The Clinic

by Cate Culpepper

  “That’s going to be ugly in the morning,” Brenna murmured.

  She unsnapped Jess’s shirt and spread it open, appalled. Jess’s chest and stomach were covered with livid marks, most of them new, emerging bruises, but also some scrapes and cuts that still seeped blood.

  Brenna studied the shallow, angry cut just above her collarbone and remembered the sun’s flash on Karney’s dagger. She touched the enflamed skin around the cut and looked up into Jess’s eyes.

  Jess entreated Gaia silently. Those accursed eyes were losing their clinical sheen. The girl looked weary and sad and afraid. Jess swallowed, hard. Luckily, a bad twinge of pain from her kidney broke the moment.

  “What was that?” Brenna asked sharply as she helped her straighten.

  “I think it was the second club strike,” Jess stammered, gripping the small of her back.

  Brenna began to peel the shirt off Jess’s wide shoulders, but changed her mind and slipped her hands beneath it and around her waist instead. “I can tell more about this kind of injury by feel than by sight.”

  She moved her hands carefully beneath the black shirt and settled them on the warm planes of Jess’s lower back. She pressed very gently. “Does this hurt?”

  “Not much.”

  Brenna’s hands moved higher. “How about here, does this?”

  “No. Pain’s fading.”

  Her hands moved again, and she had to step in closer to Jess to reach higher. She made the mistake of looking up into her eyes again, just as her palms cupped her shoulder blades.

  “Does this hurt?” she whispered.

  “No.” Jess lifted her scratched hand slowly and placed it over Brenna’s heart. “Does this hurt?”

  Brenna stared at her, and she was lost.

  They’re going to kill me in the end, anyway, Jess rationalized. Her battered hand left Brenna’s breast and rose to her chin. She bent her head and kissed her.

  The full lips brushing warmly against Brenna’s sent a painfully pleasant tingling through her blood. She leaned against the muscular body as the kiss deepened, and her hands crept up into Jess’s hair.

  Jess felt Brenna’s firm breasts pillow beneath her own naked ones. Her tongue darted between her lips, and Jess sucked her, gently.

  Jess had time to lift her head and release her when they heard the cell door open, and Brenna was able to step back out of her arms. That might have been enough. Given Jess’s injuries, anyone else might have thought they were interrupting a medical exam. But Caster’s eyes focused at once on the color filling her assistant’s cheeks and the prisoner’s prominent nipples.

  “Excuse me, Brenna. I’m sorry to interrupt.” Caster smiled, her heels clicking on the concrete floor as she slipped her clipboard onto the side table. “I thought you would have left by now. I came to put some tecathenese on that neck laceration, but I see you have things well in hand. Yes? So it might behoove us if I use this time instead to see if our Jesstin wants one more chance to avoid any further physical unpleasantries.”

  “Trials are over for the day, Caster.” Brenna heard the tremor in her voice.

  “Yes, dear, officially. But the quest for knowledge punches no time clock.” Caster stood in front of Jess and looked at her body appraisingly. “Let’s see, I need some small, insignificant wound…”

  Brenna moved silently away from them. She stood near the sink and folded her arms.

  Caster took the stunner from the pocket of her lab coat and rested the tip against the bleeding cut at the base of Jess’s throat. Brenna wanted to close her eyes.

  “Actually, this is too close to the heart to be entirely safe, Jesstin. Even at half intensity. Isn’t there something you’d like to say to me?”

  “Don’t do it.”

  Caster’s penciled eyebrows rose; then she looked back over her shoulder at Brenna and smiled. “You’ll note that that was a command, Brenna, not an entreaty. Jesstin is forbidding me to stun her. Typical. Try again, Jesstin.”

  She tapped the cool steel of the stunner gently against the cut, smearing the shiny metallic surface with old blood.

  Jess looked at her silently.

  Brenna begged, “Say it, Jess.”

  “Come on now,” Caster coaxed.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  “Just add that one, all-important word, Jesstin, and your command becomes a request. You know the word I mean. Every City child learns it in kindergarten. Don’t do it…what?”

  “Don’t do it…bitch.”

  Brenna jerked her head away as the ugly snapping sound filled the cell.

  Chapter Four

  “Brenna? It’s me.”

  She was swaddled in sweatshirts and two blankets, and she still couldn’t get warm. Brenna burrowed deeper into the couch, shivering as the knock sounded again.

  “I can stand out here all morning,” the voice called from the concrete slab that comprised Brenna’s front porch. “You know I’m not bragging, right? I’m threatening.”

  Go away, Sammy, Brenna thought.

  “I went through your garbage. If you keep pretending you’re not home when I come over, you gotta expect stuff like that.” The muted worry in her sister’s voice made her sound older than her twenty years. “How many bottles do you go through in a week now, Brenna?”

  Must have been old garbage. Brenna had emptied the last bottle the night Jess fought in the arena and hadn’t had a drop since. She thought the bouts of chills came from alcohol detox, and she was partially correct.

  “Are you really going to make me stand out here on this stupid stoop? Me and your unborn niece or nephew?”

  Her feet were the worst. They were ice. She dug them beneath the dusty cushions, hoping for a pocket of warmth. The unit was dark, the blinds closed against the morning sun. They had been closed for three days. Darkness helped her think.

  “Bree, open the bloody door already!”

  The light skewered Brenna’s eyes as she unlatched the screen, and she retreated to the gloom of the studio. She could feel Sammy’s eyes, the same shade of green as her own, though less guarded, burning a hole through the back of her robe. Her younger sister tossed her keys on a side table and made a frowning perusal of the cluttered unit.

  “The tacky bitch who answers the phone at the Clinic said you’ve been out sick since Monday. So how sick?”

  “It’s just a bug, Sammy.” Brenna sank back down into the sofa. “I’m sorry. I must have been dead to the world when you came over before.”

  “Must have been.” Samantha rested her hand on her belly, which was just beginning to show the first sweet swell of growing life. Her fair skin was taking on the luminous quality common to new mothers, and Brenna felt her own face soften.

  “You look beautiful, Sam.”

  “Yeah? You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”

  Brenna had done little else for three days, but she still found it tempting to sink back into blankness now. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the worn cushion. “Sleep’s not a problem.”

  “Well, then tell me the problem, Bree.” Sammy perched on the arm of the sofa, her pale brows furrowed. “You don’t return my calls. You’ve been dodging me for months, almost since the wedding. Is it Matt or what? It was just you and me for too many years to pull this kind of crap now, don’t you think?”

  Brenna regarded her sister for a moment, contrition warring with weariness. “Sam, I’m crazy about Matt. I know I’ve been scarce…I am sorry, kid. It’s just this new job. It’s pretty demanding.”

  “How demanding could it be? You work a nine-hour shift at the Clinic. You put in three times that during your internship, and you still managed to catch a burger with me once a week.” Sammy’s voice gentled, and she nudged Brenna with her knee. “What do they have you doing down there that’s taking so much out of you?”

  “Sam, you know I can’t tell you about Clinic studies. It’s Government work. I signed a confidentiality—”

  “Yeah, Bree, I know,” Samantha c
ut in, sliding down onto the cushion beside her. “But I also know that being a medic is the first thing in your entire life that’s made you happy. You, like, glowed every day of that internship! I glowed too. I was so glad you had someone else to practice CPR on, finally.”

  “And minor surgery, and setting fractures.” Brenna touched her sister’s knee. “You remember me slathering you with red fingernail polish?”

  “So you could practice trauma medicine.” A reluctant smile curved Sammy’s full lips. “And you stole the paddleboard the Ghoul whomped us all with, to use as a splint. I thought she was gonna kill us both.”

  “She wanted to.”

  “You didn’t let her though.” The love in Sammy’s voice was tender and rich. “You told her if she laid one porky finger on me, you’d report her sneaking her scuzzy boyfriend into the girls’ dorm at night. You kept them all off me, Bree. For years.”

  “Well.” Brenna lifted her little sister’s hand into her lap and played with her fingers. “Medicine’s not the first thing in my life that made me happy, Sam.”

  “Well then, talk to me!” Samantha gripped her hand. “There’s never been anything we couldn’t talk about, Bree. Tell me what’s going on at that Clinic that has you downing a fifth of Scotch every—”

  “Sammy, not again. Okay?” Brenna pushed herself out of the sunken couch and went to the kitchen. “If it eases your mind, I haven’t had a drink in days. You want coffee?”

  “Yours?” Samantha shuddered. “Look, don’t yell, but we’ve never run a genetic trace on our parents. We have no idea how deep problems with booze might run in our family. I just don’t want to see you turn into one of those people who smuggle gin to work in a thermos someday.”

  “Samantha!” Brenna lowered her voice. “Listen. You were right to worry about the liquor, okay? I agree with that. I was hitting it way too heavy. But I can’t drink now. My head needs to stay clear. Honest, Sammy. If I can’t stay away from it now, I’ll worry about me, too.”

  Samantha’s face darkened. “Bree, what kind of trouble are you in?”

  “I’m fine.” Brenna didn’t hesitate. “I’m just a little crazy trying to adjust to this new unit. Give me some time, honey. Please don’t worry.”

  Samantha studied her silently for several seconds. “Okay. I’ll trust you. I’ll try not to worry. If you’ll try to pick up your fucking phone once in a blue moon.”

  “Deal.” Brenna smiled wearily. “Hey. Did you want me to look at that day-care permit? Did you bring the application?”

  “I didn’t come about the application.” Sammy got up and lifted her keys from the side table. “I can’t be late to work. I need a glowing reference from my boss if we want day care, period, City-sponsored or not.”

  “You’ve never had less. Give Matt my love.” Brenna swallowed. “Thanks for coming, kid.”

  Samantha smiled, but her eyes were still troubled. She went to the door. “I hope you decide to talk to me soon about whatever the hell is eating you, Bree. You’ve never shut me out before. I just don’t think sisters should treat each other like this.”

  The screen door latched quietly behind her. Brenna waited until the rumbling of Samantha’s decrepit coupe receded down the street, and then she sank back down on the sofa. She wouldn’t hear her sister’s voice again for a very long time, but her last words would stay with her.

  The liquor had backfired on Brenna four nights ago. Her dreams were cacophonous nightmares of drumming hooves, dying stallions, and crumbling cliffs. Sobriety didn’t keep the dreams entirely at bay, but if she didn’t drink, she could usually wake herself up before the spear was cast.

  She stared through her tangled bangs at the dust motes dancing in a narrow beam of sunlight on the carpet. Jess was right. She did have choices. She could try to talk Caster out of terminating her placement for allowing a patient inappropriate contact. That seemed unlikely. Or she could resign voluntarily.

  She had circled these fates endlessly, like a frozen buzzard waiting for the clean surge of relief that would mark the decision made.

  She couldn’t stop what was happening to Jess. No entry-level medic had that power. The clinical trials would continue with or without Brenna. And without the little protection she might once have afforded her patient. Her role as a medical advocate had been compromised. She saw again Caster’s leering eagerness in the doorway of the detention cell, studying her with interest as she stepped back out of Jess’s arms…

  There was a side to Brenna that was almost ruthless, and she needed it now. A healthy instinct for self-preservation had delivered her, and Samantha as well, through almost ten years of Government foster care.

  She was slipping badly, and Caster knew it. It was time to cut her losses.

  Brenna struggled out of the sofa. She could be in and out of the Clinic an hour before Caster’s second trial began. There would be no need to see Jess again.

  *

  Sunglasses hid the worst of the wreckage the past days had made of Brenna’s face. She peered at her wan reflection in the bulletproof glass of the Clinic’s front entrance, then slid her ID badge through the scanner. She glanced at the security camera over the door, waiting. Charlotte took her sweet tacky-bitch time buzzing her in.

  Caster’s secretary regarded Brenna narrowly from her immaculate desk, her lacquered nails tapping an ominous cadence. “Don’t bother with the charts, Brenna. Caster is waiting. She’s in the gymnasium.”

  “Thanks, Charlotte.”

  “Brenna? I said don’t bother with the charts. The gymnasium is that way—”

  “Staff lockers are this way.”

  Charlotte’s droning protest faded behind Brenna as she moved through the antiseptic chill of the Military Research unit. She wanted to remove the silver flask from her locker and dispose of it before she met with Caster. When Government employees were terminated, they weren’t allowed to clear out their belongings without a security escort. Brenna didn’t want a charge of drinking on duty to shatter what was left of her career.

  She turned a corner and all but collided with Dugan in the doorway of the staff lounge.

  “Whoa, Miss Brenna!” Dugan kept his hands on her arms. She noted absently that his face still carried the bruises Jess gave him in the arena. “Missus Mad Scientist herself directed me to escort you to the gym, stat, if I ran into you. Or you into me.”

  “I know where we’re setting up, Dugan. Thanks. I’ll be there.” Brenna tried to brush past, but the big man’s grip on her arms tightened, turning her away from the lounge.

  “Sorry, baby doc. You might get some charge out of bucking Caster, but this boy plans to keep his job, even after that little mountain village up there is vulture fodder.”

  Brenna let herself be walked back toward the reception area, numbed by the same odd detachment that got her off the sofa. She knew she should be at least faintly alarmed by this forceful summons, but time was her main focus now. She glanced at the wire-meshed clock high on the wall over Charlotte’s desk as they passed it. Jess would be taken from her detention cell in less than an hour. The confrontation with Caster would have to be brief.

  Then the most logical reason for Caster’s urgency made it through Brenna’s haze, and she wrested her elbow from Dugan’s grip. “Has something happened to my patient?”

  Dugan seemed startled by her sudden energy.

  “Um, is there a problem?” Charlotte leaned far over her desk to watch them, obviously hoping so. “Should I call Security?”

  “I am Security, Charlotte,” Dugan barked. “I think I can handle one woman all by myself.”

  “That’s what you thought in the arena, Dugan.” Brenna spun and walked toward the gymnasium. Jess should have been allowed to rest and heal the past three days. Surely Caster would have paged her at home if anything had happened. Brenna didn’t see the brick red flush of anger filling Dugan’s face as he followed.

  *

  Gymnasium was a misnomer. That was what Clinic staff called the
echoing chamber that served as the facility’s indoor arena. It was used in foul weather or for any clinical or chemical trials deemed too sensitive for the eyes of general staff. The Tristaine study had been reclassified.

  Brenna muscled open the heavy steel doors, and she saw Jess at once.

  She stood beside Caster in the center of the hardwood floor, arms folded, her eyes darkening as they locked on Brenna’s. The open collar of her black shirt framed the ugly stunner burn at the base of her throat. Fading bruises on her tense arms were still apparent as well. But Jess was whole and on her feet. Brenna felt suddenly lightheaded with relief.

  Jess felt sucker punched. The memory of the soft warmth of Brenna’s lips filled her, as it had relentlessly, for days. She had prayed to the goddesses guiding Tristaine that Brenna would never set foot in the Clinic again, for her own sake. This couldn’t end well for either of them.

  “Thank you, Mr. Dugan.” Caster’s tailored white coat glowed in the overhead fluorescents. She had just slipped a blood pressure cuff off the prisoner’s upper arm and was recording figures on her omnipresent clipboard. “Welcome back, dear. You’re nice and prompt.”

  Brenna forced her focus away from Jess to her supervisor’s smiling face. The friendliness of the greeting threw her. She registered the presence of Karney, cradling two rifles, and Stuart, watching her avidly from his stool next to the video camera. Behind her, Dugan closed the doors to the gym and locked them, and Karney tossed him one of the rifles.

  “Caster, I’m not staying.” Brenna’s voice echoed in the cavernous space as she closed the distance separating her from the scientist. Caster kept her position beside the prisoner, so Jess would hear. Brenna couldn’t help that. “I came in to file my resignation from Military Research. I’ve decided to leave the Clinic.”

  “I see.” A line appeared between Caster’s neatly plucked brows, and her lips pursed unhappily as she studied Brenna. She turned to the table beside her, opened a medical kit, and took out a small vial and a square of gauze. “Brenna, I honestly don’t know what to say. Can you tell me why?”