Hotbloods 5: Traitors

Without waiting for Sarrask, I tore off down the hall and up the stairs to Lorela’s bedroom. Ronad was already sitting at her bedside, gripping her writhing body in his arms, trying to hold her still.

“What’s wrong, Lo? Tell me what’s wrong!” he urged, shaking her, but Lorela’s eyes were squeezed shut, her hair plastered to her damp forehead, her face screwed up in agony. A moment later, she went limp, the pain overwhelming her, forcing her into a state of unconsciousness.

Sarrask hurtled into the room behind me. He took one look at his mother before disappearing down the hallway again, yelling for Kaido.

“What happened?” I asked, lunging forward to hold her up. With his hands free, Ronad lifted her lids to check the state of her eyes and pressed his fingertips to the side of her neck, searching for a pulse.

“She overdosed.”

An object on the nightstand caught my eye, and my stomach sank. It looked like a bottle of the sleeping elixir Ronad had brought her a few weeks earlier, when we had stolen the pay device from under the bed, but there was a different symbol on the front. Now, the whole thing was lying sideways on the nightstand, empty.

“How?” I whispered, knowing Sarrask could appear again at any moment.

Ronad flashed me a frantic look. “I don’t know! All I do know is, she’s downed a whole bottle of painkiller!”

“That’s not sleeping tonic?”

He shook his head rapidly.

“Do you think she got it herself?” I asked. If this was a suicide attempt, which it very much looked like, Lorela had evidently wanted to take the tonic and quietly slip away, not realizing just how painful ingestion of that much painkiller would be. It had to be burning up her insides, considering the agony of her scream and the echo of pain still written across her unconscious face.

“I’ve got no idea. I definitely didn’t give it to her,” Ronad hissed. “I don’t know what to do, Riley—you’ve got to help me!”

Fortunately for me, Jean’s unyielding love for trashy hospital dramas was about to come in handy, at long last. The first thing I knew about making someone throw up was to mix a load of salt with warm water, but since we didn’t have either on hand, things would have to get gross.

“I’ll hold her; you put your fingers down her throat,” I instructed, hopping up onto the bed and sliding behind Lorela’s floppy body. I wrapped my arms around her waist, keeping her upright.

Ronad looked at me like I was insane. “You want me to do what?”

“Put your fingers down her throat. We need to get her to throw up before that stuff really does some damage!” I said. “Come on, you’ve worked in special ops. Haven’t you seen anyone get poisoned before?”

“Yeah, but we usually have antidotes on hand,” he replied, pulling a face.

“Right now, all we have are human tactics, and we’re running out of time!”

That seemed to knock Ronad out of his daze, as he scooted forward on the bed and pried open Lorela’s mouth. He took a nervous breath before inserting his fingers as far back as he could. Her body spasmed in my arms. Her diaphragm convulsed, her muscles forcing the painkiller tonic up and out of her throat.

Ronad removed his fingers and wiped them on his pants as dribbles of the tonic emerged from her mouth. I leaned Lorela over the edge of the bed, where the rest of the liquid oozed out in a purplish pool, peppered with chunks. It was like Roger always used to say, whenever I was sick as a kid: “There are always carrots, and you don’t even like carrots!” It seemed the Vysantheans had done one better—they didn’t even eat solid food, and yet there it was… I swallowed the half-digested fruit trying to push its way up my own throat.

I was patting Lorela’s back, getting the last of the tonic out of her stomach, when Sarrask and Kaido entered. They both looked down at their mother, then glanced at me and Ronad.

“What are you doing? Get your hands off her!” Sarrask snapped.

“I’m saving your mother’s life!” I shot back. At least in his anger, he wasn’t about to lunge for my lips again.

“What happened to her?”

I looked at the bottle on the nightstand. “She managed to get her hands on some painkillers and took the whole bottle. I think she was trying to—”

He cut me off. “You don’t need to say it,” he muttered. “I know how sick my mother is. I just never thought she’d actually do something like this. I must have forgotten to lock the medicine cabinet the last time I was here.”

Meanwhile, Kaido stayed rooted to the spot by the door, his eyes wide in panic. “Is she alive?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. His whole life began and ended with his parents. I didn’t know if he could understand the nuance in what she might, or might not, have done.

“Thanks to Riley, she’s breathing again,” Ronad said, moving to the other side of the bed so Kaido could sit beside his mother. It was a small gesture, but one that warmed my heart. Maybe my stern words to Ronad were having an effect.

“I’ve called the royal emergency medical services. They said a doctor would be with us as soon as possible,” Kaido murmured, trembling. Where someone else may have reached for her hand, he couldn’t—I saw the conflict on his face.

“It’s not a physical disease that’s done this, Kaido. You can hold her hand. There’s no risk of infection,” I said encouragingly, but Kaido shook his head.

“She does not have the motor function to hold my hand in return. The action would be futile,” he reasoned, though he didn’t seem content to sit and watch her. He was antsy, like he wanted to do more.

“Do you have any serums downstairs that might help bring her around?” I asked.

He smiled nervously. “I would not want to try any of them without thorough preliminary testing. I could not take the risk, in case I further damaged her.”

“Where in Rask’s name is this doctor!” Sarrask raged, though it had barely been five minutes. “What’s the point of an emergency service if it takes so long for them to get here?”

“She’s mostly out of the woods, Sarrask. You can calm down,” I said, keeping my eyes on Lorela’s face. Her head was lolling against my shoulder, her chest rising and falling steadily. A soft groan found its way out of her mouth. I didn’t know if she was out of the woods, but Ronad didn’t look as terrified as he had before as he checked her vitals and listened for the strength of her heartbeat.

Sarrask narrowed his eyes at me. “I can’t just calm down!”

“Fine, then go downstairs and wait for the emergency personnel. They’ll need someone to guide them up here,” I replied.

For a moment, it looked like he was going to defy me, out of pure obstinance, but then he turned on his heel and stomped out of the room, his footsteps echoing back as he descended the stairs. The room fell into somber silence, with only the wheeze of Lorela’s lungs to punctuate it.

A few minutes later, the tense silence was disturbed by the sound of the front door opening downstairs and the soft murmur of people talking. The cavalry had arrived. I expected the emergency crew to come running, the way Earth’s paramedics would, but nobody seemed to be in any kind of hurry. In fact, as I listened for their approach, I only heard one set of footsteps in the hallway outside.

Sarrask entered the room alone. “You two, hide!” he hissed, glaring at me and Ronad. “The doctor can’t see you here—he’s coming up now!”

I realized how shortsighted we’d been. Of course we couldn’t be seen by anyone from the “royal” emergency services, not if we wanted to stop word from getting back to Queen Gianne. I flashed a look at Ronad, and we jumped into action.

Laying Lorela gently back down against the pillows, I slid out from behind her and ducked down, pulling myself under the bedframe. I tucked my body to the far side, hoping I wouldn’t be spotted from the door. Ronad, meanwhile, had jumped inside the closet at the back, with Sarrask closing it firmly behind him.