, already wondering whether he should wait for Eli in here or outside.
But rather than asking him to leave the staff room, Caroline asks, “What did you mean, how many? The hematoma seems superficial. What am I missing?”
Calden’s first instinct is to scoff and say she must have heard wrong. But as he replays his own words, he realizes that he did say ‘how many holes’ even though the images show nothing beyond the blood pooled beneath the skull. He turns back to the images, looking intently. Is he missing something?
“Slow,” Riley cackles in the corner of the room. “So slow. It’s taking you ages to figure it out when it’s all right there. Think of all the time you wasted. That kid could die on the operating table because of the time you wasted. One more, Calden. Just like me. And what would Eli say, then? How disappointed would he be if you weren’t quite the genius you’re supposed to be? Maybe he wouldn’t want you in his bed anymore. Not that you’ve been in it much so far, have you?
Do you think he’ll let himself touch you tonight, or will he insist you must sleep as soon as possible? Poor Eli, jerking off in the shower again, and you pretending you don’t know what—”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Calden’s fists tightens in his hair until pain becomes a distraction, drowning out that familiar, heartbreaking voice as it continues spitting out every last fear lurking at the back of Calden’s mind. He vaguely hears Caroline saying his name in a tone filled with concern, but Calden blocks that too, focusing on the images in front of him.
And then he sees it.
“Oh!”
It’s right there and glaringly obvious. If he wasn’t so tired, he’d have seen it ages ago. When he turns to Caroline, he almost wants to yell at her. Her brain is intact, and she’s been getting at least some sleep, if not entirely as much as she’d like. What’s her excuse for not seeing the problem?
He doesn’t yell, but his voice grows taut as he taps the images pinned to the light box and points out the barely visible division. It’s not one large pool of blood pressing on their patient’s brain; it’s three smaller ones that appear to be joined on the images but that still need to be drained separately.
“And soon,” Calden says, already picking up his coat off the back of a chair. “You can’t wait much longer.”
He steps toward the door, but Caroline stops him with a word.
“Calden.”
Trying to hide just how tired he is, Calden glances back at her.
“We appreciate that you still work with us,” Caroline says, sounding sad. “We should say it more often. I should say it more often. Your father, bless his soul, would have been proud of—”
“Even if you said it every day,” Calden cuts in, “it still wouldn’t be any different to me.”