by Martha Carr
Ember’s grin was wide and genuine and made her look like her old self again. “This is the best thing I’ve heard all day. But if you’re gonna tell me, hurry the hell up. I’m obviously really busy, with a lot to do right now.”
“I’ll see if I can cram it all together to fit into your schedule.” Laughing again, Cheyenne pulled her knees up to her chin in the armchair. She couldn’t wait to see the look on her friend’s face when Ember heard about Rez 38, Rhynehart, Sir, and how completely her mom had kicked the man’s ass on the veranda with only sophisticated etiquette and a meticulous working knowledge of criminal law.
Chapter Six
“And then they just left?” Ember pulled her hand away from her mouth in shock, then pressed her fingers to her lips again.
“Nobody steps into Bianca Summerlin’s house to try manipulating her into anything.” Cheyenne grinned. “It’s one of my favorite memories now.”
“Your mom should run for President or something.”
“I think someone tried to make that happen once.” The halfling shook her head in amazement. “But she wouldn’t go for it. Honestly, I think she gets bored if she’s in the spotlight for longer than like an hour.”
“Crazy. So what happens next?”
“What do you mean?” Cheyenne sat back in the armchair, trying not to look like she wanted to skip that part.
“I mean, you still have that burner phone, right?” Ember pushed herself up a little straighter against the elevated hospital bed, her eyes shimmering with excitement. “And those idiots clearly still need you. So what’s next? Come on. They had to have asked you to do something else for them.”
“I mean, Sir told me he’d call that stupid phone again. That if I answered, he’d know I was willing to put up with them for a little longer. And he tried to dangle my dad over my head like some dark-elf carrot on a stick.”
“Oh, then he definitely knows your dad. Or at least where he is.”
“Maybe. I can’t really trust anything he says at this point.” Cheyenne shrugged.
“But you’re at least gonna give it a shot and see where it goes, right?”
“No, I’m done.”
“What?”
“Hey, I’m not all that excited about being the FRoE’s little halfling puppet who handles all the problems they probably made worse for themselves in the first place. If Sir knows where my dad is, great. I’m a hundred percent positive I can find the guy on my own without having to wear a Special Forces leash. It’ll take me a little longer, probably, but at least I won’t be dragged through anyone else’s shit first.”
With wide eyes, Ember blinked once and leaned so far over Cheyenne thought she might fall off the bed. “Cheyenne, the guy gave you a one-way ticket to finding out about the one person who knows what you’re going through. Okay, or at least your dad knows about the drow parts. You might even get to meet him, and all you have to do is get into a Jeep with some secret magical military guys and rough up a total scumbag here and there. Why the fuck wouldn’t you agree to that?”
“Em, they put a tracking device in my shoulder.” The halfling almost stabbed herself in said shoulder with how forcefully she pointed at it. “They used it to find me at my mom’s house and tried to…I don’t know what. Guilt-trip me? Scare the crap out of me? Piss me off? They only managed that last one, but I don’t have to keep taking their shit. We made a deal, they broke it. That’s it.”
Shaking her head, Ember looked like she was about to start screaming. Instead, she took a deep breath and spoke pretty calmly for how tightly she’d clenched her fists. “You’re right. You don’t have to keep taking their shit. You don’t have to do anything. If this was just like a really insane job or something, then yeah. Absolutely. Give ‘em the finger and walk away.”
“I’m doing that anyway.”
“Don’t.” The fae held her friend’s gaze and dipped her chin. “I’m serious, Cheyenne. You’re not gonna have another opportunity like this just laid out in front of you. It’s not like what those FRoE people want from you is all that hard. And you get answers out of it, and I promise, if you don’t take them up on it, you’ll end up regretting it.” Ember sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth and grimaced. “And that’ll taste a lot worse than another FRoE ride-along.”
Cheyenne raised an eyebrow and shot Ember a sidelong glance. “You’re really invested in my secret double life.”
“Come on. Look at me.” The other woman snorted. “Your secret double life is the most action I’m gonna be seeing for a while. Seriously, though, beyond that, you need to do this. Answer that stupid phone when it rings, go blast some magicals giving everyone else a hard time, and then get everything you want to know about your dad. And I’d be really surprised if you didn’t find someone along the way who can tell you a lot more about that weird box thing. Like, oh, I dunno, your dad?”
“Okay, okay.” The halfling lifted both hands in surrender with a chuckle. “You made your point.”
“Only if you actually do it.” Ember tried to keep back another laugh, but neither of them was very successful at it. “And then come find me and tell me all about it. This is better than Netflix.”
“Not a lot of bingeing, though.”
“Just do it, Cheyenne.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll think about it.”
A short, firm knock came from the door to Room 317, and both grad students turned fading smiles toward Dr. Andrews, who stepped briskly in from the hallway. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Nope.” Ember shot her friend a knowing glance. “You conveniently missed all the exciting stuff.”
The man readjusted his glasses, glanced at Cheyenne too, and smiled. “Bummer. Maybe I’ll have better timing next time.”
Cheyenne leaned back in the armchair and wrapped her arms around her knees.
“Well, I won’t take up too much of your time.” Dr. Andrews scanned the monitor beside the hospital bed, then tapped the tablet in his hand and stuck the thing in the huge pocket of his white coat. “Just wanted to make a quick stop and see how you’re doing. Pain levels. Appetite. The whole deal.”
Ember gave the man a patient smile. “Pretty much the same as when you came by this morning.”
“Good. Glad to hear it. And having a friend stop by is always a plus.” It seemed like he eyed Cheyenne again for a little longer than a polite acknowledgment. There was no way he didn’t recognize her after the handful of conversations they’d had about Ember before she woke up. And she had one of those hard-to-forget faces, plus the piercings and the Goth-chick getup. “Okay. Well, I’m gonna go over your chart before I head home for the night. Make sure everything looks good, and then we can talk again tomorrow about where things are headed moving forward.”
“Yeah.” Ember wrinkled her nose. “That’ll be a pretty short talk. I’m not gonna be able to—”
“Say anything right now,” Cheyenne finished for her. She shot Ember a critical look, then shook her head. “Are you? ‘Cause you’re just sitting back and focusing on getting better right now. Remember?”
Ember snorted. “Okay. You win.”
“I’m guessing I missed something,” the doctor interjected with a crooked smile. “Which is fine. I barged in on your visit. Any other questions for me, though, before I head out?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
The man nodded at both of them, then turned slowly toward the hall again, pausing briefly like he wanted to say something else.
“Actually, I have a question for you. If you don’t mind.” Cheyenne plastered on what she thought an innocent smile was supposed to look like when Dr. Andrews turned back toward her and tilted his head.
“I don’t mind at all. And I’ll try to answer.”
Cheyenne gestured at her arm. “I got in an accident yesterday. My shoulder’s not doing very well, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got something stuck in there. Would you mind taking a look?”
Dr. Andrews blinked and unneces
sarily adjusted his glasses. “That’s something you should go to your provider for. Hospital policy frowns on seeing patients without checking them in.”
Ember’s hospital room fell silent, and Cheyenne bit her lip. “I know. And I get that. I just… I don’t trust doctors. You were pretty cool about me hanging around when Ember was still… After her surgery and everything.”
The doctor eyed her shoulder, but she’d turned toward him in the chair just enough that he couldn’t get a good view of it from where he stood. “You get shot too?”
Ember barked a laugh and clapped both hands over her mouth.
Cheyenne smirked at her friend. “Nope. I promise there isn’t any kind of local police procedure for handling what I got myself into. Look, it’s either you checking out the damage for me, or I’ll just end up going back home and digging around in these holes again myself.”
“Again?” The man’s eyes widened, and sighed. “I know I don’t have to tell you why that’s not a good idea.”
“Yeah, well, those are my options right now. I don’t think I’m gonna be healing the right way anytime soon until I get whatever it is out of my shoulder.”
“I really shouldn’t.”
“I’ll pay you.” Cheyenne shrugged. “I don’t have a problem with that. Just with the paper trail and the waiting and all the questions, you know?”
“Well.” Dr. Andrews dipped his head. “I appreciate your willingness, but I don’t think—”
“Hippocratic Oath, though, right?” Ember stared at her doctor as both he and Cheyenne looked at her like they’d forgotten she was there. “Do no harm. I’m pretty sure that includes turning someone away after they threaten to hurt themselves.”
It was all the drow halfling could do not to laugh at that. “Yeah, and trust me, I already know how much it hurts to try finding whatever’s in my shoulder by myself. Not a very good angle, either.”
The doctor just closed his eyes and sighed again.
“But if you really can’t just take a look,” Cheyenne added, “could you at least get me a pair of surgical tweezers? Maybe a scalpel? I’ll buy those too, no problem. ‘Cause I’m definitely gonna need something better than anything I could find at CVS—”
“Okay, stop.” Dr. Andrews lifted a hand, his eyes still closed. “At-home surgery with convenience-store supplies is gonna give me nightmares.”
Cheyenne and Ember grinned at each other. The halfling jerked a thumb toward the doctor and muttered, “That’s professional dedication right there.”
“And I’ll vouch for him. He’s really very good.”
Dr. Andrews let out a bitter chuckle and shook a finger at the halfling—not enough to look completely pissed about the situation but aggravated beneath the amusement. “If I take a look, you have to promise me you won’t go poking around in there again. And if it doesn’t get better, you’ll go see a doctor the right way and get them to look at it. Deal?”
“Absolutely. Thank you.”
“Okay.” The man shot her a sideways glance, then shook his head and headed toward the door. “Give me about ten minutes to raid the surgical supplies. And no one else hears a word of this, understand?”
“Crystal-clear.” Cheyenne nodded.
“Like it never happened.” Ember mimed zipping up her lips.
Dr. Andrews studied them both with a smirk. “Yeah. Just know I’m doing this for Ms. Gaderow. She’s gonna need a friend like you for support when she gets outta here, which you won’t be able to give if you nick a vein or that shoulder goes septic. Don’t let that happen.”
Cheyenne just nodded, and the doctor slipped out of the room, shaking his head.
“Did you actually try digging a tracking device out of your own shoulder?” Ember’s raised eyebrow and crooked smile hovered somewhere between admiration and condescension.
“Come on, Em. You know I don’t lie to you.”
Chapter Seven
Dr. Andrews had pulled the desk away from the wall on the opposite side of Ember’s hospital room, which he’d covered with a sheet of that crinkly paper doctors put over exam tables. With the desk covered in unopened packages of surgical tools, rolls of gauze, a box of gloves, and sutures pre-threaded through a much larger needle than Cheyenne had bought, the man gently pressed his gloved hands against the halfling’s raw, red, torn shoulder. She gripped the edge of the chair with both hands and waited for him to start.
“You wanna tell me what put two holes like these in your shoulder?” Dr. Andrews peered at her over the rims of his glasses.
“You really want me to tell you?”
“Fair enough.” The man gently cleaned her shoulder with a sterilizing wipe, then pulled a capped syringe from the pocket of his coat. “Local anesthetic. Not sure how much it’ll—”
“You can put that thing away.” Cheyenne wrinkled her nose at the syringe and pulled away from the man just so he knew she was serious.
“You have a thing about needles, huh?”
She stared at him for a moment, then pointed at her face. “I used to have a dozen more piercings in my face. The only ‘thing’ I have about needles is that they were part of a weird phase I went through.”
The doctor pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. “Then this one will be a piece of cake.”
“Not really. Local anesthetic doesn’t work on me.”
His eyes widened again, and he glanced behind Cheyenne at Ember sitting upright in the hospital bed.
“Don’t look at me.” Ember shrugged.
“Just trying to save us some time, here, doc.” The halfling nodded at the syringe. “You’ll waste that on me, be totally baffled about why it doesn’t work, and then we’ll argue about your thoughts that maybe I just need more. By that time, you could be done with this.”
Dr. Andrews sat back in his chair just in front of her and cocked his head. “It sounds like you’ve been in this situation a time or two.”
“What, like getting surgery off the books in my best friend’s hospital room? No, this is a first. But I saw a lot of doctors when I was a kid. The anesthetic conversation gets old pretty fast.”
“I really hope those doctors weren’t looking at wounds like this when you were a kid.”
The halfling smirked. “This one’s a first, too. I fell out of a lot of trees growing up.”
Plus, we don’t need to talk about all Mom’s private physicians and what a kick they got out of Bianca Summerlin’s medical marvel of a daughter. This guy thinks I’m human.
“I see.” The doctor capped the syringe again and set it back down on the paper-covered desk. “If you change your mind, let me know.”
“Sure.” She gripped the edges of the chair again and turned her shoulder toward him. “Let’s do this.”
Neither of them said anything else while Dr. Andrews got to work. He looked up at her once in the beginning, surprised to find Cheyenne watching him poke around in her shoulder, but he kept going. She’d learned her lesson from the troll healer at Rez 38—never look away, no matter how much it hurt.
And it hurt. A lot.
After five minutes, the halfling could no longer feel the metal frame of the chair clenched in both hands. She had closed her eyes after the first warning flare of heat blooming at the base of her spine. Just think about the woods. And the deer. Don’t go all drow berserker on the guy who’s just trying to help.
When Dr. Andrews cleared his throat and leaned closer, she knew he was trying to hold something back.
“What’s going on?”
“I think I found what got stuck in here.”
“Great.” Cheyenne nodded. “Get it out.”
“You sure there weren’t any bullets involved?”
She pressed her lips together and stared at him. “I’m pretty sure a bullet wouldn’t have disappeared in my shoulder without going through it.”
“Clearly.” The doctor dabbed her shoulder with more gauze and shook his head. “This looks like shrapnel.”
“
Just get it out.” She’d said it sharply enough to make both of them pause. “Please.”
“Uh-huh.”
When Dr. Andrews dug in again, Cheyenne growled and clenched the chair even tighter. A small squeak of denting metal rose from beneath her hands, which had acquired mottled splotches of her gray-purple drow skin. You know how to keep it down, so keep it down.
“Almost got it.” The man hmmmed in confusion, the tug inside Cheyenne’s shoulder sent a burst of fire racing down her arm, and then the hospital-grade tweezers rose slowly from the much bloodier hole in her flesh. A tiny square of thin silver metal was clenched in those tweezers, two bloody wires like thick hairs dangling from the bottom of it. “What the hell is this?”
“Hey, yeah.” Cheyenne waited for the man to drop his find onto the white paper covering the desk before she snatched the slippery, blood-covered tracking device. “That’s where I put this thing.”
“What?” The man stared at her as she leapt up from the chair and went toward the window for her backpack. “Now wait just a minute—”
“Thanks, doc. I owe you one.” The halfling slung her backpack over the other shoulder and shoved the tiny FRoE tracker into her pocket.
“What did I just take out of your shoulder?”
“Something that didn’t need to be there.” Leaning over the bed, Cheyenne put a hand on Ember’s shoulder. “I gotta go. Thanks for the chat.”
“Yeah, thanks for coming over.” Ember stared at her friend, on the verge of laughing, then glanced at Dr. Andrews and muttered, “I think you broke my doctor.”
The man stood beside the desk, blinking in surprise. Cheyenne just shrugged before walking around the bed again toward the door. “Call me if you need me, Em.”
“Yep.”
“You need to sit back down,” Dr. Andrews said, pointing an unconvincingly weak finger at the chair. “Let me suture those—”
“I already took up enough of your time. Seriously, though. Thanks. I’m good.”