CHAPTER TEN

Siva was the first to react calling the ambulance. She was talking into the phone mumbling incoherently. "Huh! No I don't know what's wrong with her! Virus? What Virus?" She sucked in her breath getting ready to sob when I grabbed the phone from her.

"Hello, we need an ambulance here!"

"Can anyone give her mouth to mouth?"

"No, get an ambulance over here." I didn't comprehend why this woman couldn't understand the words need and ambulance."

"Is your mother prone to fainting, dear?" Now she was calling me dear. I was starting to get pissed.

"You know what forget it." I hung up the phone grabbing my purse and the keys to my mother's sedan.

"Are they coming?" Ebony for once looked genuinely worried.

"No," I turned to Siva, "Help me get her into the car. We're driving her to the hospital."

We moved quickly as Ebony came behind us turning off the stove and opening doors. Siva and I were able to get my mother in the car as Ebony slipped into the passenger seat. I looked at Ebony as she tried to hold back tears and could hear my sister in the back mumbling for my mother to wake up. I pulled out of the driveway trying to stay calm. It was hard though and I found my self speeding and nearly running red lights.

We reached the hospital in thirty minutes, a record considering morning traffic. When I brought my mother in unconscious her body now breaking out into sweats, I thought they would immediately tend to her like on the stories, but instead, we got a slow reaction. A nurse came in looking at my mother's limp body and said, "Oh she's fainted."

"She's been out like this for a good forty minutes I murmured."

"Oh…dear," again with the dear, I nearly rolled my eyes ready to jump at this woman's jugular. I was relieved when they finally moved into some kind of action moving my mother to immediate care.

And then we sat. Siva was jumping getting up moving around the waiting room as people came in and out. Ebony sat down and started reading the magazines. I couldn't do any of that. My mind wouldn't wonder like it usually did. I picked up brochures, but immediately put them down when they offered too much possibility. I closed my eyes, tired of looking at the white painted walls and my sister pacing from one end to the other.

The next thing I knew I was being gently shaken awake by one of the doctors. "Excuse me, young lady?"

"Wha-yes?" I mumbled groggily looking at the doctor his hair a distinguished gray with health tanned skin and glassed.

"I believe you are the oldest correct?" I nodded. He gave me the reassuring doctor smile. "Please will you follow me?"

I stood but stopped when I saw Siva and Ebony looking at me expectantly. "Sir, my sisters. I feel you could explain what my mother may have better then I ever I could. I think they should come to."

He nodded beckoning them to follow. We walked into the cluttered office and I looked around. His name was Dr. Jeffery Kims. Your regular run of the meal doctor, he was dirty and had the mess that said he was hoping to grow a mold farm. As if being a doctor didn't pay enough.

He talked for several minutes about my mother case being complicated, because what she has could be considered just a cold, but that there was one thing that set her apart. Opening a file on the top of his desk he handed it to me. I read through the file till I got to diagnoses of another doctor a couple of months back. My mother had the Virus. The one I knew nothing about. I looked at the doctor. "Your kidding?"

"I believe your mother's been working with hospital for the last months as a guinea pig and taking some of our treatments."

"What does that mean?" Siva asked.

"It means the hospital is killing my mother!" Ebony accused standing up.

"No far from it. Your mother had the placebo."

"This is ridiculous. What hospital allows for this kind of testing on patients?" I asked. I was angry now.

"Inside that file is a contract stating that if she participated she would get full unpaid treatment in the case that experiment failed."

"So you've failed."

"Unfortunately," The doctor nodded. "Many of the subjects are being housed in this hospital."

"So what will happen to her?"

"We'll watch over her until she dies."

"This is barbaric!" Siva yelled. "How could this go on and we not know about it?" She looked at me and I felt a stab of guilt. I could have known…why didn't I know?

"So, now what?" I asked.

"Do you have any other family?"

"My father…he's out of town, but he should come home for this." I could hear a small snort next to me and turned looking at Ebony. It only made me hate the little bitch even more. Just because I referred to my father's leaving as out of town didn't make me weird. At least I didn't think so.

I looked at the file, and then passed it back to him. He took it then standing dropped it into the box that was labeled "Virus" and opened the door. It was a clear indication that we should leave.

When we got back to the house, it was late afternoon. We had spent the entire day at the hospital and had missed our first day at public school. I looked at Ebony and Siva as we sat in the living room. "I'm going to make us something to eat and then we can talk about what were going to do next." I stood walking out of the room. I looked at the mess from breakfast. The dried out eggs and cold beacon almost made me want to throw up. I picked up the phone and dialed for a pizza.

After that, I tried calling my Dad. It was hard to reach him since he was always on the move, but if he saw my cell he usually made the effort to pick up. It wasn't so this time. The phone had been disconnected. I sighed on the verge of tears, when my cell phone rang. It was Ram.

"Java? My Mom said you called. You don't sound good what's wrong?"

"My mom has the Virus."

"I know."

"What? Why didn't you tell me?" I was seething.

"I didn't want you to worry."

"Well now she's in the hospital and the damn doctors are just waiting for her to die so they can give her bed to someone else!"

"Calm down."

"I can't…I'm angry, and you're not helping."

"You want me to come over there?"

"No!" I sighed. "No, I'm making dinner and then we have some things to work out."

"Ok…I understand. Look, I feel bad; if you need anything, anything Java, call me." He proceeded to give me a special number that would get me on the lab phone and bypass security. We hung up and I started dinner. But my mind was somewhere else the entire time.