Page 7 of Client from Hell

“My blood pressure dropped again, didn’t it?”

“You’re borderline for needing a transfusion, so if the donor has a compatible blood type, this will really help your general prognosis. Lycanthropes have the safest blood for transfusions; the virus works with their immune system, which means when they do get sick, they aren’t sick for as long and rarely suffer from long-term consequences of the illness.” Marie stood and tucked the tablet and the clipboard under her arm. “I’ll notify the doctors you’ve signed off on the treatments, and hopefully by this time tomorrow, you’ll be on your way towards recovery.”

I could only hope.

Three

I would always choose the samosas.

The lycanthrope donor had a compatible blood type. Had I been wiser, I would have been more aware of the consequences of accepting a large transfusion. The desire for survival made me stupid with a dash of reckless. The sudden influx of the lycanthropy virus hurt like hell, and thanks to the chemotherapy and its damage to my various organs, the virus opted to attack my bones first before taking aim and firing at the rest of my beleaguered body.

Three weeks after the first transfusion, I needed a second one to encourage the virus to develop. Despite having been given two units of a lycanthrope’s blood in the first treatment, the cancer had given the strain quite the beating, resulting in a weak infection destined to take decades to mature while I had numerous organs in dire need of help.

I wouldn’t survive through any transplants, and while the cancer had either gone into remission or had been eradicated, the doctors wanted to continue using me as a human test subject to see how far the lycanthropy virus would go to save its host.

As their tests might buy me a lengthened lifespan, I signed the second series of waivers and prepared for another visit to living hell.

The first few days after the second treatment went by in a pained-filled blur, but within a week, they freed me from the plastic-shrouded prison and sent me to a private room on the other side of the hospital to test if the virus could rebuild—and function as—my immune system.

To test the theory, they injected me with a live sample of an influenza virus.

The lycanthropy virus won, and to celebrate having jumped a critical hurdle in my recovery, my team of doctors and nurses conspired and brought in some forbidden treats from the outside world in the form of Indian food, good coffee, and my parents.

I suspected my parents had been the informants on my enjoyment of Indian food, and somebody had gone out of their way to make my meal as spicy as possible. Eating while having guests counted as a little rude, but my parents would eventually forgive me.

My mother, who still questioned how and why an introvert like her had married an extrovert like my dad, gave me a severe case of the stink eye while Dad opted for the crossed arms and scowl version of parental disapproval.

When given a choice between facing the wrath of my parental units or eating samosas, I would always choose the samosas. I dipped mine in the provided yogurt sauce and met their gazes, wondering which of us would crack first. I assumed Mom would hold on until the bitter end.

Introverts tended to win any contest involving people and silence for some reason.

As I took more after Dad, the real struggle would be between us. With four samosas to devour before I ventured into the spicy world of vindaloo, I gave myself half-decent chances of taking the second-place prize.

“She gets this from you,” my mother accused, and I stared at her with wide eyes, wondering which of my offenses had transformed her into the leader of our family rather than the observer.

Dad shrugged. “I can’t say I’d sneak off to the hospital for cancer treatments without telling my parents first, but I do understand the logic. Mostly, I suspect the cancer targeted the portion of her brain responsible for common sense, but she did so trying to make our lives a little easier and to limit how much stress our poor, fragile hearts have to handle.”

Victory belonged to me, and I wasn’t sure what to do with having finally, probably for the first time in my life, beat them at a staring match. My victory wouldn’t do me much good, as I’d lost on all other fronts.

Maybe dodging the unwanted conversation regarding my cancer with my parents hadn’t been all that good of an idea. “In my defense, today is the first day I’ve been allowed to see anyone who isn’t on my medical team, and I was kept in one of those fancy quarantine rooms you see on television. I even got staff wearing hazmat suits for a while, but that was when the chemotherapy finished trashing my immune system. I opted to contract a disease to help increase my odds of surviving the cancer, so you should be showering me with praise and extra vindaloo.” As I often enjoyed taking strange adventures with my food, I dipped a samosa in my vindaloo and gave it a try, discovering a new favorite combination of flavors. “I didn’t want to worry you when there was nothing you could have done either way. I’m sorry I upset you.”

“I can respect that,” my father replied, and he turned his stare onto my mother. “See? I told you that she had a good reason for staying quiet on the matter. Frankly, this is our daughter we’re discussing here. We’re lucky she told us she’d been diagnosed with cancer.”

“She only told us because I told her something seemed off, and she hadn’t been feeling well,” my mother retorted. “I will concede the point, but only because it seems she’s trying to do good things in bad ways.”

When honest with myself, I adored both of my parents, who liked being right but would accept being wrong when given a good reason they could understand.

They understood the road to hell was paved with good intentions, and they tried to mitigate the hell however they could.

“How did two nice people produce a fledgling attorney?” I asked, pausing in my eating frenzy to scrutinize both of my parents. They stood firm under my stare, much to my pleasure.

Mom tended to fold under pressure, and Dad tended to change the topic away from uncomfortable subjects if at all possible.

My father relaxed, uncrossed his arms, and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans, his way of indicating I’d been forgiven for my latest crime. “The hospital said you’d already cleared your bills? We wanted to inquire about the payment plan and get it set up.”

My parents couldn’t afford a payment plan for my medical bills, but they’d find a way to make it work despite their low income. The only reason they hadn’t run themselves into the ground over my college debt involved my student loans and scholarships. My scholarships meant far more to them than they did to me, as I would have added onto my debt without complaint to get my legal degree.

Sometimes, I questioned why they’d been given me as a daughter.