Chapter 47
They soon found a decent sized town. Blue hospital signs led them down dark winding streets until they reached a group of large, modern buildings. Oren parked the car in the section marked "Emergency Room Patients Only." As the motor fell away into silence he said, "I hope you know what you're doing."
Oren climbed out and opened the door, gingerly taking Katelina again. He lifted her as though she weighed nothing, and held onto her while Jorick climbed out. Katelina's eyes strayed to the large building. Like so many hospitals it was all brick and green glass. Electric flood lights made the space around the building a pocket of strangely colored daylight, though the darkness clawed at the edges. She shivered as she stared at the glass doors marked "Emergency Room". The world was suddenly becoming too real, nightmares and reality crashing together in a terrible mix that made her chest tighten.
Jorick climbed from the car and took her gently in his arms. As he caught her gaze an inexplicable feeling of wellbeing rippled through her. It would be all right, after all.
He carried her towards the shiny building. The glass doors swooshed automatically out of their way as they entered, leading into a lobby done in white and blue with ugly geometric paintings on the walls. He carried her past rows of empty chairs to the counter where a woman sat sipping from a mug and staring at a computer screen. At their approach she looked up, her face shocked.
"What happened?" she asked, clicking the computer mouse but staring at them rather than the screen.
A chair patterned in ugly blue sat before the counter and Jorick carefully deposited Katelina in it, mindful of her whimper as she was jostled. He looked at the woman and muttered so that his teeth stayed hidden, "She was attacked by something, a dog or a wolf maybe - I saw it from a distance, and when I got there it ran off." He turned to Katelina and opened the coat enough to reveal the mess that had been her shoulder. "It tore her up before I got there."
"It sure did," the woman agreed, sucking her teeth. "All right," she placed her fingers on the keyboard. "I just need a little information first."
Katelina sagged against the chair as exhaustion washed over her. She forced her mouth to give her name, address, and social security number. The woman's eyebrows shot up at the distance between the hospital and her home address, but Jorick quickly explained that they were on vacation. The woman accepted it, though she didn't look like she believed it. Jorick had to help Katelina sign the paperwork granting them permission to treat her. As the demands for information dragged on, his fingers tapped rhythmically on the counter and his brows drew closer and closer together. He seemed on the point of saying something when an attendant appeared with a wheelchair. Jorick scooped her up carefully and set her in it, following as the attendant wheeled her back to a room.
The attendant helped her onto a hard cold bed. He promised someone would be in soon, and disappeared. Katelina looked at Jorick, worry in her eyes, but he offered her a tight reassuring smile. Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the nurse came in to take her vitals and get the story of what had supposedly happened once again.
"If you'll remove your coat," she said cheerfully as she got the blood pressure cuff ready.
Katelina cleared her throat painfully. This was one of the moments she'd been dreading. "I can't."
The nurse raised her eyebrows. "What do you mean, hon?"
Her cheeks turned pink and she stared at her naked legs sticking out from beneath the dark coat. "I can't," she repeated. "I-I don't have any clothes on under it."
The nurse's eyebrows shot up higher and she glanced sharply to Jorick who only shrugged. "I see. Then let's get you into a gown." She looked at Jorick again. "You are?"
"Her boyfriend," he said simply. "I'm staying."
The nurse looked at Katelina and she nodded numbly in agreement, though she wasn't sure he was her actual boyfriend. Still, she supposed it was easier than trying to explain the truth.
Without asking any more questions, the nurse got a pink printed gown from a cupboard and laid it on the bed. "Put this on and I'll be back."
When she disappeared Jorick moved to the side of the bed and wordlessly helped her out of the bulky coat and into the gown. He gathered the coat up and stood awkwardly next to the bed, his eyes on the door.
"They're suspicious," she murmured. She lay back on the pillow and stared at the television bolted to the wall.
"It's fine," Jorick said softly and patted her arm. The nurse reentered and gave Jorick a sharp look as she tightened the blood pressure cuff around Katelina's arm and clipped the oxygen monitor to her finger. "Why don't you tell me what happened?" she asked Katelina pointedly.
She struggled through a sketchy story about being attacked by some kind of big animal and Jorick saving her. As she finished, the nurse gazed at her with narrowed eyes. "And how did you get the black eye?"
Katelina was shocked into silence. She'd forgotten about the condition of her face. Oddly enough, none of it really hurt, though she didn't have time to figure out why. "I, um, I fell down the stairs the other day," she said lamely.
"And what happened to your neck, here?" the woman asked, pointing to the mark Jorick had left.
Panic blossomed in Katelina's chest and she looked to Jorick for help, but he remained stonily silent. "Oh, that. Um- it's um-" she swallowed hard. "I mean I was at a party-."
"Are you on drugs?" the nurse asked coldly.
"No, no," Katelina said quickly. "It's . . . just a little joke. We all got one, to look like, um, like vampire bites. It's almost Halloween," she added as an afterthought. "It was a Halloween party."
The nurse clicked her tongue. "And this?" she poked the two small scabs that were left from Jesslynn's bite. "An older joke maybe?"
Katelina stared at her feet, sick inside. She couldn't think of anything to say except that Torina and Oren had been right. This was a bad idea.
"Is this necessary?" Jorick asked, breaking his silence.
"Excuse me?" the nurse looked up at him sharply.
"She isn't here to have that treated so it's none of your business," he said firmly. "She's told you what happened to her shoulder."
The nurse gave him a cold look and scribbled something on her clipboard before she left. Katelina watched her go, relieved that the cross examination had ceased. Absently, she touched her face, but the swelling was gone, and the lump on the side of her head was little more than a bump. Maybe she hadn't been hurt as badly as she thought.
Jorick cleared his throat and walked to the TV. He flipped the channels until he found something watchable, then he pulled the wheeled stool next to the bed and sat down. He heaped the coat in his lap and gently stroked her hair as they watched a cartoon about a claymation koala bear and his friends. Katelina stared at it absently. After everything that had happened, the bright colors and cheerful voices seemed somehow macabre; reminders of a world she no longer believed existed. When she closed her eyes all she saw was Claudius' twisted face looming above her, snarling fangs gleaming to a soundtrack of Troy's crude laughter.
Tears pricked her eyes, then the strange calm descended again. She glanced at Jorick, but he seemed engrossed in the television show.
They didn't get to watch very much of it before a tall thin man dressed in blue came in and drew her blood. He didn't make any comments other than those absolutely necessary and then left again. He'd been gone for only a moment when the doctor came in, looking grim and suspicious. Jorick gave up the stool and moved along the wall, watching as the doctor poked and prodded at her. He asked no questions other than for her to recount the story about the dog. He listened to her heart and her breathing, and examined her shoulder. When he'd finished he nodded to himself. "It looks like a dog, all right, but a big one." He narrowed his eyes at her. "You'll need some blood. You're also badly dehydrated. I'm going to sew this up and have them give you an IV." He gazed at her levelly. "You're lucky. Although it looks bad, it's mainly surface damage. None of the muscles were affected very badly. It's going to be a scar, but it shouldn't impede your arm movement." He cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. "You've sustained a good deal of bruises. You said you fell down the stairs?"
She nodded her head and he took a small light from his pocket and shone it in her eyes. "You don't have a concussion," he announced as he pocketed it again and peeled off his gloves. "They'll be in to hook you up and I'll be back to sew that up."
He left and she looked at Jorick again, her eyes wide. His gaze was reassuring, though she suspected he was just as nervous as she was. He had a lot more to lose than she did if something happened.
