Linda Robertson - Vicious Circle

It takes me an hour to get downtown; longer if I have to fight rush-hour traffic. Johnny got us to the Cleveland Clinic in forty minutes flat. By then, of course, I needed a hairbrush in the worst way.

I felt like the little Chihuahua trying to keep up with the boss dog in those cartoons as we entered the hospital. Johnny’s long legs took him smoothly and swiftly inside while I half ran to keep up, finger-combing my hair in an effort not to look like the witch stereotype.

“Johnny!” Celia’s voice. We turned. “Persephone!”

We hurried toward her, but she moved reluctantly, like someone with bad news he or she doesn’t want to share. Celia was a beautiful woman, pale and petite and slender with golden-blond hair in a stylish, short cut. She always wore something fashionable but kept to soft and muted colors. In tan corduroy trousers and a khaki turtleneck adorned with a sheer, gold-tone scarf, she could have passed for a chic doctor’s wife. I’d always thought she carried herself like an approachable princess: highborn, but not high-minded. When we neared, however, I could see that her swollen red eyes barely held her fear in check, adding a feral warning to her demeanor. Her arms spread wide for me. “Didn’t expect you,” she said, choking up as she grabbed me in a hug.

“How bad is she?”

Celia’s hair tickled my skin as she buried her face against my neck. She squeezed me so tight I couldn’t breathe. There’s nothing like wære strength. “First Lorrie, and now this.” She let out a sob. I hugged her back, her sweet-orchid cologne mixing with the sanitized hospital smell as she cried into my windblown hair.

“They’re running the tests now,” she whispered. “They suspect already.”

“How is that?” I asked, looking up to catch Johnny’s reaction.

“She ripped the dashboard apart with her bare hands.”

“She what?” Johnny demanded.

Celia pushed out of the hug, but immediately wrapped her arms about herself as if she were cold. “What I was told…and overheard…was that her SUV went over the abutment of a bridge. The paramedic said it looked like it had landed on its nose, then fallen back onto the tires. She was conscious when they arrived, the steering wheel pressing against her chest—the air bags didn’t go off. She was screaming and coughing up blood. They tried to calm her, told her they’d get the jaws of life and have her out in fifteen minutes. She said, ‘Fuck that’ and tore the steering column off, dragged herself out the front window, then collapsed.”

“Shit,” Johnny said.

“She pulled herself out of the wreckage! Can you imagine?” She wiped her eyes with her hands. “Her right leg is broken.” She shivered. “Both ankles are broken. Five ribs. One punctured a lung!” She put a hand on her stomach. “They did a CT scan. The nurse told me the good news was, aside from the punctured lung, her internal organs looked good. The bad news was she had a fractured pelvis. The trauma surgeon was going to put in a chest tube to drain fluid from the lung, and put her leg back together.”

“Excuse me.”

We all turned. Two police officers stood three feet away from us. I detected Johnny’s spine stiffening and shoulders squaring from the corner of my eye. “Yes?” he said, voice low and taut.

One of the officers was older, I’d have guessed fifty. The other was half that, and he shrank back a step when Johnny spoke. “You’re acquaintances of Ms. Hennessey’s?” the older man asked, unflinching as he assessed Johnny.

“We are,” Johnny said.

“We don’t anticipate Ms. Hennessey will be able to answer questions right away; could we get your names and contact information? Perhaps you could answer some questions.”

“Sure,” I said. “What questions?”

“We’ve received eyewitness reports that Ms. Hennessey’s vehicle was forced over the edge of the bridge by a black Hummer. Do you know anyone with such a vehicle?”

We all said no.

“Do any of you know why anyone would want to tamper with Ms. Hennessey’s vehicle?”

Before either Johnny or I could react, Celia interrupted. “Oh God, there’s the nurse.”

We all turned to the plump woman with a face like a stone cliff full of crags and crevices. Recognition of Celia brought her to us, but she clearly disapproved of Johnny in a glance. “Are you family of the patient Hennessey?” she asked.

“They are,” Celia lied.

“Yes,” I lied too.

“Bet this won’t surprise you, then. Her test is positive for the wære-virus,” she said distastefully, with a sharp glance at Johnny. “We’re discharging her now. If you would—”

“What? Discharging her? The full moon isn’t for another…” I stopped to think.

“Twenty-five days,” Johnny said.

“By then we’ll have her moved elsewhere,” I added. “No one will be at risk.”

“We are not properly set up to care for wæres, and several of our employees here feel caring for wæres violates their moral conscience, and”—she held up a hand to ward off a protest—“federal law allows them to refuse. However, the State Shelter Facility is fully staffed with folks who will treat wæres. For this reason, as well as for her own well-being, she is being discharged now.”

“State Shelter?” Celia echoed, her voice hollow. She and Johnny shared a look of defeat.

The State Shelters were like human dog pounds. Their idea of health care was ridiculous. Unwanted pound animals got better treatment. I couldn’t let Theodora go there.

“This is so fucked up!” Johnny shouted.

Anybody who wasn’t already staring at him did then. The police had disappeared, probably fled as soon as they heard the test was positive.

My stomach was a chunk of ice. “We’ll take her.”

“What?” the nurse asked, incredulous.

Johnny and Celia were staring at me.

“Are you saying that you want to sign an AMA waiver—Against Medical Advice—and take the patient with you?” She laughed.

I swallowed. “Yes.”

“Persephone, think about this,” Celia said.

“No, it’s perfect,” Johnny said to her.

“You’ll have to go to the registration area to arrange for payment,” the nurse interrupted.

I ran a hand over my windblown hair. I didn’t have my purse or checkbook—not that I thought I had enough money to cover what they were going to charge. Then I remembered Vivian’s money. “Johnny. Is the duffel still in your saddlebag?”

He did a double take at me, between glares at the nurse, and said, “Yeah.”

“Get it.” I pushed up the sleeves of his oversized jacket and said to the nurse, whose smug grin had disappeared, “I want an itemized bill. Whatever IVs are in her, stay in her. Whatever fluids, medicine, blood, or plasma is currently being given to her. I’m paying for those too.” I turned to Celia. “Did you drive here in your CX7?” We had to transport Theo, and I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone from here to take us and know where we went.

“Erik brought me. His Infiniti.” Celia’s eyes widened as she understood. “The seats fold down. He’s waiting outside the ICU room now. I’ll get the keys and tell him what you said.”

The nurse scanned me up and down. “You know your friend is as good as dead if you take her away from professional care?”

“I know she’s as good as dead at the State Shelter.”

“We’ll take our chances,” Johnny affirmed.

The nurse walked away.

I shouted after her, “I want the stretcher or backboard or whatever she’s on too.” She didn’t respond. “You hear me?” I shouted. She waved her hand up over her head. From where I was, it looked a lot like she flipped me off.

I sat in the back corner of Erik’s black Infiniti FX45 beside Theo, who lay crosswise in the space on a backboard. She looked like hell. Neck brace, dark circles around her eyes. Weird casts on her leg and ankles. Her toes were dark, greenish, swollen, and shiny. I held the IV bag up to keep the fluids moving into her. The tube poking from her side was the size of a garden hose; it didn’t seem like too much was coming out just now.