Cutler 04 - Midnight Whispers

putting a blood pressure cuff on his arm, the other bringing a stethoscope to his chest. They both looked at each other with great concerti and then one began pushing the gurney down the corridor toward an examination room, out of which a young doctor had just emerged. I followed behind.
    "What do we have here?" he asked them.
    "My brother got very sick," I said. "He cut himself a few days ago on a nail and we think he might have tetanus."
    "He never had an inoculation?" the doctor asked.
    "I don't know," I said. "I don't think so."
    "What did he cut himself on?" he asked while he lifted one of Jefferson's eyelids to look at his pupil. "A rusty nail . . . I'm sure," I said. The doctor looked up sharply.
    "Well, where are your parents? Is that your father?" he asked, nodding toward Luther, who waited down the corridor with Gavin.
    "No sir."
    The first nurse whispered something to him and they pushed Jefferson into the examination room. The doctor followed. I started in, but the second nurse stopped me.
    "Just wait out here," she said. "Go to the desk up there and give the receiving nurse the necessary information."
    "But . . ."
    She closed the door before I could offer any protest. My heart was pounding so fast, I thought I'd be the next one on a gurney. Tears burned my eyes. I backed away.
    "What did they say?" Gavin asked.
    "They want us to wait out here. I've got to give information to the nurse at the desk," I explained. He took my hand and we approached the counter. Luther had sat down on a chair in the hall and stared at us with that terrible expression of dread written all over his face. I looked back at the closed examination room door.
    My little brother is going to die in that room, I thought. I brought him all the way here. He had held my hand and had trusted me from the moment we had left the hotel in Cutler's Cove, and now he's lying in a strange room, unconscious. My shoulders began to shake as my whole body shuddered. Gavin put his arm around me.
    "He's going to be all right. Don't worry," he said. "Is one of you a relative of the patient?" the nurse at the desk asked.
    "Yes ma'am," I said, wiping my eyes. "I'm his sister."
    "Well, would you please fill out this form. Name and address over here," she said, pointing with a pen. I took it from her hand and looked down at the paper. My eyes were so clouded with tears, everything looked hazy—the words joining together on the sheet.
    "This has to be filled out," she said more firmly when I hesitated.
    I wiped my eyes again and sucked in my breath. I nodded and began. I filled out as much as I could, but when it called for parent or guardian, I stopped and left it blank. She saw that immediately.
    "Why didn't you put your parents' names here?" she asked.
    "They're both dead, ma'am."
    "Well . . . how old are you?"
    "Sixteen."
    "Is this your guardian'?" she asked, nodding to-ward Luther, who hadn't moved or uttered a word.
    "No, ma'am."
    She looked annoyed.
    "Who are you and your brother living with, Miss?" she demanded.
    "No one," I said.
    "No one?" Her confused smile turned quickly to a look of anger. "I don't understand. We need this information," she insisted.
    I couldn't help myself. I just started to cry, hard and loud. Even Gavin's embrace didn't calm me. He helped me to a seat beside Luther and kept his arms around me, my face pressed into the nook between his shoulder and his neck. The nurse behind the desk didn't ask any more questions or make any more demands. After a while I stopped crying and sucked in my breath. I sat back, my eyes closed. When I opened them, I felt numb, stunned by the events.
    Up until this moment, I wasn't aware of anyone else in the hospital but us, but suddenly, when I turned, I saw other people in the waiting room and other patients in the hallway—one man with a bloody bandage around his forearm, another man in a wheelchair, his head back, his eyes closed. There was a lot more activity around us, too. Nurses were going to and fro, some following doctors, some alone. A nurse's assistant was wheeling patients into the X-ray department. Down the well-lit corridor, I could see people waiting by an elevator, all of them probably coming to visit patients.
    Finally,after what was an interminable period of waiting, the young doctor and one of the nurses emerged from the examination room and started down the corridor toward us. They paused at the desk and the nurse handed them the form I had filled out only partially. The