Bound (The Grandor Descendant Series Book 3) (6 page)

“How are you Chris?” asked Lisa, handing Rick the thermometer distastefully and swaggering away from him and the cat on the table.  

“Yea, pretty good,” Chris replied, shrugging.

Just then Dr Fellow walked into the hospital. He took one look at Rick, who was muttering under his breath nervously, saying, “Nice kitty,” then stalked over to Lisa.

“Ms Livingstone,” Dr Fellow said, squinting to read her name badge, “you should not let your social commitments outweigh that of your patients. Please return to your partner and continue your TPR.”

Lisa blushed furiously, then raced back to Rick, quickly snatching the thermometer from him, just as the cat let out a hiss and scratched her on the wrist.

“Right, well, if you two would follow me; we have our first consult,” said Dr Fellow, leading Ari and Chris back towards the reception area, just as Rick and Lisa began arguing loudly.

Chris and Ari spent the rest of the day following Dr Fellow around like obedient puppies. The first thing that they learnt to do was how to take a TPR: temperature, pulse and respiration rate. Ari found this more difficult than she thought it would be. She wasn’t use to using her stethoscope, and struggled initially to even hear the heart beating. Dr Fellow’s response to this was to suggest she make sure it was turned on.

“They turn on an off?” asked Ari, when the vet had walked away.

“Yea, just rotate the head,” said Chris, shaking his head as he laughed. 

After that Dr Fellow had showed them how to give sub cutaneous injections, something she found much easier, and finally they topped off the day with Chris being allowed to take blood from a greyhound’s jugular vein. So far in their course they hadn’t really practiced any of these core skills, and it was a nice change to be able to interact with animals that were still alive, as opposed to ones that they were examining on a slab.

They had just gathered their bags and were leaving the clinic for the day, when the familiar jingle of the bells at the front reception door rang.

“Can someone help me? I hit this fox with my car and…” said a woman’s frantic voice, ringing out through the empty reception area, “Hello? Is there anyone there?”

It was just before 6pm and most of the staff had gone home for the evening, leaving the reception area empty. At 5.30pm, the day clinic became an emergency centre, at which point the staff, vets and nurses, would hand over to those relieving their shift. At the woman’s plea for help, both Chris and Ari looked around, checking to see if anyone else had heard her. No one else was around.

“Where are you going?” asked Ari, grabbing Chris by the hand and stopping him.  

“We have to help her,” he said, pulling Ari with him.

“But we aren’t vets yet. We need to get Dr Fellow or someone else.”

“Ari, its wildlife! Do you think that they are going to drop what they are doing to help save a fox?” Chris asked. “Besides, she said that it had been hit by a car! It needs help now.”

Ari looked back towards the door that would lead them to the hospital and then out to the reception area. Shaking her head, she followed Chris; they could get into serious shit for this.

“Hi,” said Chris, moving towards the woman in the front reception area.

“Thank God,” said the woman.

“Not God, just a vet,” Chris said smiling.

“Student,” Ari coughed under her breath.

“Right, err, well, err… if you would just follow me,” said Chris, leading the breathless woman into one of the consult rooms. “Just pop him down here.”

The woman placed the unconscious fox onto the stainless steel examination table. There were large gashes across its legs, while its paws were badly grazed. A small trickle of blood was coming from one of its nostrils, and the fox took tiny shallow breaths, as if the effort of breathing was costing it greatly.

“Ok, well thank you for bringing it in to us,” said Chris, now holding the consult door open for the woman to leave.

“That’s it? You don’t need anything else from me?” said the woman, now following Chris into the front reception area, leaving Ari alone with the fox.

“Right, good point,” said Chris, “let me just find something for you to fill in so that you can surrender him over to us.”

Back in the consult room, Ari looked sadly at the fox. Though she was not a vet yet, she knew that the fox’s injuries were bad. She was almost certain it would need to be euthanized.  

“Ariana Sol,” a stern voice said from behind her, and Ari turned around to see Dr Fellow walking into the consult room, a surprised look on his face.

Her guilty eyes traced Dr Fellow’s glance and they both looked down at the fox on the examination table.

“We were just leaving and someone brought this fox in… and, and she hit it with her car. We, we, didn’t know what else to,” Ari stammered.

“It’s alright. Calm down. Let’s have a look at the poor beast,” Dr Fellow said quickly, cutting off Ari’s ramblings and removing the stethoscope from around his neck. “Hmm,” he said, placing the stethoscope against the fox’s chest. “Ariana, come and listen to this. What do you think is going on?”

Ari moved over to the fox, who was staring back blankly at her, it’s large round eyes fixed desperately on her. As she placed her stethoscope to its chest, the animal let out a small whimper.

“Haemothorax?” whispered Ari. “Or, maybe pneumothorax?”

“What’s that? Oh yes, pneumothorax, exactly, probably happened when it was hit by the car,” said Dr Fellow. “This means that air is separating the pleural surface of the lung lobes from the thoracic cavity.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing we can do,” he said. “The air in its lungs is preventing it from ventilating properly. It would need x-rays, a chest drain placed and intense hospitalisation to try and save it, and because it is wildlife and considered a pest in this area, our hands are tied.”

She watched with horror as Dr Fellow began searching the cupboards, finally retrieving a large bottle of thick green liquid, lethobarb, the barbiturate that would give the animal an overdose of anaesthetic and put it to sleep. Ari was just about to ask if there was some way that might be able to justify treating it, when the fox began to growl and convulse.

“Why is it doing that?” she asked, looking down at the writhing animal.

“It may be rabid, or having a seizure from increased intracranial pressure. Have you had your rabies vaccinations?”

Immediately Ari nodded, though this wasn’t true. Australia didn’t have rabies, it had Lyssa virus, and it was not a requirement of the course back home to get vaccinated for it, as it was such a rare disease. She did not however want Dr Fellow to know this.

“Hold the vein up for me Ariana. I don’t think we should make it suffer any longer. Make sure it doesn’t bite you,” he said. “I’m just going to get some gauze.”

Ari moved cautiously back towards the small animal, feeling a great sense of grief. She knew that death was a part of this job but there was something cruel about euthanizing this animal; it just didn’t feel right.

“But couldn’t we just…” Ari began to say, until she noticed something strange around the fox’s neck. Looking down more carefully, Ari realised that there was a small silver chain around its neck. “What the?” she said, staring at the jewellery in absolute confusion.

“Have you got it?” asked Dr Fellow, still with his back to her as he reached for a pair of clippers. “Just give me a moment.”

“Yes, but…” said Ari, about to make mention of the silver chain, until something very strange happened.

The small fury arm that she was restraining was becoming larger. Within her grasp she could feel it expanding, pushing her fingertips further and further apart, until she could no longer wrap her hand around the animal at all. At exactly the same time, she felt the animal go limp in her arms. Then the sound of a thousand tiny snaps and an odd tearing noise filled the small consult room. Looking down, Ari gasped, threw her hands into the air and stopped time, just before Dr Fellow turned around to administer the lethobarb.

“Jesus Christ! Chris, get in here!” Ari screamed, now looking down at a naked girl lying on the table, whose brown eyes exactly mirrored the same shape and colour of what the fox’s had been.

Ari moved to the girl quickly, sweeping her long hair out of the way so as to place her stethoscope against her chest, listening carefully for a heartbeat and making sure her stethoscope was turned on. The heart beat was there but it was faint, and Ari knew that they had to get this girl to the hospital, quickly. As she placed her fingers near the girl’s neck to feel for a pulse, she saw again the small chain and realised that it was in fact a silver necklace.

“Coming, coming,” Chris said back in a bored voice. “Why is everyone calling me God today? I know I am good but it’s not like-”

The moment he walked inside, Chris stopped speaking. His eyes darted over to Dr Fellow, who was still frozen next to Ari, holding a syringe filled with bright green liquid, then down to the naked, unconscious girl who was propped on the table, where many gashes were oozing thick red blood.

“What the hell?” he said, quickly racing to Ari as he removed his shirt so as to cover the girl on the table.

“She’s a waere,” Ari said exasperated, “the fox was a waere! Dr Fellow burst in, and, he was about to euthanize her, then, then she started having a seizure and changed. Or maybe she’s a wraith... I don’t know.”

“But, what are we going to do?”

Both Ari and Chris stared down at the unconscious girl.

“She has a pneumothorax! We have to get her to the hospital,” explained Ari.

“But,” Chris began, turning to face Dr Fellow and waving a hand in front of him. The vet did not move and Chris turned to look at Ari, exasperated, as he said, “You froze the person who is going to be grading us? Ari, are you insane?”

“Don’t worry about him right now. If you take the fox, I mean girl… waere… wraith... argh, you know what I mean. Take her to your car; I will come up with something to tell Dr Fellow,” Ari said, helping Chris so that he was cradling the girl in his hands. “I’ll meet you out the back in a minute. Then we can take her to the hospital.”

Ari raced to the door and opened it, thrusting her head out and checking to make sure that there was no one in the waiting area, before waving for Chris to follow.

After watching Chris run to his car, she bolted back inside the consult room and thought hard. She had just about come up with an idea, when she felt her powers wane. Without hesitating she jumped across the room and threw the door that would lead back to the hospital open.

“Where is it?” asked Dr Fellow, suddenly unfreezing and looking around the consult room for the missing fox.

His eyes scanned the consult room, finally coming to rest on the door which Ari had thrown open.

“It jumped out of my hands,” Ari lied. “The door was open; I think it went somewhere out the back, into the hospital.”