The Clinic

by Cate Culpepper

  Jess nodded thanks and slipped them into the breast pocket of her black shirt. “Give our love to Pamela, Jodey.”

  “Take care, Jesstin.”

  Jode kissed Jess soundly on her unbruised cheek, then turned and almost walked into Brenna. He squeaked and laid his big hands gently on her shoulders to steady her. “Hey, Brenna. Be careful, and keep my tall friend over there healthy, okay?”

  “Thank you, Jode.” Brenna rose on her toes and kissed Jode’s cheek, surprising him into speechlessness. She smiled up at him crookedly through her spiked bangs, and Jode fell a little in love. “I will. I’ll do my best.”

  The van’s headlights illuminated the treacherous slope before them. Jess glanced down the hill, shifting the coils of nylon rope over her shoulder, all Brenna and Jode would let her carry. She raised her head and drank in the spangled expanse of the velvet sky and filled her lungs with chilled mountain air. The urgency of flight gave way, if only briefly, to the euphoria of freedom.

  “Have you hiked much, Bren?”

  “What other recreation is there on a medic’s pay?” Brenna grumbled, adjusting the straps of her heavy backframe. She thought she sounded perfectly collected.

  Jess grinned at her, her teeth flashing a ghostly white in the glare of the headlamps. “Then you know to compensate for the weight of your pack when you descend, so you’re not thrown off balance, right?”

  Jode’s duffle bag had provided heavy sweaters and jeans for them both. Brenna worried about Jess’s feet. The thin soles of Prison-issue canvas shoes offered little traction over craggy rock. She saw her wince as she drew her arm through the sleeve of one of the windbreakers Pam had packed, and she helped her pull it up over her shoulders.

  Jess took Brenna’s hand, who let her keep it. She tossed a nod of farewell back to the invisible Jode and sidestepped off the ridge. Brenna followed.

  Jess was able to let go of Brenna halfway down. She’d guessed she would be steady on her feet. Above them, they heard the sandy grinding of the van turning back toward the road, and the illumination from its headlights winked out. After their eyes adjusted, the blue moonlight overhead proved an adequate guide.

  Jess hesitated as the last sounds of the receding van faded in the cool air. She closed her eyes and drew the sweet spice of pine back into her blood. Even the foothills carried enough remembrance of home to tighten her throat for a moment.

  “You okay, Jesstin?” Brenna asked softly.

  “Yeah. It’s just been a while.”

  Brenna trusted Jess knew where they were going. Partly because she had no choice, she just concentrated on keeping her balance in the deep sand. The slope leveled off into a grassy area that led into the trees, and Brenna followed Jess silently. They walked side by side, weaving through clumps of freckled aspen. Brenna adjusted to the weight of her pack once they were on even ground.

  Brenna threw guarded looks at Jess. She walked a bit stiffly but showed no other outward sign of distress. She tried to keep her mind from listing again the minor injuries Jess had taken in past weeks, in addition to the major traumas.

  “We can take a rest stop anytime,” she reminded Jess.

  Jess gave her a puzzled look. “If we need one. I’d rather wait till we’re well off the County road.”

  Brenna already felt leagues from any tame territory maintained by County Parks, though they had probably covered less than a mile. City hikers were restricted to carefully monitored trails on the outskirts of the foothills, and the forestland they traversed now seemed wild by comparison.

  And wildly beautiful. Brenna pulled a deep rush of cool air into her lungs. The shadowed hush that signals predawn filled the fragrant trees around them, and she felt her spirit expanding a little, outside the confines of the City.

  Brenna stopped, lifting her head like a young deer scenting the air. “Is that water?”

  “Do you hear it, or smell it?” Jess asked her.

  Brenna closed her eyes. “Both.” She wouldn’t have thought she knew what a clean river smelled like, but that faint, tinny scent seemed connected.

  “Good, Bren. Your radar’s on.” Jess continued through the trees. “Watch your footing.”

  Brenna focused on the root-strewn soil beneath her sneakered feet and on not bonking her head on tree limbs.

  She heard the subdued roar of the river long before she saw it. Finally, flecks of white through distant trees registered in her eyes, water moving swiftly over stone. The broad stream emerged as a dark snake cutting through the forest floor in front of them.

  “It’s all right,” Jess called suddenly behind her. “This is Brenna.”

  Brenna turned, startled, but Jess was studying the surrounding trees, closing the V-neck of her sweater around her throat.

  “Who are you?” Brenna faltered. “You mean they’re—?”

  But Jess was looking over Brenna’s shoulder and grinning, so she turned just in time to be spun back around when her shoulder was smacked by a body hurtling past her.

  “Hello, Jesstin!”

  Brenna’s eyes caught a flash of blue cloth as a small woman took a running leap into the arms Jess held open, and she gave a half-grunt, half-laugh as she caught her.

  “Good morning, little sister.” Jess grinned down at the redhead in her arms. “I missed you too.”

  Brenna took a step back and walked up against a slender tree. The tree coughed and excused itself, and Brenna whirled.

  “Camryn,” the tree said.

  “Brenna,” she stammered, her hand on her breast.

  The young Amazon nodded gravely.

  Camryn and Kyla were dressed in the same makeshift arrangement of warm clothing that Pam had hastily assembled for them. The green long-sleeved sweater Camryn wore made her look like an earnest young surgeon. She wasn’t as broad-shouldered as Jess, but she stood nearly as tall.

  Cam’s gray eyes moved to Jess. “You’re okay?”

  “Hello, Camryn.” Jess was still grinning as she set Kyla gently on her feet. She was trying not to make a teary spectacle of this reunion. “It looks like you two took good care of each—”

  “Uh, no, she’s not okay, Cam.” Kyla stood on her toes and cupped Jess’s chin, turning her face to try to see her more clearly in the moonlight. “She’s not at all. Look at her! What the hell did they do to you back there, Jesstin?”

  Kyla pulled down the V-neck of Jess’s sweater, revealing the ugly burn at the base of her throat. “Sweet Artemis, adanin.”

  Cam saw the burn and her mouth fell open. She turned abruptly on Brenna and slapped her, hard.

  Brenna’s vision exploded in sparks. The blow across her cheek was so unexpected it carried as much impact as a roundhouse right. The backpack threw her off balance, and she dropped heavily to the ground.

  Jess moved quickly. She seized Camryn’s wrist with steely fingers, and her brogue was deep and cold.

  “Is that the ethic Dyan taught, Camryn? To strike a woman down without warning?”

  Brenna stared up at Jess, astonished by her fierce eyes, an arctic blue in the moonlight.

  Cam stood very still in Jess’s grasp. “By the looks of you, Jesstin, I struck an enemy.”

  “Shann’s warned you more than once, little sister, about letting passion cloud your judgment. It’s that kind of stupidity that almost earned you and Kyla a life sentence down there.”

  “Jess,” Brenna said.

  “You don’t know this girl, Camryn, or what’s happened between us.”

  Camryn blinked, and even half-dazed, Brenna could see the muted pain in her eyes.

  “Well, we can both see you’ve been tortured.” Kyla’s voice shook, but the look she gave Brenna almost flash-fried her where she sat. “She’s a Clinic medic, Jesstin. Are you saying she defended you?”

  “Kyla, she has a name.” Jess released Cam’s wrist and extended her hand to Brenna, who took it, and let her pull her to her feet. “Brenna did work at the Clinic. She also saved my life there.”

&nb
sp; Kyla folded her arms and studied Jess. The low rippling of river over rocks was the only sound for a while. Jess drew in a breath, and Brenna saw her suppress a wince.

  “Listen,” Jess said quietly, resting her hands on her hips. “I don’t care if the three of you are never friends, but we travel together from here on. Kyla, Camryn, you treat Brenna like adanin, because that’s what she is to me. Are we clear on that?”

  Brenna saw fresh surprise in Cam’s expression. “Yes, Jesstin.”

  Kyla’s eyebrows rose, and she looked at Brenna with more curiosity than hostility. She nodded agreement.

  Brenna nodded too, then dropped her gaze. The side of her face throbbed hotly. If Cam had led with her fist instead of her open hand, she would probably still be stretched out on the grass.

  Camryn and Kyla were close enough to Jess to be sisters. If Samantha had been hurt, Brenna thought, and she believed she was facing the person responsible, she would have used her fist.

  “I have something for you, Cam.” Jess pulled a small square of plastic-sheathed paper out of her breast pocket. “Jodoch broke into your file and swiped this back. Thank him for it someday.”

  Cam blinked. She was smiling even before she tilted the small photograph to see its image in the moonlight. She lifted it toward Jess, nodded, and then snapped the picture carefully into her breast pocket.

  “Uh, look.” Brenna cleared her throat. “Jess, they deserve to know what happened…let’s just get this over with.”

  Jess nodded. “Sure.”

  “I did work at the Clinic.” Brenna met Camryn’s eyes. “Jess was my only patient. She was—I allowed her to be hurt there. And I hurt her myself, because I was ordered to. I’m not real proud of that.”

  Both of the younger Amazons stared at her.

  “I don’t blame either of you if you don’t trust me. I don’t much trust me, either. I keep making decisions for the strangest…anyway.” Brenna struggled to focus. “If I travel with you, I’ll try not to bring you trouble. And I promise I’ll carry my own weight.”

  Kyla started to speak, but Jess put out a hand and hushed her, studying the sky. Dawn was still an hour away, but a dark blue light had begun to fill the heavens.

  “Plane?” Cam asked doubtfully, looking at the rugged terrain around them.

  “Helicopter, I think,” Jess murmured. That brought their eyes up, but they could see nothing yet.

  Brenna could hear it now, a far-off intermittent buzzing, and like the two younger Amazons, she looked automatically at Jess.

  Jess’s tone was grim. “We’ve got to find better cover, folks.”

  *

  All traces of weariness vanished.

  Brenna felt adrenaline pump through her legs as they churned up the tree-studded hillside in a widening parallel to the river. They ran in close formation, alert to each other and listening hard for the rotary blade of the chopper.

  The burring chatter grew louder, but the strong searchlight beaming down from the mechanical wasp never came near them. They ran under the cover of the trees.

  Jesstin signaled a halt half a mile in. Her chest burning, Brenna thought, not just in—up. She stood with the others with her hands on her knees, pulling for breath. The pack on her back hung awkwardly, its weight seemingly doubled in the last stretch.

  Jess straightened and listened, her hands on Cam’s back and Brenna’s. She was as breathless as any of them, but her face alone was streaked with sweat in the predawn air, and Brenna saw her grimace as she straightened. There was no sound except their gasping and the natural cracklings of an awakening forest.

  “We need to get under cover before the sun rises,” Jess panted, scanning the sky. “Cam, Dyan always said you could find shelter in a desert salt flat. Take off.”

  Camryn turned to head up the rocky hillside. Kyla followed her, her smaller form almost visible now in the gray light. She caught up to Cam and pulled her to a stop. She rose on her toes, wrapped her arms around Camryn’s neck, and drew her into a passionate kiss.

  “Hey,” Jess called, and the two young women turned to look back at her.

  “Oh. We’re bonded, Jess,” Kyla called. She smiled, displaying the dimples her big sister Dyan must have teased her about unmercifully. “This might be a chance for a quick make out session or something. Don’t tell Shann about us, though. We’ll break it to her eventually.”

  Camryn blushed to the roots of her hair and tugged Kyla gently up the path.

  Brenna noted Jess’s openmouthed stare. “Wait. Bonded? Does that mean they’re—?”

  “Hitched.” Jess’s brows were still arched as she watched the two figures retreat around the bend. “Camryn and Kyla, they’re hitched now. And I’m not supposed to tell Shann.”

  “Shann,” Brenna repeated. “Your leader, right?”

  “Right. Shann of Tristaine. She who sees and knows all.” Jess sighed. “Artemis, take me now.”

  Brenna smiled, then studied Jess’s gleaming face. “How are you?”

  Jess scrubbed her hand across her eyes. “We can make some kind of camp by sunrise.”

  “That’s not what I asked.” Brenna reached for Jess’s forehead, but she tapped her hand away lightly.

  “I can make it for another hour, thanks,” Jess said. “Stop hovering, Bren.”

  “Jesstin.” Brenna sighed in frustration. “I liked you better when I could tie you down.”

  Jess grinned.

  Chapter Seven

  Camryn found them a broad shelf of sandstone, well protected by trees and shrubbery. It felt safe enough to Brenna, for now. At least Jess had deemed it so, and at the moment she felt almost blindly willing to follow her instinct.

  She tried to help gather fuel for a fire, but Jess declined her first armload as a kind of wood that gave off too much smoke. She fared better assisting Camryn with what Jess called a perimeter search, but the Amazons declined wearily when she offered further assistance in setting up camp. Brenna didn’t protest much. She was spent.

  She lowered herself to the ground and eased back against a slab of rock. Its cool base pillowed the persistent ache in the small of her back as she watched the sun complete its slow push over the eastern ridge. Finding reassurance in night’s end was primitive superstition, but Brenna took her comfort in any form she found it, and she relished the dawn.

  She studied the three Tristainians as they finished laying out their gear. There was affection in the easy way the women touched in passing, the same kind of physical grace notes she had always shared with her sister, and no one else. Sammy, Brenna thought. She closed her eyes.

  “Jess is probably going to send us off in a minute.”

  Brenna lifted her head as Kyla settled cross-legged beside her. “What’s that?”

  “Jess. She’s going to banish us again.” Kyla’s tone was confiding and friendly. She had the fresh, clear face of a young woman just leaving childhood behind, but Brenna noted the fine lines around her eyes, and she was entirely too thin. This girl had lost a sister and spent weeks in a Federal Prison. Both experiences had aged Kyla beyond her years.

  “Personally, I think it’s because Jess wants to be alone with you,” Kyla suggested. “But Cam says it’s because Jess doesn’t want to watch us make out. Actually, I think Cam’s sort of uncomfortable kissing me in front of Jess. What do you think?”

  “Well, let’s see.” Brenna watched Jess break kindling over her knee, wincing at the same time she did. “I think she’s still trying to cope with the fact that you two are together, period. That you’ve blended?”

  “Bonded.” Kyla snickered, and so did Brenna.

  “Bonded, right. She seemed surprised to hear it.”

  “Well, we weren’t when they transferred Jess to the Clinic.” Kyla looked at Camryn with dreaming eyes. “Cam and I have been adanin since we were kids. We were going to be adonai eventually, no matter what. But once they took Jess, and we were alone together…we were scared most of the time.”

  Brenna said no
thing. She was surprised by a hand covering her own.

  “I wasn’t jabbing you, Brenna. You weren’t the one calling the shots back in that place. I know that.”

  Brenna nodded.

  “Jess called you adanin,” Kyla said. She smiled tentatively. “Do you know what that means?”

  “I was kind of surprised when she said it. I thought it only applied to women from Tristaine.”

  “It means sister.” Kyla nudged her with her shoulder. “Like with a capital S. It’s not a word we apply to every woman, not even every woman in Tristaine. And very few outside it. Adonai is a whole other word, by the way. That’s what Cam and I are now.”

  Brenna nodded again. “And what do you think I’ll be to you, Ky? Friend or foe?”

  Kyla appraised her frankly. “I don’t know yet,” she said finally. “Cam still doesn’t trust you. I think she’s sorry she hit you, but she’s not going to apologize for it anytime soon.”

  “Okay.” Brenna turned her head against the rock to look at her. “That’s Camryn. What do you think?”

  “I think that, except for Jess, you must feel all alone out here, and that’s got to be hard.” Kyla’s eyes were compassionate as well as keen, and Brenna felt an odd tightness in her throat.

  “We won’t let anything happen to you, Brenna. Okay? Please don’t worry. Even Cam, she’ll fight anybody for you, now that Jess has named you adanin. That makes you our sister in a way, too.”

  Brenna smiled thanks, then glanced down at the ill-fitting clothes they both wore. “Does this mean I can borrow your outfits?”

  Kyla let out a bark of infectious laughter.

  They sat in companionable silence watching the sun crest the ridge.

  “We have to find something besides dehydrated bacon fat for breakfast.” Jess sighed, slinging down a last stack of kindling. “Camryn, Ky, see what you can dig up.”

  “See, make out opportunity,” Kyla murmured to Brenna as she pushed herself to her feet.

  Brenna noted that Camryn didn’t look at her as she took Kyla’s hand.