Page 11 of Bloody Kingdom

“You know I never lie.” Laurent stops a foot from Ira’s bed, choosing to not move any closer.

Ira shifts, his frail body attempting to scoot farther up the bed so he can be more in a sitting position. The poor man groans and at some point during his labored movements, one of his heart monitor sensors come loose. The alarms go haywire on the machine, beeping loudly.

My body moves on pure instinct. Years of training and education have ingrained the reflex in me. In a second, I’ve moved to the side of the bed. I don’t even think twice about pushing past Laurent to get to the patient.

Realization of what I’m about to do dawns on me just as my fingers brush against the fabric of Ira’s shirt. At the last second, I yank my hand away from the sickly man as dread wraps its cold fingers around my heart.Don’t touch him!The confusion coming from Ira is written across his pale face as I tuck my hands behind my back, safely away from his deteriorating body.

“Don’t just stand there, Miss Page,” Mr. Laurent snaps at me.

Like a stubborn child, I stare blankly up at him, not making any move to fix the disconnected leads.

“Surely you haven’t lost the ability to speak, you haven’t shut up since you woke up.” It’s finally in this light I discover I was right. His eyes are as black as midnight. At least in the night sky, there’s always the light of the stars. Nope, Laurent’s eyes hold no light. There isn’t even the glimmer of any warmth in them. They’re as cold as a piece of marble.

“I told you before, Mr. Laurent.” I’m pleased by how steady my voice is. “I can no longer work with patients.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Both,” I answer after a moment of hesitation. My trembling fingers run through my hair as I back away from the bed. “Look, believe it or not, I’m actually looking out for what’s best for Ira. You clearly want nothing but the best for him.” My eyes glance at all the high-end medical equipment. This all cost a good chunk of change. “I’m not what’s best for him. I’ll only cause him more harm than good.”

Ira listens to me but doesn’t speak, his quizzical green eyes watch me intently.

Meanwhile, Laurent looks like he’s about to lose his absolute mind. If we were in a cartoon, I’m positive steam would be coming out of his ears as he glowers at me. “I spoke directly to your supervisors in Boston. They spoke of you with nothing but high regards. From what I hear, doctors used to argue and fight over whose service you were on. You were simply the best.” His voice is tight, like he’s trying to keep the obvious rage at bay. “So, tell me, why can’t you take those impeccable skills and use them now? Fix the wires.”

He’s not wrong. I was good at what I did—excellent even. Calm and cool under pressure with trauma. I was able to detach when I needed but never did I let that harden me. My empathy for each and every one of my patients was always present—pushing me to do better. The desire to see each of them walk out of the hospital was my driving force.

Or at least it was… “If you talked to my supervisors, they must have told you that I quit,” I say. “And if I was half as good at the job as they told you, there must be a good reason for why I quit abruptly.”

“I don’t care what your bullshit reason is,” Mr. Laurent snaps, his hands tightening into fists at his side. “God himself could have swept down and ordered you to stop, but I would still be standing here demanding you fix these wires.”

“I—”

“I want to know,” Ira suddenly says, stopping my reply. “I want to know why a talented individual would walk away from a career they were clearly meant for.”

“Ira,” Laurent sighs frustratedly. “It doesn’t matter. She’s going to do it, regardless.”

Ira shakes his head slowly, sucking in a shaky breath. “It matters to me, Silas. I want to know her reasoning.”

My heart skips a beat at the sound of his name.Silas. It’s fitting, and that frustrates me because his name humanizes him in my mind. It makes him a person instead of the monster who abducted me.

“Tell me, Quincey.” How the hell does Ira know my name? “Why did you walk away?”

Ira’s presence has the complete opposite effect on me. His voice is calming, his face welcoming. Thin gold wire glasses sit on his nose, they’re slightly crooked. Deep lines sit around his eyes and forehead telling me he’s spent a lot of years laughing and smiling. He’s like the friendly grandpa I always wanted.

His kind green eyes beckon me to speak and I find myself willing to open up to him. The hair he has left is just a soft gray fuzz covering the edges of his scalp.

“You’re not going to believe me. It’s going to sound completely made up,” I start.

The corners of Ira’s mouth twitch like he’s amused by what I said. “Try me.”

“I’m cursed.” I say the words as fast as possible before I lose the nerve.

“Ridiculous,” Laurent—Silas—mutters beside me.

“Let her speak,” Ira orders Silas.Oh yeah, I’m liking Ira more and more by the second.He doesn’t let Silas run over him or intimidate him, and I appreciate that immensely. “Cursed? How so?” he presses further.

I hate reliving my childhood traumas but seeing as I’ve already found myself in a living nightmare, I might as well dredge those up too. “My mother believes she has psychic gifts. Earns all her money sitting on a corner in the Quarter coercing tourists to spend money to get their fortunes told. She swore they were real, not even behind closed doors would she admit her readings were made up. I figured out at a young age she was a fake. Her readings were nothing but the ramblings of a drunk. So, when she told me my fate, I wrote it off as more bullshit.” This was a mistake on my part. “She’s been telling me since I was ten that one day, my touch would become deadly. That anyone I tried to help or save would die.”

Her readings are what pushed me to pursue a career in the medical field. I think a part of me was always trying to prove her wrong. That she was nothing but a con artist.

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