Monroe, Marla - Love Between the Hired Hands [The Men of Space Station One #4] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (16 page)

Two hours later, they emerged from the outlands into the outskirts of the town. He could see people milling around the stores.

“Do you know where the doctor’s office is?” Gray asked.

“Yeah, Cam filled me in on where to go. Plus, there is supposed to be a sign outside the building.” He eased along the street then pointed at the building. “There it is.”

They whipped into a clear spot, and Clint shut down the transport. Two men dressed in scrubs walked outside about the time that Clint opened his door. Gray unfastened his harness then went to work on Elissa’s.

“Baby? Can you wake up for me?”

“Hmm?” She didn’t open her eyes.

Gray cursed as he fiddled with the harness before finally getting it off of her. His door opened, and Clint stood ready to take her when he got her out of the seat. Gray didn’t want to let her go. Still, he passed her off to his friend and climbed out of the transport as soon as they were clear of the door.

“Bring her in here,” one of the men said.

“I’m Jeff Davis. I’m your doctor. This is my nurse, Scott Tibbs. We’ll be taking care of Elissa for you.” He held out his hand to Gray.

Gray shook it, never taking his eyes off of Clint and Elissa as they walked into a large room with a bed in the middle of it.

“Lay her right here,” Scott told Clint.

“She appears lethargic,” Jeff said. He turned to Gray. “Did she sleep the entire way here?”

“Yeah and now she doesn’t wake up, just answers you when you ask her something.”

The doctor leaned over Elissa and checked her eyes with a little flashlight, then checked her mouth, ears, and nose.

“Let’s turn her over so I can see the wound.”

Rick and Clint carefully turned her over on the bed, positioning her so that her feet hung off the end to keep her leg stationary. The nurse pulled her pant leg as far up her leg as it would go, then began to remove the dressing.

“Oh, I brought the first dressing with me in case you wanted to look at it. Be careful with them, there is something on them that burns, I think,” Gray warned them. “There appear to be burn marks on the dressing I have.”

“Looks to be the same on this one, too.” The nurse pulled the dressing off and held it up for the doctor to see.

“Gray, look at this one. Does it look to be the same, and is there more or less drainage on this one?” Clint indicated the dressing Scott was holding.

“It looks the same pale yellow, and the drainage might be a little less.”

“Good. I’ve dealt with a similar case, but there wasn’t a bite so much as just the saliva burns on the skin of the woman. The animal that made it wasn’t the same, though. That one was the size of a small cat, and looked like a giant rat or muskrat.”

“No, this is a much larger animal. We haven’t seen it. She made sketches and described it in the journals, but I didn’t think about bringing them for you to see.” Gray cursed.

“That’s okay. It won’t help much, anyway. I’m going to do some more cleaning on these bites. This may take a while. You might want to wait out in the hall where there are some comfortable chairs.”

“We’re not leaving her side,” Clint said before Gray could.

They watched as the doctor and his nurse scrubbed and cleaned the wounds over and over again. Elissa never budged or made a face. Instead, she slept as if under anesthesia. It worried Gray that she might not wake up from such a deep sleep.

They worked on her for nearly thirty minutes before they covered the wound with a dressing once again. The doctor turned to them after pulling off his gloves.

“It’s very similar, though different because of the actual punctures from the teeth. They must have been needle sharp to have made such small holes.”

“Why is she sleeping so much, and how long is it going to last?”

“I don’t think the sleeping will last much longer. I think it’s a reaction to the venom, for want of a better term, in the saliva of the animal. It seems to cause them to sleep. It may be how they catch their prey in the wild,” the doctor said.

“Ah, hell. If she hadn’t made it inside, she could have been killed.” Clint ran a hand over his face.

“I’m going to treat her with antibiotics in hopes that they will keep her from getting an infection. I don’t know that they will help since we don’t exactly know much about these creatures. I’m also going to look at the biopsies I took of her wounds. Scott will take you to a room where we will keep her for at least twenty-four hours.”

“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?” Gray demanded.

“I think so, Gray. But I just don’t know what we are dealing with here. That’s why I want to keep her here for a while.”

The doctor took his samples and walked through another set of doors, leaving Scott to direct them where to go.

“One of you can carry her, and I’ll show you the way.”

Gray quickly picked Elissa up and followed the nurse down a long hallway and through another set of double doors. Then he opened a door off that hallway and indicated they should go in. Clint was right behind him.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes to start her IV antibiotics. Why don’t you go ahead and put that gown on her. It should open in the back.” The nurse left them in the room.

“Help me strip her, Clint.” Gray laid her on the hospital bed and began to pull off her T-shirt.

“Elissa, honey. Can you hear me?” Clint asked as he pulled off her shoes.

“Umhmm.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Hmm, fine.” She still didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled.

“At least she isn’t hurting.” Gray figured that was a good thing. He didn’t think he could stand it if she was in pain.

“I guess you’re right. I can’t help but be worried.”

“I’m scared to death that we might lose her,” Gray admitted.

“Yeah, me, too. I love her, Gray. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with her.”

“I know how you feel. I love her, too.”

“The bite area was a little more yellow than it had been earlier.” Clint ran his fingers through Elissa’s hair after they finished putting the gown on her.

Gray folded the covers back after settling them on her. He left both of her arms above the covers. He figured the nurse would need to get to one of them to start the infusion.

Several minutes later, the nurse knocked on the door, then walked in with a tray of stuff. He set the tray on a table by the bed and proceeded to check her arms before settling down to start the IV.

Clint turned white when the other man pulled out a needle to stick her with. Gray didn’t like the looks of it, either. They turned to each other and began talking so they didn’t have to watch. Neither man seemed willing to leave the room, though.

“Just so you know,” Scott said, “only one of you can stay with her. The other one can either go back home and return in the morning, or stay in the dormitory overnight.”

Gray and Clint looked at each other. Gray shrugged. They could figure that out later. It was still early yet. He doubted they would make either one of them leave before the doctor got back to them on the biopsy results.

“Okay, guys. I’ve finished, you can turn around.” Scott’s voice held amusement.

“Do we need to do anything?” Gray asked, looking at the two bags of fluid, one large and one small, hanging from the IV pole.

“Nope. When the antibiotics are done, the other one takes over. I’ll be in and out checking on her anyway.” He left them and carried his tray of supplies out of the room.

“You can stay with her tonight,” Gray said. I’ll come back in the morning and relieve you. We need to rest when we’re not with her, and watch her when we are.”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I’ll keep watch over her.”

“Lean back in the chair and take a nap while we wait on the doctor,” Gray suggested.

Clint took the recliner and leaned it back while Gray sat in the straight-back chair next to the bed to hold Elissa’s hand. He relished the touch and dreaded when it would be his turn to leave.

Chapter Thirteen

Clint woke with a start when the doctor walked in. He’d been halfway dozing in the recliner most of the day. He sat up and leaned forward, hoping the news wouldn’t be bad.

“What did you find out?” Gray asked, standing up.

“Sit down, Gray.”

Clint watched his friend sit over on the edge of Elissa’s bed and hold her hand in both of his. The doctor took the straight-back chair Gray had abandoned.

“The skin around the puncture marks has changed colors to a pale yellow as you noted. It’s not just skin deep. It went as deep as the punctures did.”

“What does that mean?” Clint asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know, other than to tell you that anyone who has been injured by one of the creatures on this planet either has bubbly scars or discolorations. At this point, it tends to depend on if it is a male or female that is injured as to what happens. The men are getting the bumpy scars and the women are getting the discolorations.”

“So what does this all mean?” Clint asked.

“Again, I don’t know. I suspect that there are long-term effects, however, and we won’t know until something shows up.”

“Fuck!” Gray huffed out a breath. “Can you tell us anything?”

“I know you’re frustrated. Believe me. I am, too. I don’t like not knowing what is going on or how to treat my patients. The sleeping will pass, but she will have the yellow skin around the bite marks even after they heal.”

“But they will heal and she’ll be okay.” Gray’s voice sounded shaky.

“This is the first bite I have had. Everything else has been scratches, or the one case of just the saliva burns. I’m going to treat this like the latter, and say that she’s going to be fine. She’ll need more rest than usual for a few days, but should be fine after that. The other case, the difference was that the woman was pregnant, so she continued to need extra rest even after the wound healed.”

Clint swallowed convulsively. “Is there any chance she’s pregnant?”

“We ran a pregnancy test with the other tests and she isn’t.”

He breathed a sigh of relief. As much as he wanted children, he didn’t think now was a good time. Would the poison or whatever it was affect her having children, or maybe even the child itself? He shuddered to think about that.

“There is one more thing,” Jeff said.

“What is that?” Clint asked.

“The cells around the bite marks have changed to some extent. They have on everyone with injuries from the creatures.”

“Changed? How?” Gray asked.

“They’ve mutated to some extent into a cell I can’t identify. It’s only directly around the bite marks, though. It doesn’t spread, or at least it hasn’t in anyone else.”

“Aw, hell.” Gray ran a hand through his hair. “But you
think
she’s going to be okay.”

“Yes.”

The doctor patted Gray on the shoulder then stood up and left. Clint could tell that Gray was on the verge of blowing up.

“Maybe now’s a good time for you to go grab something for us to eat. It’s almost three, and neither one of us has had anything to eat since breakfast.” Clint looked Gray in the eyes.