“I won’t, unless he tries to stick me with a needle.”
“I’ll turn you into a fucking pin cushion if you lift a finger to him, you feral little beast.” Tyko grabs the back of my neck hard, triggering the partial shut down reflex which makes my lower legs curl up and also makes me screech with impotent fury.
“Let me go before I fucking kill you!” I snarl as he bundles me through the double doors which lead to the medical bay. I’m immediately assaulted by the smell of bleach faintly covering the stench of body fluids. I have a better sense of smell than most. I have a better everything than most.
“Alright. Easy now.”
A new voice cuts into the chaos. I want to fucking kill Tyko. He did that on purpose, thinking it would hurt me. Usually the reflex is painless, a way for agents with the right encoded wristbands to interface with my body and render me safe for handling, but when I’m injured, using it is risky. He knows that, and he doesn’t care.
The new doctor has come out of his examination room to investigate the sound of my screaming. The old doctor never used to care what kind of noises were coming out of the wounded. The waiting room used to sound like an abattoir sometimes with injured agents flopping around broken limbed after the butcher missions this place sent them on.
I can’t really see the doctor. I only have an impression of someone tall, strong, and mature. I see a flash of beard with a touch of gray, just a hint of it. Then Tyko’s hand gets in my way and I try to bite it. He moves his fingers too quickly, but I’m not done fighting, though I can sense that Tyko wants to be done. It’s embarrassing to have me wrestling free even in this injured state.
“Stop. It,” Tyko growls in my ear. “This is shameful.”
More shameful for him than for me. I don’t care about shame. You have to have dignity to have shame, and I’ve never been allowed a scrap of dignity. I keep wriggling until Tyko gives up and slams me up against the wall, a hard jolt running down my spine. What an asshole.
“Easy!” The doctor comes over with long strides and does his best to put himself between Tyko and me.
“Don’t!” Tyko growls. “She’ll hurt you. She’ll try to kill you. Get a sedative, doctor. Quickly. I can’t keep holding her.”
“Maybe you both take a deep breath and take a second,” the doctor says. “There’s no need to rush anything.”
“She’s vicious!”
“Well, maybe she’s got a reason to be,” the doctor says. There’s a note of judgement in his tone I’m not used to hearing in this place.
I hate doctors, but this one isn’t rushing for the drugs they usually use to control me, and I respect him somewhat for that. He’s also trying to de-escalate the situation, which is rare. Usually men just try to dominate me. I’ve had more than one doctor bluster his way into broken balls by trying to come over all alpha.
Tyko has me by the throat, pressed hard against the wall. His other hand skips between the various limbs of mine which lash out at him, knees making a swift approach to his groin, elbows looking for his jaw. Tyko has a glass jaw. He doesn’t like people to know it, but I’ve knocked him out without even trying more than once.
“That really is enough,” the doctor drawls. He’s not phased by the violence unleashing in his vicinity. He pulls Tyko off me, wrapping his arm around Tyko’s neck and yanking him back. That gives me a chance to get a good shot in to my handler’s crotch, though I unfortunately miss the goods and end up glancing his thigh.
“Don’t let her go! She’ll run!”
“There’s not really anywhere to run,” the doctor says, pushing Tyko further away from me with a practiced, and not at all medical touch.
I can get a good look at him now. He’s broad shouldered. Tall. He could have a commanding presence, I think, but he’s trying not to look frightening right now. He looks at me like he’s looking at a cornered animal, which is pretty close to what I am. I will hurt him if he hurts me, but if he keeps his distance, we might get along.
“Don’t touch me,” I say, my hands outstretched. “There’s nothing wrong with me. This idiot just wants to cover his ass.”
“Well we can’t have that, can we,” the doctor smiles. He has nice eyes. They’re a deep, but somehow light green. It’s a magnetic, mediterranean color. I always look at eyes. You can see so much in eyes. Tyko’s are always narrow and mean. I can’t even remember what color they are. They always seem black to me.