“What happened?” she asked, clicking the computer mouse but staring at them rather than the screen.
A chair patterned in ugly blue sat before the counter and Jorick carefully deposited Katelina in it, mindful of her whimper as she was jostled. He looked at the woman and muttered so that his teeth stayed hidden, “She was attacked by something, a dog or a wolf maybe - I saw it from a distance, and when I got there it ran off.” He turned to Katelina and opened the coat enough to reveal the mess that had been her shoulder. “It tore her up before I got there.”
“It sure did,” the woman agreed, sucking her teeth. “All right,” she placed her fingers on the keyboard. “I just need a little information first.”
Katelina sagged against the chair as exhaustion washed over her. She forced her mouth to give her name, address and social security number. The woman’s eyebrows shot up at the distance between the hospital and her home address, but Jorick quickly explained that they were on vacation. The woman accepted it, though she didn’t look like she believed it. Jorick had to help Katelina sign the paperwork granting them permission to treat her. He looked decidedly impatient with the questions and demands for information. His fingers tapped rhythmically on the counter and his brows drew closer and closer together. He looked to be on the point of saying something when an attendant appeared with a wheelchair. Jorick picked her up carefully and set her in the chair, following as the attendant wheeled her back to a room.
The attendant helped her onto a hard, cold bed. He promised someone would be in soon, and disappeared. Katelina looked at Jorick, worry in her eyes, but he offered her a tight, reassuring smile. She opened her mouth to speak, but the nurse came in to take her vitals and get the story of what had supposedly happened once again.
“If you’ll remove your coat,” she said cheerfully as she got the blood pressure cuff ready.
Katelina cleared her throat painfully. This was one of the moments she’d been dreading. “I can’t.”
The nurse raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean, hon?”
Her cheeks turned pink and she stared at her naked legs sticking out from beneath the dark coat. “I can’t,” she repeated. “I – I don’t have any clothes on under it.”
The nurse’s eyebrows shot up higher and she glanced sharply to Jorick who only shrugged. “I see. Then let’s get you into a gown.” She looked at Jorick again. “You are?”
“Her boyfriend,” he said simply. “I’m staying.”
The nurse looked at Katelina and she nodded numbly in agreement, though she wasn’t sure he was her actual boyfriend. Still, she supposed it was easier than trying to explain the truth.
Without asking any more questions, the nurse got a pink printed gown from a cupboard and laid it on the bed. “Put this on and I’ll be back.”
When she disappeared Jorick moved to the side of the bed and wordlessly helped her out of the bulky coat and into the gown. He gathered the coat up and stood awkwardly next to the bed, his eyes on the door.
“They’re suspicious,” she murmured. She lay back on the pillow and stared at the television bolted to the wall.
“It’s fine,” Jorick said softly and patted her arm. The nurse reentered and gave Jorick a sharp look as she tightened the blood pressure cuff around Katelina’s arm and clipped the oxygen monitor to her finger. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” she asked Katelina pointedly.
She struggled through a sketchy story about being attacked by some kind of big animal and Jorick saving her. As she finished, the nurse gazed at her with narrowed eyes. “And how did you get the black eye?”
Katelina was shocked into silence. She’d forgotten about the condition of her face. Oddly enough, none of it really hurt, though she didn’t have time to figure out why. “I, um, I fell down the stairs the other day,” she said lamely.
“And what happened to your neck, here?” the woman asked, pointing to the mark Jorick had left.
Panic blossomed in Katelina’s chest and she looked to Jorick for help, but he remained stonily silent. “Oh, that. Um… it’s um…” she swallowed hard. “I mean I was at a party….”
“Are you on drugs?” the nurse asked coldly.
“No, no,” Katelina said quickly. “It’s . . . just a little joke. We all got one, to look like, um, like vampire bites. It’s almost Halloween,” she added as an afterthought. “It was a Halloween party.”
The nurse clicked her tongue. “And this?” she poked the two small scabs that were left from Jesslyn’s bite. “An older joke maybe?”
Katelina stared at her feet, sick inside. She couldn’t think of anything to say except that Torina and Oren had been right. This was a bad idea.
“Is this necessary?” Jorick asked, breaking his silence.
“Excuse me?” the nurse looked up at him sharply.
“She isn’t here to have that treated so it’s none of your business,” he said firmly. “She’s told you what happened to her shoulder.”
The nurse gave him a cold look and scribbled something on her clipboard before she left. Katelina watched her go, relieved that the cross examination had ceased.
When he was sure she was really gone, he walked to the TV and flipped the channels until he found something watchable, then he pulled the wheeled stool next to the bed and sat down. He heaped the coat in his lap and gently stroked her hair as they watched a cartoon about a claymation koala bear and his friends. Katelina stared at it absently. After everything that had happened, the bright colors and cheerful voices seemed somehow macabre; reminders of a world she no longer believed existed. When she closed her eyes all she saw was Claudius’ twisted face looming above her, snarling fangs gleaming to a soundtrack of Troy’s crude laughter.
Tears pricked her eyes, but then the strange calm descended again. She glanced at Jorick, but he seemed engrossed in the television show.
They didn’t get to watch very much of it before a tall, thin man dressed in blue came in and drew her blood. He didn’t make any comments other than those absolutely necessary and then left again. He’d been gone for only a moment when the doctor came in, looking grim and suspicious. Jorick gave up the stool and moved along the wall, watching as the doctor poked and prodded at her. He asked no questions other than for her to recount the story about the dog. He listened to her heart and her breathing and examined her shoulder. When he’d finished he nodded to himself. “It looks like a dog, all right, but a big one.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ll need some blood. You’re also badly dehydrated. I’m going to sew this up and have them give you an IV.” He gazed at her levelly. “You’re lucky. Although it looks bad, it’s mainly surface damage. None of the muscles were affected very badly. It’s going to be a scar, but it shouldn’t impede your arm movement any.” He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “You’ve sustained a good deal of bruises and a lump on your head. You said you fell down the stairs?”
She nodded her head and he took a small light from his pocket and shone it in her eyes. “You don’t have a concussion,” he announced as he pocketed it again and peeled off his gloves. “They’ll be in to hook you up and I’ll be back to sew that up.”
He left and she looked at Jorick again, her eyes wide. His gaze was reassuring, though she suspected he was just as nervous as she was. He had a lot more to lose than she did if something happened.
The lab guy returned and did her IV, again saying almost nothing. Then she and Jorick were left alone in silence. They watched the television while the bags ran dry. The doctor returned with a different nurse and gave her a tetanus shot before he numbed her shoulder and stitched it up. She squeezed Jorick’s hand tightly and swore to herself that despite the Lidocain she could still feel the needle slipping through her skin. Even so it wasn’t as terrible as she thought it would be.
When the doctor finished the stitches, he cleaned the scrapes on her arms and face with alcohol pads and took a moment to examine the two different marks she bore. He clicked his tongue but made no
comment. “I’ll write you a prescription for some pain pills and some antibiotics. It’s not infected, but better to be on the safe side.” He peeled off his gloves and threw them in the biohazard bin as he glanced at Jorick. “Could I have a word with you?”
Katelina stiffened, but Jorick only nodded calmly. He paused next to the bed, brushed a kiss over her forehead, and murmured, “I’ll be right back.”
The door had barely shut when the nurse was at her side; a short, pudgy woman with kind eyes and short hair. She leaned close and asked softly, “Do you need some help honey?”
Katelina blinked at her stupidly. “With what?”
The older woman looked at her sympathetically and laid a hand on her arm. “Getting away from him.”
“What?”
“It's all right,” the nurse said gently. “You don't have to be ashamed, honey. It's not your fault what he's done, it's his fault.”
“What who’s done? Jorick?” The woman nodded and then, in a rush, Katelina realized what she meant. “He didn’t do anything.” She’d been so worried about them guessing the truth that she hadn’t thought they’d come up with an idea like domestic abuse. Strangely, it was almost a relief to have the woman asking her about something as common place and mundane as that. She suddenly realized how strange her world had become, when she considered domestic abuse mundane. “It’s nothing like that.”
“It never is, is it?” the nurse asked. Her eyes attempted to penetrate Katelina’s mind but failed. “We can help you, if you want us to. There are ways.”
“No, seriously it isn't – it wasn't him.” She shook her head and wondered what would happen if they tried to arrest Jorick.
“You fell down the stairs?” The nurse looked disbelievingly at her. “And a dog attacked you? And you were at a party and now have two sets of puncture marks?”
Katelina nodded dumbly, panicking inside. For one crazed moment she was tempted to break into maniacal laughter and tell them the truth, but she was pretty sure that they’d send her to a mental institution if she did.
The nurse shook her head, increasing the pressure on her arm. “Let us help you. We can get you free from him and send you home.”
“Send me home?” Katelina asked, catching her breath.
The woman looked her in the eyes. “Honey, you’re listed as a missing person, as a probable kidnapping – ”
Katelina’s mouth dropped open and her eyes bulged. “Kidnapping? I’m not kidnapped!”
“You can tell that to the police,” she said crisply. “We can help you, but you have to let us. We can’t make you accept help – ”
“Police?”
The nurse gave her a pitying look. “Of course. We called them after you were checked in. They’re talking with him right now and – ”
Katelina fought panic and fury. “I don’t need any help! I‘m not kidnapped! And I don’t need anyone calling the police! I’m an adult, I can do what I want. They can leave us both alone. The last time I looked I had the freedom to go anywhere I wanted to, and do whatever I wanted to, after I turned eighteen.”
When the nurse continued to press her, Katelina got angry and loudly demanded to see her superiors and be released. Just then, the door opened and Jorick came in quietly – sans the police escort she expected to see. His eyes flicked from her to the nurse as he walked to the bed. He handed her the coat and then nodded to the IV and addressed the nurse. “You can take this out now or I will.”
“You can’t just take her!” the woman spat, outraged. “Where are the police at?”
“I can leave if I want to,” Katelina said angrily. “I’ll sign the waver of treatment.”
“That won’t be necessary,” a voice said from the doorway and they looked to see the doctor and a police officer. Fear shot through Katelina, but the doctor simply said, “You can go.” He glanced at the angry nurse. “Unhook her.”
The nurse stared, open mouthed, “But sir –” she stopped mid–sentence as Jorick turned and looked at her. “Yes sir,” she said meekly and then hurried to complete the task.
When Katelina was unhooked, they passed the doctor and the officer - neither of which tried to stop them - and made their way through the emergency section. Katelina kept staring back at the policeman, but Jorick walked casually to the nurses’ station and got her prescription slips, care instructions, and a packet of pain pills to last her through the night. Katelina didn’t understand how he could be so calm, or what he could have said to the police and the doctor. It had to be something other than just suave words for them to allow her to go! She suddenly wondered if he was doing what Kateesha had done to her and, though she was grateful for it at the moment, a shiver went down her spine at the idea that he could control people.
She signed the release papers and Jorick scooped her up. The hospital gown peeped through the opening of the coat, but the woman at the counter didn't notice it.
They started towards the doors, but she squeezed his shoulder sharply to make him stop. “She said I’m reported as a missing person,” she hissed fearfully. “A probable kidnapping!”
He nodded quickly, and pretended to be staring up at the news running across the TV screen in the corner. “Yes, I know. I’m not surprised. Your friend was taken a day or two after you left and Claudius’ men destroyed your apartment. It undoubtedly looks like a kidnapping.”
“But…” she began, and he cut her off.
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “We need to get going, the others are waiting”.
His words, “the others”, made her think of Kateesha and she quickly caught her breath, squeezing his shoulder again. “No, wait. Kateesha.”
“What about Kateesha?” he asked patiently, eyes still on the television.
She answered quickly, her voice low, “She killed Arowenia, and was waiting for them – for Troy and his friends. She turned me over to them – they had some sort of deal –”
“I know,” he whispered back. He shifted her weight in his arms started for the door again. “I'll deal with her later.”
Not content, she had to ask, “How? And how are you doing this? Are you –”
“We need to go,” he murmured and then, as if in confession he added, “My influence won’t last forever.”
The night air was cool against her exposed skin, and she huddled farther under the coat. She thought about the painkillers in Jorick’s pocket and about the prescriptions. She wasn’t sure how she was going to get them filled.
As they approached the car, Oren climbed out and assisted them while Torina hung out the front passenger window looking annoyed, “Can we go now, or would you rather spend more time amongst the humans?”
“Yes, Torina, we can go now,” Jorick replied. “Perhaps if you'd gotten the information faster we wouldn't have been so late and then this little trip wouldn’t have been necessary.” He gave her a dirty look as he climbed into the backseat. He got settled and then reached for Katelina.
“I got the information as fast as I could,” the sexpot retorted angrily. “It wasn't easy since Elsa’s quit helping us! Do you know I had to sleep with that guy to get the location of the den? You haven’t even shown me any appreciation! I went to a lot of trouble for that stupid little human–”
“Enough of this,” Oren snapped. He shut the door loudly and then climbed into the driver’s seat. He looked at his sister as he turned the key in the ignition. “Be quiet Torina, we're leaving now.”
“Yes, but–”
“This is no longer my coven, Torina,” Oren’s voice was emotionless. “Jorick is older than us, and as long as we travel with him he is the master.”
The redhead started to say something, but snapped her mouth closed and turned in her seat huffily, her eyes fixed on the window.
Kateesha laughed softly from her corner of the backseat. The sound made Katelina shiver. The dark woman gave Jorick a knowing look. “Yes, let us go before the pathetic human police come to their senses and try to arrest our new coven m
aster.”
Katelina shot her a dirty look. She suspected that she’d been prying in her mind again, and so she purposefully imagined Kateesha’s mangled corpse. Kateesha’s only response to the mental image was another bout of silvery laughter.
**********
Chapter Twenty-One
While Katelina and Jorick had been in the hospital, the other three vampires had cleaned up and changed their clothes. Jorick wore all black so the splatters of blood were nearly invisible, but Kateesha happily handed him a packet of handi-wipes to clean himself with anyway. He wrinkled his nose at the false “fresh scent” but dutifully swiped off the remaining blood from his exposed skin. When he’d finished he used them on Katelina too, though the doctor and nurses had cleaned most of it already.
On the outskirts of town, Oren pulled into a brightly lit gas station and by the time the car engine cut out, a stranger wouldn’t have been able to guess that only hours earlier the vampires had been butchering their kin.
Torina had fallen into a sulky silence at the hospital, but she broke it to demand, “What are we doing?”
“We need gas,” Oren said. He glanced uneasily back at Jorick. “Does she… need… anything?”
Jorick looked questioningly at Katelina and she nodded reluctantly against his chest. Traveling with these four, she felt embarrassed to need anything. It was as though all their eyes were staring at her with condemnation for being so weak. Still, the hospital hadn’t given her anything to drink despite their concerns about dehydration. “A soda– something to drink.”
Jorick looked up and unabashedly repeated for Oren, “Yes. Something to drink.”
He nodded and climbed from the car, but then stopped, the door still in his hand and looked to his sister. “You stay here.”
Torina pouted and crossed her arms over her ample chest angrily. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means stay here,” Oren replied and then slammed the door.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” Torina mumbled, her brows drawn angrily together.
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