Molly and I found the hospital (the closest emergency room was about thirty miles away), and the check-in nurse barely batted an eye when I told her it was a hunting accident.  I made up a fantastic story about trying to find my uncle in the woods, then falling, startling him, and getting blasted, and the nurse didn't even comment on the fact that it wasn't hunting season.

They took me to a small examining room to await the doctor's once-over, and Molly went with her.  Once the door was closed, I sighed.  "I hate telling lies," I said.

"Because you're so good at it?" Molly asked with a smile.

I mirrored it with a faint smile of my own.  "No.  I just don't like doing it."

"Sometimes it's warranted," she replied.  "Thank you for calling me, by the way.  You didn't have to, but I'm glad you did.  I don't know what Eddie was thinking," she added, acid in her voice.  "Defending yourselves is one thing, but making Lex move dead bodies around?  If she's messed up now, I'll bet that's what did it."

"I agree," I said.  "Eddie's an asshole.  He knows people really well, and can relate to them, but he's not always very good at taking care of them."

"So why are you with him?"

"I'm not...'with him.'  Not like that..."

"Sorry.  I didn't mean it that way," Molly said.  "Why do you work with him, I meant?"

I had to think about it.  I had never thought about why.  "I like what he does.  And...he makes me feel important.  Useful.  Not on purpose, you know.  He's a dick, but I can help him, and he appreciates that, even if he doesn't always show it."

"You saved his life."

I nodded.  "I've lost enough people who matter to me," I said firmly.  "I won't lose any more."

There was a knock at the door, and the doctor came in.  Molly stood.  "I'm going to go call my editor, while you're in here, okay?  On the way home, though, you have to tell me what you know about Lex's ghost."

I nodded.  The doctor smiled and bid Molly good day.  He was young, and smiling too brightly for my liking.  "So what seems to be the problem?" he asked in a cheerful tone that confirmed I didn't like him.  I stuck my bandaged and braced leg out to him, much more curtly than was necessary, and said nothing. 

The examination was less painful than I expected it to be; I put my eyes on the ceiling as the doctor unwrapped my leg, and simply decided that I wasn't going to flinch or show any pain.  He asked more than once if I he hurting me, and I shook my head no, wordless.  There was only one jolt of pain that made me react, and I suspected that the doctor had just done that to make sure I could feel anything at all.

He changed the bandage and wrapped it back up, leaving the brace for me to put on myself.  "There's not much I can do for it now," he said.  "I'd like to take some X-rays.  The bone isn't broken, but it'll help me determine the extent of the internal damage.  You might need surgery on your knee."

"That's just great," I said.  I wondered briefly if Eddie would pay for the hospital work.  Judging by the way he got when I was hurt, there was little doubt that he would.

The doctor left with a promise to return with a wheelchair and an escort to X-ray once the room was ready.  I was left alone.  I left the brace off for the moment and lay back on the examining table, eyes open.

I stared at the lights in the ceiling until my eyes slipped out of focus, and fell into a waking dream, which passed immediately from memory, leaving only an image of candles.  The dream came apart as the door to the examining room opened again.  I sat up, preparing to swing my legs off of the table, but before I'd moved a quarter inch a hand fell across my mouth and my head was pressed back into the cushioned table, hard.

Taiisha's face loomed over me.  I tried to shout, but all that emerged from the crushing grip on my jaw was a frenzied squeak.

"Don't," Taiisha hissed as my hands balled into fists and my arms came up.  "There are two hundred and eleven people in this little hospital, and I'll nail you to the wall so you can listen to me kill them all if you don't lie still, Kerry."

I lay still.

"Shh," Taiisha said.  "We haven't got much time.  Listen to me.  I underestimated you, and I'm proud that I did.  But it takes more than a chopper to dispose of us.  Annihilate the body and we'll drift, but another will replace it.  One day you'll be the one who wakes naked in the snowy woods, and perhaps then we'll talk more of it."  She smiled.  "If you're willing to destroy yourself to gain your liberty, so be it.  You know I won't have you destroyed, and I won't pretend it's not true.  I've called the Ravens off.  You and Edward have nothing to fear from them on this matter.  Now, if you're going to behave like an adult, I'll speak to you like one."  The hand over my mouth relaxed slightly.  When I didn't move, Taiisha released me and stepped away from the table.  She was dressed in scrubs, and her hair had been cut short.  Of her injuries, there was of course no sign.

I sat up, hands still clenched.  "I'm not coming back with you," I said.

"Of course you're not.  You're going to go off and do what you like with your foolish friends."

"Don't you hurt them," I warned.

Taiisha raised her hand facetiously.  "I promise not to slaughter your friends," she said.  "You'll have to take care, though.  It's a chore, taking the lives of others into your hands."

"I mean it," Nikki said.  "If you hurt them--"

"Yes, yes, you'll destroy yourself.  We have a stalemate on that front, and perhaps when you've outlived them all, we'll renegotiate that.  For now, I will tell you this; I won't have the things I've learned you go to waste in the meantime, Kerry.  I'll be watching.  And sometimes, I shall bring you a task, and you shall do it.  And if you refuse, then we'll test your willingness to carry out your threats.  Do you understand me?"

"Don't hurt any of them," I repeated.  "Not Lexi, or Eddie, or Molly."

"Or--what was her name?--Elizabeth.  Or the retarded girl in Nashville.  I understand your terms, Kerry.  Do you understand mine?"

"Some day you'll tell me to kill them."

Taiisha frowned.  "Absurd.  Childish.  And furthermore, if I want them dead, I'll do it myself."  A flicker of honest anger passed across her face.  "The snipwit burned my face off.  Edward shot me.  They're mine to destroy, if they're to be destroyed.  And I've given my word that I won't."

"Your word is shit."

"You'd be surprised at what my word is worth."  She removed a small tape player from her pocket and placed it on the examining table next to me.  "If I call you, it's because I require help that you can give, not because I wish to torment you.  I didn't groom you to be a plaything.  Remember that, Kerry."  Taiisha was backing toward the door.  "I'll be in touch."

She disappeared through the door.  I waited several seconds, and then pressed the PLAY button on the tape player.  It was a phone call; with Taiisha's voice the louder of the two, so she'd recorded it herself.  She was her usual terse self.

"I wish to speak to Mr. Carver," she said on the tape.

"He's unavailable.  May I take a message?"

Taiisha sighed.  "If you must.  Listen well, for I shall not repeat myself.  Inform him that his idiot goons Ruben Mroz, Georges Armitadi, and Martin Stonecipher have trod upon my figurative toes, presumably at Mr. Carver's direction.  A misunderstanding.  I've rectified it by killing them all."

There was a startled pause at the other end.  "Ma'am?"

"Shut up.  The infarction they were chasing doesn't exist.  It was my game all along, and they've nearly soured it.  Mr. Carver would do well to let the matter of the website drop.  Mr. Carver knows better than to think I'm interested in it, and he certainly doesn't want me as an enemy.  If he's concerned about your precious information, inform him that I shall watchdog it myself.  Additional operations will be a tremendous waste of time and personnel.  Understood?"

"I understand, ma'am, but I don't know exactly what you're talking about--"

"Of course you pretend you don't.  And you'll pretend you don't know who to repeat it to, also.  But you do.  One day perhaps your career will even make you something more than Mr. Carver's secretarial fuck-toy of the moment, and you can service the Ravens for real, rather than merely servicing their director."

Silence on the other end again.  "May I have your name?"

"My name is Taiisha."

A longer silence.  When the secretary spoke again, her voice was different, as if she recognized Taiisha's name.  I got a feeling that she did.  "Yes, ma'am."