The Second Heart (22 page)

“Yes, I’m ready.” Miguel said, not taking his
eyes off of Meredith’s face.

The nurse pulled a lever on the side of the
bed to release the brakes and began to wheel Miguel’s bed out of
the room. She said to Meredith, “You’ll have to wait with his
family in the lobby. We’ll come out and talk to you as soon as
we’re through, and then you can come see him.” She smiled brightly
and then wheeled him out the door and around the corner, out of
sight.

Meredith stood alone in the now empty room,
searching in her mind for something to do. A single sob escaped her
lips as Vi poked her head around the door to look at her. “He’s
going to have the surgery anyway, Vi. He wouldn’t listen to me. He
said that he didn’t even know me.”

Vi stepped into the room and wrapped her arms
around Meredith. “He’s in the hall talking to his parents right
now. Want me to tackle him?”

Meredith sniffed and didn’t answer. “What can
we do?”

Vi took her hand to lead her out of the room.
“Maybe Eleanor is wrong. Maybe he’ll be just fine. Modern medicine
has come a long way since that magician guy was gutting
people.”

Meredith nodded. “That’s true. Thanks
Vi.”

Vi smiled. “Let’s go wait with his folks. I
bet they want to learn all about you.”

Meredith chuckled without humor, still
worried for Miguel, and they left the room.

When Meredith
and Vi came out into the hallway, Miguel was gone. His parents’
faces turned toward them as they walked through the door. They
looked careworn and tired, much like Meredith herself felt.

Meredith gave them a weak smile and
introduced Vi, who politely shook their hands.

“Do you mind if we wait with you in the
lobby?” Meredith asked, trying to sound casual. Her stomach twisted
as she dreaded the worst for Miguel, but she was determined not to
show it.

“Of course. We’d like that,” Mr. Alvarez
said. He picked up his wife’s hand and tucked it into the crook of
his arm.

As they emerged into the main corridor,
Meredith overheard someone standing a few feet down saying, “I
think you should come down here right away.” She glanced over at
the man, who was talking on a cell phone, and their eyes met.

He turned away casually, walking the opposite
direction down the hall, still speaking quietly into his phone.

Meredith had a strange feeling that she had
seen the man before. She couldn’t recall from where, however, and
she quickly put it out of her mind as she followed Miguel’s parents
to the lobby.

They sat next to a bank of windows in one of
the emptier rows of chairs, settling in for a long wait. Josh
hopped over to join them, holding both crutches in one hand.
Introductions were made again, and then Josh sat next to Vi with
his crutches leaned against the wall. Meredith took off the green
coat that she had taken from Eleanor, stuffing it under her
chair.

After a few minutes, Mrs. Alvarez turned in
her chair toward Meredith. She was in her mid-forties and had
thick, curly hair. Her eyes reminded Meredith of Miguel’s, which
made her stomach tighten once again.

“So you and Miguel know each other from
school?” Mrs. Alvarez asked conversationally.

Meredith answered politely, though she wished
that she didn’t have to make small talk with Miguel’s mother. She
wondered how long they would have to wait to find out Miguel’s
fate. She laced her fingers together nervously, squeezing until her
fingers ached.

Mrs. Alvarez persisted. “Do you spend much
time together outside of class?”

“We’ve been out a few times. School keeps us
pretty busy though, so we don’t hang out very often,” Meredith
replied. She didn’t offer any more information, hoping that Mrs.
Alvarez would give up. She wondered if Miguel’s mother would be so
eager to get to know her if she knew the truth--that if Meredith
would have opened up to her son, he probably wouldn’t be going in
to die right now. But of course, Mrs. Alvarez didn’t know that her
son might not come back.

Mrs. Alvarez leaned away and busied herself
with a magazine, disappointed with Meredith’s short but polite
answers. Meredith was relieved to be left to her own dark thoughts.
She kept replaying her conversation with Miguel in her head,
wondering if there was anything she could have said differently to
change his mind. It was no good; she was now paying the price for
keeping him at arm’s length, for keeping things between them
conveniently casual. And for what? It wasn’t as though Meredith had
been hoping someone better would come along.

Meredith came out of her reverie as she
became aware of Josh and Vi’s conversation a few seats over.

“I broke up with my girlfriend,” Josh said
pointedly, leaning on the arm of his chair toward Vi.

Sitting in the chair next to him, Vi sneered.
“Good for you.” She trained her eyes on her fingernails, carefully
cleaning the dirt out from under them, one by one.

“So I was wondering, do you think you
might--”

“What makes you think I’m interested?” Vi
moved on to the next fingernail, refusing to make eye contact.

Josh noticed Meredith’s interest in the
conversation and gave her a boyish smile. Meredith shrugged and
looked away, wanting to stay out of it. To Vi, Josh said, “You’re
not?”

“I might have been a few days ago, before I
knew that you’d led me on and flirted with me even though you
already had a girlfriend.” When Vi had begun the sentence, her
voice was casually detached, but as she spoke, it changed to a low
growl as she became angrier.

“Guys, this is not the time and place for
this crap,” Meredith interrupted, with a glance toward Mrs.
Alvarez. Josh and Vi would have to work out their issues later.

Mrs. Alvarez politely continued to read her
magazine while Mr. Alvarez dozed beside her. Miguel got his height
from his father, along with his strong, competent bearing. In his
sleep, the worry slipped away from Mr. Alvarez’s face, and he
looked about twenty years younger.

Suddenly, the double doors across the lobby
opened with a bang, and Miguel came through them, still wearing his
hospital gown. Meredith gaped at him while Mrs. Alvarez woke her
husband and stood up in alarm.

Miguel’s eyes scanned the room and settled on
their small group, and he rushed over to them. His legs looked
strong under the short gown, and his bare feet smacked on the
linoleum floor urgently. He held the back of his gown closed with
one hand while everyone in the lobby stared shamelessly.

Meredith could feel the energy radiating off
of his body and intertwining with her own, making her realize just
how much she enjoyed its comforting presence. Relief flooded
through her as she stood up to greet him.

Before Meredith could speak, Mrs. Alvarez
said, “Miguel, what is this? Why aren’t you in surgery?” She
reached a hand toward him instinctively, eyes snapping with
concern.

Miguel glanced at Meredith. “I’m not going to
have the surgery, Mama. I don’t think I need it.”

Behind him, Dr. Wells came through the door
with two beefy orderlies right behind. The orderlies looked so
similar, Meredith thought they could be brothers. They were tall
and muscular, with medium brown hair and eyes. Their expressions
also mirrored each other, jaws clenched determinedly. Between them,
Dr. Wells’s eyes narrowed as she recognized Meredith. She stalked
toward them angrily, her heels clacking insistently.

From the corner of her eye, Meredith saw Vi
stand up and nudge Josh. Meredith grabbed Miguel’s hand and
squeezed it hard. “Time to go, Miguel.” She glanced at Dr. Wells,
who was quickly approaching. “
Now.
”

Miguel looked at her in confusion.

“I promise I will explain everything,”
Meredith said, her heart racing. “Let’s go.” She took a step toward
the door, tugging on Miguel’s hand.

Mrs. Alvarez grabbed Miguel’s arm. “Mijo,
what are you doing? You’re sick. Who is this girl to you?”

Dr. Wells reached them, saying, “I don’t know
what sort of stories this girl has been feeding you, but you need
to get into surgery immediately.”

Miguel looked between his mother, the doctor,
and Meredith. “In for a penny,” he murmured, looking Meredith in
the eye.

They both ran toward the door, while Dr.
Wells yelled, “Don’t let them leave!”

* * *

Vi didn’t take her eyes off the two large,
muscular orderlies that flanked Dr. Wells. In her mind Vi nicknamed
them Frick and Frack, they looked so alike.

Meredith and Miguel ran for the door as Dr.
Wells cried for the orderlies to detain them. Before Frick and
Frack had a chance to react, Vi wrapped an arm around each of them
as tightly as she could. “Hello, boys,” she said. “Have we met?” Vi
knew she couldn’t hold the orderlies there for long, but hoped she
would slow them down enough to give Meredith and Miguel a chance to
escape.

Frick wrenched from her grasp first and made
for the door. He hadn’t gotten two steps before Josh jammed a
crutch out in front of him, tripping the bulky man and sending him
down hard. In the kerfuffle, Josh went off balance and toppled onto
Frick, his landing cushioned by the orderly’s thick backside.

Vi wrapped her other arm around Frack and
laced her fingers together, setting in her heels as he struggled to
break free. Frack turned his body and wedged his elbow under Vi’s
ribcage, causing her to gasp for air and loosen her grip. He
slipped out from between her arms and made for the door, while
Frick recovered and followed right on his heels.

Josh sat on the floor and watched them go
through the lobby doors before turning to Vi and saying jovially,
“Never a dull moment around you, is there?”

To her left, Dr. Wells seethed, crossing her
arms and balancing her weight between both feet. “Real cute. An
assault and battery charge is going to be a nice feather in your
cap, I’m sure.”

“What on earth is going on?” Mrs. Alvarez
demanded. Mr. Alvarez had risen to his feet, and he was now resting
a hand on each of his wife’s shoulders, trying to keep her
calm.

Ignoring Miguel’s mother, Dr. Wells hissed to
Vi, “You’d better hope that your friends didn’t leave.”

Vi stepped away from the doctor, keeping her
eyes on the door. A few moments later, the two orderlies came back
into the lobby alone. Vi swallowed hard, meeting Josh’s gaze.

Josh nodded his head toward the exit at the
other end of the lobby, widening his eyes slightly as he did so.
His lips silently formed the word, “Go.”

Vi gave him an apologetic look, but his
crutches wouldn’t get him very far, and she knew she would have to
leave him behind.

“Just go!” he said urgently.

“Call the police,” Dr. Wells commanded to one
of the orderlies.

Vi spun on her heel and didn’t look back.
From behind her she heard Mrs. Alvarez shriek again, “What is going
on
?” Vi pressed through the doors that led deeper into the
hospital with a loud clang. Unsure where to go, she ran through the
maze of hallways aimlessly. She clamored up a flight of stairs,
figuring that her pursuers wouldn’t expect her to go up. Her
primary goal was to not be easy to follow; once that was
accomplished, she could think about a plan.

All the hallways looked the same. The walls
were painted a subtle shade of teal that wasn’t quite right for the
fluorescent lights overhead, and the floors were endless stretches
of gleaming white linoleum. Vi turned down hallways at random,
getting herself thoroughly lost.

Vi slowed her pace and began to look around
for signs that might help her find another way out of the hospital.
There had to be another staircase somewhere. Up ahead, she could
see a nurses’ station with several green-clad nurses standing
around gossiping. Not wanting to be seen, Vi ducked into an empty
room where she could stop and think. The room had no windows and
was dark, allowing only a small shaft of light to come in through
the window in the door to the hallway. Vi stood behind the door,
leaving it slightly ajar, which was the way she found it.

From inside the room, Vi could hear the
conversation at the nurses’ station. There were three distinct
voices, two female and one male. The male said, “I am telling you,
I have never seen anyone lose their cool that badly before.”

One of the females responded, “I know, right?
I don’t get why she was so pissed off. Why does she care whether
the guy has the surgery or not?”

The second female voice chimed in. “It was
definitely weird. But we don’t really know Dr. Wells that well.
Maybe she is just like that.”

Vi’s ears pricked up at Dr. Wells’s name,
realizing they must be talking about Miguel. She moved closer to
the crack in the door to be able to hear better. The hair on her
arms prickled as all her senses were at attention. Why
did
Dr. Wells get so upset about Miguel? Vi thought about what Eleanor
had said about not trusting anyone who worked at the hospital.
Could it be that Dr. Wells was working for the protégé, or even
Aleric himself, and now doesn’t want to have to explain letting not
one, but two, emerged magicians get away?

The male voice was speaking again. “I don’t
see how anyone with a temper like that could get very far in any
field, let alone medicine, when so much is out of your control.” He
laughed and continued, “I seriously thought she was going to murder
someone!”

Vi heard footsteps approaching, and the
second female said, “Shh!”

“If you all have time for gossip, then you
have time to go check on your patients, too.” The new voice was
familiar to Vi, and she tried to place it. It wasn’t Dr. Wells,
that much she knew.

Vi eased her face around the door to peek at
the nurses’ station. The person who had broken up the gossip was
facing away, working on some paperwork at the counter. Vi
recognized the short blonde hair that belonged to Dr. Sparling, and
wondered why she was away from the other hospital. Had Dr. Sparling
come to help with Miguel’s surgery, too?