Chapter 10: Pep Talk

W. Kiera Crow

I tried to stay still for Dr. Hickey, but the bleeding eight year old to my right was pretty distracting.

"He'll be fine," said Dr. Hickey as one of the residents rubbed golden liquid over the little boy's knife wound. "Just an accident. Got a little excited to play capture the flag with his siblings. Roughhousing. Over emotional. Typical Ares…" Dr. Hickey muttered tersely, "Crybabies…that scab is nothing compared to the crew we get after the game. Talk about your amputations…"

Swords sliced metal-on-metal outside as Dr. Hickey strapped a blood pressure cuff under my shoulder. The cuff squeezed my arm. Pressure built in my fingertips. I stared ahead. Spears and arrows cut past the tent entrance. War cries bombed the morning air.

The cuff suddenly deflated with a long hiss. "Nervous?" asked Dr. Hickey, removing the stethoscope from his ears.

"No." I said, watching as he recorded the blood pressure reading on my chart. It was high. Higher than my usual low.

I avoided eye contact as Dr. Hickey took my wrist and located my radial pulse. "It's just capture the flag. Just a game. Why should I be nervous?"

Dr. Hickey did not look up from his watch. But we both felt my pulse throbbing under his index finger.

"A slew of reasons," said Dr. Hickey. He lowered my wrist and clicked open his ballpoint pen. "Pain and anguish being the principle ones."

The wounded eight-year-old screamed.

I forced myself not to look back. "No sweat. I can outrun a weapon."

Dr. Hickey's sky blue eyes reflected in his glasses. He looked seriously at me. Then he returned to his clipboard. "That's not what I meant."

Neither of us spoke. Dr. Hickey's pen scratched sloppily over my paperwork. The medical insignia embroidered into his white coat disappeared into the folds of his sleeve. Breathing deep, I rolled my shoulders back. The armored vest cut into my neck.

"Were you nervous?"

Dr. Hickey flicked through my chart. "When I played capture the flag for the first time?"

"No…when you were claimed."

The doctor paused. Slowly he lowered the clipboard.

"Not nervous." Dr. Hickey removed his glasses. He rubbed his temples through watery-blonde hair. His voice was less musical. "But after I was angry. Very angry."

I waited for him to continue. The commotion outside the tent increased as campers aggregated, weapons in hand.

"Asklepiusis my father." Dr. Hickey said. Carefully, he rubbed golden liquid over the scars on my arm. "The god of medicine. Son of Apollo. But as a medical professional, I answer to Apollo. The greater god fathers do not like it when you pray to lesser gods."

Dr. Hickey turned, sifting through his little black bag for Band-Aids as he spoke. \

"I respect Apollo's jurisdiction over healers. I am grateful for the power he has passed upon me through his son. With that power, I was able to understand and heal human body easily as I breathe. Healthcare is a simple, inherent skill. It's almost like I my eyes are radiographic microscopes – like I can see inside the body through skin and ambiguity to the heart of pathology. It's always been that way; I was practicing medicine by the age of seventeen."

Shadows soaked Dr. Hickey's eyes. "But Apollo mocked my mother – a nurse. And he tormented my fiancé: a classmate of mine, studying to be an obstetrician. He laughed at the outstanding effort they devoted to learning the medical profession. He laughed at my mother when she attended continued education courses. He laughed at my fiancé every sleepless night before an exam."

Dr. Hickey clenched his stethoscope. His mouth was thin. His voice was flat. "He laughed when my mother could not save her father from a heart attack. He laughed when my fiancé delivered a baby for the first time, and it died before exiting the womb."

Dr. Hickey closed his eyes. "He laughed because the all powerful Apollo – and his demigod ward – were the true healers. He laughed because only immortals can save life; but mortals…all mortals can do is shrink from death…when they are lucky."

Sighing, Dr. Hickey ducked into his glasses. "And that…apparently is a laughing matter."

I sat still. Dr. Hickey rolled down my sleeve and handed me my vambrace. I set the forearm-armor on my thigh, uninterested in going outside.

I did not want to play capture the flag. I did not want to find my powers or prove myself to the rest of Camp Half Blood. I did not want to be claimed. But most of all…

"I don't want to know my father." My reflection was distorted in the cylindrical vambrace. "I don't want to know my father at all."

Horns screamed outside, wailing like sirens. Campers cried back, hungry for the game to start.

Dr. Hickey looked at me. His gaze was professional, blunt, and unsympathetic.

"It is too late. There is no turning back. Not now. Not ever. You are your genetics. You are who you are."

A roar of cheers erupted outside the tent. A tingle stung across my shoulder blades.

"But as we say in the medical profession…" Dr. Hickey picked up the vambrace and placed it back in my hands, "…A disease must be researched before the cure can be found; and the body can begin to heal."

Metal clanged on metal outside. Chiron's voice charged through the noise, "Captains, present forward for the selection of team members!"

I looked into Dr. Hickey's clear, objective eyes.

"Good luck, Kiera."