Chimera (The Korsak Brothers #1)(55)
Hippocrates would be so proud. “Give me the local and a bottle of pain pills. I prefer to dose myself.” If there was any doping to be done, I didn’t trust Vanderburgh to do it. “What about the dizziness and nausea?”
“They’ll pass,” he said dismissively as he reached for a syringe and a rubber stopper vial. “I can give you something for it until then. Of course, it’ll cost—”
“Extra. Yeah, I gathered that.” The sharpness of a needle bit at my skin and filled it with a cold, numbing liquid. I was glad he hadn’t decided to shave a patch of my hair for the stitches. That would be taking my new look a step too far.
Michael was still at my side and looking less impressed with the ex-doctor all the time. He’d been fine through the dressing of the gunshot wound, but now at the sight of needles piercing flesh, a sliver of discomfort showed. That was only going to get worse when it was his turn. The memories made in the Institute basement were going to color anything medically related with suspicion and anxiety. I couldn’t change that or erase the past, but I still had some minor tricks up my sleeve.
“Misha.” Snagging his sleeve, I suggested, “Maybe you should check the car. Make sure you put it in park. With driving as shaky as yours, better safe than sorry.”
“Shaky?” It wasn’t outrage on Michael’s face. He had his emotions far too battened down for something as overt as that. Control was the name of the game, and it was a game that had kept him alive longer than that poor doomed roommate of his. That type of ironclad restraint wouldn’t allow for visible wrath, but it had no problem with annoyance.
“Why do you think I’m so nauseated? Forget concussion. It’s car sickness. You drive like a drunken grandma.”
The annoyance went from mild to a diamond-hard intensity. “I do not. And, by the way, I was not the one who ran over the statue of a large purple pig.”
“Now you’re just being petty,” I rejoined. “That pig died for the greater good and you know it.”
By the time Vanderburgh finished with the stitches, Michael had decided it wasn’t worth wasting valuable oxygen to argue with me, as I was clearly insane. Bending down to examine the results, he relented, “It looks better. Quite a few stitches, but I don’t think it should scar too badly.”
“What’s one more?” I asked wryly before sitting up. Within five minutes I had an IV going into the crook of my arm. I’d chosen the IV bag myself. As I’d said to Michael, better safe than sorry. “Okay, Doc.” The man was no more a doctor than I was despite his years of med school, but I had even less desire to say his name. It was bound to taste foul, like rot. “Now we have a more complex problem.” I explained, in very general terms, about the tracer planted in Michael. Being more specific wasn’t to our advantage. The man would sell us out in a heartbeat if he knew whom to get the money from.
“Intriguing.” Those repulsively fleshly lips pursed. “If it’s not too deep, it may be possible to remove it. I’ll need an X-ray first for location. That’s going with the assumption that it has a metallic component.”
“Yeah, here’s hoping,” I said, standing. Towing along the IV pole, I moved in front of the doctor. He’d left his gun in the living room, carelessly enough, but mine was still here with me. Retrieving it with one smooth motion, I centered it directly between his eyes. The muzzle indented rosy skin just below the V of silver-tufted eyebrows. “I’d just like to go over a few things with you first, Babysitter.” I smiled. It wasn’t a wolfish smile or that of a shark. It was merely a simple friendly one. After all, weren’t we beginning a trusted doctor-patient relationship? Didn’t I have Santa’s best interests at heart? Sure I did.
“First, you perverse prick, look at him like that again and I’ll kill you.” I didn’t bother to elaborate. He knew all too well which look I was referring to. “No warning. No second chances. Just a bullet to that squatting cancer you call a brain. Second, when you remove the tracer, you’ll be a damn sight more gentle with him than you were with me.” I pressed harder. “Are we clear?”
Those round eyes seemed to sink deeper into doughy flesh like oven-wizened raisins. He’d survived what couldn’t have been a cushy prison stretch; he wouldn’t scare too easily. But then again, I wasn’t trying to frighten him. I was only giving him the unvarnished truth, and that could be more terrifying than any threat. “I’m not—,” he started to deny. They always denied, his kind. Always.
“Are we clear?” I cut him off as a reddened bruise began to form beneath the metal.
He gave in to the inevitable. “We’re clear,” he said tightly.
“Great. Clarity is good for the soul.” I let the gun drop to my side. “Michael, are you ready?”
He had been or at least he thought he had been until that moment. Looking at the hospital-style bed so similar to the one from the Institute, he came within a hairbreadth of losing it. It wasn’t anything as noticeable as trembling or fear-sweat slicking his face. He simply went still. It wasn’t a human stillness. It was the crouch of a cocky jackrabbit frozen under the gaze of a hawk; it was the inner core of a stone hovering on the lip of an avalanche. He wanted to move; he wanted to run, but I couldn’t let him go. With that chip in place, it was only a matter of time until they found us again. He couldn’t ever be free until he lay down on that bed.