Chapter 16

Twenty minutes later, Kirk and Hank came into the emergency room.

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Eddie demanded. He and Felicia were sitting down having once more, Felicia, for the most part, was keeping herself composed, although sometimes she would get jittery and walk around the waiting room to try and calm her nerves.

"I specifically told you to wait at the motel." Eddie continued, and Hank sent Kirk an accusatory look. "You said that Eddie told us to come here!"

"Hank, if I had told you that Eddie had wanted us to stay at the motel, then you wouldn't have budged." Kirk retorted. "And I wasn't about to leave you there all by yourself, so a little white lie was in order."

Eddie sighed, rubbing his forehead. "You're such a stubborn bastard."

"You wouldn't love me otherwise."

"We'll talk about that later. Felicia, do you and Hank want to go down to the cafeteria and maybe get us all some coffee and snacks? It wouldn't hurt for you to get out of the waiting room for a little bit."

Felicia nodded her head. "Sure, we'll be back in a little bit."

Eddie waited until Felicia had left the waiting room before he spoke again. "She's getting worse, Kirk, she had an outburst, and if I hadn't been here, she probably would have been kicked out of the hospital."

"Jesus," Kirk muttered.

"And I looked at her arm, it's gotten way worse, she barely has any skin left on her arm, it's all raw. Whatever this disease is that she's fighting, Felicia's losing the battle."

"So what do we do?"

"We need to figure out a cure, and fast." Eddie rubbed his hands together as he thought. "Alright, here's what's gonna happen. You and Felicia need to go and get those samples from Peaches."

"Might not be a bad idea to get some samples from Felicia as well," Kirk added. "See if there's anything different between Peaches' DNA and Felicia's."

"Good idea, we need to get this done quickly, before Felicia deteriorates even more."

~

"I promise that I'll call you as soon as I find anything out about Sabine," Eddie assured Felicia as he walked her and Kirk to Kirk's car. "You two be safe. I'm sure that the shooter has left the area by now, but I still want you to be careful."

"We're going to go into the lab through the back entrance," Felicia responded. "It's used mostly by the cleaning crew, so most people don't even pay attention to it, and unless you're looking for it, you can't really tell that it's there. I hope to God that Lenny isn't working tonight."

"If he's there, I'll kick him in the balls," Kirk said. "Just do us both a favor and leave the pepper spray in the car."

Felicia laughed softly. "After the last incident, I'm leaving the pepper spray in the car, no matter what my mother has to say about it."

"Speaking of your mom, have you talked to her lately?" Kirk asked as they got into the car. This time, he was the one driving. With how Felicia had been acting, he and Eddie had both agreed that her driving wasn't a very good idea at the moment.

"Not really," Felicia responded. "Things have just been so crazy, you know? I tell her what's going on, and she's going to flip the hell out. Once everything is over with, and we've found a cure, then I'll tell her."

Felicia rolled down her window, the warm California air breezing past her face. "Kirk…we are going to find a cure for this, right?"

"Of course we are," Kirk responded, keeping his eyes on the road, mainly because if he looked at her then she would see the uncertainty in his eyes. "It's just a matter of time before we put together the pieces of the puzzle."

~

They stopped by Felicia's house first, she had a stockpile of syringes and vials.

"I can't believe that you have an emergency stash," Kirk said in disbelief.

"You never know when you're going to need them," Felicia responded. "I'm going to call John, hopefully, he's still awake."

John had actually just been getting ready for bed when Felicia had called.

"I'm sorry to be bothering you so late at night, John. Kirk and I were hoping to come over and get those samples from Peaches."

"Of course," John replied, stifling a yawn. "The kiddos are in bed, but Winifred and I are still up."

"Great, thank you so much, we'll be there as soon as we can."

~

Even from outside in the driveway, Felicia and Kirk could hear Peaches barking and howling.

John and Winifred met them at the door.

"We had to reinforce the door leading to the basement," John explained as he let them in.

It was a very modest-looking two-story house, with toys scattered around. There was a picture hanging on the wall, the whole family was wearing matching pajamas, with Peaches laying in front of them all, wearing a little Christmas sweater.

"Peaches must be a big part of the family," Felicia commented.

"He's like one of our own children," Winifred said as she made her way down the stairs, wrapping a nightgown around herself. "Do you really think that you can help him?"

"I don't know," Felicia admitted. "But I'm going to do my damndest to try and save him."

"We had a hell of a time getting him back from animal control," John added. "They were convinced that he was a 'menace to society' and needed to be put down."

"I don't understand why people are always hating on larger breeds," Felicia said as she shook her head. "I've got a cousin who has a Mastiff, she's anything but vicious. The most dangerous thing about her was that she thought that she was a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound lapdog. I almost asphyxiated once or twice because she was laying on me."

They made their way to the basement door, which was boarded up.

"This was the only way that we could keep him locked in," John said in a quiet voice. The barking and howling had stopped, which was slightly concerning.

"Does the basement have any windows?" Kirk asked, to which John shook his head. "No, there's no windows, I've triple-checked."

"Good, we don't have to worry about him getting out, then."

Kirk and John got to work removing the boards from the door, while Felicia stayed out of the way with Winifred.

"Thank you for doing this," Winifred told her. "You have no idea how important Peaches is to our family."

"I think that I have an inkling," Felicia replied. "I've never had kids of my own, but I loved my cat the way that a mother would love her child."

"Well, they're called fur babies for a reason. You seem like the type of person that would spoil their pets."

Felicia laughed softly. "I would spoil the shit out of Shadow, and my mom wasn't any better. My dad was always allergic, so they were never able to have any pets of their own."

"I'm sorry about your father, I'm assuming that he's passed?"

"Yeah. He was with Doctors Without Borders. Fell sick."

"Sounds like smarts run in the family. What about your mom?"

"She made it all the way to her second year of college before she got expelled."

Winifred's eyes widened. "Expelled?"

"Some girl was making fun of a foreign student, I think that they were from Saudi Arabia or something like that. My mom beat the shit out of that girl, she spent two weeks in the hospital."

"Jesus, your mom sounds like a total badass."

"She is. Hell, she's in her seventies and went skydiving a few years ago."

"There's no way in hell that I would let my mother go skydiving."

"There is no 'letting' her do anything. You either support her or you get the hell out of her way."

The boys had finished with the door, and Kirk looked at Felicia. "You ready?"

Felicia nodded her head. "John, you and Winifred stay up here in case something happens."

"You'll need this." John handed her a flashlight. "The lights down there blew the other night."

"Thanks." Felicia clicked on the flashlight before she and Kirk made their way down the creaky stairs, John closing the door after them.

"Get a syringe ready," Felicia said to Kirk before a growl reached her ears, causing the hair on her arms to stand up.

In the corner of the dark room, two beady eyes stared at them.