Cassie Alexander: Shapeshifted

His tone wasn’t rude; he was just being forthright about the facts. My instinct was to fight him—but with what? My mom was right. Just because fighting was the only tool in my tool belt didn’t mean it was always the best one for the job. And why should I, now that the mural was gone? It’d been foolish to think I’d gotten some sort of a sign.

And being rejected here didn’t mean I was condemned to work at the sleep center. I’d sent my résumé out to a ton of other places. At least now I knew I needed to come up with a better why-I-left-my-last-job lie.

I stood and reached out to shake his hand. “Ah, well. Sorry for wasting your time.”

He took my hand and shook it. His hand was warm and strong, and he gave me a begrudging nod. “Not many people try to work down here.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.” A quick smile crossed his face, and then he gestured to the door.

I saw myself out the short hallway. Strike one. But I probably had twenty-four hours’ grace at the clinic—it’d take them that long to find my replacement, and I hadn’t seen my current job up on Craigslist this morning. No way for them to know I was fishing for a new one. I should call them tonight, in case none of this went well. I tried to muster up some enthusiasm for going back there, and found myself hollow.

I let myself into the waiting area just as the far door to the outside world opened. Two men came in, one holding the other as he stumbled and bled. The mother sitting in the waiting room screamed, while her daughter stared innocently.

“¡Médico!” the standing one shouted, pulling the bleeding man another step into the room. The elderly woman with the rosary beads began to pray aloud.

I stepped through and let the door close quickly behind me to protect the staff. I could see into the plastic-windowed wall to my right where the receptionists had scurried off like rabbits. Hopefully to tell someone in charge there was a bleeding man out here.

“They tried to kidnap me!” The standing man pointed what I belatedly realized was a gun at me. Instantly I held up my hands. “¿Quién eres?” he asked me.

I didn’t know what he was asking precisely, but the gun helped make it clear. “La enfermera,” I said, at least knowing the Spanish word for “nurse.” I opened up my purse slowly and pulled a pair of gloves out. “Let me see your friend.”

As an actual clinic employee had yet to be seen, the gunman grunted assent. I moved closer to the bleeding man. He was shot in his upper arm. Behind us, with the men distracted and the gun pointed at me, the other patients filtered out, stepping over the wounded man’s trail of blood.

“That’s gotta hurt. Let’s get you sitting down. How long ago was this? How much blood did he lose?” I kept asking questions, trying to distract them both from the mass exodus happening at the door. I inspected the rest of him visually and with both gloved hands—he’d slimed blood all over himself in getting dragged here. There could be a second, worse gunshot wound hidden somewhere else on him, easy. When I didn’t find anything else, I tested a finger near his wound, and he yelped.

“Pray for me, Grandmother,” he begged the elderly woman sitting behind us, the only waiting room occupant left inside.

The grandmother snorted, loudly. “I would sooner die than pray for you!”

I heard the back room door slam open behind me. “Goddammit, I told you all to call ahead. You all have our number.” Dr. Tovar was at my side. He looked at me. “You go home. Now.”

This wasn’t my fight, my place, or my people. But I was here, and my hands were covered in an injured man’s blood.

“I mean it! Go home!” Dr. Tovar yelled at me.

“I’m not some dog you can shoo away!” I yelled back. He closed his mouth and glared, but then he turned to our patient rather than continuing our fight.

The door to the outside world opened up again. I turned around to see. Two men stood in the doorway, sunlight pouring through from behind, casting them in deep shadow. They both held up guns. The man holding his friend dropped him to hold his gun up too.

“Not in here!” Dr. Tovar yelled. The standoff continued over our heads. I looked back at the floor, not wanting to gawk at the men holding guns. “We’re off limits!” Dr. Tovar yelled again.

None of the men moved.

I closed my eyes and winced, waiting to hear a round, not knowing who or what it’d strike. The grandmother prayed louder, “Santa Muerte, escucha la or ación de su hijo pobre.”

I opened my eyes in surprise and turned to look at her. The gunmen were closer now. I could make out their faces and see the beginnings of strange tattoos high on their necks.

“I said my clinic is off limits!” Tovar yelled.

“Your clinic, and your people. For now,” the nearer of the gunmen said. “But Maldonado has unfinished business with him.” He twitched his gun at the man bleeding on the floor.

I instinctively leaned in over the bleeding man to protect him—and found Dr. Tovar was already there. Our shoulders touched. If they were going to shoot the man, they’d have to be content with a leg shot—or shooting through one of us. The tweed of his coat rasped against my upper arm where my sleeve ended.

“The seventeenth is coming, Doctor. Did you tithe yet?” the gunman asked of Dr. Tovar, jerking his chin up slightly.

“You can’t have him,” Dr. Tovar stated again.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Your answer is tell Maldonado to go fuck himself,” Dr. Tovar said, his voice frighteningly calm.

The first gunman started forward, and the second swatted out a hand to hold him back. Their faces were as cold-blooded as any vampire as they contemplated shooting Dr. Tovar and me.

The second one released the first. “Come on. He’ll come out eventually,” he said.

“We’ll shoot you in the street, like a dog,” the first threatened, staring at Dr. Tovar, lowering his gun.

And then they retreated, the door closing behind them, taking the sunlight and shadows with them.

The grandmother went on a tirade. “¡Rezo y rezo y sigue siendo lo mismo!” Then she stood up and left the waiting room, clearly disgusted with all of us equally.

I wanted to run after her and ask her who she was talking about, how she knew anything about Santa Muerte—I didn’t get to ask many questions back in December when I was being shunned out the door.

But I was helping Dr. Tovar. I looked over to him, and he nodded at me. “Let’s get him up and into the back room.”

We did so, with the help of the man he’d come in with. One of the receptionists held open the door.

I tried to make eye contact with Dr. Tovar while we were involved in the process of cleaning up our patient.

When the man’s shirt came off, I could see that he was covered in grim prison-looking tattoos. He talked angrily to his friend, but mostly in Spanish, so it wasn’t illuminating. And Tovar ignored any pointed looks I gave him.

What I was trying to say with my eyeballs was, Are you going to report this? I knew we were supposed to report all gunshot wounds that anyone received to the police. And keep the bullets too. But now wasn’t the time, not in front of the patient, and this was not my place.

“Why don’t you go to my office, Miss Spence,” Tovar said when he was almost done. I inhaled to argue, and then remembered the wisdom of not doing so for once. I took off my gloves, washed my hands, and went outside.

I figured it was going to take him a while to clean up, and I owed it to myself to see if the elderly woman had come back. I went up to the hallway door, looked around at the waiting room through the thin pane of wire glass, and didn’t see anyone out there but a janitor scrubbing at the bloodstain on the floor.