The Cold Tyrant's Remedy

Episode 2: Assessment

"You don't have to drag me. I can walk fine on my own," Lucia said to the guard holding her in an effort to regain a little control of the situation.

"We're just following instructions, ma’am," the guard replied as the doors to the restricted floor slid shut behind them, cutting off her view.

"This isn’t necessary. I was just trying to help," she muttered, but the guard didn't answer.

He led her down the corridor, past the nurses' station where three of her fellow interns watched with wide eyes.

Her badge was taken before she was placed inside a small windowless office on the ground floor and told to wait.

"How long am I expected to wait?" she asked as the guard turned toward the door.

"Doctor Nkosi will attend to you soon," he said as he walked towards the door.

"Soon meaning when exactly? Five minutes? An hour? Tomorrow?" she called after him.

The guard ignored the question as he stepped into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him.

Lucia dropped into the plastic chair and stared at the empty wall.

"What the hell was that?" she whispered to herself, referring to no one in particular as she rubbed her face with both hands and let out a slow breath.

Her hands were shaking so she pressed her palms against her thighs to steady them, but the tremor wouldn't stop. The spot where his fingers had wrapped around her wrist still tingled with a strange pressure that refused to fade.

His face rose immediately in her mind, those pale gray eyes, the sudden stillness that had taken over his body the moment he touched her, and the rough sound of her name in his voice.

She shivered.

She still didn’t understand what had happened in that room, but she knew for certain that what she'd seen wasn't natural.

How could his hand have healed that fast? Or were her eyes deceiving her?

***

Three floors above her, Nathaniel Crowe stood beside the window of his private suite, staring out at the city lights glowing gold and white against the darkness.

For the first time in twelve years, four months, and nine days, there was no pain.

He felt no burning beneath his skin, no constant pressure behind his eyes, and no feeling that his own body was slowly turning against him.

He pressed his palm against the cold glass as he remembered the feel of the intern’s wrist in his hand. He had felt the quick jump of her pulse beneath his fingers, and had noticed the way her breathing had caught when she realized he wasn’t letting go.

Lucia.

The name sent a pulse of electricity through him. He didn’t know where she came from or why her touch had succeeded where years of expensive treatments had failed.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that she existed.

She was somewhere inside this building now, and in a few hours she could walk out of the hospital and disappear into a city filled with millions of people.

He wouldn’t allow that. He couldn’t.

The door opened quietly behind him and Marcus Vane, his head of security, stepped into the room and waited silently to be acknowledged by him. He had worked for Nathaniel long enough to know better than to interrupt his thoughts.

After a few more moments, Nathaniel finally turned to face him. “The intern, Lucia,” Nathaniel said. “I want everything on her.”

Marcus gave a single nod. “Do you mean her employment file, personal history, financial records, or family connections?” he asked.

Nathaniel nodded, “I want all of it, including her s****l history. And Marcus?”

Whomever

“She does not leave this building until I say so.”

There was a brief pause on Marcus's end, but then he nodded before turning to leave.

The door closed again, leaving Nathaniel with his thoughts.

Nathaniel stayed by the window, flexing his healed hand slowly while the city lights flickered below him. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to exist without pain. Forgotten what it felt like to breathe without waiting for the next wave to hit.

She had given him that, which meant she now belonged to him, because she was his only cure, and he intended to keep her.

***

The administrative office on the ground floor smelled faintly of stale coffee and printer ink. Lucia had been sitting in the same plastic chair for almost two hours, watching the clock crawl past seven in the evening, when the door finally opened.

Doctor Nkosi entered alone.

She carried a tablet in one hand and a paper cup of water in the other. She placed the cup on the edge of the desk without offering it to Lucia.

“You’re still here,” Doctor Nkosi said.

“You told me to wait,” Lucia replied.

“And you didn’t think about leaving anyway?” The older woman sat behind the desk as she said this before tapping her tablet to wake it. “Most interns would’ve run the second security stopped watching the door. Basic survival instinct.”

Lucia stayed quiet.

She had thought about leaving twice. She had even stood up and walked to the door before stopping with her hand on the handle, because something deep in her gut had warned her that running would only make things worse.

Doctor Nkosi studied her silently for a moment before saying, “You’re Lucia Vasquez. Twenty-three years old. Third year medical student at Saint Catherine. Top of your class before you dropped out to work full time. Mother deceased. Father unknown. Currently drowning in one hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars of medical debt, not including student loans.”

Lucia forced herself to sit straight.

“You stopped an active seizure in a patient with a degenerative neural condition that sixteen specialists have failed to treat,” Doctor Nkosi continued calmly. “How did you do it?”

Lucia gulped and replied, “I don’t know.”

Doctor Nkosi's brows lifted. “You don’t know,” she repeated.

“I followed normal seizure protocol. I protected his airway. He grabbed my wrist, and the seizure stopped. That was what happened. I don’t know why.”

Doctor Nkosi lowered the tablet onto the desk. Her face remained calm, but Lucia noticed something shift in her eyes.

Concern or calculation, she couldn’t tell.

“The patient you touched is Nathaniel Crowe,” she said. “Heir to this hospital, among other things. His condition is private for reasons that go far beyond normal medical confidentiality. The fact that you saw him in that state, let alone touched him, puts you in a very dangerous position.”

“How dangerous?” Lucia asked with worry in her voice.

“Dangerous enough that if this hospital decides to press charges for unauthorized access to a restricted wing, you will never work in medicine again. You will never finish your degree. You’ll spend years buried in legal fees on top of the debt you already have, and that’s assuming you avoid prison.”

Lucia suddenly became aware of the cold wall against her back. She had leaned away without noticing.

“But,” Doctor Nkosi continued, “you helped him. Whether you meant to or not, you succeeded where nobody else has, and Mister Crowe takes debt very seriously. He doesn’t like owing people.”

A knot tightened in Lucia’s stomach as she imagined what this might mean for her.

“What does that even mean?” she asked, but the look she got from Doctor Nkosi told her she wasn't going to like what was coming.