Blood Hunter

by Debra Jess

  "Everyone knows who you are. You love the Blood Surfer. Tell her to prove it. Make her tell them," she pointed at the doctors, "this isn't my son. Make them bring my child back to me."

  This time Scott glanced around to see if she pointed to anyone in particular. He noticed McNamara had slipped away in the confusion, but no one responded to the accusation. The doctors looked as confused as Scott.

  "This is not the boy I gave birth to." Ms. Chung moved closer to Scott, putting more distance between herself and Hannah. "This isn't my Jimmy."

  Scott forced a small smile. "Well, it's nice to know the reporters got one thing right. I do love Hannah — but, Ms. Chung, I can't order her to do what you want. I can't force her to break the law."

  "I've already broken the law. The law she created." Ms. Chung spat at Catherine's feet.

  Catherine didn't react beyond tightening her hold on the boy, who'd started to squirm.

  "Jimmy was an Alt," Ms. Chung continued. "He could create auditory hallucinations."

  Catherine shrugged in the corner of his vision. He guessed that the boy's power hadn't been proven yet. Maybe he could throw sound or maybe it was just a fanciful tale created by a wishful parent. Sometimes proving a child had Alt powers wasn't as straightforward as normal people, especially parents, wished.

  "Jimmy was full of life." Ms. Chung's voice broke. "He smiled and laughed and loved to run and jump. This one is a lifeless lump. He doesn't do anything. Doesn't like the same foods, doesn't laugh, doesn't recognize our dogs, doesn’t even play with his toys. He's not my son. I want my Jimmy back."

  Oh hell, Chung's eyes filled with ugly tears. His sympathy broke his anger. He reached out to comfort her, aware that his gloves didn't offer much. Hannah, at least, remained still and close to Catherine. "Ms. Chung, Hannah can't help you. She's not a doctor. She can heal people, but there's still a lot she needs to learn."

  The doors at the far end of the corridor opened with a squeak of hinges. Hospital security slipped through followed by several police officers, called in by either Thomas's team or McNamara. Ms. Chung saw them at the same time Scott did. He'd managed another step forward. The young mother was within easy reach if she tried to attack Hannah again.

  Instead of fighting, though, Ms. Chung's shoulder's slumped, resigned, knowing she was about to be arrested. It didn't matter what Ms. Chung thought. Her pain touched a sensitive core of Scott's own need to connect with his mother. He and Catherine had made tentative steps toward repairing their relationship. Seeing a woman who would sacrifice everything for her child, no matter how screwed up her beliefs were, rattled the cage where Scott had buried most of his pain.

  He reached out to touch Ms. Chung's shoulder, but instead she grabbed his gloved hand. "Promise me you'll find him. Find my Jimmy. Don't let him remain lost forever."

  Scott squeezed the poor woman's hand back. He had once told Hannah that he never made promises he couldn't keep, so he scrambled to find a way to not hurt Ms. Chung any further, knowing Hannah could hear everything. "I promise to look for him."

  Ms. Chung sniffed and released Scott so the police could pull her arms behind her back. He winced at the sound of the 'cuffs clicking tight around her wrists, his fingers flexing with the ghost of the 'cuffs that had once hobbled him.

  The police officers not burdened with escorting their prisoner dispersed to start gathering witness information. More people entered the corridor; some wore civilian clothes with hospital IDs around their necks. Catherine shifted the boy from one arm to another as she talked to them.

  Hannah stayed by Catherine's side, but she watched Jimmy. She was looking for something, her eyes roaming the boy's upper body.

  Scott's focus on Hannah distracted him from the police officer who approached him.

  "Cory Blackwood?" It wasn't a question, just the necessary confirmation before she took his statement.

  "Scott Grey." That's what it said on his driver's license. He didn't recognize the officer as one of the cops who handled him when he'd been called in for interrogation, but he could see the wary look in the woman's eyes. She knew who he was, no matter what name he used.

  "Can you tell me what you saw?" The office pulled out a small tablet to take notes.

  Scott kept his answer simple, sticking to just what he had seen. He didn't tell her about the promise he had made, or about Hannah's odd behavior.

  "I guess we already know how to contact you if we have any further questions." The officer slipped her tablet into her pocket and moved on to the next witness.

  Scott said nothing. If they didn't have his direct phone number, they knew they could get a message to him through his parents or T-CASS. He prayed they didn't call him downtown to give a formal statement. The thought of returning to the station where he'd been turned over to Miranda Dane made him sick to his stomach.

  He swallowed back the bile in his throat and walked over to Hannah, but she didn't seem to notice. So long as Catherine was nearby, whoever lingered around from the Oversight Committee couldn't do anything about their proximity to one another, since they weren't touching.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  "I'm fine." Her expression grew darker, her frown more pronounced. "But Ms. Chung might not be wrong."

  "About what?"

  Hannah bit her lip in that adorable way she had when she was deep in thought. Scott shoved his hands back into his back pockets, tempted to rub her shoulders and release her tension.

  "I don't know. I saw something inside. I can't explain it. I need to — "

  Without warning, Hannah stepped around Scott, searching for someone in the thinning crowd of doctors.

  "Where's Doctor McNamara?"

  Scott looked around himself, but McNamara hadn't reappeared. "I don't know. He disappeared during the altercation. I think he's the one who called security."

  Hannah growled, another cute habit he'd come to love even though it meant she was frustrated. She reached into her front pocket. Scott realized she was looking for her phone, but it would have dropped on the floor when she surfed, along with the flowers he'd given her. The flowers lay next to his mother's foot.

  She picked the flowers up and found the phone underneath, looking none the worse for wear. Snippets of Catherine's conversation drifted toward him. It sounded as if she were waiting on Social Services to pick up Jimmy.

  Hannah clutched the flowers close with one hand while she started texting. While she worked, Johnson approached and handed Hannah her hated gloves. "You'll be scheduled for training shortly."

  Hannah didn't even look at the man. She flipped screens, sending a text message instead.

  "I'll take those." Scott reached for the gloves.

  "You'll do nothing of the sort." Johnson pulled the gloves away from Scott's open hand. "She will take them and she will put them on and not take them off again until we tell her she may do so. You will leave the hospital, or I will have security escort you out."

  With her hands full of flowers and phone, Hannah would have to put both down in order to put on the gloves. The easiest thing to do would be to hand both to Scott, but it would only exacerbate the tension if there was a chance that she and Scott would touch.

  "Can I be of assistance?"

  McNamara appeared. Whatever Hannah had planned to do about the gloves became moot when McNamara reached around her to take the gloves from Johnson with a motion so smooth, Johnson didn't have a chance to fight.

  "I require a consultation with Ms. Quinn. I'll see that she puts her gloves on when we are finished."

  "We can't permit you to have contact with her. She had no control." At least the other doctor turned his ire on McNamara, and not on Hannah.

  "She has sufficient control around me." McNamara held out a hand to Hannah. Hannah gave him the flowers and took the gloves from his hands, her phone going back into her pocket. "I've already had contact with her. What happened this morning was an anomaly — "

  "An anomaly we can't ignore." The doctor argu
ed back, taking a step closer to McNamara, his shorter stature not interfering with his outrage. "You're not on the Committee. You can't override our decisions without a court order. This whole demonstration would never had happened if you hadn't insisted your caseload should take priority over safety."

  Scott wanted to punch both of them, for acting as if neither he nor Hannah were standing right there. He could tell Hannah felt the same, as she jammed on her gloves, her cheeks red.

  "See. All done." She wiggled her fingers, to prove her point.

  Her compliance meant little to the two doctors, who stood toe-to-toe now, their pissing match catching the attention of everyone else — including Catherine, who shushed hospital security with a simple wave of her hand.

  "If you tried giving Ms. Quinn a little respect for what she has accomplished instead of tearing her down, you might find her more willing to comply with your ridiculous standards."

  Whatever McNamara would have said next became moot once Catherine joined them.

  "Gentleman, whatever the problem is, bring it to a close. You're creating a disruption." Ms. Chung's son, still snug in Catherine's arms, blinked but otherwise didn't react.

  "With all due respect, Captain — "

  "I understand your objections, Doctor Johnson, but Hannah has her gloves on. Cory has his gloves on. He's moved out of my home. There's only so much you can do in the name of safety. We took a chance and it worked. Dr. McNamara is cured and Ms. Chung has been arrested. I will make arrangements for Hannah's training as soon as I'm able." She juggled Jimmy from one arm to the other as the boy yawned and stretched. This time she addressed only Dr. Johnson. "The Committee will have to be satisfied with our efforts. Anything else and you risk losing them forever. We don't want that."

  His mother had thrown down the gauntlet. There wouldn't be a Committee if not for her, and she had just challenged her own creation. No one wanted to lose Hannah to another city. No one wanted to let her go. They wanted to control her. They'd tried to cage her, but they had failed.

  They'd have to get through him first if they tried again.

  "I'll be calling another meeting about this." Johnson didn't try to couch his words as anything other than a threat.

  "I understand." Catherine sounded more tired than anything else.

  Stymied, Johnson stomped away. No sooner had the doctor gone out of earshot than Catherine rounded on Scott.

  "It's time for you to leave."

  Scott hated it when his mother was right, but even he knew his presence in the hospital would only make things worse for Hannah.

  "I'll call you tonight." It was the best he could offer.

  "I'll find a nice vase for the flowers." Hannah reached over to take them back from McNamara.

  Scott smiled, but turned away before he could say anything else. Catherine watched them both. She wouldn't leave until he did.

  "Scott."

  He turned back to look at Hannah.

  "You'll keep your promise to Ms. Chung, won't you?"

  He'd made a promise to look for the "real" Jimmy. Whatever Hannah had seen inside the boy had her spooked. "Of course."

  He would keep his promise to Ms. Chung, but first he needed a plan. He wasn't a detective, but he knew someone who was.

  7

  Scott walked away, leaving a cold spot on Hannah's heart. The urge to follow him, to hold him, to have him hold her and tell her everything would be okay, paralyzed her, because she understood all too well the consequences of disobeying the law.

  Even though Johnson had also left in a fit of pique, she couldn't help but notice that one other member of the Committee had remained behind — an older female doctor, with a hint of pepper still showing in her hair, who watched Hannah unobtrusively from the other end of the corridor. Hannah refused to meet the woman's eyes, unwilling to give the woman the satisfaction of seeing Hannah struggle to obey. This woman was nothing, a mere shadow of Miranda. Once Scott had slipped through the door, the woman left too, but Hannah's rebellious anger stayed put.

  Damn them anyway. You would think with all of the Newcomers around the Oversight Committee would have enough to keep them busy. If only she could find a way to keep the Committee too distracted to bother her.

  The light tap on her shoulder made her jump. Now who's the distracted one? McNamara stood there, looking none the worse for wear after all the excitement.

  "My office phone forwarded your text message." He kept his voice low. Maybe he understood by instinct that she didn't want anyone else to know she'd contacted him. He slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks. "Are you okay?"

  A loaded question she chose to ignore. Instead, her voice quavered as she rambled. "Yes. Sorry. I didn't know where you had disappeared too. I'm fine. Thank you for jumping in like you did. Can I talk to you a minute? Privately?"

  "Of course." McNamara motioned her into the nearest exam room, which was the same one where she'd healed him. "We gingers need to stick together."

  Catherine had drifted back toward the doors. It looked as if she was giving the administrators quite an earful. Hannah gave Catherine a subtle wave, then motioned toward McNamara, then the room.

  Catherine saw her signal and nodded, though she kept talking to the officials. It would seem everyone trusted her with McNamara, but not with Scott. Was it because McNamara was a well-respected physician and Scott was an Alt-killer turned Alt?

  Stupid question. Of course it mattered.

  She waited until McNamara closed the door. "I saw something I can't explain."

  "In the boy?" McNamara hitched a hip onto the same exam table he had recently occupied. It was the same hip Hannah had cleared of arthritis.

  "Yes. In Jimmy. That's his name. James Chung, I'm assuming."

  McNamara looked curious, listening instead of rushing to the next item on his agenda. "If I recall correctly, you can see things on the microscopic level: bacteria, viruses, and the like?"

  "All true." The details of her ability hadn't been made public. Only the Committee knew. How did McNamara know? He must have friends on the Committee. How else could he have been able to outmaneuver a guy like Johnson so that she could heal him instead of demonstrating her Alt power on lab rats?

  "Well, I'm not sure I can help." His soft smile held light humor, even as he admitted to his confusion. "My patients are a pretty silent bunch. If they have anything to say, I usually don't find out until I get reports back from a lab."

  "True, but you have a more unique perspective on anatomy than most of the other doctors in the hospital."

  McNamara laughed, a low, gentle sound. "Fair enough."

  "Also, I'd like to keep my questions just between the two of us. I don't want the Oversight Committee getting involved."

  His smile faltered, and the worry lines on his face deepened. He knew she was up to something. He had to be calculating the risk to his career against his curiosity. Even though he'd hired her to work with him, the job could just be temporary, until the quarry raid victims had been examined. Maybe she'd overestimated his pull with the Committee?

  The flash of neediness overcame her again. She needed Scott and the comfort he offered, even if he couldn't solve her problems. None of the Blackwoods could.

  "The Committee controls so much of my life. The gloves, Scott — " Her throat tightened around her words, like a wad of gum stuck in her throat, but she pushed through. "If this is just a useless rabbit hole I've fallen into, I don't want everyone in the hospital talking about it. About me. There are so many rumors already. Ms. Chung wouldn't have attacked me if she hadn't seen me on TV. There are too many exaggerations out there."

  McNamara's brow smoothed out, his confusion relaxing the more she explained. "I understand."

  "Good, because I need to see Jimmy's medical records." She paused, waiting for a shake of his head or a refusal because of some hospital rule or other blockade.

  Instead, McNamara tilted his head, with a look that said please continue. He listened to her,
really listened. He wanted to hear what she had to say.

  "I need to know what was done to him. His brain looks too big for his skull, but it's not swollen. The tissues around the spinal cord had been cut and stitched back together again, right above the atlas. The stitches looked sloppy — "

  A flash of anger crossed McNamara's face, so Hannah stopped. Had she crossed a line? Had she offended him? Maybe he didn't like her criticizing his colleagues. Who was she, after all, but a teenaged Alt, and an untrained one at that?

  The angry look passed almost as soon as it had appeared. "My apologies; I didn't mean to make you stop, but I don't recognize what you're describing. I can't imagine why anyone would cut the spinal cord. The certainty of paralysis alone makes me wonder what that poor boy was suffering from, that would compel a surgeon to perform such an operation."

  Hannah's worry eased its grip on her stomach. So, what she saw didn't have an easy explanation. Her inner rebel wasn't grasping at trouble. She had a purpose. She had an anchor. If she couldn't have Scott by her side, she could at least have McNamara. He believed her. "Which is why I need to see his records."

  McNamara's phone vibrated from his pocket. He gave her an apologetic look as he checked. "I'm sorry. I have to take this."

  Hannah waited while he called his office, hearing his words while trying not to appear as if she was eavesdropping.

  Four uh-huhs and a yes later, McNamara disconnected his phone. "I'm sorry for the interruption, but I have some important calls to make. My caseload timetable has moved up and I need to reschedule a few appointments. I'll have to work tomorrow instead of going down to the harbor to inspect the set-up at the warehouse. Have you ever watched an autopsy before?"

  "No. I haven't, but it's not like I've never seen the inside of someone's body."

  McNamara slipped his phone into his back pocket. "Perhaps you should. Just to prepare yourself. You really don't know how you'll react to an operation like this until you're seeing it."

  Hannah hugged her arms to herself, her gloves making the comforting move less so. She struggled to think of what Scott had told her last night.