Page 1 of Toxic Temptation
1
VESPER
I took an oath. All things considered, it was pretty freaking simple.
Do no harm.
That’s straightforward, right? Three easy words. Damn near impossible to screw it up.
Unless, like me, you’ve got a hot temper and a mouth just reckless enough to write a lot of very big checks that you will never be able to cash. That’s why I’m speed-walking through the broad halls of St. Raphael’s Hospital, trying to avoid all of those pesky thoughts that are directly antithetical to the oath I took.
“Do no harm,” as it turns out, is kinda limiting.
“Do no harm” means I am probably prohibited from smashing a certain someone’s head into one of the stone gargoyles perched above the hospital entrance.
“Do no harm” suggests I should notoopsie-daisyaccidentally run headlong into another certain someone with my scalpel aimed at one of their major arteries.
But does “do no harm” really imply I can’t garnish hospital director Jeremy Fleming’s lunchtime soup with a few crushed peanuts? I mean, yes, the man does have a deathly tree nut allergy… but if I say I’m doing it for flavor, am I really in violation? And if I “forget” where his EpiPen is, is that really such a crime?
As for his comrade in hate, Shana Reed, I don’t know that she’s allergic to anything, except maybe compassion. Maybe that’s how I can get to her. Kill ‘em with kindness, isn’t that what they say? As long as she does in fact die, I’m fine with whatever means it takes to justify the ends.
That sounds harsh. I know that. I get it. But harsh is exactly what Jeremy and Shana deserve. After all, they’re the ones playing God—and with the lives ofchildren,no less. They think hospital budgets are a numbers game.
They’re not, though. Hospital budgets are a game of life and death. And in this game, the only players who can lose are the ones whose lives have barely begun.
Bald-headed boys with leukemia, swollen-eyed girls with rhabdomyosarcoma, the too-skinny preteens with ostomy bags and a gray pallor in their malnourished skin—that’s who loses.
Do Jeremy and Shana care?
No. No, they do not.
Those two soulless ghouls would sooner kick the crutch out from under an eight-year-old amputee than replace all the faulty equipment that I’m forced to work with on a daily basis.
Hell is too good a place for the likes of them.
So yeah, I may be contemplating violating my Hippocratic oath—but surely there are some people who are exempt from that oath. Surely, there are men and women who ought to choke on their own venom.
Surely, some people deserveharm.
“… Dr. Fairfax?”
I double-take towards the pale woman peeking out at me from the door of one of the hospital’s private rooms. Only then do I realize that she’s been saying my name for a while. I was too lost in medieval torture scenarios starring Jeremy and Shana to realize it.
I blink my way back to reality. “Mrs. Moore! Hi, sorry. Is everything okay with Harper?”
She shrugs, neither a yes nor a no. “A resident came by to check on her a few minutes ago. He said that her airways are still pretty swollen and that we should spend another two nights here at least.”
I bite my tongue, if only so the pain keeps me from narrowing my eyes in irritation. “This was Dr. … Statton?”
“Yes, I think so.” Mrs. Moore picks at her lip. A nervous habit she’s developed during long nights at her daughter’s bedside. They’re chapped and bleeding, the poor things, and her blue eyes have lost too much of their brightness. “I, err… I mentioned that you were our doctor, but he said that, in his professional opinion, taking Harper home would only worsen her case.”
I sigh. Patience is in short supply these days, but patients? There are always far, far too many of those.
Taking Mrs. Moore by the shoulder, I shepherd her back into the room. Her daughter Harper is spread out across the bed. She’s nine, almost ten, but recurring pneumonia has robbed her of her growth, so that now, she wouldn’t be out of place in a kindergarten classroom. Her cheeks are too sunken, her closed eyelids too prominent. The auburn hair fanned across her pillow is limp, lank, and brittle.
“Harper’s situation is under control, Mrs. Moore,” I assure her. “I’ve been monitoring her religiously since the moment you came into my care. She’s been nebulized several times and her airways have gone back to normal. But I’m happy to check again for you.”
The mother exhales, casting downtrodden glances in the direction of her daughter. “No, no… I was just worried when he said… I mean, he didn’t even know her name. He kept calling her Hadley.”
