chapter 5 (The Medicine).
978 Words
Kate shook her daughter many times, but she didn’t respond.
“Maybe she needs surgery now!” Kate cried. Alex panicked too; he rushed beside her and held his daughter’s hand.
Then he felt something. They had told him she had leukemia. He expected her hand to be frail, cold, trembling. But when her fingers closed around his—Veronica holding her father’s hand tightly—he froze. Her skin was warm, her grip firm, her pulse steady and strong. No trace of the weakness they had claimed.
He grew more curious. He lifted her eyelid and checked her pupil and iris. He opened her mouth and checked her tongue, then put his finger on it and tasted it. Again he checked her neck, felt the throat, slipped one finger there, then pressed on her chest. He immediately recoiled.
“This isn’t leukemia, Kate… it’s poison!” he hauled out. Before Alex was taken to the war, he had been a smart medical student; even during the war he had gained wide battlefield experience and medical expertise that had saved many men.
“It’s poison!” he repeated. “Someone has been poisoning my daughter and calling it leukemia!”
Kate was shocked to hear this; her lips trembled. “Really? Are you sure?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he asked where the doctor’s office was and Kate pointed the way. He told Kate to stay with Veronica as he stormed out.
Alex made his way to the doctor’s office like an angry bull. Without warning he flung the door open so hard it nearly came off its hinges.
The doctor sat on his sofa, a bottle on the table. He looked up to see Alex.
“Ugh—are you here to apologize? I don’t want to hear it. Just give me the money,” the doctor croaked.
Alex just grabbed the small bottle.
“Is this my daughter’s medicine?” he demanded.
“Yeah. You have to pay for that, though,” the doctor said. Alex sniffed it; his face hardened.
Boom.
Without warning, he punched the doctor hard, sending him sprawling.
“What did you give my daughter? This isn’t leukemia medicine!” Alex shouted.
The doctor scrambled up, terrified; his nose bled nonstop.
“What are you saying? We use leukemia medicine!” he stammered.
“No…” Alex’s voice dropped, sharp as a blade. “It’s poison.”
Alex lunged forward, seizing the doctor’s wrist.
Crack!.
The wrist broke in two.
“Yaaah!” the doctor screamed, collapsing to his knees as sweat poured down his face and his body trembled.
“I’m a doctor… I can’t survive without my hands!” he wailed.
Alex leaned close, voice a low growl. “Tell me the truth… or I will snap your neck next.”
The nurse at the door shrieked and ran to fetch the director.
Moments later the director himself burst in, a thick-set man with slicked hair and sharp eyes, reeking of arrogance. Behind him were five security guards.
He kicked the door wider and cursed, “You bastard! Who are you? How dare you cause chaos in my hospital! Do you know where you are? This is Yondervale National Hospital!”
Alex kept his grip on the broken doctor, his face icy and terrifying.
“I know exactly where I am,” Alex said coldly. “And I know who you are. Director Richard …murderer in a white coat.”
The director’s face twisted and wondered how he knew his name, he said. “What nonsense are you spitting? Who are you?”
Alex sneered, voice booming. “I have already investigated you. Misdiagnosing the healthy as sick, cutting open patients to plant stones inside them, poisoning children for profit, selling kidneys to the rich… You think your filth is hidden? I have seen worse on the battlefield, and I will treat you like the criminal you are.”
He shoved the half-conscious doctor aside and stepped forward, his boots striking the tiled floor like gunshots.
He had done the investigation moments before coming to the hospital. He’d planned to move his daughter to his own medical team, but he was too late.
“Today,” Alex said, pointing at the director, “you will confess. Or I will drag you through your own halls and make you choke on the poison you gave my daughter.”
Director Richard went pale. Everything Alex said hit true, His crimes has been exposed. He faced his guards. “Close the door,” he ordered, and they obeyed. Then he pulled a gun.
“f**k — you are going to die because you know too much.”
But he was too slow. Alex’s boot found him in the ribs; the director went flying, skidding across the tile. The gun slipped from his hand. Before he could recover, Alex’s fist swung clean.
Thud.
One punch. The director’s head snapped back and he folded out cold.
Alex didn’t hesitate. He snatched the pistol from the floor and stood, every muscle coiled. The thugs posing as security guards stared, horrified, then turned and fled like rats.
Alex turned back to the doctor, who still clutched his broken wrist, blood on his lip, eyes blown wide with terror. Alex pointed the gun at him. “Maybe I should just destroy both hands,” he said. “Tell me who ordered this. Now.”
The doctor’s knees hit the floor. He sobbed, small and frantic. “No… no, please… don’t kill me, I will confess—” His words tumbled out. “I was ordered. The hospital was paid to do it. I know who ordered it.”
Alex hovered on the trigger and hauled the word out: “Who?!”
“Mrs. Fredrick! Kate’s mother — she ordered us to poison her, to kill her slowly!”
- Writer
