That made total sense.
“Right!” Doc rubbed his hands together. “How about you go put that into practice now? Let’s go visit the ward, and you can check the vitals for me.”
I straightened my spine. I was really getting to do this! It was all no longer theoretical. I followed him through a side door to the ward.
“Oh, and don’t think just because Jolar is fine now and you’ve started your studies that you can skip my advice on going ahead and getting your marriage ceremony and human honeymoon done soon. The sooner the better. It’ll help settle Jolar’s instincts as it’ll be another level of claim you have on each other,” he said as I took in the brightly colored cartoon animals on the walls as we approached the first room. This was obviously the children’s ward. “Don’t make me have to write it as a prescription,” he continued, coming to a stop outside of the room. “Now, smiles at the ready! There are no life-threatening illnesses here. A few cases of tonsillitis as strep throat went through the school aboardSpear ofAmaranth.The tonsils were bad enough that we opted to remove them before regrowing them.”
My mouth fell open. They’d done what now? Just…wow.
The door swished open to reveal three patients, all of elementary school age, sitting around a table playing a board game while in their pajamas.
“Hello there, my junior warriors!” Doc boomed with a wide smile. The children looked up, jumping to their feet to come at him in a dead run, flinging their arms around his waist.
“Come play with us,” a little girl begged.
“I can’t now, I’m working. I’ll come by when my shift is over,” he promised her.
Yeah, he was definitely one of the good guys. It was no wonder Amy had a big crush on him. It was obvious from the way her eyes had hearts exploding from them. Too bad they weren’t a match. Then again, I didn’t even know if he was in the matching database or not.
“Everybody, this is Mitchell. He’s my new guy, and he’s going to check that you have a heartbeat!”
The larger of the two boys, who appeared to be around eight, maybe nine, years old giggled. “My heart has to beat and I have to breathe to live!”
“That’s right!” I countered, putting my mind back onto the business at hand. “So I’m going to make certain you are doing both of those things!”
“Me first!” the little girl said, peeling away from Doc. I motioned her over to the bed which had the name Janie on it. She hopped up and I picked up her wrist, checking her pulse. I then verified my reading with the scanner above the bed and was pleased to see I had been accurate. Next, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the pen light I had there.
“I’m going to look at your eyes now,” I told her.
“To make sure I can see? Mama says I need to watch where I’m going, so are they broken?” she asked, opening her eyes comically wide for me. I laughed, mesmerized by the blueness of her eyes and how they reacted in typical Mylos fashion, like a cat’s. Or a reptile, I reminded myself, remembering their scales. Which she had the faintest dusting of along her temples, so she had to be at least part Mylos. So cute!
“They look like they are working just fine to me,” I told her solemnly. “Maybe it’s not that you aren’t looking, but you’re looking at the wrong thing.”
“Okay!” she replied cheerfully, and I grinned back, trying to remember why I’d been so nervous before.
CHAPTER37
JOLAR
“I don’t knowhow she can keep up the bullshit,” Peterson growled, watching through the monitor as Sachuu simply sat across from Linda Takahashi and stared as she continued her concert in the interrogation room.
“Diddy doo!” she finished before taking a breath. “Gimme some water. I know my rights. You can’t leave me dehydrated.”
“Perhaps if you simply answered our questions at a normal volume, it would alleviate the demands on your body,” he countered.
“I haven’t heard any worth answering. You guys are trying to pin a murder on me! I didn’t kill anyone!”
Klora entered the room, carrying a small bulb of water.
She snatched it from him greedily, quickly sucking it dry.
“Bah! That’s barely enough to wet my whistle. Get me another one.”
“And here I thought you were a genteel lady. Or so you said when we first encountered each other.”
“Back when you were at least pretending to be somewhat of a gentleman, you mean!”
Sachuu held up his hand at Klora, indicating he wanted him to wait. “Simply answer this one question, and you can have all the water you want, and I’ll take you back to your cell.”
