Page 78 of Ruled By Fate

He picked up his fork and tried the pancakes. “Oh!” he groaned around a mouthful of maple and blueberries. “Oh, by all the saints. Oh, by the staff of Moses. Brianna, do people know about these?”

Chapter Sixteen: Cardio, Crisis, Catastrophe

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Things started going well at home.

Over the next few days, Brie and Cameron settled into a routine. He woke up before her alarm could start screaming and woke her gently instead, sitting on the bed beside her and stroking her hair. She’d get ready for work, and he’d head down to the living room to send his father a report about anything new that might be happening. Apparently, her case was still being discussed amongst the Elysian council. The elders couldn’t decide whether deploying a team of Elysian guards was within their purview, or if it was worth the risk of exposing their community to the human realm.

Brie got used to greeting Ephriam, and an unlikely, nonverbal friendship started to form. She’d ask him about Cameron’s most embarrassing childhood moments. He’d twinkle and glow in reply, and she would pretend to understand him perfectly. Whatever he was saying was enough to turn Cameron’s ears bright red. He’d inevitably cut off their conversation with a snappish, “That’s certainly enough of that!” or, “Whatever happened to loyalty between comrades in arms?” or, “That was one time. She said it was the custom of her people, and it would be disrespectful not to.”

Ephriam would twinkle with laughter and disappear back to Elysium to give his report. Brie and Cameron would head off to a local café. She would get her standard cappuccino and croissant to go, as he worked his way through the menu in an ecstatic exploration of the culinary universe. The only thing that disappointed him was cottage cheese, which seemed to be a textural issue. Tastes, smells, and sensations delighted him. She found herself appreciating things she’d taken for granted her whole life. He hadn’t tried chocolate yet. She thought it best to check that one off the list in private, for fear his reaction might get them banned from the establishment.

Just knowing he had faith in her decision to stay the course in Virginia gave her a courage of conviction she’d been lacking ever since her attack in the woods. Her doubts about whether she should have left home in the first place had been replaced by a confidence and determination she hadn’t felt in many years.

When she got home at night, the two of them would sit together and talk about her day and about his world and all the fantastical things he’d seen. Despite his fascinating tales of Elysium, it was the human world that interested him most, the one he’d been ripped away from before he could pull in that first breath. He was endlessly interested in her life — every detail, every memory.

She found herself remembering long-forgotten events, things that had slipped through the cracks of time. She managed to recall conversations with her mother that had lain buried in her mind for years. She remembered the first song she learned to whistle, the first time she played in snow.

One such evening, as he was rifling through an old book she’d bought at a flea market in college, he started humming a quiet melody under his breath. In all likelihood, he didn’t realize he was doing it, but she froze where she stood and stared at him, the flicker of deep memory stirring inside her heart. After a few seconds, she started humming along with him.

After a few more seconds, she sat down beside him and took his hands. “My mother,” she murmured, her eyes shining. “My mother used to sing that to me. I couldn’t have been more than four or five years old. She’d sing it every night before I fell asleep.” She stared at him. “How did you know? How could you possibly have known?”

He gazed down at their entwined hands. “You hummed it last night in your sleep.”

She considered this a moment, then peered up at him. “You watched me sleep?”

He blushed faintly and shifted away from her, back to the books. “Old habits die hard.”

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Brie was flying through her orientation. She spent her days diligently making her rounds, caring for her patients, and her evenings charting with Rashida. It felt as though she worked a lifetime every shift, then spent hours charting to recap every single detail each night. Denise had even given her a grunt of approval on several occasions. Sherry started to join her when their breaks coincided. Brie carefully avoided so much as looking at the cold storage lockers.

The one thing she couldn’t manage to do was keep an eye on Dr. Matthews. He scuttled around the hospital like a cockroach, keeping to himself whenever possible, and just like the repulsive insect, he tended to scatter when exposed to light or human contact. She’d initially thought it would be easy enough to keep tabs on him, given all the access and information afforded her in the nurses’ station. Still, he never seemed to be where he was supposed to be. Try as she might, she never got a chance to speak with him or observe him while staying unobserved herself.

She did, however, learn a great deal about him secondhand, just from listening to her colleagues. Doctors, nurses, and staff members alike seemed to loathe his very presence. He was a diminutive man, easily overlooked, so he’d developed a nasty habit of announcing his arrival in a room with a colicky throat-clearing noise that seemed to universally set people’s teeth on edge. So did his high laugh, like a mouse skittering over a keyboard, a sound that always came at the most inappropriate times and usually at someone else’s expense. His bedside manner was nonexistent, as was his relationship with his coworkers.

But the worst thing about him was undoubtedly his deplorable patient outcomes. His nickname, Dr. Death, was well-merited. Brie didn’t think it was a lack of intelligence or skill on his part that led to his high patient mortality rate. She could swear it was almost like he wanted some of his patients to die. He was always slow to show up and quick to call time of death.

Then there was his bizarre habit of coming back to skulk around the bodies after they’d been pronounced deceased before they were taken away to the morgue. Once, she walked in on him as he was leaving, carrying that oddly shaped black case he’d been given by the mysterious blonde. Before she had a chance to hail him down or ask what he’d been doing, he was gone. Nothing looked amiss in the patient’s room after he left. Their body lay resting with a sheet respectfully pulled up over their head. But Brie could never shake the feeling something evil had just occurred.

She didn’t see the blonde woman again.

She heard no mention of a child.

? ? ?

On Friday night, Sherry caught up with her on her way down to the morgue.

“Are you excited for tomorrow?”

Brie blanked.

It isn’t her birthday… It isn’t Elizabeth Taylor’s birthday… It isn’t Shark Week… Is it the anniversary of the time we TP’d the principal’s house? No, that’s next month…

“Shopping, darling. Honestly, sometimes I worry about your priorities.”

Shopping. Right.

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