Scowling, Creed yanked the shower door wide and stepped into the warm spray of water. The janitorial staff, whose work it was to maintain the hospital’s pristine upkeep, had restocked his shower with bar soap, shaving cream and shampoo. Not thinking anything of it, he yanked the wrapper off the bar of soap and swept it across his chest, starting to clean himself when he stopped abruptly and inhaled. The tiles on the walls around him squirmed in his vision as he held the bar up to his nose and inhaled again.
Something—he wasn’t sure, but there was something his mind was trying to remember. The bar of soap was no different from any of the countless others he’d used during his life at the Facility, but still. He worked to calm his mind and tried again, lathering the soap in his large hands and scrubbing his entire body with the scent. No. It was gone. The harder he tried to remember, the further away the memory moved. It was like trying to reach for a ball in the water.
Fifteen minutes later, Creed was cleaned, shaven, dressed and seated in a chair watching Dr. Mor prepare to take a blood sample. Her clever gray eyes studied Creed.
“Mr. Young, are you feeling well?”
“Fine, ma’am.”
She stopped working for a moment and locked eyes with her subject. Nodding once, she finished her collection and secured a bandage across the puncture site.
“Would you tell me if you weren’t feeling well?” She asked in a whisper, though the other scientists were on the opposite side of the lab, their faces buried in a monitor as they spoke to one another.
“Ma’am?” Creed asked, surprised at her conspirator’s tone.
“My name is Sloan,” she offered, still whispering.
Not knowing what to say to that, Creed nodded and locked his jaw—working hard to hide the migraine threatening to burst to the surface of his fa?ade.
The young doctor glanced at the other scientist to be sure they weren’t paying any attention to her exchange with the subject before she added softly, “You may have the others fooled, Creed, but I can tell you have been experiencing severe headaches. Your temples are visibly pounding, you flinch at the light, your movements are stilted and your face is pale. Are you going to tell me it’s not true?”
Creed just closed his eyes, and said nothing—not sure if he could trust the young doctor.
“You don’t have to trust me,” she whispered as though hearing his thoughts. Her small gloved hands continued to busy themselves by smoothly rocking the three vials of blood she’d collected, preventing coagulation.
“I have suffered from migraines my entire life. I just know what it feels like.” She shrugged innocently making her look much more like a young girl to Creed’s wary eye. “After having suffered a serious head trauma it’s no wonder you’re…” Sloan stopped talking and glanced quickly at her patient, then across the room to the other doctors, who still weren’t paying any attention.
“Well, anyway. I’m going to leave these pills right here. They’ll help. And since I just took your blood sample, you won’t have to worry about them showing up in any testing. They’ll be out of your system in forty-eight hours.” She offered the soldier a small smile before standing and deliberately turning her back on him.
In a voice intentionally loud enough for the others doctors to hear she said, “Thank you Mr. Young. That will be all. Please return to your quarters, and await further instruction.”
Creed hesitated, but only for a moment. He was already starting to experience the visual disturbances that preceded a full-on migraine. Knowing he only had a matter of minutes before he was struck debilitated and vomiting, Creed reached out and grabbed the two pills, pocketing them smoothly and walked out of the lab.
Sloan breathed a sigh of sympathetic relief when she turned and saw the pills she left for the soldier were gone. She made a mental note to order more and keep a stash for him. He had always treated her with the utmost respect and courtesy, performed any task asked of him, and seemed so determined not to lean on anyone for help.
Sloan admired him.
Of course, she heard about what happened all those months ago at his Retribution Match. She even heard rumors of what happened in Hawaii—that Creed was a traitor by turning against Dr. Williams and killing other metahumans.
Inwardly, Sloan sighed.
None of that mattered to her. She was a scientist who believed in what she could see, taste, touch, smell and hear for herself. And what she believed of Creed Young was that he was a good person trying to do the best he could. Hadn’t she been judged unfairly herself? Sloan knew what it was like to have to prove herself over and over again only to wonder why she bothered. She was only as valuable as the team of doctors here believed her to be and she hated feeling judged based solely on what she could do for her superiors.
She understood what it was like to be isolated.
The more she thought about it, the more sure she was that this couldn’t be all there was to life. Creed had been to the outside world and saw worth there enough to fight for it.
Sloan’s scientific mind was intrigued to know what was out there. What was life like outside the walls of this compound? The humans out there couldn’t all be so hateful of metas, like the Director led everyone to believe. Could they?