The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood, #13)(80)
He closed his eyes and tried on for size telling his queen that instead of going to that restaurant she was so excited to eat at, they were going to—
“But that’s not what I would do if I were her.”
Trez popped his lids and looked over at the physician. “So there’s another way.”
Doc Jane shrugged. “You know, at the end of the day, I think you have to consider quality of life. I’m not sure how far we’d get in treating or understanding this disease even if we climbed all over her. I’m basing that on the fact that she is, to borrow an infectious disease term, ‘patient zero’ for us. Nobody has seen this even though a minority of her sisters have suffered for generations from it. There is a very complex series of things going on, and I just … there’s a lot to try to get a grip on. And for what? Do you want to ruin her last nights—”
“Nights?” he blurted. “Jesus Christ, is that all we have?”
“I don’t know.” She lifted her palms. “No one does, and that’s the point. Would you—would she—rather spend whatever time she has living, or simply waiting to die? I’ll tell you right now, if it were my choice, it would be the former. That’s why I’m not going to make her come down here or try to have her feel bad because she’s not in a big hurry to lie down on my table.”
Trez blew out the breath he’d been unaware of holding. “Rehvenge went up North. To the colonies. To see if there was anything in the symphath tradition that would help.”
“I know, Ehlena told me. We’re hoping to hear something soon.”
He could tell by the professional tone of the female’s voice that she wasn’t holding out much hope. “What happens if Selena gets into … a situation … and we’re out to dinner?”
“Then you call us. Have I shown you Manny’s new toy?”
“I’m sorry?”
She got to her feet and patted his knee. “Come with me.”
Doc Jane led him out of the exam room, into the corridor, and then down, down, down, past the unused classrooms to the parking garage’s heavy steel door. Opening the thing wide, she indicated through the jambs with her arm.
“Ta-da.”
Trez stepped out into the cooler, damper air. The enormous ambulance was shiny as a penny, boxy as a LEGO, bigger than Qhuinn’s Hummer. Bigger, actually, than the human ones he’d seen out and about in Caldwell.
It was a goddamn RV.
“That is some serious shit,” he said.
“Yup. One of the things Manny and I have been worried about—”
The back doors of the vehicle burst open, and Doc Jane’s human partner hopped out. “Thought I heard voices.” The man grew grave as soon as he saw Trez. “Hey, man, how you holding up?”
The two shook and Trez nodded at the vehicle. “So this happened, huh.”
“Come see inside.”
Trez shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked around to the back. Through the open double doors, he saw … a large center aisle with two gurneys, one after the other, surrounded by all kinds of medical equipment stored in glass-fronted, locked cabinets that lined the side walls like bookshelves on steroids.
“It’s like a miniature operating room,” Trez murmured.
Manny nodded and jumped back in. “That’s the plan. We want to be able to treat serious, potentially mortal field injuries quickly. Sometimes, getting patients back here or to Havers’s is too risky.”
The doctor started opening up those cupboards and cabinets, showing an array of sterile dressings, sterile operating tools, even a microscope on an extending arm that could pivot around to either of the beds.
He patted the thing like it was a pet. “This baby is also a portable X-ray machine, and we have ultrasound technology. Oh, and as a bonus, the RV is bulletproof.”
“That was my husband’s contribution,” Doc Jane added in.
“And V also did the computer systems in here.”
“As he would say, true that.” Doc Jane glanced at her partner. “So listen, Trez is taking Selena out for a date tonight.”
“That’s a great idea. Where you two headed?”
Trez made a circular motion with his forefinger. “The thing in the sky. That goes around and around.”
“Oh, yeah, I know the one,” the guy said. “At the hospital we called it Engagement Central, ’cuz that’s where the doctors took their girlfriends when they were ready to put a ring on it. Very romantic.”
“Yeah.”
Trez stared at the expanse of the mobile OR, trying to decide whether it made him feel relieved or depressed as shit. The good news, he supposed, was that with the flashing lights over the cab of the vehicle and Manny’s legendary lead foot, they could make it to downtown in about ten minutes. Especially with there being little traffic.
But what if that wasn’t enough time? What if Selena needed—
“Trez?” the male doctor said.
He shook himself out of his ambiant panic. “Yeah?”
“How ’bout I go with you—no, not as your chauffeur,” he cut in as Trez recoiled. “I’ll park in the rear of the building and just hang out in case you need us. This thing has counterfeit badges on the doors and the hood and the back, and I’ve got all kinds of forged papers. No one will bother me, and I’ll bring a Brother with me in case I need to scrub any humans.”