Page 5 of Healer Hunted

One thing I did know for sure, the concern on his face didn’t look fake, and the way he was pressing fingers against my forehead, the back of my neck, was definitely a practiced move. Maybe he really was a doctor. “Sit down,” he said, nothing of the teasing playful tone left, he was all business now as he guided me into a chair.

“How long have you been feeling sick?” he asked while his long legs ate up the space between the couch and the bathroom. I waited to answer until he’d returned with a wet towel that he promptly pressed to my forehead. “You are absolutely burning up, did you eat something bad?”

Struggling with this change in demeanor, this turn of events, I tried to wrap my head around his questions so I could answer them. “Since I left here last time,” I said, my mouth dry, “We just get ration bars, but I’ve been struggling to keep them down.” He was crouching in front of me, one hand up to hold the cool towel in place against my forehead, the other on the armrest of the chair. I was boxed in, trapped, but it somehow didn’t feel that way. It was a complete reversal from last time.

“Shit,” he murmured, “You’ve been sick for two weeks?” His hand picked up one of mine, pressing it against the towel and then pressing me back into the chair so I was partially lying down, my head on the back of the backrest. “I’m going to take care of you, don’t you worry.” Then he was gone, and all that fight, all that anger that had kept me going, it was gone too. My eyes slid closed without my consent.

*

Luka

To say I was concerned was an understatement. I had been going crazy locked up in this damn room, I’d tried a dozen different things to escape, but more than anything I’d anxiously hoped for her return. Now here she was at last but she had a raging fever and I didn’t have any means of treating her, of diagnosing what was wrong.

Determined to get her the help she needed, I headed for the suite door and accosted my guard. A new one, since I’d managed to knock the last one out, and had made it almost all the way to the exit before I’d been caught by several of the resort’s security guards. This guy was a lot less cold and a lot more focused on his job, more interested in what was going on, with the politics of it and his own personal gain. I’d sensed him leer at the housekeepers when they came by to clean my room, I’d sensed him leer at Noa.

Now I burst out of the hotel suite and slammed him into the corridor wall, pinning him to that wall with my forearm pressed to his throat. “Listen up you asshole!” I said, my voice a low growl I’d never heard myself make before, “You’re getting me my damn handheld medical scanner and proper medical kit, right now!”

I shoved him away from me with relish, surprised when his stocky, muscled body actually stumbled back a few steps. I jabbed a finger at him, “Get me those things, now!” Then I strode back into the suite and hurried for Noa, she’d passed out in the chair and I feared for her life. If she’d been sick for two weeks and was still getting worse… How long had she been running this fever? Why was she even working if she was sick?

Gathering her slight form into my arms, I picked her up and brought her over to the unmade bed, and placed her on it. I took off her shoes and then looked at the snug lace necklace around her throat and decided that one should go too. I’d seen all the other housekeepers wear it, but it couldn’t be comfortable, not when she was sweating, burning up, her body clearly in distress.

Sliding my fingers beneath her soft black hair I searched for the clasp to the thing, but while I found the laces to take the silly white cap off her hair, there was no clasp to her necklace. I found a magnetic lock fastening instead and when I trailed my fingers along the delicate white lace I realized it had been shaped around metallic wires.

I stumbled back as a horrible realization sank into me, my brain struggling to wrap itself around the implications. The sheer horror of the crime my own mother was perpetuating, so openly, so brazenly. A slave collar, cleverly disguised. Had all the housekeepers I’d seen over the past two weeks been slaves? How had I not realized it? Sensed it from their emotions? Noa had been so angry last time, but I thought she’d just been angry with me. I’d felt exhilarated by it, excited that she’d be so blatantly rude to me, which I doubted she was to other guests or she wouldn’t have had a job here. Only… this wasn’t a job.

A knock on the door was followed by a swishing sound as the panel slid open. The cool blast of the guard’s emotions was followed by the even colder tickle of my mother. When I turned around to look at them, I noted that the guard was holding what I needed, deferentially standing just inside the suite while my mother had glided further inside.

I strode over to the guard and snatched what he held from his grasp, curling my lip angrily towards my mother from where she stood in front of the window. She was elegantly dressed in a silky blue gown that clung to her curves, her long black hair piled high on her head, and studded with silver and blue.

Without care for my patient, she pressed the button to open the drapes, allowing bright purple-hued sunlight to filter into the room. Noa on the bed made a soft moaning sound, rolling to her side to face away from the light. I knew there would be no point in demanding my mother close those drapes, she wouldn’t. Knowing that Noa was not here by choice and that my own mother was the one that put her here, I knew just how little she was valued.

Ignoring my audience, the disapproving stares, I pulled free the handheld and ran it over Noa’s body, scanning the readings as fast as they came in. What I saw was a shock that I couldn’t hide in my own emotional signature, though with my back to her, my mother wouldn’t be able to read it on my face.

I ran the readings a second time, staring at Noa’s precious face as I did so. The soft curve of her pink cheeks, the plush pillow her bottom lip made. Then I noticed the deep circles beneath her eyes, her lack of good sleep evident. She’d been sick since she’d seen me that first time, I’d done this to her. What if she hadn’t come back? What if she’d succumbed before she had a chance to return? My heart clenched painfully at the thought.

“What’s wrong with the damn maid anyway?” my mother demanded from over my shoulder, just as my handheld confirmed for a second time the diagnoses. I snapped the device closed and gave her a baleful glare, while I started rummaging through the medical kit just so my hands had something to do.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, “Maybe you worked her too hard since you’ve sunk so low as to use slave labor these days. Do you even know the nutritional requirements of a human?” I curled one of my hands around Noa’s fingers and held on tight, just beyond the medical kit and out of sight of my mother and the guard. With my other hand, I pulled free a hypo-spray that I pretended to depress against the inside of her upper arm.

My mother didn’t even deny the accusation, she just sighed in a very put-upon manner. “It’s hard to get reliable help these days, this hotel business is cutthroat.” She click-clacked away on her high heels to look out the window again and I took the chance to shift my body and press my hip against Noa’s, hiding our clasped hands further from sight.

The pinche monkey scuttled across the room and jumped on the bed, climbing onto the bedpost so he could stare at everyone in the room. I’d decided to name him Pato, after one of the sacred healers in Aderian myth. The story of Pyra and Pato was a story of star-crossed lovers and an inspiration to healers all over the planet. Pato really didn’t like my mother and the feeling was mutual, so whenever my mother decided she needed to visit me, the two kept to different sides of the room. Pato had good instincts.

“So, is she going to be able to finish her work today or not? I’ve got no use for sick housekeepers.” My mother said this in a cool voice, only mild irritation registering from her aura. It was frightening just how emotionless she was these days, how much she didn’t care. To her, it was clear that Noa was useless if she couldn’t work, and that she’d rather replace her than let her heal.

With fear for her safety tightening all the muscles in my body, I tried to sound calm and rational when I spoke. “She just needs some help, an hour’s rest, and things should drastically improve.” I added the only thing my mother really wanted to hear with a sour taste in my mouth, “She should be able to finish her work for the day.”

My mother gave me a nod, “Fine, I’ll have a guard put her on her cot and then get her back to work in an hour. If she can’t finish her tasks…” she didn’t finish her statement but swept out of the suite without another word. My eyes settled on the Rummicaron guard, he was already approaching with a wide smile, displaying all his hooked teeth.

I didn’t want to let go of Noa’s small hand, but I got to my feet and squared off with the male. “You touch her, I will put you on your ass,” I said, “I don’t care about my healer’s oath, I will take you out.” I made sure he saw just how serious I was about it, and with our scuffle from the hallway still fresh in his mind, I saw how he weighed the pros and cons in his head and decided it wasn’t worth expending the energy. He backed off without a word and left the suite to take up his post outside.

As soon as the door closed, I slumped back onto the bed, eagerly reaching for Noa’s small hand again. She pulled it out of reach, her blue eyes opening to glare at me. “What the hell are you up to?” she demanded while she pushed herself into an upright position, swaying a little when that made her dizzy.

I reached out to steady her with a hand on her shoulder but she swayed out of reach and nearly toppled over. I heard her muffled ‘oof’ but decided the best course of action might be to give her a little distance just so I could explain the situation to her. I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be happy with the news.

“You didn’t even give me anything,” she said, rubbing with her fingers over the spot I’d pressed the hypo spray against. She was glaring at me, but her emotions were more confused than angry, she was scared too, feeling like she was on unsteady ground. I meant to reassure as soon as I could, but I struggled to find the right words.

What happened was a shaking hand as I pointed at the pretty lace decorating her slender throat, and a tone vibrating with anger when I said, “That is a slave collar.” Her hand went up to touch the lace while she shrugged with one shoulder, her eyes searching my face as she tried to make sense of what I was thinking.