No Good Doctor

by Nicole Snow

  “Everything,” I fire back. “Because I trust her. Now continue.”

  “I don’t remember you having the authority to give me orders, medic. That’s above your pay grade.”

  “Maybe so, but if you want more anesthetic...”

  “Gray,” Ember mutters from the corner of her mouth, “canine anesthetic can be dangerous for humans. We really don’t want to give her anymore.”

  “I have a stash of Septocaine in the back,” I whisper back. “But she doesn’t need to know it unless she cooperates.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Fuchsia adds with an offended sniff. “You’re two feet away, not in the other room.”

  I arch a brow. “Are you in pain?”

  She stares at me flatly, eyes cold. “Yes.”

  “Then talk,” I say. “The faster you finish your story, the faster I give you the good stuff so you can get some rest and heal.”

  “How altruistic. A true humanitarian. I might almost believe you’re concerned for my life.” But she lets out another groaning sigh, then continues. “Peters outsmarted me.” It’s grudging, a thing she clearly hates to admit, eyes flashing with a touch of anger. “The bastard slipped in under my nose and captured the prize.”

  I jolt, sitting forward quickly, a rush of adrenaline shooting through me. “He’s got Leo?”

  She nods, her head barely moving. “I overheard the goon who shot me speaking into his earpiece. He said, ‘Target two silenced, target one acquired, transporting to designated location.’” She smirks weakly. “I don’t have to hear his name to know target one is Nine.”

  Fuck.

  I stand, fists clenching. Then Ember’s hand goes on my arm, soft, reminding me to keep myself under control. “Where? Where’d he take him?”

  “It’s obvious you were never in intelligence. Just a medic.” Even now she’s contemptuous. “Really, Gray. Think. Where has he taken an interest? Where would it be easy to hide someone in this town?”

  Before I can answer, Ember does. She puts two and two together as quickly as I do. “The theater,” she gasps. “If you wanted to hide someone, the rigging under the stage goes really deep. You could even build under there.”

  “Well, now.” Fuchsia’s smile is cold. “There might be something to this little ant of a girl after all. But figuring that out won’t help you, Gray. There’s no way you’ll get in. Not with me out of commission. You were never a real soldier – and Peters has a few too many friends with guns for you to Rambo your way past.”

  “He’s not the only one with friends.”

  I have people. People who care about me. People I care about.

  And if I ask with honesty, they’ll help me save Nine. Help me save my old friend, Leo.

  I know they will.

  I pace toward the door. “Stay with her,” I tell Ember. “I’ll be right back with the anesthetic.”

  “Wait!” Ember says, standing, folding her arms over her chest with a thoughtful frown. “What about Baxter?”

  The way Fuchsia lifts her brows is just a little too innocent and calculated. “What about my darling?” she lilts in a cloying lisp.

  Ember makes a face. “Ew. Don’t do that. It’s creepy.”

  Fuchsia chuckles, then trails into a raspy cough before subsiding with a wince. “You deserved it after that disgusting little display of affection. But you really are a clever little thing, if you’ve figured out the cat. I just can’t believe you haven’t figured out why.”

  I rub my temples. “You realize every unnecessary word while you taunt and gloat is another delay in getting you some medicine?”

  “Some pleasures are worth the pain, Gray.” But after a moment, Fuchsia answers more clearly, the mocking lilt gone from her voice. “Little Baxter’s a test subject just like Nine, Gray. And just like Nine...she’s a survivor. Immune to agent SP-73. Her antibodies might be used to synthesize a human-compatible vaccine. It’ll take a few more steps than his blood considering cross-species issues, but...that cat is our backup. Our fail-safe. She came along for the ride to cross-compare results with Nine.”

  “One cat to save the human race,” Ember says with a touch of tired humor.

  “Something like that,” Fuchsia says. “I brought in Nine for scientific purposes and a little company that doesn’t speak unless spoken to, until you interrupted so rudely.”

  “My rudeness saved your cat’s life,” Ember throws back with a bravery I hadn’t expected of her – when I should have.

  She’s shy. She’s not a coward. Even fireflies can burn so bright they blind.

  But Fuchsia actually lights up for a moment, sucking in a quick breath. “You have her?”

  “She’s in the other room,” Ember answers. “Fat, happy, and safe.”

  Fuchsia’s eyes close, and she lets out a rough breath. “Good.” Then she stiffens. “For the sake of the operation, of course.”

  “Of course,” I mutter.

  Heaven forbid she actually care about an animal, or any other living creature.

  I suppose Fuchsia might be part human after all, and only three-fourths a murderous fucking Cylon.

  The silence is broken by a trill from Ember’s pocket, almost ominous in the tense and laden stillness between us. She fishes her phone out, glancing at the screen, before her expression clears.

  “It’s my mom,” she says, turning away and holding up a finger as she lifts the phone to her ear. “Just a sec.”

  I turn my attention back to Fuchsia. “Anything else I should know?” I ask. “Or do you want to rest?”

  “Nothing of importance,” she says, trying – and again failing – to wave a hand dismissively. “Go on. Play white knight. Try to save the day. Get yourself and your little girlfriend and her mother killed.”

  “No one’s dying today. Or any day.” I exchange a long look with Ember while she murmurs into the phone, then nods. “I’ll be right back,” I say, then turn to let myself out into the hallway.

  Where Warren and Blake are waiting, their eyes full of questions.

  Fuck. I knew this day would come.

  I owe my friends answers, once and for all.

  “You,” Warren says, “have got to be out of your fucking mind.”

  “Perhaps,” I answer, “but that still doesn’t solve the problem at hand.”

  We’re sitting in the break room, after I took a moment to find a proper anesthetic and administer it to Fuchsia. It’s a testament to how weak she actually is that within seconds she passed out, giving in to exhaustion now that the pain was no longer keeping her from the edge of unconsciousness.

  I’ll have to see what I can do about rigging up a glucose IV for her, unless she can stand to eat. Maybe work through a few underground channels to get some fresh blood for a transfusion.

  I can’t believe I’m looking after this woman and trying to save her life.

  Right now, though, I have many more lives to focus on than Fuchsia’s. Mainly, Nine’s and the rest of the town’s. Blake, though, is actually grinning.

  “Hot damn. I knew it,” he says. “I knew the Legend of Nine wasn’t just a campfire story, and I knew you had the inside scoop. Why didn’t you ever tell us before?”

  “I don’t know,” I say flatly. “Why didn’t I ever tell you about the time my closest friend murdered the mayor for complying with a corporate plot to infect the town with a plague, right before I blew up a facility full of deadly super-virus and burned the Paradise Hotel to the ground?”

  Blake, at least, has the grace to look sheepish.

  “Shitfire,” he says. “That’s a fair point, I guess.”

  Warren seems more grave, dragging a hand over his face. “This is a fuck of a lot more than you ever told me about knowing Nine years ago. So the gist of it is...the fuckface who authorized using Heart’s Edge as a testing ground is back in town and after the only man alive with antibodies in his blood. Which means he just might be planning to test that shit again.”

  “If not here, then some
where else,” I say. “Either way, we’re the only ones outside Galentron who know about it and can stop it.”

  “So?” Warren’s got that ready look to him, tense, the adrenaline and battle-charged stance of the soldier. It’s never left him, even after all these years, especially after the bad blood that went down last year. “What’s the plan, Doc?”

  He’s not the one who hesitates.

  I do.

  Suddenly I’m questioning the wisdom of asking them for help. Not because I don’t trust them.

  Because I care about them.

  I love them like brothers. It makes me fucking sick to think about either of them coming to harm or worse to help me.

  Warren, barely out of his honeymoon phase, has an infant son with Haley. Blake has his teenage daughter, Andrea, and he’s all she’s got in the world. Both of my closest friends have families, and dealing with Peters could lead them into catastrophic, fatal danger.

  I can’t endanger them like that.

  I can’t take them away from the people who love them.

  The fact that they haven’t turned away from me, haven’t blamed me, is plenty. Having their support and their insight is enough.

  But this time, we’ll have to do this through the right channels. Before any reckless decisions hurt anyone else the way they hurt Leo. Too much action and not enough thought is how we got ourselves into this mess.

  “Langley,” I say. “We’ll go to the Sheriff. I know he’s practically Barney Fife, but he can call in precincts from larger towns. Light up the phones and bring in reinforcements.”

  “What about the Feds?” Blake asks. “FBI? The CIA?”

  I shake my head. “We can’t trust anyone with the federal agencies. They may be in bed with Galentron,” I point out. “That woman you brought in was CIA. You see how well that protected her.”

  “Fuck,” Blake says, scratching at his beard. “High stakes and bad odds and no wild card.”

  “Exactly,” I answer. “If we call in the big guns, we may find them turned on us.”

  Warren is grim, his mouth set in a displeased line. “It’ll take too long to mobilize police from the other precincts. I could probably get a few of my bounty hunting contacts in here faster, and we won’t have to convince them we aren’t crazy, talking about some X-Files shit. We’ll just have to pay them.”

  “Because I’m rolling in money from my military pension and neutering animals,” I retort. I shake my head. “War, I don’t think you should get that deeply involved in this—”

  I don’t get the chance to finish. The door bursts open.

  Ember’s just standing there, breathless, her face almost white with worry, her eyes a little too wide for her face. Warren goes tense, sitting up a little, looking at her, waiting. Blake stares, but it’s a long, thoughtful look before he glances at me, arching a brow.

  Yes, she’s wearing my shirt as a dress. This is not the time for this right now.

  Blake never did have a sense of what was appropriate, the irreverent wank.

  But we all know a woman in distress. Ember’s my main concern. Her gaze darts to me, almost pleading.

  I stand, reaching for her hand. “Ember? What’s wrong?”

  “My mother,” she spills out breathlessly, and pure dread tightens my gut. “She...she was weird, Gray. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I have a bad feeling.”

  Twining her fingers in mine, I lead her back to my chair, sit her down gently, and sink down to one knee, clasping both her hands and looking up at her. “Slow down. Breathe. Tell me everything.”

  Ember’s lips tremble. I grip her hands tighter, waiting her out, letting her compose herself while I stroke my thumbs over her knuckles.

  She takes a deep breath, then nods. “She sounded funny. Kept asking where we were but wouldn’t tell me why – and she kept asking if I was still with you. And it wasn’t like...” She flushes, glancing at Blake and Warren, before her gaze darts back to me. “You know. You know how she is.” She swallows thickly. “There were these weird pauses, too. Almost like she was listening to someone else.”

  My heart dives silently into my guts. I don’t like the sound of this at all, but I listen as Ember continues.

  “And she said I had to come meet her at The Nest. With you.” She shakes her head quickly, her voice quivering. “It was how she said it. Not like she wanted us to come. Like we had to. Like it was really important.”

  Warren strokes his beard, growling low. “Sounds fishy as hell to me.”

  Ember bites her lip, her eyes welling. “Please, Gray. My mom...”

  “It’s all right, Ember.” I gather her closer, pulling her shivering frame against me. “We won’t let anything happen to her. I swear.”

  Warren stands with another growl. “So I’m gonna ask you again, Doc. What’s our plan? Langley’s only one man. I don’t know where the deputies of his fucked off to, but they haven’t been seen for days. Sounds like we’ve got too much ground to cover.”

  I look at them past Ember, helplessness nearly swamping me. “I don’t want to put you in danger. You have families—”

  “So does Ember,” Blake says firmly. “And we’re not gonna leave her family to get hurt. Fuck, you’re our family too. So you just tell us where you need us and cut the martyr bullshit.”

  Fucking hell.

  I don’t deserve friends like this.

  Thankfully, I’ve got them because that ticking doomsday timer just sped up. So I’m going to take them while I have them.

  I nod firmly and stand, taking Ember’s hand and pulling her close against my side. “The two of you check out the theater and see what you can find,” I say. “Ember and I will play along. If they don’t realize we’re onto them, it’ll buy us some time.”

  Ember looks up at me, her eyes dark with worry. “Time to do what?”

  “Figure out how we stop them,” I say. “And put an end to this nightmare once and for all.”

  21

  Dog Bite (Ember)

  I get the feeling this isn’t the first time Doc has used Pam to cover for some of his more secretive business.

  Because he knows just how to bribe her with a promise of a bakery box from some fancy one-of-a-kind place two towns over to talk her into keeping an eye on Fuchsia without asking questions.

  Honestly, I’m a little scared for Fuchsia if she wakes up with Pam watching over her.

  If there’s anyone who won’t take that witchy-woman’s lip, it’s Pam. But if there’s anyone I’m truly worried about right now, it’s my mother.

  The Nest is dark when we pull up outside the café in Gray’s truck.

  One look tells me it’s wrong.

  It’s barely early evening. Felicity never closes up until it’s time for things to hit full swing at Brody’s across the street, drawing her customers away, people migrating over to swap evening coffees for dinner and beers.

  No mistake, the café is empty. Not a single car in the lot, not even the rental my mother drove here. I can see Felicity’s old beat-up station wagon out back, its hind end sticking out from behind the building.

  If she’s here cleaning up, though, why’s everything so dark? So lifeless?

  I reach across the truck for Gray’s hand. “I don’t like this,” I whisper. “Don’t feel good about it.”

  “Something’s definitely off,” he says, squeezing my hand reassuringly. “It’ll be all right, Ember.”

  “Don’t.” I feel like crying. I feel like screaming, actually, but it’s all a knot caught in my throat, strangling my breath. “Please don’t say that. That’s what they said when Dad was in the hospital. I wasn’t all right.”

  “I’m sorry.” The gentleness in his voice says he means it. Still, it doesn’t ease the raw fear scraping inside me. He squeezes my hand once more, then releases it. “Let’s go take a look inside. Stay close behind me.”

  I nod, and it takes me a frozen moment to climb, stiff-legged, out of the truck. Gray moves with a confidence I
can’t emulate, this feral strength in every stride that practically dares anyone to get in his way, to threaten what’s his.

  I’m glad he’s standing between me and whatever waits on the other side of this door.

  If Felicity had just closed up, the front door should be locked. But it swings wide open at Gray’s touch, the bell over the door jingling in an eerie silence.

  We step slowly inside the shadows. I can’t hear a single thing over my own dull beating heart.

  God, I don’t like this. I can’t breathe, and I nearly clutch the back of Gray’s shirt as we step slowly deeper inside, my chest hurting and my eyes darting around everywhere.

  Every silhouette, to me, might be a big man with a gun, waiting to shoot us the instant our backs are turned.

  But the café is truly empty.

  Not another living soul. Not even when we lean over the bar and peek behind it.

  “Barbara?” Gray raises his voice carefully, slowly turning, sharp eyes scanning the room. “We’re here, just like you asked.”

  Nothing.

  Until a muffled sound like a scream comes tearing from the back.

  I nearly rocket right out of my skin, then take off, bolting, racing toward the storerooms while Gray calls “Ember!”

  I won’t stop. I can’t.

  Not if that scream was my mother. Not if someone’s hurting her.

  I burst the door of the first storeroom open, but it’s empty. Just sacks of beans and stacks of foam cups strewn around.

  Breathless, I charge into the next, elbowing the door open – nearly smacking my cousin Felicity square in the face.

  She’s lying on her side, hog-tied with her wrists behind her back and her legs tucked up with her ankles bound together, a wadded towel stuffed in her mouth. Her eyes are wide in the darkness, gleaming, tears shining in angry red tracks down her face. My heart wrenches.

  “Felicity!”

  I drop to my knees, easing the gag out of her mouth carefully, just as Gray comes bolting in after me, staring at us breathlessly for a minute before he steps around us and sinks down next to me. He starts working at the knots in the ropes with his big, strong hands.