Page 189 of Hidden Nature

She reached up to close her hand over his. “I can’t shake this feeling, doll. Just can’t, so I have to try to follow it. I’ve got a knowing there’s a reason she came into my ER, for treatment, and then again to ask her nosy questions. I need the reason before I can let it go.”

“Babe, we haven’t really done much on picking the next. You always say our mission comes first.”

“I know that. I know it.” Stress ran up and down her spine like fire ants. “But, Sam, what if she’s part of the mission somehow? Maybe sent by the Devil himself to try to stop us from doing our work. Look at her eyes, Sam. Those are witch’s eyes, I swear.”

As the chill ran through her, Clara hugged herself. “And the Good Book says: ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

Now he sat. Rather than a chill, he felt a thrill. “You want us to kill her?”

“I’m conflicted. I’m just so torn about it all. We’d have to prove what she is first. We don’t take lives, we heal. And we release the resurrected so they can go where they were meant to go.”

Still hugging herself, she rose and walked to the window to look out at the dark.

So much dark in the world, she thought. Didn’t she see it every day? Didn’t she fight against it every day?

“I’ve been given this burden to carry, and I’ll carry it no matter how heavy it weighs.”

“Not alone, Clara. Never alone.”

“You’re my gift, Sam. I need to get her medical records. I think—I feel—if she’s a demon, I’ll find something in them to show me.”

“Babe, you don’t have the access down in Hagerstown. And we don’t know what doctors she might’ve been seeing along the way.”

“That’s why I know—Iknowthere’s a reason she came into where I do have access, and came in when I was on the ER desk. She came right up and spoke to me, looked at me with those witch’s eyes. Dr. Marlowe treated her in November, and I have the name of the surgeon who worked on her when she got shot. And they’d have her previous records.”

A heavy burden, she thought again, but she could carry it. She would carry it.

“I can work it like I have before. Need to be careful, and I will be. The Lord helps those who help themselves. This is how we help ourselves. And if the proof isn’t there? I think I can let it go. I think I can accept this was a kind of test.”

“All right, babe. But what if we find proof?”

She turned to him, eyes fervent and fevered. “We send a witch back to hell.”

And he felt that thrill again, hotter and stronger. “I’m with you, babe.”

She let out a breath. “I swear, I feel better just knowing we’re taking the steps.” She smiled at him, gave a flirty rock of her shoulders. “Here we are wide awake, and me buzzed up on the Dew. And we’ve still got a couple hours before we have to get up and get ready for work.”

As he smiled, he gave her the eyebrow wiggle. “How about I spend part of that couple hours helping you work off that buzz?”

She giggled when his hands slid under her nightgown. “Nobody does it better, doll.”

It took her a few days, and a little more research. She couldn’t rush it. Clara understood she had to find the right time, have all the answers to routine questions ready.

And timing meant everything.

Since she knew it best to wait until Dr. Marlowe’s day off, calling on patience ranked high as well.

She dealt with patients with her usual calm and compassion. Took temperatures, blood pressures, held hands. Listened. She knew nurses, simply by their makeup, listened better than doctors.

She updated charts.

And didn’t complain when a sick boy vomited on her.

She’d have brushed away the mother’s tearful apologies in any case, but Clara saw it as a sign.

It gave her the opportunity to take a break to clean up, change her soiled top. Then time, just enough, to slip into an empty exam room.

Normally, if she wanted records in the system, she worked her way to them on night shift on her regular floor, when things tended to quiet down.

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