Chapter 37
Thirty-Seven
JULIAN
Leaving Maris this morning was difficult.
Never have I ever wanted to stay exactly where I was because of a woman.
I was human the last time I had any kind of feeling that might rival this, and even then Claire and Maris are opposites.
There’s nothing about them that feels the same except for the way they make me pay attention.
I look at my phone. There’s no texts or calls, which seems like a good sign. Maris doesn’t seem like one to cling. Between the two of us I’m going to be the clingy one and that’s fine. There’s been painfully little that I’ve genuinely been interested in for so long.
Maris can have all my attention until I’m dust. She’s my mate, what else would I be yearning for but her?
Nothing. That’s fucking what.
“Doctor Vale!” It’s Donna, thank fuck. I thought it was going to be Liz.
She’s been circling like a shark scenting blood in the water all morning.
She hasn’t approached me directly. If the kids I’d treated earlier knew enough to ask to see my wound then Liz had heard.
I think the news that I took a knife for Maris has stopped her.
That knife in my side is the only thing people have been talking to me about, even patients.
I had to cover a few pediatric appointments and was asked by more than one kid if I could show them the wound.
Much to their mortified parents' relief, I’d politely declined.
“Yes, Donna?” I turn to see the older woman red in the face and puffing for breath. What the fuck? Was she running? I put a hand out to steady her when she stumbles slightly. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
“No. There's been an accident. A big one on Hwy 80.”
Hwy 80 is the road that leads from town to the hospital.
It curves around a cliff and scales the cliffside right up to the top of the hill where we are.
There’s a few hairpin curves and spots that look like they’re prone to a washout but after the storm passed the rain hasn’t been more than a drizzle today.
It couldn’t have been because of a washout.
I don’t bother asking the particulars, whether it was a head on collision or the side of the road falling into the sea.
The how or what really doesn’t matter in the end.
“How many?” I ask, already heading to the ER.
“There’s twenty of them.”
Vesper Point doesn’t have a big ER, only eight beds are available, so she’s right this is a big accident.
“Do you have charts for me or do I need to start on vitals?”
“We’re working on the charts now. About half done, so you should be able to get started.
” Donna tells me. She must get a second wind because Donna hustles past me down the stairs and rushes to grab the charts from behind her desk.
“Here, these are the ones we’ve got ready for you.
Liz is working with the others to finish up the rest.” Donna hands me the charts but there’s one she holds back.
I point at the chart. “And that one?”
She looks down at it like she’s surprised she’s holding it and puts it behind her back. “Oh, this one is fine. Not a priority. Just a local that came in for a few questions.”
I nod like I believe her but I don’t. She’s trying to hide something with her heavy-handed move to hide the chart. I’ll have to grab it from her the second her back is turned to see what warranted her keeping it from me.
“All right, I’ll get to work on our patients. Is anyone critical?"
Donna bites her lip, pauses and then shakes her head. “No. From what I saw it was mostly broken bones. There’s a few bleeders, though.”
A few bleeders? What the fuck does that mean?
“Show me them first. We have to check for internal bleeding.”
“Right away, Doctor Vale.”
Donna walks in front of me. She’s still got the file behind her back and I spy MM, the initials of the patient, at the top of the chart in big block letters.
MM.
My gut starts to feel wrong when I see those letters.
I’m not one to jump to conclusions, it never helps but…
no, it couldn’t be her. The second I step into the ER, I’m hit with fear, pain, anguish, anger.
It’s a veritable buffet of human suffering in here.
Some vampires savor fear, and when I was younger I did, but now it reeks.
I take in as shallow of a breath as possible to keep the stench out of my nose as I work on the girl Donna brought me to.
She’s young, maybe twelve with a gash in her arm and her head.
“This is going to sting, but just for a moment,” I tell her as I irrigate her wound and look it over. I’m lucky there’s nothing like gravel or glass in her. That would have taken a graft but she’s going to be fine with a few stitches.
“Are you going t-to stitch me up?” she asks in a trembling voice, like she read my thoughts.
I look up at her and nod with a reassuring smile.
“I am but I’m very good at this. It’ll be quick and when we’re done you might even have a scar to show everyone.
” I’m not lying to her. I am very good, I’m exceptional at this.
The scar she ends up with is going to be minimal with me doing the suturing.
“A scar? But my mom said scars are bad.”
I shake my head and start to look over her head wound. It’s shallow. She won’t even need stitches here, just a bandage. “Scars give character. Only the most interesting people have scars.”
“Do you have any scars?”
“I do,” I tell her and like a typical kid she leans forward to look up at me.
“Can I see?”
The scars I’m talking about are on my arms. I don’t know how I got them, but I do know when.
My scars are the result of a drunken night with friends.
It was 1725 and we’d gone out to celebrate a spectacular showing.
The Salon that year had been moved to the Louvre Palace, a truly monumental evening that called for a night of debauchery.
I’d woken up covered in blood, alone, and in an alleyway.
I didn’t remember a thing, but from the state of my arms and shoulders whatever I had gotten into that night was a mystery, but it had been fucking sharp.
The silvery scars run up my forearms and across my shoulders.
I roll up my sleeve and show her my forearm.
“See. Pretty cool, right?”
The little girl nods. “So cool.”
I tend to her and move onto the next. A pre-teen boy with a broken leg and a busted mouth.
“Is it broken?” he asks.
“It is. Don’t worry. Six weeks in a cast and you’ll be right as rain. I’m going to apply pressure for a split on three, okay? 1-2-3.”
I finish with him and am looking over the next patient when it hits me that all I’ve seen are children so far.
I pause and look around the room. There’s kids in every bed.
A few of them have two or three of them sandwiched together.
The only ones that don’t are the three I’m seeing now who are by far the worst of the bunch.
Donna powerwalks past with a tray of gauze.
I’m not the only one working, the nurses are tending to a few of the kids on the other side of the room.
I glance over that way and see that it looks mostly like bumps and bruises.
There’s kids in the five beds down that way, two to a bed, except for one bed.
There’s one bed that has the privacy curtains completely drawn. It’s the last bed.
One of these is not like the other.
If every bed is full then why is that one cordoned off the way it is? We would only do that for a patient that needs to be separated, sometimes they’re more severe than the rest and sometimes they need rest.
My mind flashes to the chart Donna didn’t give to me.
MM.
The second I’m done putting the splint on and making sure the boy is fine, I’m off and moving towards the bed.
I take a deep breath when I’m halfway there and I see red.
Anger blinds me because right there beneath the overpowering stench of fear and pain is the scent of roses, sandalwood, with a hint of lemon.
I know exactly who is in that bed and whose chart Donna had in her fucking bony claws.
“Maris,” I say. It’s my wife that’s in that bed.