by Ophelia Bell
“To either fire you or make you see real, live patients again. You can’t keep hiding in here. It’s a complete waste of talent …”
“I’ll do it.”
“… and is just going to dull your skills. Wait, what?”
“I said I’ll do it. I’ll see patients.” She stood up from her seat, for the first time in a year excited about getting out of the lab for a change.
Javin blinked at her for a second. Then a slow smile spread across his face. “Wonderful! I’ve got a full appointment book today with the season starting in a week. You want half?”
She nodded. “Throw it at me. I’m ready.”
She exited the lab with Javin at her side. Together, they headed down the hall toward the lifts to the upper levels of the Arena League’s private medical center.
“What changed?” he asked. “I didn’t get the sense you had a very productive vacation … or that you relaxed. You’ve seemed even worse off than before you left, if that’s possible. Is it safe to assume you’ve made a turn for the better?”
What had changed? She frowned as she thought. “You remember the day I met Talon, right?”
“How could I forget it? It was your first day doing rounds. He was laid up with a bad sprain, and the second he set eyes on you, he fired me. Not that he could fire me, exactly, but that’s what he said. ‘You’re fired, Doctor Traore. I want her to fix me.’ And that was that. He knew you were the one.”
“So did I,” she said. “But after he was gone, I had this fear that I was somehow predisposed to love a champion, and I just couldn’t handle it if that scenario repeated itself.”
“And that’s changed somehow?” he asked, glancing down at her as they exited the lifts onto a sunny landing.
Outside the big expanse of windows across from her, the yellow mountains loomed, resplendent in the midday sun. Silhouettes of a handful of dragons crossed the sky, sending a fresh spark of longing through her. Everything had changed.
“I’m just not afraid of that happening anymore,” she said. “That’s all.”
Javin gave her a long, scrutinizing look, but didn’t press. “Fair enough.”
They reached the appointment desk, and he gave the receptionist instructions to put Simina on the schedule.
“Glad to have you back, Doctor Taji,” he said with a smile and a pat on her shoulder before turning to go.
* * *
It wasn’t until she met her first patient of the day that she realized how much she’d missed helping people. Not all the athletes she saw were arena champions, either, which was a detail she’d forgotten in her grief over Talon’s death. The League Institute served professional athletes of all stripes. By the end of the day, she’d successfully treated a few champions, but also an egret shifter dancer, a ram shifter mountain climber, and an otter shifter swimmer.
She’d done good work, and was exhausted but clear of conscience when she went home. The dread of spending time with Talon’s ghost wasn’t as present as it had been, and she was able to simply be in her own space without feeling haunted by the past.
Wandering around the big house they’d shared, she struggled to ignore her loneliness. She’d grown so used to the sadness and grief, it felt wrong to not have that any longer—to want the actual company of a living, breathing person, or three, there with her. Before her trip, she hadn’t been able to imagine a life beyond each day, and her effort to find a male willing to father children with her had simply been out of a sense of obligation to honor her lover’s memory.
She found herself staring at a holograph of herself and Talon that flickered on the mantelpiece next to one of his many championship trophies. They’d been so happy. Everything had seemed possible when they were together.
“God, I miss you,” she whispered at the image, though in her mind’s eye she pictured three different faces. After her night with the trio, she’d finally been ready to let Talon go. Being with Veryl, Cato, and Dez had torn down that wall she’d erected around her heart, and there was no rebuilding. At least not where Talon was concerned. She was still terrified of letting herself feel too much for the trio, but she could comfortably move beyond her lover’s death. At least they’d given her that.
They’d also given her the drive to go back to work doing what she did best, because she couldn’t imagine anyone else could possibly exist who would capture her heart the way they had. Talon was gone, but they were out there, and even though she couldn’t bring herself to be with them, she knew there was no comparison to those three champions. She could live with that, especially knowing that they had each other’s love. It would be enough.
Her work would be enough for her. It had to be. She still hadn’t found the antidote to the poison, and until she had a fresh sample, her research was effectively at a standstill. As much as she hated the idea of another champion falling victim to the poison before she could move forward, she was growing impatient waiting.
The next week was a blur. With the arena season in full swing, Simina had no shortage of patients to treat. She was on her way to the reception desk to check in between appointments when a commotion near the entrance caught her attention.
“I need to see the doctor!” a loud male voice yelled. “Nobody else can help me. I’m a champion. The League hospital’s the only place that knows what to do with us. Please!”
“I’m sorry, sir, you’re not approved for treatment here,” one of the nurses said to him. A pair of big security guards had the man held by both arms, hauling him toward the door. The nurse had her hands held up, her face a mask of apprehension as the angry man struggled to break free.
“What’s wrong, Helene?” Simina asked. “If he’s a champion, why won’t you let him in?”
The nurse frowned and turned to Simina. “He’s banned, Doctor Taji. He was one of the duo Hot Wings fought last season. His partner’s the shifter who almost killed Bryer Vargas.”
“It wasn’t me!” the restrained shifter yelled. “I know I was banned, but you’re the only one who can help me, Doctor. I … I’m sick. I need your help.”
Simina’s skin prickled and her vision went red. This was one of the animals who were responsible for the deaths and injuries of all the champions over the past couple years. He didn’t deserve her sympathy, or her help.
She was on the verge of instructing the security guards to go ahead and throw him out, but something stopped her. Her vision cleared, but her heartrate picked up as the idea fully formed in her mind.
“Take him into exam room three,” she said.
“Doctor Taji … He isn’t approved.”
“I’m approving him, Helene. I need to talk to the bastard.” To the confused security guards, she said, “Go ahead.” Both men nodded and pushed the man down the hall and through the door she’d indicated.
“Should I call anyone?” Helene asked. “Doctor Traore, perhaps? Just in case he’s dangerous …”
Simina took a deep breath and shook her head. “Not yet. He sounded too desperate to hurt me, especially if he needs my help as badly as he seems to. If he was in the system before, we should still have his records. Pull his chart and send it to my tablet.”
“Yes, doctor,” Helene said.
Simina braced herself outside the exam room door, then walked in with a grim expression fixed to her face. She didn’t want to give away any hint of hopefulness about what this patient might have to tell her. If his partner had used the poison, he might know how to acquire a pure sample of it. This might be the breakthrough she’d been waiting for.
Keeping her eyes fixed to her tablet, she tapped to bring up his chart.
“Mister Simon Hayes. Almost a decade-long career as a champion. The usual crop of injuries one would expect.” She frowned at the details that scrolled by. “You were in the solo bracket for years. What made you switch to a partnered arrangement?”
&nbs
p; She finally glanced up and into red-rimmed eyes glazed with sickness. Simon’s face was coated in a sheen of sweat. In a flat tone, he said, “Tired of losing, I guess. I thought I’d wind up with a partner whose skills complemented my own. I was wrong. Herrick ruined my fucking life, and now I’m paying the price for it.”
She tapped the scanner mode on her tablet and held it up for the beam to travel over his hunched body. “What seems to be the problem today, Simon?”
“I think I’m dying,” he said.
She lifted her eyebrows and looked directly at him. “Why do you think you’re dying?”
Simon’s gaze darted away and he swallowed hard, then winced as though it hurt. He certainly didn’t look well, that was clear. Glancing down at her tablet, she frowned. All his vitals were off the charts.
“I … I think I’m going through withdrawal,” he said.
Simina nodded. The readout supported his statement. “Narcotic addiction isn’t uncommon among athletes. One injury is all it takes to develop a dependence to some of the pain meds we prescribe. I can help you with that.”
“It wasn’t pain meds,” he said. He lifted one hip and fished into his pants pocket, then drew out a small silver cylinder and handed it to her.
Simina took the cylinder, frowning down at it. It was a typical prescription case for the injected vitamin supplements most champions carried around with them. It was also common knowledge that many athletes chose to use unauthorized supplements that would get them banned from the League if they were ever caught.
“You were doping,” she said, then shook her head. “None of the performance enhancers out there are addictive, though. Not the way narcotics are. And they certainly wouldn’t cause the types of withdrawal symptoms you’re experiencing.” Opening the cylinder, she found a circle of tiny syringes loaded like bullets into a revolver. Tipping the case up to slide them out, she discovered all but one were empty.
“It’s my last dose, but I want off the shit. There’s no point now that I can’t compete, but my body seems to have other ideas.” As if in response, he began shaking violently, his teeth chattering despite the fact that he radiated heat. “P-please, Doctor Taji. Don’t let me die from this.”
“Lie down,” she said. She opened the cabinet and pulled out a blanket, covering him when he curled into a fetal position on the exam table. She quickly tapped an order into her tablet, and a moment later, Helene knocked on the door, then opened it and came inside, pushing a small cart.
“Is he on drugs?” she whispered as she set up the IV Simina had requested.
“He’s on something,” Simina said. “I’m just not sure what.”
Helene urged the shaking man onto his back, and with skilled efficiency, hooked him up to the IV. Simina stood on his other side and pressed the pointed tip of an autoinjector to his arm, pushing the plunger to pierce his skin and administer the drugs he needed.
“You’ll feel better soon,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll have Helene prep a room for you upstairs.” And when he was coherent again, she’d get her answers.
As she turned to go, he reached out and gripped her wrist. “Thank you.”
His palm felt searing hot against her skin, and when she glanced down, she noticed thick, sharp claws extended from his fingertips, no doubt the involuntary reflex of a champion starting to lose control of his animal. But before she could give the nurse instructions to be prepared to sedate him, the acrid scent hit her nose—a scent so familiar to her she’d dreamed of it for a year.
She grabbed his hand and spread his fingers wide, lifting them to scrutinize the glistening fluid that coated his claws.
Impossible. He’d merely shifted partway and the substance was already there. There was no way he could have applied it without her noticing.
“Get me a swab, now!” she shot to Helene. The nurse did as asked, and Simina swiftly gathered a sample of the awful-smelling fluid that was dripping off Simon’s claws.
“Don’t let him scratch you, whatever you do,” she instructed the nurse before turning to go.
Her mind spun at this new development. If this sample was what she thought, it changed the entire outlook of her research thus far. She had no idea what kind of drug he’d been on, but it had to be hardcore if it affected him this way. And if the poison wasn’t synthesized but metabolized, that would be groundbreaking. The implications were astounding, but she couldn’t get ahead of herself, she had to find out for certain.
Javin came rushing toward her on her way toward her lab, his fury clear. “Simina, did I hear right about you letting a banned individual into the clinic?”
“I don’t have time right now. If you want an explanation, meet me in my lab.” She blew past him without stopping and immediately stepped into the open doors of the lift, punching the button to take her to the subterranean level where her lab was.
She wasted no time prepping the tests of both the poison sample and the drug she’d taken from Simon. Within moments, she had the results, and her heart nearly stopped. All the markers were there. The poison itself was subtly different, just the way all the samples had been, but everything was clear to her now.
A shadow fell across the screen in front of her, but she didn’t look up.
“Is that what I think it is?” Javin asked, wonder apparent in his voice.
“I took the sample from Simon’s claws after he involuntarily shifted partway.”
“Holy shit. The poison’s metabolized. How?”
She handed him the case Simon had given her. “Performance enhancing drugs. Something I’ve never seen before, but we need to report it to the League Council now. Champions who take the stuff probably don’t even know what it’s doing to their bodies, beyond the performance aspect. When they metabolize it, the byproduct is highly toxic. Deadly, even.”
The silence made her turn and look up at him. Javin looked back down at her in shock. “Talon’s death …”
She swallowed and nodded, the truth of it sinking in. “It was an accident.”
Javin’s brow crunched into a fierce scowl. “Doesn’t change the fact that whoever’s responsible is breaking the fucking law. Can you synthesize an antidote? I need to go call the League Council.”
“I’m on it. And now that we know what this stuff is metabolized from, we can use the drug itself to create a counteragent to give all the champions. It’ll effectively immunize them from future attacks.”
“How long until you can have enough for distribution?”
“If you help once the formula’s ready, no more than a few days.”
He gripped her shoulder and squeezed. “Good work, Simina.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Simon’s pallor had lessened by the next day with fluids and rest, but he hadn’t completely recovered when Simina visited him after breakfast. His meal remained half-eaten, and he still ran a slight fever. Otherwise, he was stable, which was a good sign.
“You’re lucky you came in when you did,” she said as she gave him a quick scan to check his vitals. Elevated pulse, but not alarmingly so. “With enough fluids, we should be able to flush the last of the toxins in a few days, and we’re working on an antidote.”
Simon tore his attention away from the wall screen Simina had studiously avoided looking at on her way into his room. She’d caught the familiar sight of the pre-game events of an arena match out of the corner of her eye and had no interest in seeing more.
“Antidote. To what? I wasn’t poisoned.”
“You were, in fact. The toxins that had built up in your system were a result of your body’s metabolism of the drug you were taking. That same toxin was coating your claws when you shifted, and it’s been poisoning you for days.”
Simon’s eyes widened and he turned even paler, except for two spots of bright color on his cheeks betraying his fevered state. “When I shifted? O
h, god. Was that what happened to Bryer Vargas when Herrick attacked him?”
“That’s the working theory,” she said, nodding. “Because its chemical makeup is slightly different for each individual, it’s impossible to predict how it will affect each person it comes into contact with. I believe the only reason it hasn’t killed you is because it’s your body that made it. It’s likely that each victim also reacts differently—a strange alchemy that depends on all the right circumstances for it to have a fatal effect.”
He swallowed. “You’re saying Vargas could have died. Like Talon Garrik.”
Simina blinked at the sharp spike of grief, but thankfully avoided a more overt reaction. She relied on her clinical detachment as a buffer between painful truths and her heart. Talon’s death had likely been the result of a perfect combination of factors. It could have gone very differently for so many reasons, and not just the fact that they hadn’t properly mated.
She forced the emotion beneath the surface and nodded. “Like Talon Garrik. You should be aware that the League Council is reviewing all the cases now. An investigator from the ethics committee will be coming to question you later today. Do you think you’ll be up for it? We need to know everything you can tell us about the drug and where you got it.”
“Yeah, sure. Anything I can do to help.”
“Thank you. Is there anything else you need? If not, I’ll come back to check on you this evening, and hopefully by tomorrow we’ll have an antidote to clear the rest of the toxins from your system.”
Simon’s gaze had flitted to the wall screen, his attention fully fixed on the game about to begin. She shook her head at how very typical his behavior was to all males when a sporting match was going on. But as she turned to go, he called out to her.
“Doctor Taji, I hope you’re making enough of that antidote for more than just me. Three of those champions about to fight today are definitely on the drug.”
The fact that a match was even happening finally sank in. The League Council had said they planned to suspend any matches until she and Javin had completed synthesis of the antidote and counteragent, but bureaucratic negotiations being what they were meant the order was taking longer than desired to be carried out. Too much money was at stake for too many parties for everything to just stop.
