by ReGi McClain
Faeted
By ReGi McClain
Copyright 2020 ReGi McClain
Smashwords Edition
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Faeted
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Bonus Story
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Alpha Reader
Alana Terry
Beta Readers
Kimberly Mills, K. L. Schwengel, Kate Sparks, Alison Strachan
Content Editor
Nat Davis
Line Editor
Annie Douglas Lima
These six people dramatically shaped this story. Thank you.
Thank you to Beloved and my children for their patience and support
Thanks most of all to Jesus Christ, my Savior, for all the things.
Chapter 1
A two-story, cinderblock box covered in cracked, dingy white plaster squatted at the back of a large parking lot like a grouchy shepherd for dysfunctional vehicles. Eight cars populated the asphalt pasture, one with the hood lifted and two with orange paint slashes on their tires. No sign stood by the lot entrance or adorned the building’s morose front.
Harsha Mooreland surveyed the forlorn picture from the backseat of the taxi and decided there must be some misunderstanding, most likely an intentional one. She wrinkled her nose at the rearview mirror and spoke in wry tones. “I realize you have to eat as much as I do, but I asked you to take me to the Rice Clinic, not an abandoned workshop.”
The cabby made eye contact in the mirror. “Oh, that’s the Rice Clinic, all right. See the sign on the door?”
She rubbed at the smudgy backseat window and peered at the metal door. Sure enough, blocky, black letters on a sheet of printer paper taped to it declared
RICE CLINIC
BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
NO SOLICITING OR LOITERING
“So it is.” Hope, and an unexpected drizzle of fear, sloshed together in her belly. She pushed both aside, knowing the one to be foolish and the other useless. If she wanted to save Jason’s life or her own, she needed to keep counterproductive feelings out of her way.
“That’ll be forty-eight dollars, ma’am, tip not included.”
Of course, it’s not included. When is it ever? Even when it is, it’s not. Harsha tried to keep her appearance middle class, with clothes and accessories of decent quality, but not designer. Even so, she often found herself the recipient of not-so-subtle hints or unfair charges, as if the smell of money hung over her. “Would you mind waiting for me? I’m going to need a ride to a hotel.”
The cabby’s eyes darted to the abandoned cars, then to the door of the clinic. “I don’t know, ma’am. Another call might come in.”
Harsha raised her brows, surprised at his reluctance. “You charge more per minute for waiting than you do per mile of driving. I’m sure I won’t be more than a couple of hours. You’ll be paid to take a nap.”
Shifting in his seat and twitching his head in every direction like a nervous bird, he switched the meter from miles to minutes. “Okay, but if it’s all the same to you, I’m not interested in shuttin’ my eyes ’round here.”
Stepping out of the cab, Harsha rolled her eyes and muttered, “You’d think a cab driver in Los Angeles would be used to unsavory destinations.” Unless he’s new to the city. Maybe he came from a small town.
In spite of this reasonable explanation, Harsha found herself more nervous than usual as she prepared to meet the new team of doctors. A few strides, which she hoped looked confident, brought her to the door. She grasped the handle and yanked. It stuck in place. Confused, she looked around for a bell or intercom, but found none. An old-fashioned security camera hailing back to the eighties perched over her head and watched her activities. She waved and smiled at it and waited. No one came for a minute, at least, time enough to send someone to answer the door. Worried she’d made a mistake, she fished in her purse for her appointment book and the stack of papers the clinic mailed her. Both listed the same time and date. A glance at her watch showed two minutes until her appointment.
I bet they take an early lunch and don’t unlock the door again until it’s over, like Doctor Marmolejo . She sighed and, for lack of a better idea, knocked on the hard metal door. Her gentle raps elicited no response. She balled her left hand and pounded. When she stopped, an angry purple bruise spread from her wrist to the tip of her pinky. Harsha wrinkled her nose at it. Jason’s going bite my head off when he sees this.
Several minutes passed while her heart sank. She contemplated pounding again, but the throbbing in her hand overruled that proposal. When she turned to go back to the cab, she caught something in the cabby’s expression before he jerked his head back to face his windshield. Relief? He probably wants to get paid and find someone else to drive all over town before getting them where they want to go. This must be the lab, not the actual clinic. Pondering the best way to threaten a cab driver to take her straight to her destination without ending up stuck in the middle of Watts, she took a step toward the car. The clinic door opened into her back. She stumbled forward and caught her balance an instant before she would have face-planted on the asphalt.
“Ms. Mooreland?”
Harsha indulged in a few mental curses and plastered on her friendly business smile before pivoting to face the speaker. A fair-skinned woman about her own age peeked out from the half-open door. Her brown hair and brown eyes seemed faded, as if she made it a habit to throw them in the wash with her dull blue scrubs. She looked Harsha up and down before holding the door open and moving to the side.
Harsha stepped through the door. Why don’t they keep it open during business hours? “Thank you.”
A nametag pinned to the woman’s left pocket labeled her “Ashley.” Her lips spread in a taut smile, the smile of a woman who disapproved of unusual beauty because she lacked it. Harsha knew that smile well. She saw it often. Her own flawless
, cinnamon complexion, large chocolate-brown eyes, silky black hair, and petite, pixie figure often produced expressions of jealousy.
She found the angst tiresome. Her beauty did her as much good as putting a bandage over a broken bone. During her adolescent years, she tried to hide it under bad haircuts, baggy clothes, and outrageous makeup, to avoid the cruel envy of her peers. After starting college, however, she abandoned the ineffective tactic and adopted a new one. She scanned Ashley for something to compliment. Something she herself lacked. Nothing leapt to her eye, except her fallback. “What a lovely wedding ring! How long have you been married?”
Ashley’s smile relaxed. “Going on eight years. Dr. Rice is my husband. I’m his physician’s assistant.”
A tang of jealousy filled Harsha’s mouth. Ashley had a man who shared her passions and whom she liked enough to work with every day. She might even have children. Harsha knew better than to ask. She held out hope for a husband, if she found a cure, but children…. She yanked her errant thoughts back into place and brightened her smile to cover the lapse.
Ashley led the way down a short, gray hall. To Harsha’s surprise, she stopped to pull a chain of keys from her pocket in order to unlock the second door.
“Do you get a lot of trouble with gangs on this side of town?” She asked the question to make polite conversation, though she knew the answer. That explains the locked front door.
Ashley snorted. “That could be interesting. No. It’s that much of our research is very sensitive.”
Harsha started to wonder why Ashley considered the prospect of being bothered by gangs interesting instead of distressing, but Ashley swung the door open and Harsha’s train of thought switched tracks. Rather than the usual reception area decorated with paintings and lined with squishy chairs, as she expected, the interior of the clinic looked like a warehouse. Rectangular boxes, the kind used to archive old files, lined the walls and made paths and halls through the room, dampening the echoes of their footsteps.
Harsha let her shoulders droop. Not again.
In her search for a cure, she met more than her share of would-be sensations hiding their strange philosophies about illness and healing behind the MDs at the ends of their names. She gave them all their fair chances, though, in the hopes one of them had the answer for her trouble buried in his or her philosophy. Even so, keeping a positive frame of mind in the face of all those archive boxes proved difficult.
Ashley turned right and led the way to a glass door covered with blinds. Using a different key than the one she selected earlier, she unlocked it and went inside. Harsha followed, bolstering the few positive thoughts left to her by reminding herself she was running out of time to find a cure. She let out a soft sigh of relief when she saw this room looked like any other exam room.
“I’ll take your vitals and do the initial exam. My husband will be in shortly to decide what kind of blood work needs to be done before we make any decisions.” Ashley delivered her words with the air of someone who understood the folly of making definite statements but remained confident about their expectations.
Harsha felt encouraged. Most doctors shook their heads and asked what she thought they could do that all the others hadn’t. It felt good to be spoken to without cynicism. She let herself imagine how it felt to be well, to be normal, while Ashley took her pulse. As soon as Ashley let go of her wrist, she let go of the daydream. Too much optimism tended to end in depression.
As Ashley finished her basic exam, Dr. Rice entered the room. He wore a set of faded blue scrubs like his wife. A section of his shaved head glistened with extra brightness, suggesting his styling choice stemmed from a problem with balding rather than a preference for hairlessness. He seemed strong under his scrubs, though lean. A pair of glasses lined eyes the same shade of brown as his wife’s.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Mooreland.” Ashley handed him her notes. He scanned them, then took Harsha’s left hand to examine the bruise. “Does this happen often when you knock on doors?”
Harsha huffed a short, self-derisive laugh. “Not always. This time I pounded.”
“You mean this showed up in the time it took for Ashley to answer the door and bring you to this room?”
“No. It showed up a few seconds after I stopped pounding. I watched it turn purple.”
The doctor lifted his eyes to meet hers. “How often do you get these bruises?”
Harsha took a deep breath and launched into an oft-repeated monologue regarding the signs and symptoms of her disease: easily bruised, frequent fatigue, trouble keeping her weight up, and more. She knew by heart every question a doctor might ask and answered them all without waiting for his queries.
Ashley’s and Dr. Rice’s eyebrows hovered high over their eyes by the time she finished. They stared at her in silence, bottom lips drooping, until Dr. Rice laughed. “You’ve done this a few times before, haven’t you?”
Obviously . She nodded, too polite, as a rule, to make snide remarks.
“Well, for future reference, we doctors don’t like the feeling our patients can read our minds.” He and Ashley laughed at his little joke.
Harsha gave them her quite droll smile. Not many people saw through it or any of her fake smiles. Some of her earliest memories consisted of her mother’s admonishments to, “Smile often, even if you don’t feel it. Be polite to everyone. Honey catches more flies than vinegar.” Harsha never yet regretted applying her mother’s advice.
“Well, I’ve read your files, and you anticipated all my questions, so I guess we may as well jump right in.” Dr. Rice borrowed a piece of paper and pen from Ashley and started scribbling. “We’ll start with the blood work and a urine test. Given your apparent clairvoyance, I’m sure you’re familiar with several of the procedures we need to do before we can move on to other options, but we’ll run the DNA strand sequencing test today.”
Harsha nodded and rolled up her left sleeve, glad he hadn’t insisted on putting off the strand-sequence test, the one she flew two thousand miles to get, until after the other tests.
“Try to pee, first. Everything you need is behind the curtain.”
Blood draws left Harsha wondering if she might be experiencing a sensation similar to what Mina felt after Dracula’s first visits. Ashley collected twelve tubes of the precious red fluid before she pulled the needle, more than usual, but not the first time for Harsha. She had endured worse. A fist-sized, black-and-blue bruise covered the inside of her elbow by the time she left.
As she shuffled back toward the taxi, the cabby watched her with a look of mixed pity and apprehension. He stepped out to open the door for her when she neared the car. “Are you all right? You want me to drive you to a lawyer?”
She chuckled, grateful for the bit of humor. “No, thank you. I always look this bad after a doctor’s appointment. Would ”
“Really?” The driver’s voice rose an octave.
“Yes, really, but now I ”
“’Cuz in case you didn’t know, that ain’t normal.”
“I’m aware of that. If you don’t mind ”
“I could drive you to my doctor’s office. The only thing he’ll mess up that bad is your wallet.”
“No, thanks. Please ”
“Knows his stuff, though. I got this zit once—well, I thought it was a zit, only it wasn’t—and it wouldn’t go away no matter how often I popped it; and every time I popped it there was more and more pus, so I went to see him and he told me ”
Harsha’s stomach roiled. Blood: not a problem. Mucus or pus on the other hand…
“Thank you for the offer!” She tried to keep her tone light, but the cabby’s startled expression suggested she failed. She cleared her throat, embarrassed, but glad he finally stopped talking, and started over. “Thank you for the offer, but I just need to rest. Could you please take me to the nearest Motel 6?”
The cabby shook his head and muttered to himself. She caught quacks and crimes but missed the rest. Loud enough for her to hear, he said, �
�You’re the customer.”
Harsha swiped the unlock screen on her cell phone. As usual when her dreams incorporated the sounds or sensations of the real world, her action accomplished nothing. The rock song Jason, her brother, put on her cell phone to torment her still blared its irritating, tinny guitar solo. She really needed to change it. With great effort, she pulled herself far enough into the waking world to grab the clock off the nightstand. It scolded her with its nine-thirty A.M. display. She groaned and snatched her phone. “Hello?”
“Is Ms. Mooreland available?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Ashley at the Rice Clinic. We have the results of your tests back. Will you be available to come in around eleven?”
Harsha’s mind cranked through Ashley’s words. Eleven. One and a half hours. Can I get there in ninety minutes? She pushed herself into an upright position, gauging her body’s reaction. Not completely awful. I think I can make it.
“I’m sorry for the last minute notice,” Ashley continued. “We tried to call earlier, but you must have been out to breakfast.”
Oh, right. Breakfast. Get up, get showered, eat breakfast, figure out bus schedule… “Can we make it two?”
“That’ll be fine. We’ll see you then.”
“All right. Goodbye.” Harsha let the arm holding the phone drop. Physical exhaustion drowned anticipation and anxiety alike.
Two o’clock found her wavering on her feet in front of the clinic after a long bus ride and an exhausting walk of several blocks. Rather than knocking with her hand, she banged a fist-sized rock on the door until she saw the handle jiggle. She tossed the rock aside before Ashley peeped through a sliver of space between the door and the jamb.
Ashley sighed in obvious relief when she saw Harsha. "It’s no wonder you bruised when you knocked yesterday. I’ve never heard anyone knock so loudly before.”
Harsha decided not to point out the spidery lines where her stone scraped the paint off the door, or that her politer attempts to gain entry the day before all failed. Instead, she smiled. “And you must have some very impressive technology to have results for me already. I’ve never heard back from a doctor so quickly before.”
