Burn for Me

My Leon was in Austin with my sisters and out of harm’s way. But the city was full of Leons and Arabellas and Catalinas, and Adam Pierce now had another piece of the artifact. For all we knew, he already had all three. He would burn the city down. And now another Prime was involved. What was happening? Why?

I felt like the further we went, the fewer answers I got.

Mad Rogan’s family physician practiced out of a three-story building that had no sign. It looked like a perfectly nondescript office building with tinted windows and its own small, private parking lot. There were only three other cars there, all three dark SUVs.

I parked and dipped my head to look at the building through the windshield. No signs of life.

Mad Rogan was getting out of the car. I stepped out and opened the door for Troy. “I’ll see if I can get a stretcher or a chair.”

Mad Rogan punched a code into the keypad.

“I think I can manage,” Troy said.

“It’s okay, I’m sure we can wrangle up something . . .”

The tinted double doors swung open. Three men and two women emerged, pushing two stretchers with practiced efficiency. Behind them, a huge Hispanic woman followed. She wasn’t fat but large, tall, at least six feet, and powerfully built, with broad shoulders and strong-looking arms left bare by her dark green scrubs. Her dark hair was pulled back. Her features, like everything about her, were large: dark eyes, strong nose, and big, full mouth. You knew she smiled often and the smile would be bright. She looked around forty.

She looked at Mad Rogan. “What did you do?”

Mad Rogan opened his mouth.

She turned to me. “What did he do?”

“He got hit by a car,” I said.

The woman pivoted back to Mad Rogan. “Why in the world would you do a stupid thing like that?”

Mad Rogan opened his mouth again to say something.

“Don’t you have an army of badasses to keep this exact thing from happening?”

“I . . .”

The woman turned to me. “What kind of car was it?”

“An armored Escalade,” I said.

“Well, at least it was a nice car.” She turned to Mad Rogan. “Who would want to ruin their nice car by hitting you with it?”

Mad Rogan sucked in a slow breath and let it out.

“Got you in the ribs, huh.” The woman waved. “Load both of them up.”

“I can . . .” Mad Rogan started.

She pointed to a stretcher. “Down.”

I felt the distinct urge to do whatever she said and do it quickly.

Mad Rogan lay down on the stretcher. The team wheeled Troy and him into the building.

“I’m Dr. Daniela Arias,” the woman said to me. “Come inside. You can wait in our waiting room.”

I followed her in. I didn’t really feel like I had a choice.

Most waiting rooms I visited had rows of semi-comfortable chairs, a TV, and, if you were lucky, a Coke machine. This waiting room should’ve been in some luxury hotel. A huge floor-to-ceiling aquarium took up one wall, and small schools of silver fish with bright red fins swam back and forth, darting in and out of an elaborate white coral at the bottom. Plush couches occupied the room, some in the corner, arranged into a semi-private ring around an obligatory fireplace, others in front of an enormous flat-screen TV, hooked up to what had to be every gaming system known to man. To the left, a large stainless steel fridge with clear glass doors showed off rows of water, orange juice, and Gatorade on one side, and deli meat, yogurt, salads, and plastic bowls filled with cut vegetables and fruit on the other. I was encouraged to “help myself.” I helped myself to a bowl of raspberries. They were ridiculously delicious.

I was on my third bowl—I had earned it—when Daniela Arias walked through the door.

“He will live,” she said.

Oh drat.

“He would like to see you.”

I made myself put the raspberries down and followed her down the hallway.

“Is he in pain?”

“I’ve given him something that will get him through the next six hours. But if he twists the wrong way, he’ll feel it. He has two cracked ribs, and his shoulder is severely bruised.”

He wasn’t dead. That was all that mattered.

“What about Troy?”

“Broken leg, a nice clean fracture. He’ll be sent home with a bonus. So what’s your story?” Daniela asked. “Were you in the service?”

“No, ma’am. My mother was.”

“How did he rescue you?”

“I’m not employed by Mad Rogan. We just happened to work together.”

“I see.”

“Were you rescued, ma’am?”

“Yes,” she said. “I served for ten years, six of them in South America. Then I finally got out, because I was ready for civilian life. I went to work for a med-first urgent care clinic. Some urgent clinics offer good service. The one I worked for was all about money. When I got into medicine, I did it to save lives. So if I knew that a certain drug was needed, I prescribed it. If a treatment was required, I administered it. Even if I knew the patients might not be able to pay the deductible.”

“The owners didn’t like it?” I guessed.

“No. All doctors write off some patients who can’t pay, but the owners decided I was writing off too much. They talked to me, then they threatened me. They expected me to fold, but I didn’t tuck my tail between my legs and slink away. I was paid a salary based on what they thought I would make. Then insurance refused to pay a few times, some deductibles weren’t met, and I ended up owing the clinic money. Normally the clinics would push those moneys out to the next quarters, but they didn’t. They demanded that I cover what the insurance didn’t, and when I couldn’t, they went after me in court. I sold my house, emptied all of my savings, and then I declared bankruptcy. Then Mad Rogan found me, paid off my settlement, gave me a chance to practice medicine, and made my life a hell of a lot better. So if you do anything to hurt him, I will put a bullet in your brain.” She smiled at me and opened the door. “Go in.”

I walked through the door and heard the lock click behind me. I stood in a beautiful hotel room. Directly opposite the door, a thick, grey curtain framed a floor-to-ceiling window presenting a view of Houston. On my right, a giant bed stood against the wall. It was high enough, and the metal and plastic frame in which it rested was complicated enough, for it to serve as a hospital bed, but right now it looked more like a bed in some upscale suite, complete with snow-white blanket and rows of pillows. Further on the right, a small kitchenette hugged the wall. Across from it near the curtain stood a rectangular glass box. It took me a second to realize it was actually a shower with several nozzles, with water still beading on the inside of its walls, and that Mad Rogan stood next to it, barefoot, wearing jeans and a plain white T-shirt, and that his dark hair was damp.