Anterograde Read Online Free Page B

Still, she couldn’t hide from him what kind of tests
she was performing. MRI. CT scan. Lumbar puncture. She suspected encephalitis,
Eli realized with a pang.
    She
was only following protocol—Eli knew that and he would have done the same in her
place—but he still felt absolutely no remorse in giving a call to the one person
who could cut through the red tape with a wave of her hand .
    “This
is Eli Wright. Ca l den’s in the hospital,” he said when Lana picked up
the call. He hadn’t called Calden’s mother in a couple of years, not since his
overdose, but he’d kept her number. It could always be useful to have a direct
line to the person basically in charge of running the city. “I’m guessing
encephalitis, but I’m not his doctor and don’t technically have a right to see
his records because I’m not family .” He spit the word as though it tasted
foul. After all this time, he and Calden were as good as family.
    “Encephalitis,”
she said after a brief silence. “That’s… serious, isn’t it?”
    “It
can be when it’s not treated quickly enough. I’m not sure how long he sat on
his sofa with that headache. He might still be there if I hadn’t come by.”
    He
didn’t add the last of it, the part that made the acid in his stomach roil and
burn his throat. He might have been in the hospital faster if I hadn’t been
too annoyed to think like a proper doctor.
    “Are
you coming in?” he said instead.
    “I
can’t right now. I’m in the middle of a strategy meeting. But I’ll send someone
to sort things out.”
    Seventeen
minutes later, a soldier breezed in, clad in his full parade uniform. Eli heard
him demand to talk to the person in charge of Calden Hayes. When Samford asked
him how she could help, he demanded that she accompany him to Eli’s direct supervisor.
Eli had long since given up on being surprised at the way Lana and her people
operated.
    Whatever
the soldier had to say didn’t take long. Five minutes later, he was marching
back through the same corridor again. He paused briefly by Eli and recited,
“You’re in charge of medical decisions regarding Doctor Hayes until General Hayes
is able to come here herself. That should be tomorrow morning, unless the demon
attack anticipated for tonight extends beyond sunrise. She wants you to call and
leave a message with her secretary if anything changes. Not her private line,
but her secretary.”
    He
handed Eli a card with a number and left without another word.
    Moments
later, Samford returned and gave directions for Ca l den to be
transferred to a different room. He was asleep, or more probably sedated, and
much too pale against the starched sheets. When Eli followed, no one stopped him,
and when he asked for an update, he actually received answers. Samford was
still waiting for final results to come back, although Ca l den had been
given a first dose of medication. Waiting too long could prove critical. It was
as Eli had supposed, but it felt different to know rather than guess.
    He
sat in Ca l den’s room, rewinding the afternoon in his mind, playing the ‘what if’
game. It wouldn’t help anything, of course, but he had to wonder. What if he
hadn’t waited so long at the café? What if he had simply left when it had
become clear Ca l den wouldn’t show up, rather than actually having
lunch by himself in spite of Lola’s pointed glares every time she passed by his
table? What if he hadn’t let his annoyance blind him and had realized sooner
that this might be more serious than a simple headache?
    Logically,
he knew he’d acted as fast as he could in the circumstances. But this wasn’t a
logical situation, this wasn’t a patient he could look at neutrally. This was Ca l den.
    When
his phone rang, he felt a stab of guilt that he’d forgotten to turn it off,
despite the policy he was in charge of enforcing. At first he thought it had to
be Lana, but when he saw it was Bryce, he slipped out to the waiting room to
take the