Chapter 3
1914 Words
3
Nena groaned. Her chest felt like someone had stabbed her with a sharp knife. The rest of her body was cold and numb. Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked against a harsh bright light that hovered over her. Her arm felt heavy as she raised her limb to block the light.
“Welcome back to the land of the living.” The voice was shaky with age, but the words came out in a firm, soothing clip.
Nena turned her head to her right where the voice had come from. A man of seventy stood beside where she lay on a hard table. He wore thick spectacles and the light reflected off his nearly-bald scalp. A white lab coat discolored with a rainbow variety of splotches covered most of his short form. His feet were covered with black shiny shoes, and a pair of black pants and white blouse finished off his attire. The corners of his eyes wrinkled as he smiled down at her.
Nena shifted. A thin cloth lay beneath her and moved atop the metal table. A chill swept up her legs to her stomach. She glanced down at herself and saw she wore only a white hospital gown.
Nena started back and tried to cover herself, but her arms flopped over her body. The man pinned her hands to her chest. “Don’t try to move too quickly. You may do more harm than good,” he warned her.
“My clothes,” she croaked. Her throat was parched. “Where are they? Where am I?”
“You’re safe at the Agency,” he revealed.
Her eyes widened. “Where?”
His smile widened. “You are new, aren’t you? We’re in the morgue of the Agency of Celestial Episodes. ACE for short so we can swallow it. And speaking of swallowing-” he rummaged around in his pocket before he pulled out a small vial filled with orange pills, “-you might want to take one of these.”
Nena watched him pop open the cap and tap one of the pills onto his palm. Her eyes widened and she struggled to sit up.
The mad doctor dropped the bottle to press her arms down on the table on either side of her. “Miss! Miss, please calm down!”
The bottle rolled across the floor to the door where a foot pinned it to the ground. “Easy there, Doc. She’s not a slab of meat.”
The foot belonged to the man with the cigarettes. One was between his lips as he stooped and picked up the container. He turned it over in his hand to read the label and smiled. “You could’ve just told her it was ibuprofen.”
The doctor frowned as the stranger approached the table. “I would think an innocent would know what one looks like, Mr. O’Kent.”
The man swept his eyes over the white, sterilized room. “Yeah, of course someone’s going to recognize a pill of ibuprofen when they wake up in this steel trap.”
Doc snatched the pill from the man and rolled two pills into his palm. “It’s a clean area, and if she doesn’t want to cramp up then she needs to take these.”
The man sighed and turned to Nena who had managed to sit up. “You heard Doc, and for once he’s not just acting like a quack.”
Doc wagged the bottle at the chain-smoking man. “I am not a quack, and her body is in dire need of these pills. Dying and coming back causes unforeseen consequences, and one of them is cramping of some of the major arm and leg muscles.”
Nena’s eyes widened. “Dying?” She looked down at herself and pressed her hands against her body. “I died?”
Doc lowered the pill and looked to Jack. “She doesn’t know?”
O’Kent pursed his lips. “Apparently not.”
Nena whipped her head up and glanced from one to the other. “Know what? What’s going on? What happened to me?”
The handsome stranger sat on the edge of the metal slab and draped one knee over the top so he half-faced Nena. “Can you tell us the last thing you remember?”
Nena furrowed her brow and stared hard at her lap. Her hands gripped the thin cloth of the gown. “I. . .I was talking to my dad on my phone, and these two guys came up. They wanted my phone and purse. I-” she tightened her grip and cringed, “-I ran into the alley and heard a shot. Something. . .something-” She pressed her hand against her chest. “Something hit me right here, something hot. I fell. I was in so much pain all I could do was lay there. One of the guys picked up my purse, but they stopped. I heard them talk to someone, and then-” She shut her eyes and shuddered.
He lay his hand across one of hers. “You can talk about this later.”
She shook her head and opened her eyes to meet his soft gaze. “But. . .it can’t be true, right? I’m. . .I’m not-”
“Dead?” he finished for her. She nodded. He leaned back and sighed. “I’m afraid so.”
The young woman swallowed the lump in her throat as tears sprang to her eyes. She looked down at her hands as they lay in her lap. “But I don’t feel dead. I-” The man grabbed one of her hands and set her palm against her chest.
He leaned forward and caught her gaze in his own. “What do you feel?”
She pursed her lips and focused on her palm. Her lips parted as her face fell. “I. . .I don’t feel anything.”
“That’s because your heart stopped beating,” he released her hand and leaned back to take a long drag on his cigarette. “Nothing in this world or the next can get it started again.”
Doc glared at him. “You’re as tactful as ever, Mr. O’Kent.”
O’Kent shrugged as he hopped off the table. “I’m just telling it like it is, Doc.”
“Since we’re telling it ‘like it is,’ do you mind telling me the reason you came here to bother my patient and me?” Doc asked him.
The man’s eyes flickered to Nena. “Scratch wants to see her.”
Doc arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, but you know how he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” He turned to Nena and looked her over with a sly smile on his lips. “You might want to slip into something more comfortable.”
Nena glanced from the Doc to the other man. “What’s going on?”
“The leader of the Agency wants to speak to you,” O’Kent explained.
She shrank back and curled her legs against her body. “I-I can’t. I need to get home and-”
“You’re not going home,” he told her. His firm tone made her freeze. He sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “I’m no good at dealing with this stuff. . .”
Doc put his hands against O’Kent’s back and pushed him toward the door. “Then perhaps you should wait outside while our new friend changes.”
O’Kent looked over his shoulder at Nena. “Now that I could help with.”
“I doubt it,” Doc quipped as he pushed him out and slammed the door shut. He turned to face Nena and clasped his hands together. “I’m afraid I only have your old clothes, but they will do better than your-ahem-current attire.”
“B-but I can’t-I mean, I’m. . .I’m not-” she looked down at herself and shook her head, “-alive. . .”
A small smile slipped onto the old man’s face as he walked over to her. “Have you changed?”
She looked down at her chest and laid her palm over her heart. “I can’t-” He set a hand on her shoulder and caught her eyes in his own.
“Have you changed?” he repeated.
“Me?” she whispered. She pursed her lips and turned her face away. “I. . .I don’t know.”
He patted her on the shoulder and walked around the table to a cabinet. “Never forget who you were and you’ll always know who you are,” he told her as he pulled out one of the drawers and drew out Nena’s clothes before he turned to her. He walked over and set them on the table beside her. “Take it from an old man who’s lived long enough to know.”
Nena looked down at the pile of clothes. Her shirt lay on top. She brushed her fingers over the blood stains. They were cold, like how she felt.
Doc held out his palm in which was nestled among the wrinkles an ibuprofen. “Take this and let’s get that gown off before that young scamp comes back.”
Nena grasped the front of the gown and clasped it against herself. He chuckled. “I have already seen you disrobed, Miss-” he paused and furrowed his brow. “In all the excitement I’m afraid I haven’t learned your name.”
“It’s Nena,” she told him.
His smile widened. “Nena. That’s a very pretty name, and you wouldn’t deprive an old man of being helpful to a pretty young lady?” Nena pursed her lips, but loosened her grip on the gown so he could slip it off.
Out in the hall O’Kent leaned against the wall near the door. A fresh cigarette was pressed between his tight lips. The cloud of smoke from the end of the cigarette was the only sign of life along that white-walled passage with its stainless metal doors. Long florescent tube lights behind cheap plastic lit up the area.
O’Kent had heard everything in the infirmary. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes before he sighed. “Just had to be as blunt as always, didn’t you, Jack?” he muttered to himself.
“Jack.”
The voice came from a foot to Jack’s right. He jumped a foot in the air and whipped his head in that direction. Pete stood beside him with a hint of bemusement on his otherwise stoic face.
Jack frowned and leaned back against the wall. “Damn it, Pete, do you have to be so quiet?”
“I can be nothing else,” Pete returned.
Jack took a drag on his cigarette and blew out a long cloud of smoke. “Then I’m going to have to attach some squeaky toys to the bottom of your shoes while you’re sleeping.”
Pete looked past him at the door to the infirmary. “Has it been confirmed she is Death Touched?”
Jack’s face fell, but he nodded. “Yeah. Doc confirmed it.”
“Then she is to be Purified?” Pete wondered.
Jack shook his head. “Nope. Scratch wants to see her.”
Pete arched an eyebrow. “That is unusual.”
Jack turned his head to glance at the closed door. “Not as unusual as what Doc found. He said the bullet that hit her should have sent her to the other side, but the Death Touch stopped it.” A smile slipped onto his lips as he closed his eyes and shook his head. “Ironic, isn’t it? Death saving someone.”
“Death saves no one.”
Jack opened his eyes and sighed before he pushed off the wall. “Yeah, well, if he was just doing that we wouldn’t be here chasing down-” The door to the infirmary opened.
Doc stepped out and led Nena out by the hand. Jack winced as he looked over the dried blood and the small hole that denoted her death knell.
Doc turned to the partners as Nena stared hard at the floor. “I have much work to do, so which one of you ‘gentlemen’ would like to take Miss Nena to his office?”
“I’ll do it,” Jack offered.
Doc nodded and turned to Nena. “You’re in capable hands, Miss Nena, so long as you don’t let this silver-tongued young man sweet-talk you into a kiss.”
Nena managed a small smile and nodded. “I won’t, and thank you.”
Doc bowed his head. “My pleasure. Now off with you.”
Jack jerked his head down the hall where closed elevator doors stood. “Come on. It’s this way.”
- Writer
