That’s no excuse.
“I know…”
My eyes welled up with tears. I reached for the handle to open the door to the first occupied compartment. I blinked them away when I heard the suction release and the hinges squeal. The first tray contained the remains of a young man in his early twenties. He had pox marks and necrotic flesh spreading across his torso with his ribs and spleen exposed. Cause of death: flesh eating bacteria, advanced stage, untreatable and beyond amputation. My guess was his vital organs had been consumed as well. I placed my gloved hand on his forehead. His last days were not very pleasant. He’d suffered.
I closed the man back inside his frozen tomb and moved to the next. This was where my girl was being kept. The affirmative energy ran up my arm when I broke the second seal and slid out the tray. I gasped and took a step back. The bones of the girl sat in a molten puddle of flesh, muscle, and dangling tendons. Her hair was acting as a pillow and her eyes were still in their sockets, glazed over with death.
It broke my heart, and I cried for the little girl whose toe-tag read “Female Subject 519.” My guilt turned to rage, and I screamed, lunging for the gurney in the center of the room, overturning it along with several trays of medical instruments. I smashed jars, slides, and Petri dishes. My anger flowed through me, helping me to destroy everything that I was physically able to lift. I hated myself so much. I could have stopped this. I was raging not only for the blue-eyed girl but for all the children, animals, werecreatures, and others who were subjected to this desecration and torture.
I stormed back over to the tombs and began pulling open the remaining doors, slamming open every single tray. The last tray was heavier than the rest. I gripped it hard and yanked. Slowly the wheels gained momentum, and the large tray slid out and stopped with a disgruntled thud. What I saw before me was sobering enough to replace my rage with abrupt sorrow. On the tray lay a full-grown werewolf in beast form. His fur was dark brown except for the white tip on his once fluffy tail that matched a white strip down the bridge of his long snout. He was scrawny and sunken. Attached to his pointed ear was the equivalent of a toe tag that read “Feral Subject 520.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks, my fingers found their way into the wolf’s fur, and I sobbed. Glancing between the little girl and the wolf, I spoke to them. “You are Gaia’s warriors. Go together into her arms. Little one, you are to be called Born of the Sea, your eyes are the ocean and you, Beast, are called Liberation, you will lead other lost souls to freedom in Gaia. May your souls be at peace.” I continued to cry and closed the bodies back into the tombs carefully and began reassembling the room.
Injustice. I could not let this happen again.
The hospital was quiet with only a few nurses scattered here and there, gossiping about their latest flings with doctors or other nurses as I returned to my office. When I was safely inside, I sat down and pulled out an empty notebook. I began writing down some interesting cases I had seen over the last few months in an attempt to trace back the uprising of bizarre incidents. This would give me a time frame of when this hospital became infested by the Andrus and a distraction from the horror I had just witnessed. For tasks like this, my memory was keen.
2/13 Blue-eyed girl, dead beast
1/2 College woman covered in puss, oozing sores, yellow eyes
12/9 Old man with no pulse walks out of ER
12/3 Woman mauled by bear
11/17 Zombie man (kept trying to bite faces)
10/31 Woman gives birth to puppies (how did I miss that?)
10/30 Anxious man with chain-link burns
9/1 Meth addict screams of hexes, witches, genital torture (maybe?)
8/8 Woman with puncture wounds to common carotid artery
7/23 Baby with hypertrichosis
6/18 Mute woman with alopecia (maybe)
Eleven incidents in nine months. All of these patients were brought into the ER, and since I only frequent the ER randomly, that number should probably be multiplied by at least five. Andrus infestations are best tracked with ER statistics. When experiments go wrong and when the subject is due to die, they are transported to emergency services from the containment cells—often found in the same hospital—so the ER staff will deal with the John and Jane Does, either with urgent care or disposal of unclaimed corpses. My hospital has been officially infected.
And so have I.
Chapter Thirteen
There were very few doctors and staff who have all-access passes to at the hospital. I did. Doctor Reynolds did. So did Kurt. By process of elimination, it was safe to deduce that I had unknowingly been working for the Andrus. My heart was already broken, so it couldn’t break again with this new knowledge.
I left work early, something I never did. I walked home with a cloud of despair above me. My blindness, my blocking out had gotten me into quite a rut. “You put on a good act as a doctor and hide behind your genius but someday, Shawnee, that’s all going to fail, and you’ll find yourself alone in a strange place, missing months of time because you let your panic and forgetfulness go unchecked.” Vanessa’s voice echoed in my head.
She was right, in a way. My forced cluelessness had left me in a metaphorically strange place, missing months of time and feeling like a failure as a doctor. I was supposed to help people. That was the vow I made to myself many moons ago when I ran away from the reservation. I promised that I would break the cycle and protect and help as many people as I could. And because I chose to not help myself, I ended up hurting more people than I was helping. What if I had been clear-minded? What if I was able to identify it and reach out to a large pack for help to reclaim the territory? What if…what if… I would have recognized sooner that the Andrus had infested Mercy General.
I took the long way home in an attempt to clear my head. I had to do something. The Andrus and Dr. Reynolds were using me. They were using my intelligence and my gifts to benefit these experiments and studies, or whatever it was they were doing. All those assignments that Dr. Reynolds had given me, what had they done? What was their purpose? What was that serum? What had it been so successful at doing?
My heart sank. I took a deep breath, expanding my chest. I never told him how I made it. I never will. I stomped up the steps to my apartment building and threw open the door. My anger took hold again as I stalked through the hall toward my apartment. I glanced over to Xany’s door, noticing that there were several collapsed boxes stacked near it and remembered that she would be leaving soon to live with Caden and Mal in their newfound pack in Utah…
“Everyone has choices.”
Mindlessly I fixed myself a bowl of cereal and sat down at the kitchen table, my thoughts haunted with visions of the death I had seen and the list I had made of several others.
How stupid can you be, Shawnee? How stupid can you be to ignore the fact that a perfectly human woman gave birth to puppies on your table? What the fuck is wrong with you?
I was nauseated by the thought. How could I have blocked that out? How could I be such a terrible person? I abandoned my cereal, went to the fridge, grabbed the last beer, and nearly jumped out of my skin when a sharp knock interrupted my pity party. With a slam, I shut the fridge, then walked over and jerked my front door open. Aggravation caused my movements to be jerky, rigid, tinged with anger. The moment she saw me, Xany’s jubilant expression sunk.
“You look awful, Nee,” she said without hesitation.
“Gee, thanks,” I replied and went to crack open the beer can. Xany jerked it out of my hand before I had a chance to get my fingernail under the metal ring.
“Drinking is bad for you.” She invited herself into the kitchen, opened the beer, and poured it down the sink.
“Xany! That was my last one. What the hell?” I rushed over and grabbed her arm in attempt to save at least some of it. She pulled away from me and emptied the can. “Oh well, now you’ll just have to deal with me instead.” She tossed the can into the trash.
I wanted to smack her across the fac
e so badly that my hand twitched with desire. Suddenly I realized what I had just thought about doing, and the color drained from my face. I saw Xany reach both arms out to catch me on my way down to the floor.
“Whoa. Okay, let’s go sit down, you’re not passing out on me tonight.” She tossed my arm around her neck, supporting me over to the sofa. Her body was warm against mine, and tears welled up in my eyes.
Don’t say a word.
Xany sat me down on the couch; she cupped my face in her hands and forced me to look at her. “What is it? What happened?” she asked.
“I can’t tell you,” I whispered and began trembling when I realized I couldn’t tell Vanessa either.
“Yes, you can, NeeNee. You can tell me anything.” She brushed my hair away from my face.
“I’m a bad person,” I leaked and tears began rolling down my cheeks.
“You’re not a bad person, Shawnee,” she argued, her voice still soft.
I watched her wrestle with the confusion of what was happening. She had no idea what she was consoling me about, but she was trying her hardest to make me feel better. I didn’t believe what she said. I was a bad person. I had done bad things.
“I need to shower.” I sniffled and wobbled to my feet.
“How about a bath instead, that way you won’t have to stand,” she suggested when I reached the bathroom. I nodded and nearly tumbled into the bathtub when turning on the faucet. Xany caught me and turned the water on herself.
“Easy, NeeNee.”
It was easier to listen to her when I felt like this. I was out of control, desperate, and scared. I couldn’t tell Xany, I couldn’t tell Vanessa. I would endanger their lives.
“This is our secret. If you tell your mother, I will kill her then I will kill you.” I heard my father’s voice echo in my head. I sobbed because this situation was similar. I was trapped, and I couldn’t ask for help without hurting someone else.
Xany turned to me when she heard me cry and began helping me remove my scrubs. Normally, I would never let anyone do this. I would never let anyone touch me, remove my clothes, or see me naked—except for Vanessa. I slipped into the tub, and as soon as the hot water surrounded me, my breathing calmed down. I grabbed the bar of soap and began scrubbing my arms and hands. My hands had caused the hurt by creating things. I couldn’t scrub my brain for thinking it up so my hands had to suffer the wrath. Xany watched me and handed me a washcloth. I saw her eyes linger on the scar on my lower abdomen before her gaze met mine.
“That’s a big scar.” Her voice was quiet.
Hearing her voice pulled me further away from my panic, and my brain started to work again. I nodded to her.
“My daddy told me that scars aren’t always bad things,” she added, her expression lifting when she noticed she had my attention.
“How are scars not bad?” I asked, pulling my knees up to my chest while watching her. She was distracting me, and I liked it. She distracted me like Vanessa did.
“My dad said that scars serve purposes. A scar means we survived a battle because, if we didn’t have a scar, we might be dead instead. And he said that scars are naturally more sensitive because they’re new skin. If you touch a scar gently it can feel nice, or tickle a little.” She giggled as if being tickled herself.
“Battle scars. Like that story,” I said, resting my chin on my knee.
“Uh-huh. It’s a story about the Trail of Tears, how some people died and others had battle scars that made them more in tune with Gaia or something like that. I don’t remember much of it,” she added.
I nodded because I recognized what she was referring to even though the whole story had been lost to me as well. “My mom used to tell me stories like that.”
“My dad too,” she said and then used her cupped hands to rinse the soap off my arms and back. “Feel better?”
“A bit,” I admitted quietly. “Just tired.”
“C’mon.” She held up a towel. “Before you get pruney.” Xany’s giggle echoed against the bathroom walls. It was even more annoying than usual.
I surveyed her a bit before pulling the plug and covering my breasts with my arms. She let go to allow me to wrap the towel around myself once I stepped into it.
“I’ll wait outside while you finish up.” She stepped out of the bathroom.
The only clothes I had in the bathroom were my usual worn T-shirts and sweatpants. I slipped into them and tied my hair back into a messy ponytail before I entered my bedroom to see Xany sitting on the bed patiently. It looked strange when she was patient and quiet. It suited her best to be buzzing and bouncing around intrusively. When she saw me she patted the bed for me to join her. I stacked a few pillows by the headboard and lay down next to her in a slightly upright position, my hand naturally resting on my stomach. My thoughts were still on my scar.
Xany continued on the same train of thought.
“How did you get it?”
“My father.” Part of me wanted to tell her, or anyone really. The more I harbored my memories, the more my hatred for them grew. And hatred for my father. Vanessa always encouraged me to talk, to open my mouth rather than to relive it on my own, but I just couldn’t. I know that holding back contributed to my panic attacks but what else was I supposed to do? Talking isn’t as easy as it sounds.
“Was he the reason you left the reservation?” She frowned.
I nodded, glancing at her. I knew I was about to give in to my urge to talk. I couldn’t tell her about the Andrus because that would put her in danger, but I could tell her about… about the things I’d told Vanessa. My father was long gone and couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.
Xany paused before asking the next question. Her hesitation made it obvious she was deliberately being careful not to press too far. “How did it happen?”
“I ran from him and fell… There was…um…a broken skiing pole near the trailer, and he grabbed it and hit me with it. Caught me in the stomach. I had fifty-eight stitches, I think,” I answered, glancing up at her. The anxiety began to rise in my chest again. “Talking about it makes me scared.” I bit my lip. I scared myself with not only the bit of story but with the honesty following it.
“He can’t hurt you now. Watch this.” She moved closer to me. She lifted up my shirt and tugged down the waist of my sweats to expose the scar. I gasped when she did that and clenched my teeth.
“Don’t, don’t…” I gripped the bedding tightly.
“Trust me?” she pleaded, putting one hand on my cheek and lying down beside me. When she was no longer above me, I calmed down.
Did I trust her? Not really. But I nodded. I think she knew I was lying, but that didn’t stop her. Xany placed the tip of her finger on my scar and dragged it upward toward my navel. I braced myself, expecting to feel pain, or fear, or something negative. Instead it just made my stomach twitch, and I jumped. Xany giggled.
“Pay attention,” she said.
I guess my expression looked distracted, and she did it again. This time I squirmed and smacked her hand automatically. She giggled hard and grinned at me.
“See? It tickles, right?”
Again she touched my scar, and this time I smiled and pushed her away playfully, pulling my shirt down to cover up.
“Not fair.” Her playfulness lifted my mood a bit. Sometimes I forgot what fun felt like. My friendship with Vanessa always seemed to be so serious. Xany was different. I was beginning to appreciate her immaturity.
Xany giggled and bopped me with a pillow. “No more hurt, just tickles.”
She was right; tickles didn’t hurt. I turned on my side to face her and pulled a blanket over me. I was tired, which was often the end product when my anxiety lifted. She watched me with a smile.
“Want me to stay with you while you sleep?”
I thought about it before responding. “No talking.”
“Yes, ma’am, no talking during sleepovers.” Xany giggled.
I smiled, and Xany turned out the light. It was weird to fe
el safe with someone who wasn’t Vanessa and sleep washed over me with ease.
Chapter Fourteen
I woke up alone the next morning. My room was quiet and warm. The pillow beside mine was imprinted in memory of Xany. I glanced out the window and guessed it was around 9:00 a.m. Rolling out of bed, I ran my fingers through my hair and looked around. I paused a moment because I didn’t remember dreaming, which was strange because I dreamed almost every night. I felt different. There was no explanation for it other than just different, and quiet… It was quieter than usual. I exited my room to find Xany in the kitchen, cooking something that smelled good…as well as the distinct scent of bacon.
“Morning, sleepyhead. I made an omelet, bacon, and English muffins. You had no food in your house! So I ran home to get whatever I had.” She grinned and waved me over to her.
It was amusing that both Vanessa and Xany had officially used my kitchen more than me. Cereal was my food of choice for all meals and didn’t require any sort of appliance to make. I walked over and stood beside her as she cooked a ham and cheese omelet and bacon in cookware that was not mine either.
“You brought your own pans?” I asked.
“All you had was a small sauce pan. And cereal.” Xany giggled.
I smirked, amused by Xany’s critique of my cooking supplies. “Can I help?”
“Sure, the bacon is done. You can take it to the table,” she said.
Her eyes were on me as I reached over for the dish and brought it to the table. “What?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“You’re looking at me funny.” I crossed my arms over my stomach protectively.
“Only for a second.” Xany grinned as she slid the omelet into a big dish and brought it to the table.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better. You know that, right?” I poured orange juice into two glasses that weren’t mine either. I silently wondered if Xany had snuck off to go shopping, otherwise her house was pretty well stocked with food and dishes. Xany giggled and began cutting the omelet into triangles, then serving me first.
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