Disclaimer: I own nothing of Scrubs or of The Cure's. Not that it wasn't obvious.
The Power of Cox Compels You
A One-Shot Scrubs Fic by BloodyQuills
Someone died of something strange.
That's how the rumor went around, you see.
An unidentifiable male patient came in through the front entrance of Sacred Heart and collapsed there in the lobby. The first to come to the man's side was Dr. Elliot Reed. She dropped her tray and ran to the patient despite the Janitor's angry glare as he stooped to clean it up. The young man was writhing, sweating, and corpse gray. Cuts that looked like burnt paper began to form across his forehead, his wrists and feet were bleeding profusely, and as he writhed in his agony, an odd, choked voice croaked from his throat in an obscure and ancient tongue.
Elliot bent further forward, looking at the dry, outward curled edges of the man's scored flesh as she took his pulse. It was rapid at first, and then slowed itself completely to normal. At that very moment, Elliot began to feel nauseous. She swallowed it down and put her stethoscope to the man's chest, checking for a heartbeat. She found none.
"I need a nurse out here with a crash cart STAT!" Elliot began a frantic attempt at resuscitation and for a moment it worked. Before the cart arrived, the man opened his eyes, tears beginning to run down his face.
"Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb J… J….." His face began to redden and the wounds began to seep again as he chewed on the consonant, trying hard to continue. "J… Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of G…." A low, ominous gurgle arose from every corner of the lobby, the man's eyes rolling back in his head, the profuse sweat again beginning to pour. "G…God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of…. Of…" He reached up and tore the odd-looking crucifix he wore violently away from his throat and set it in Elliot's shaking palm. There in the lobby, he expired. The hospital suffered a sudden quick rumbling like that of a low-scale earthquake, and then all was calm again.
Elliot tearfully, confusedly checked his vitals once more to assure that there were none, noted his time of death, and then stepped back as two nurses assisted an orderly with picking the body up from the floor and taking it to the morgue. The blonde haired doctor's stomach was tied in knots. She meandered slowly to the cafeteria, not caring that it was well past five and that she could have walked away from the man and gone home. She grabbed some hot water and an orange pekoe tea bag, dropping two quarters in the cashier's hand before sitting in a corner table far in the back.
She took the teabag from its paper sheath and dropped it in the water to let it steep, relishing the steam's warmth and the comforting scent of the tea as it began to take. This was just what she needed. Suddenly the once lovely scent of said tea made her stomach churn and she abandoned her mug to find the nearest garbage can. After emptying the contents of her already empty stomach therein, she shuffled back to her seat to find Dr.Cox sitting there, waiting for her return.
"So, Barbie-"
Her eyebrows knitted together. "Don't. Y'hear me? Just don't." She cupped her hands around the hot mug, warming them. She tried to take a sip but was still nauseated by the smell.
"Aww, come on. Is the private practice doctor too good to talk to us attending physicians?"
Beyond her notice, her eyes briefly flickered red. "I said don't. All right?"
Dr.Cox shook this off, blaming the one highball too many that he had knocked back the night before.
"Hmm… let's see if the simpleton attending physician can guess what's-a-matter with Malibu Barbie.
She's moody, nauseous, sick at the scent of normally beloved herbal beverages, and moody. Yes I said moody twice, namely because I can, also because you truly are, but back to the point, Barbie. Either you're pregnant," this was capped by an indignant snort of a laugh, "or you're just anguished to the point of physical discomfort over the fact that it's 6:30pm on the dot and you're not home soaking your pretty pink tootsies. Close?"
A low growl rose from Elliot's throat. It did not sound like any kind of growl she was capable of making, she being very much human. She stood and her chair flew back into the wall without the application of any physical force. The same can be said for the mug as it took flight off of the table top, grazing Dr.Cox's curly head and hitting the wall behind him. His eyes widened in surprise and he fell backwards in his seat. "What the hell was that??" He stood and quickly wiped the hot tea from the back of his now scalded neck. "What the HELL was that?!"
Elliot snapped back into her senses and ran from the cafeteria, the crucifix still hanging from her closed fist.
XxxxXXXxxxX
The next morning, the hospital was abuzz with rumors. Everyone (but the Janitor, oddly enough) had something to say about what they had seen happen not only on the lobby floor, but in the cafeteria.
Dr.Cox barreled through his duties quietly and begrudgingly through a vicious hangover. On occasion he'd stop for a cup of coffee, but he would not converse, nor would he explain the blisters on the back of his neck. Anyone trying to coax him into conversation was very publicly and outwardly mistaken.
He was sure to let them know just to what minute degree it was their business.
XxxxXXXxxxX
It was half past eight in the morning and nearly time for Elliot's workday to start. She stood in front of her mirror, her slightly fevered forehead beaded with a thin mist of sweat. It had been there and remained persistent ever since she had come into contact with that anguished man…
For some reason she felt compelled to repair and wear that crucifix around her neck.
She completed her make-up regiment and straightened her clothes, leaving her house to face the day.
She climbed into her car, adjusted her mirror, applied her seatbelt and pulled out of her driveway. She was a careful driver, today more so than ever. She pulled onto the freeway, deciding to take the quick route to the hospital, buying herself time to grab some coffee (if she's able to consume it).
She bopped along to a pleasant song and reached up to brush a strand of hair from her eyes when she saw an odd spot on the inside cuff of her blouse. It was not until she saw it widen, spread, become red and drip down her inner arm that she began to panic. Her car swerved to its left, hitting the median and bouncing off, sending her into the far right lane and hitting a bypassing car. Her vehicle turned over and crumpled around her…
She dreamt of bright flashing lights, the smell of latex, so many muddled voices, and pain… pain…
Her mind crafted things she'd never normally dream of. She saw a sullen priest shuffling through the Vatican, almost pacing. She felt such despair there, thicker than any angst her mother and father had ever caused. The priest turned and looked in her direction. He opened his arms to her and she could see scarlet threads of blood as it dripped from the wounds at his palms. His expression was that of suffering, and its measure became more acute as he lowered his gaze back to the floor.
He had merely turned 90 degrees, but still, Elliot could see dark, muddy looking slashes of rusty red across the back of his cloak. It appeared as though he had been whipped violently. Each pace he made across the floor was marked. He stopped in his tracks and without lifting his now glowing red stare, he whispered to Elliot: "Con il buio, la luce è la verità." The words filled the entire room; his voice was all around her. She could not look away as blood began to drip like tears from his eyes. She wanted to help, but fear had cemented her to the spot…
She sat upright in her bed, shrieking. Janitor had been sitting there with her. He had never stopped liking her as much as he did, and therefore, seeing her in such a state hurt him to the core. He stood, lurching into action, and tried his best to calm her. "It's me, Janitor... You've been in a pretty nasty accident, so you probably wanna do your best to relax."
Her brow furrowed. "Jacob?" She reached up, a sharp pain in her head setting her roughly back into reality with the same force Dr.Cox has used before to set her in a chair and make her listen. Ohh… speaking of the devil. Elliot thought as Dr.Cox entered the room. I truly don't need this.
"I need two things. The first thing I need, the thing I need the most, is for Ol' Josh here to make like a good Addams and go play his organ elsewhere. Shoo." He didn't bother giving Elliot the courtesy of waiting until the Janitor (who incidentally tried to intimidate Dr.Cox on the way out) left to make his second request: "The second thing I need is for you to tell me what the hell you think it was you were doing before you got in that car, Barbie."
"I don't even remember what I had for breakfast this morning." She replied, ashamed, yet annoyed. She looked at the state of her body. Her wrists were wrapped thick with gauze and tape, an IV in the inner elbow. Her leg was wrapped from toe to inner thigh so that she could not see its state. It was there, yes, and it would definitely heal on its own after some moderate surgery, but on the inside there was a nasty break. The bulky bandages and splints disguised the deformity in the lower leg caused by a pretty severe compound fracture, a plaster cast not yet in the game. The doctors were forced to wait for some of the swelling to come down before a set could be achieved. Her feet were wrapped just the same as her wrists. Her fever began a slow up rise, the initial jump enough to catch her attention. "What's in the IV?" she asked drowsily.
"Saline drip." He answered shortly. He went to the door and slammed it closed behind Janitor, locking himself in with her with a turn of the deadbolt. "I'm not leaving this room until you tell me what's going on."
She felt her face burn from frustration. "Wait-a-minute, wait-a-minute, wait-a-minute. You're sitting here telling me that nobody has thought to give me PAIN MEDICATION… after you flipped out on me in the cafeteria… and you expect me to talk to you and tell you how I feel? You could give a frick less and you know it."
For a split second Dr.Cox was staggered. "Now, look. You probably don't remember this, but your chart notes suggest that you rejected all pain medication at the site of the accident, stating that you couldn't feel any pain. You haven't mentioned any now like you haven't since. After such a horrid accident you'd think that GIVE ME DRUGS would be the first words out of your mouth." He tossed down the clipboard, letting it clatter to the floor. He put his hands behind his head, clasping the fingers like he always does when he's upset. "You couldn't possibly be so lonely… that you'd do something like…" The words were like chalk, "like hurt yourself, would you?"
Elliot's jaw dropped. "What?! What the frick?! I resent the HELL out of that! Why would I have scraped and struggled and WRITHED under your thumb as an intern just to give up when I finally see a glimpse of light ahead of me?!"
"How should I know, Barbie? I can only go by what I know, and what I know is that you live your life alone. Which when accompanied with the fact that you have wounds on your feet and wrists that look to be self-inflicted makes things look… well, just a wee-bit suspicious."
She lay back, closing her eyes. Tears began to well up behind her closed lids; she felt as though her heart was breaking. As she laid there and cried, the wounds in her wrists and feet began to seep. The room grew colder by the moment, and yet she sweat on. Dr.Cox came close to Elliot's bed, pulling his lab jacket tight around him, combating the cold as best he could with such thin cloth. "What the hell?" He looked closer at her wounds. They seemed to be healing very quickly and already the wounds at her wrists and feet needed debridement, a simple procedure to remove all necrotic (dead) tissue so as to allow new tissue to grow and flourish.
Ignoring the freezing temperatures, Dr.Cox grabbed a kit and some gloves and got to work cleaning the wounds. He noticed that they only really bled when he touched them. He curiously grazed one of the edges of the stitched up wounds with the hemostats he had been using to clean them, and though the wounds were stitched closed, blood spurted from every free crevice and opening of the sutured hole.
He reeled back, dropping the hemostats. He shook it off and approached Elliot again. There was panic in her eyes, although she was holding it back. It was remarkable, really, that in such frightening circumstances she had stopped crying and did not cry another single tear. There came a knock at the door. Dr.Cox looked toward the sound to see Todd standing smugly at the window. The older doctor shrugged him off, still too far in shock to care about just who wanted to see Barbie.
He went dutifully back to checking Elliot's wounds, even going that extra mile and testing the color response in her broken leg. There was still just a bit too much swelling to merit calling an osteopathic surgeon in yet, so he went back to redressing the wounds and filling in chart notes.
Todd approached Elliot's bedside, careful to be opposite Dr.Cox. He behaved uncharacteristically bashful. "Hey, Elliot, just wanted you to know," That shine came into his eyes and he lifted his head. The
"Todd Smile" crept through and he put his arms out, "if you lose your leg, I have a third. I'd give it to you." He gestured piggishly to his genitalia.
Elliot grit her teeth loudly, her eyes flaring an unholy red.
"Whoa- whoa- bad friggin' idea… if I were you, I'd back away." Dr.Cox gladly took his own advice and dropped his task, moving slowly to the back of the room.
Todd stared stupidly, his erection seeming to have disabled fight or flight. "Whoa… that's the hottest thing The Todd's ever seen." To his amusement, Elliot reached out, palming his crotch. "Whoa, baby, I can't do a chick in a hospital gown. It'd totally go against the Hippocratic oath."
"What… a pity…" She growled out in a low, serpentine voice. Her hand snaked into his scrubs bottoms and under his boxer shorts, closed around his manhood, twisted and pulled, rendering Todd to scream as she pulled his genitals free from his body with a sickening damp-cloth tearing sound.
Dr.Cox ran (more accurately waddled in his sympathy for Todd) to the door and opened it, shouting down the hall: "I need some extra hands!! STAT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" JD was the first to enter the room, passing out at the sight of Todd writhing in pain, shrieking, his penis and scrotum dangling from Elliot's claw. "Damn you Newbie!" Janitor had been passing by to check the garbages and to his joy he witnessed JD fall over. He blocked out everything that was going on in the room as he dragged JD out by his legs, preoccupied with trying to figure out what kind of awkward position to twist this one in so that he may have a laugh at the dark-haired doctor once he wakes.
He sighed in relief as Carla entered the room. "Thank the lord; Carla, I need a lot of gauze and a tranq shot. He's going to need it re-heeeally bad." She ran from the room, going white and dropping the supplies as upon her return, Elliot had begun to levitate. Her bed was tossed effortlessly across the room, her IV pole toppling atop Todd. The IV bag burst, causing the thick red puddle to go a meaty pink. "Get in here and close the damn door, we can't let this cause anymore panic than it has." He very slowly approached Elliot, letting Carla tend to Todd after she did what he asked of her.
Before he could reach her fully, Elliot rose further, then was rotated to point her feet toward the floor. Her eyes flew wide open, a gasp getting stuck in her throat. She dropped Todd's dismembered member and looked at Dr.Cox curiously. "Con il buio, la luce è la verità." That same voice came spewing forth from Elliot's throat. It seemed as though it had used all it could of her energy and her head tipped forward.
Short, slender cuts began to form across her forehead. Dr.Cox reached up, taking a hold of Elliot by her torso as whatever kept her afloat cut loose and she fell limply into his arms. "What have I ever done so wrong as to deserve this?" She asked weakly. As she curled into him, he set her safely back into her bed, cleaning her hand of Todd's blood and tissue. He looked at the wounds on her forehead; none of them were bad enough to need stitching, so he cleaned them and left them to the air to dry and heal.
Helplessness made Dr.Cox furious, especially the sort that he personally felt. At the moment fury was all he knew.
"With the darkness, light is truth…" Carla muttered to herself as she finished gauzing Todd. She moved to pick the severed pieces up from the floor and ran them to surgery, putting them in a bag and on ice as soon as she could. Dr.Cox addressed Carla without even looking at her as she once more entered the room.
"What was that you just said?" He asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"I said… I said 'with the darkness, light is truth'." She seemed to ponder it as she repeated herself hesitantly. Dr.Cox's face hardened. He knew exactly where that came from.
"And there goes yet another little piece of me into the world." He complained.
"What??" Carla responded, feeling despondent and panicky.
"Look… I know what that means."
He went quiet and so did she as they picked Todd up off the floor, setting him gently on a stretcher, running him to surgery. They both went back into the room not only to check on Elliot, but to clean the mess up before anyone could know anything so severe happened. Dr.Cox even arranged with the other surgeons to keep this on the DL, citing that Todd was likely the type to go suicidal over the mention of his misfortune. Carla was on her knees, seeing to it that the floor was scrubbed clean. After at least ten minutes of tense silence, she sat up, setting the brush down.
Carla looked up at him, her chocolate doe eyes sparkling, wanting answers. "I know what it means, too. Nobody knows this because I don't talk about it much, but I took a lot of Theology in high school at my mother's constant and irritating behest. I studied a lot of scary shit. Satanism, Santeria, Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, Rajneeshies… All of them."
Dr.Cox swallowed hard, his mouth dry. You wouldn't know it at the sight of him, however. "Nobody knows this because I don't talk about it much, but I know what it means because…" He cleared his throat and found he couldn't continue for fear that she would reject him. The only one he trusted more than he trusted himself. He flashed her his red card and buried it back inside his wallet. This was nothing he was ashamed of by any means, but his nerves made it appear otherwise. "…Because I am a 'theologist' of sorts myself." He nodded, his body tingling with vulnerability.
Carla bristled for a moment.
"Aw, c'mon. LaVeyan Satanists don't believe in a Satan. There's not even a hell where we're concerned." He bypassed the vague urge to chuckle as he saw her confusion thicken. "It's a word used to piss off the fanatics, and that's all. This is about philosophy, and about dependency not on an intangible, invisible alien in the sky, but on one's self. Because that's all you truly have in this world." He hardened up again. "If you're gonna hate me, you're gonna hate me, but-"
Carla lifted a hand to his shoulder, stopping him mid-thought. "I'm not going to hate you. I must admit I was never able to study LaVey. I didn't find out he even existed until I had already graduated. The recommended course books I was using were so old, and never updated even before reprinting, that Anton LaVey hadn't even existed yet. Everything I learned about was Alistair Crowley's version." She got up, threw the brush in the garbage, tying up the bag and sneaking it into Janitor's wheel about garbage can.
She motioned to Dr.Cox after washing her hands and asked him to follow her to the cafeteria. "Let's get some coffee." He nodded, secretly leery of leaving Elliot to the other doctors and nurses, but coffee was the preferred alternative to scotch. It was, therefore, totally natural to oblige and join her. Even if joining her meant dancing around a barrage of questions. They got their respective orders made, customized the coffee as they wished, and sat. In silence.
"What do you believe?" She finally asked.
He set his coffee down and wrapped his hands around the cup. They were abnormally cold today. "I live by my own will. I understand that the stupid shall cause their own demise, I understand that animals and children should never ever be abused or neglected, I understand that there is no heaven, no hell, no god and no Satan, and finally: I definitely understand that anyone crossing me will incur my wrath as always. Man, of course, ever reaps what they sew."
Carla looked fascinated. That look made his heart warm just a wee bit. Carla wouldn't have given up on him over a differing opinion. "Well… what do you understand happens after you die?"
"In my world, a belief is synonymous with an opinion." He sat and pondered for a moment. He sighed and took a pull of his coffee. "I've studied opinions that state that it has the great possibility of being vastly different for everyone. As far as personal opinion goes, I would love to think that I will never have to age or die." He smiled minimally; it showed in his eyes that the thought of never having to grow a day older, a day more exhausted made him truly happy.
Carla chortled, and as a tension breaker, so did Dr.Cox. All was well until he heard a very panic-stricken voice page him over the intercom. A cold chill crawled up his back and he stood, running toward the page and abandoning his coffee. Carla did the same, immediately fearing the worst. Dr.Cox reached the nurses' station, trying (and failing miserably) to calm a frantic young nurse intern. "What happened here?" He asked, trying to help her focus by taking her by the shoulders and locking eyes with her.
"Dr…Dr.R-reed just got up and left… I went in to check on her and she was sitting up, bright eyed and asking when she could go home… I-I-I…" He shook her, snapping her out of her fear-induced shock, "I reminded her of her leg and she…" The young girl began to hyperventilate.
"She what, honey?" Carla probed. She rubbed the girl's back. "Quickly, if you can. We need to find her. She's very, very ill."
"She reached down and dragged a finger up the bandages, burning them open… She looked at her leg and then set the injury herself… I don't kn-know if she fixed it, but she left by foot and seemed like she had no pain."
Dr.Cox let her go. "In which direction?" He asked, looking almost fraught by the state of affairs. The young nurse pointed a shaking finger, indicating that Elliot had gone out the door and away from the hospital. Dr.Cox's hands found their way to the back of his head, his fingers interlocking. Carla headed toward the door and her older colleague followed suit. "Let's take the jag." He offered, heading toward his car and removing the keys from his pocket.
XxxxXXXxxxX
They walked across Elliot's porch and noticed that the door was open. You could see into the lovely little home through the black wrought iron screen door that protected the entry. An odd melody floated through the air and reached them at the same time as the thick, luscious scent of gardenias. Carla reached slowly forward to knock. She jumped as the screen door lazily cracked open by itself. Access apparently granted.
Dr.Cox insisted silently that he be the first to enter. "Barbie? You in here?"
It doesn't matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Dr.Cox normally didn't take into account lyrics of any sort of song. Even the ones he liked a lot, but these caused goosebumps to roll across his back and arms, bringing the situation into unforgiving reality. Carla hugged herself, pulling her scrubs tight around her. The house was cold like Elliot's hospital room. She did not answer Dr.Cox's call, and so they walked cautiously through. They reached the living room and saw at a glance that the bedroom door was open.
"E-Elliot?" Carla called out nervously.
"Don't you people know how to call ahead?" She replied, standing suddenly close behind the doctor and nurse. They both spun around, Carla clinging to Dr.Cox in shock.
"You scared the hell out of me." Carla managed; her heart felt as though it was lodged in her throat.
Elliot shrugged her off and secretly it caused Carla a little bit of hurt. "What do you guys want? I have a date to get ready for."
"With a painful lower-limb amputation?" Dr.Cox commented. "A stump is what you'll be staring down instead of one of your skinny little gams if you don't get your butt back to the hospital."
"I'm fine." She said, smiling brightly… evilly. Despite the fact that there were lights on in the house, and that it was afternoon, the shadows were thick and bottomless. Elliot's face bore something of a shadow as well, muddling her true expression. "Have a look if you don't believe me."
Dr.Cox scratched his head. "Okay, then," He whistled through his teeth, "sit." He cleared his throat and began by sweeping her hair out of her face. The wounds on her forehead were gone, barely a sign of a scar left behind. Her wrists and her feet were the same. He examined her leg thoroughly and it appeared to have never been broken. He pulled his hands back as though she had jolted him somehow. "I don't understand this… but you're right. You're fine."
He looked over his shoulder at Carla, who was chewing away at her thumbnail, neither thought nor concern in her eyes. Just emptiness. She suffered a full bodied shiver as Elliot got up and crossed the room, singing along with the song.
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on television.
She moved toward the mirror, fixing her hair, still warbling along with the song.
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away . . .
Elliot danced in her spot, her arms raised, her eyes closed.
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for Saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
The earth beneath the house rumbled for a moment, stopping Elliot from continuing. She bristled and began to walk through the door when suddenly the music stopped, and the scent that was once gardenia turned sour and foul like rotting flesh. Elliot stood stuck to her spot with fright, biting her lip and lurching forward as suddenly a cracking, ripping sound shattered the atmosphere. Another and another sounded, and soon they became accompanied by pained cries from Elliot.
Her blouse was torn to shreds, as was the flesh of her back. The wounds at her hands, feet, and forehead opened up and began to bleed once more. Carla simply walked away, leaving Elliot's house and walking silently down the street. Slowly, Elliot lifted again into the air, crucified on an invisible old rugged cross.
"Carla! Hey!! CARLA! Damn it. DAMN IT!" Dr.Cox grit his teeth and tried to get close to Elliot. He approached slowly, hands out so as to show he wasn't being aggressive. He had gotten close to three feet from her and she turned her gaze on him, throwing him across the room like a rag doll. He struggled to keep consciousness, noting quietly that his arm was most certainly fractured. A realization struck him as he noticed he had landed by her stereo. He sat up against the wall by what should have been a speaker blaring that haunting song, but it wasn't. The stereo wasn't even on, yet the music screamed on at an alarming volume.
The pain was incredible and it was beginning to show itself through the massive adrenaline rush overtaking Dr.Cox's system. He stood as best he could, noting with a grisly crunch that his ankle was broken. He hopped and hobbled slowly toward the center of the room, ignoring the warm flow down the back of his curly head. She turned around and looked at him with such desperation that he stopped and sat dejectedly in his spot.
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Elliot reached her hand out to him, pointing at him, accusing him:
"Over and over we die one after the other!
Over and over we die one after the other! "
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
He shook his head no, regretful tears dripping from his tired eyes.
The music stopped. Consciousness stopped.
Dr.Cox began to dream of an old, sullen priest shuffling through the Vatican, almost pacing. He felt such despair there, thicker than any angst his ex-wife and Dr.Kelso had ever caused. The priest turned and looked in his direction. He opened his arms to Dr.Cox and he could see scarlet threads of blood as it dripped from the wounds at his palms…
