Page 1 of Those That Don't Exist
CHAPTER 1
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He’s gone too gods-damned far this time. Messing with the humans was one thing, experimenting on the Fae is fucking suicidal. He’s risking the authorities finding out we still exist and if that were to happen it would quite literally start the next world war. We barely escaped the last time they tried obliterating my kind, if you could call our current existence an escape.
And yet here I am, following the orders of the one responsible for this utterly stupid risk like the good blood bound servant I must be.
I slip unnoticed down the hospital corridor of the intensive care ward and into the private room of a demi-Fae female - his latest attempt and the first to make it this far. The others were already in the morgue when I was dispatched.
As I grab her chart and check over the updates from yesterday the anger festering in my stomach rises like bile. I don’t like that he is experimenting on these poor women at all, but to cover up his true goal with all the additional injuries is just barbaric.
It’s how the rest ended up dead. Their human bodies were unable to cope with the extent of the injuries when hisexperiment ultimately failed. I guess that’s why he’s chosen a demi-Fae this time, not that I’m allowed to know the inner workings of his plans. Or why he thinks this will even work at all when it never has before. Nope, I just have to do as I’m told.
I suppress the growl before it makes its way out of my throat as I look from the chart to the body in the bed. There are blankets draped carefully to preserve her dignity but the rest of her is on show, not that there is much to see. Her left leg and right arm are both in casts.
Tubes and wires are stuck to, or pushed into, her body in several places, including one down her throat to keep her breathing. The machine bleeps in a steady rhythm as it delivers oxygen to her lungs.
Bandages completely cover the upper half of her head to hide the holes the surgeon’s put in her skull to relieve her brain from the swelling.
I’ve seen corpses less mangled.
I finish reading the chart, thankful it doesn’t show anything I need to be too concerned about. I won’t have to intervene today. I run a hand through my black curls, pushing them off my forehead, before looking up once more at the unconscious body in the bed before me.
I pull in a slow breath through my nose, the air entering my lungs is filled with her scent. The chemical laced overtone is repugnant, making my nose wrinkle up.
I force myself to take a second inhale to get more of the subtle notes that make up her smell. As I focus on those parts, the anger swimming round my system, simmers.Weird.
The first thing I can identify is the whole cocktail of drugs in her system, some are keeping her sedated, others are painkillers of the narcotic kind. I can ignore those.
Then there are those preventing her body from shutting down. Steroids and such, some leftover adrenaline.
Finally, antibiotics and antidotes of all kinds are also raging through her veins. According to the chart clutched in my hand they’d thrown everything at her. Besides the multiple broken bones from the car wreck, an infection of sorts has already taken grip of her body.
I, of course, know which poison is currently saturating her every cell. I just have to pray the doctors don’t figure it out and tell the authorities, bringing down the aforementioned extermination on our necks.
Underneath the drugs is the unmissable marker telling me she has magic. She doesn’t have enough Fae blood in her to have the distinguishable pointed ears but she has the flawless skin, if you excuse the rainbow of bruises currently staining her cheekbone. She must, however, have inherited enough genes from one parent, or perhaps both, to have active magic. The scent is strong enough to tell me that she has enough to cast. I can’t, however, discern what type of power it is from scent alone, magic all smells the same.
And finally under everything else is her actual scent, the one unique to her. The part that’s made a voice in the back of my mind wake up. It’s similar to vanilla and coffee, a dark roast with earthy tones. It's smooth and unyielding. I commit it to memory. If she ever leaves this hospital I already know I’ll be the one assigned to watch over her, to see if Adicious’s experiment has worked. That much of his plan I have been enlightened to.
“And next we have Aurora Capenor, the crash victim who was admitted three days ago.” A male voice heading in this direction catches my attention.Shit. That's my cue to leave.
Quickly, I stuff the chart back in the holder and with lightning speed duck out the window next to her bed, bending my six-foot-two frame nearly in half to fit through the open pane.
I have no clearance to be in here after all and don’t plan on being caught and questioned.
With a swift manoeuvre and a flex of my biceps I swing from the ledge outside across to the next one, before landing on the roof of the extension below.
Thankfully it's a flat roof with fancy edging of some sort so no one from below will be able to spot me once I sink down. Slouching low against the wall with my legs nearly outstretched so I’m practically lying on the surface, I twist to hear the doctors enter her room.
By a stroke of luck the sun is casting strongly today in the clear blue sky, and with its current positioning the building on this side is covered in shadows. They welcome me as I pull on my own power to thicken their embrace, also hiding me from anyone who cares to look down from one of the windows above.
Leaning back on my elbows, I listen as the doctors rattle on through her injuries, completing their rounds. I have no trouble eavesdropping with the window open - had they closed it the reinforced glass would mean even my supernatural hearing wouldn’t be able to pick up on the conversation within.
I needed to hear if they were looking any deeper into the infection causing her fever. As the minutes pass the tension leaves my shoulders as the briefing remains focused on her other injuries, like the spinal fracture, and the punctured lung she’d suffered, which aren’t healing as fast as they should. They agree to stick to their current plan, which is to keep her sedated a few more days and allow time for her Fae healing to kick in. A full Fae wouldn’t need half the drugs or surgeries she’s received to heal from these wounds, even with how many there are. A human, on the other hand, probably wouldn’t have made it out of the car alive so, you know, pros and cons.
I stay perched on the roof after the doctors vacate her room, just listening to the machines breathing for her, the steady bleepof the heart monitor doing its job. Believe it or not, now I know I don’t have to interfere, it's relaxing up here.
My moment of peace gets interrupted by my phone vibrating. I pull it out of my jeans pocket, glancing at the screen. It’s none other than Adicious himself, the one responsible for the state of this poor female. And unfortunately the one I have to answer too, seeing as I’m blood bound to him. He’s most likely wondering where my update is, I’ve been away from the ranch all morning.
