"You can't," she begged, her enormous, hazel eyes colliding with mine and pleading. "Please." I stilled, arrested by the intensity of her plea. Her throat bobbed convulsively. "Let me show you. Please. I'll show you."
"Show us what?" Wells, ever the patient one, guided her back to the chair. "You're safe now, Evie. Take a few breaths. We'll figure this out together."
I didn't like the idea of not calling the authorities on this. Whoever had done this was getting away as we spoke, andwithout the police department involved, Evie could put herself at risk of being attacked again. "I'll get her some water."
"Fridge," Wells said, pointing to the break room down the hall. "Take a breath, Evie. Good. Are you sure you're not hurt?"
I heard her whisper, "No," as I left down the hall to find water. The breakroom had an old white fridge in the corner, and I found a few bottled waters and some condiments in the door. I took a water bottle, my thoughts turning over her symptoms again by habit, making sure we didn't miss anything. Patients rarely told us the full truth in a crisis situation. I grabbed a pair of gloves off the wall as I entered the lab, tucking them in my back pocket.
Evie had her phone out and was handing it to Wells. "I got this earlier. I thought… I thought it was a scam."
Wells read over something on her phone, his brows pinched together in concerned concentration. He stood slowly, scrolling as he read. I took his place, crouching in front of Evie and handing her the water slowly. Always careful movements with trauma victims. Clear expression. Clear communication. "Drink this," I ordered softly.
She took the water with her one free hand, her fingers still trembling. Her lips were still bloodless, but some of the color was returning to her neck, fanning out in bruises along her jaw and down her throat. "Thank you," she rasped.
I motioned to the gauze cautiously. "Can I look?"
She stared down at it like she'd hoped it wasn't there. She unlatched her white-knuckle grip on the gauze slowly like a rusty machine arm. I moved my hand around to my back pocket, grabbed the purple gloves, and took my time putting them on. She watched me with wide eyes, frozen in place. I kept my expression neutral, peeling the gauze off her inner elbow.
As I did, Wells made a sound of disbelief behind me. "You're Rh-null?"
I lifted a swift, surprised glance her way. She confirmed that with a nod. "I am."
As far as I knew, there were only four or five people in our entire country with that blood type. I returned my attention to her arm. A circular wound made up of a dozen puncture marks wept blood droplets. They had jabbed her with that instrument three times—enough to cause her to bleed significantly. Bruises bloomed along her arm in an angry garden of bright blue petals, and my stomach roiled at the unnecessary cruelty of the wounds. I tapped her water bottle with my knuckle while I palpated the delicate skin. "Drink."
She started, like she'd been in a trance. "Sorry."
"Evelyn," Wells said, I heard a note of reprimand in his voice. "You traveled alone after reading this?"
Evie unscrewed the cap from the water uncertainly. "It seemed fake."
"It has details about you, about your health history. We have to report this," he argued. To me, he added, "They're after her blood."
The wounds made more sense given that information—stick her fast and collect as much blood as they could without the precision of an intravenous vacutainer method. Evie took a sip of water, and I watched her throat bob, wondering if she was going to puke on me. That tended to happen when a person went into shock.
"I won't do that," she grated out. I took note of her pupils—wide—and surreptitiously tried to count her pulse with my fingers on her inner elbow. It seemed fast. Yeah, she was going to puke on me and go into shock if we didn't lay her down.
I looked over my shoulder at Wells, caught his scowl, and mouthed, "Shock."
He shucked off his lab coat immediately, balling it into a makeshift pillow and putting it on the ground. "Evie, come liedown while we think this over. We don't want you to get shock. That would definitely be a 911 call."
She obeyed instantly, putting down the water and getting on the ground. I helped her, and we propped her feet against the table so the blood went to her heart and not her extremities. She had on a pair of strappy sandals that looked worn half to death, and each of her toes had been painted a different color. Oddly endearing. She put her hands to her forehead, covering her eyes. "I thought it was a scam."
"They didn't ask for anything," Wells countered, clearly aghast.
"Can I see?" I asked, holding out a hand. Wells handed me the phone and kneeled next to Evie, talking to her in low, soothing tones, trying to convince her to call the authorities.
I read over the email quickly, halting when I found absolutely mental phrases like "dark web" and "life or death." Of course, it would be my own kind who did something this ludicrous. The wealthy elite of the world, already ensconced in their cocoons of prosperity, would crave excitement, a challenge. And now this innocent girl was the target of one of their games. Maybe I was the one who was going to vomit, actually.
"You need competent protection," Wells went on urgently. "This is dangerous."
Evie shook her head, not removing her hands from her eyes. "I don't do authorities."
That was suspicious. Who was this girl, exactly? "That's an enormous risk to take given the attack tonight." I set her phone down on the table, trying to consider the crisis from another angle. One where authorities weren't involved, insanely. I had a colleague whose girlfriend had been assaulted recently; Rook. I didn't recall him involving authorities in that, either.
Evie sat up on her elbows, breathing through her nose. "I'm fine. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you both. I just didn't know where else to go this far from home."
Wells and I rolled our eyes in tandem. Wells uncapped the water and handed it to her again. "Let's just… think this through. Do you have anyone at home who could stay with you? Keep you safe?"
