Nineteen

After seeing her bruises the EMT’s had bundled Nerissa into one of the ambulances despite her insistence that she was ok. After a quick ride to the hospital, during which Nerissa had to reassure the EMT sitting with her that the ones responsible had gotten pounded into the ground, twice. Nerissa had to wait, for quite some time, she was approached by a cop who made her repeat her story again, and then asked if she would be pressing charges, no. Finally she was taken to see a doctor, who found apart from the bruising nothing apparently wrong, so she was sent for some scans. Nerissa was back in front of the doctor an hour later, who was looking at her scans confused.

“Are you sure you aren’t a regenerator?”

“Telepath, why?”

“Because you are in perfect health.”

“Is that a problem?”

“You look like you had a tree fall on your head, you shouldn’t be this fine. Apart from the superficial bruising you have no cracks, fractures or internal injuries of any kind, it is downright freaky.”

“Can I go now.”

“If you want to, but are you sure you aren’t in any real pain besides the minor discomfort of the bruises?”

“Yeah, I am.”

If Nerissa didn’t want to get out so very quickly she would have joined the doctor in trying to figure out just what was going on. The night before she had been in quite a bit more pain, if it hadn’t felt quite so good to fall asleep curled up around Lisbeth she would have gone to a doctor. By the time Lisbeth had left in the morning, nothing really hurt. She still might have wanted to go to the doctor but Lisbeth was hurt and that took precedence over vanishing injuries.

“Could you tell me where I might be able to find a friend that was brought in. Her name is Lisbeth”

“Sorry I can’t share details of another patient to anyone not family or pre-approved.”

That was all Nerissa really needed, Lisbeth was in surgery and she could wait outside. She had been lucky that the knowledge of Lisbeth’s condition had spread throughout the hospital like wildfire, so her doctor knew who she was. Most doctors really wouldn’t know the names of anyone in surgery unless it was one of their patients. Nerissa said quick goodbyes to the doctor and rushed through the discharge paperwork, before running off to the waiting room outside of the surgical wing of the hospital. When she got there no one was thinking about Lisbeth, so the easy routes for information were blocked.

Then Nerissa saw the agent sitting in one of the corners, his name was Sin something. She couldn’t touch his mind, it was odd. He didn’t have the smooth barriers that Nerissa had come to associate with Lisbeth or the fluctuating walls of a telepath, or the static of a jammer, his mind was there Nerissa just couldn’t see inside of it. None of that mattered really, he might have answers concerning Lisbeth. It would be impossible for him to not know anything after his efforts to track her down a couple of hours ago. Well when one wants information the best way is to ask, with that Nerissa walked up to the agent and sat down across from him.

“Is she going to be ok?”

“She lost a lot of blood.”

“But?”

“She should pull through.”

“Do you know who did this to her?”

“No but she does.”

The two of them ended up sitting in silence for a while, not quite sure what to say to each other. Sinclair was eventually overcome with curiosity and broke the silence first.

“Are you and Lisbeth a couple?”

“I don’t know, I think so.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ve only known her for a week, last night would have been our first date but she ditched us to drink with a priest.”

“She is like that, do you want to be with her?”

“I would like to be, when I first saw her she was just so vulnerable that I just wanted to take her, make her mine and protect her from the world. I think she decided to let me.”

“That probably isn’t the best basis for a relationship.”

“I know.”

“But it does mean she likes you, that is how she thinks. If she likes a person she will let them do things to her, if she doesn’t like a person she will do things to them.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy.”

“Its not, she has had something of a troubled past.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, she doesn’t like me enough to tell me. The more she likes a person the more she will let them do with her. So please don’t hurt her because I can’t protect her from you.”

“Why do you want to protect her?”

“She saved me, brought me back into the light, I need to return the favor. You could ask her about it, but it isn’t a story she likes telling.”

“You really do know her well don’t you?”

“No, this is my first time seeing her in the flesh. We talk on the internet and play games together sometimes. You could talk to her now if you want to, just go to sleep.”

“But what if she doesn’t come to me?”

“Why wouldn’t she?”

“Because I couldn’t protect her.”

Sinclair didn’t have an answer for her so they once again lapsed into silence. Occasionally a nurse would walk by in that not-quite-jogging rushed walk that they seemed to have perfected. Every time someone would come in through the double doors from the surgery wing Nerissa would lean forward with hope. The people never came with news concerning Lisbeth, eventually someone did come for Nerissa. It was another cop, asking for another statement about what happened the night before. The cop’s mind was in confusion as to what had actually happened but it concerned one of the jocks named Chuck. He was busy being annoyed by a bunch of people in suits that had shown up and started ordering people around. When the cop left he was replaced by a man in a suit. This man wasn’t looking for her but Sinclair, he didn’t say anything just pulled out a badge. Nerissa couldn’t get anything off of him, she never saw the badge and the man was wearing a jammer. Sinclair took an odd expression and walked off with the guy only saying one thing.

“I was hoping you guys wouldn’t be showing up, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

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