For some reason, their pupils seemed to disappear for her as they continued to stare. Was this the atmosphere, or was she starting to go crazy?
"No."
The people around her twitched when she said it, her husband less so by her decision. It wasn't so much that she had something against them; she had something against their wallets. How were they going to pay for the supplies she would use? The hours of lost sleep for concentration? The fines for possible health code violations? Maybe Brandon did cover the health codes fine if he still did some operations on these people, but the rest of the other expenses were just beyond her.
With that woman's condition, she wasn't going to expend an entire month's salary worth of medical equipment and medicine (this was apparently what Brandon meant by, 'just in case, bring everything') when she could use them for less serious situations, or even for other people with more money in their pockets for compensation.
"You're asking too much out of me. Once I get to work on her, I wouldn't be as able to look over others in my job."
Jason Winds sharply turned up his nose before facing her completely head on. Wasn't anything she didn't see in the office.
"What…La-Ma'am, what kind of doctor job do you have that gives you the goddamn right to refuse giving help!?"
"One that's on a budget. I'm an assistant of an otolaryngologist at the Helix Institute. Even though he gets most of the paycheck, I'm forced to buy most of our medical tools and medicine for appropriate use. I can't even ask for equipment loans from other departments because they're too expensive. I'm still studying, but I'm allowed to give look-overs with what I know."
Like his brother, Nathan Winds's body language appeared to be growing more livid than what his first impression displayed. Wasn't anything she didn't see in the office either.
"Then why can't you treat the…woman here and now when you have that suitcase!? I'm thinking it's filled with stuff we need to fix up the girl, so why are you not using it?!"
"Mr. Winds. In this suitcase, there are enough medical supplies and instruments to treat 15 people for minor injuries, 10 for moderate, 3 for serious, or 1 for mortal. This is basically my entire job budget, so if I use up all of this, since that is what that woman probably needs, other people are going to suffer for the next 3 weeks. I was assuming I wouldn't expend much for this woman, but I cannot afford to lose more people seeing how injured she is and how little money you offer. My job security-"
"Miss, would a couple thousand help ya out?"
"Not much. It doesn't make the medical equipment appear faster."
The people's frowns started to appear, much like before. The woman in the dirty chair had lowered her head.
"I'm sorry. My job security is nearly everything I have."
Silence surrounded them all in the faded examination room. Nobody made a sound or move. Mr. Stockton twisted his lips to say something, until Jason Winds pulled something from his shirt, surprising everyone.
Houston aimed a silenced pistol to Mrs. Stockton, then aimed it between her and Mr. Stockton as their eyelids and hands went up. The others looked ready to protest, but out of consensual instinct, they had already grabbed and revealed their hidden weapons from underneath their attires. He was sure to pull their strings to get things done.
"What the fu-Hous-Jason! Why yer' pulling that out!"
"Drop the act, it's clear she's not going to listen to us. We're going to get that bitch fixed up now even if others are going to have to wait in line."
Mr. Stockton looked to his wife. She had dropped the luggage and was shaking from her hands to her knees. He looked to the heisters, thinking better of their humanity, but clearly, he was mistaken. Their eyes weren't sympathetic.
"Mr. Winds…What…who…?"
"My name's not Jason Winds! His name's not Nathan Winds. He's not Mr. Bens! She's not Ms. Aines! We're the goddamn Payday Gang! And we want you to fix up that monster bitch in the chair, or we'll make you wish you'll-!"
While Houston was waving his gun around, Dallas reached out and grabbed Houston's gun before punching his elbow. Houston yelped and discharged a shot into the office, nearly hitting Mrs. Stockton's ear, and releasing his pistol into Dallas's hand.
"No. We won't. But we still need that-"
Dallas was already putting Houston in a headlock, but both them, Hoxton, and Clover were paying attention to the suddenly disappearing meekness between the Stocktons. Mrs. Stockton was looking at her husband noticeably differently, and Mr. Stockton was looking as if he wasn't the husband.
"Brandon. Is what this man saying true?"
"…Yes."
She stalked towards him, and despite him backing away in skittish fervor, she caught him in her hands and wrung him back and forth while screaming behind her gritted teeth.
"You son of a bitch! You dense simple man! You stupid degenerate zygote! Why did you have to help the Payday Gang?! Did you know these fuckers kill so many MPDs that it ran red for an entire day on 25th!? They're on the news for sending so many hard-headed fucks to our clinic, and you decide to take in the motherfuckers for all the shit they do!? They got lots of money they could pay us for, but we cannot fix up the people that will send more to the hospital! We could be sent to jail for this and lose our medical licenses! Why did the flying fuck you decide to do this!?"
"Bain…wait. Sh-I know. Just shut up for a second. The doctors are arguing."
Mr. Stockton's face was at the mercy of her rage, but he seemed to be willing to last through the scorn of his wife for a clearly inane or justified reason.
"Why Brandon! Why the fuck did you help them?!"
Mrs. Stockton stopped shaking him and let his head fall forward loosely. Her thin frame could only be angry for so long, but his hesitation could only test her patient exhaustion for so long as well. The heisters loosened themselves and let the woman continue grasping the man. Houston forced himself and Dallas up and grabbed back his pistol, before holstering it inside his pocket and waiting for what Mr. Stockton had to say. The she-Cloaker herself was intrigued by this development of events, her alert eyes patiently watching the two.
"WHY!? We could lose so much from this! They're not worth-"
Mr. Stockton had put a hand around Mrs. Stockton's mouth. He looked up and stared as nonchalantly as he could with the truth, but he seemed too strained to say something straight to her. Nonetheless, he spoke with his trembling lips.
"It…um, was to…cover…an experimental drug. The one that could fix your condition."
Mrs. Stockton's anger seemed to dissolve into her hands when she heard those words, because that was when she punched Mr. Stockton with all her unbridled anger, and sent him to the ground, and left herself standing with black long hair covering her face.
"Bain? You hearing this? This is just golden. We could give them some serious money after this and see how they deal with it. No? Okay, okay, I was just joking."
"Mr. Steele. We can both hear you. Let me have this."
Mr. Stockton looked back at his wife from the ground and instantly he saw the same look when he asked her to marry him. Confusion, anger, sadness, and a touch of surprise mixed in with her features. In her hair's shadow under the lit room, her small tears shined like diamonds. Not because he was happy to see them on her face, but rather because they were finally on the same page. He took another deep breath.
"We've…always wanted one, right? Even though we never talked about it after last year. With our budget, we can actually raise a kid, but not enough to cure your infertility or adopt one. I know it's sad and selfish, but I think it's something to make us feel better about life. Plus, mom's been talking too much about having kids, so I thought, why not take a friend's contact number and hook up with additional clients instead of the minor ones at the Covenant? And even if you say no-"
"Hey, love? Want to speed this along? Some of us are trying to get out of here."
"Ms. Clover, please, would you kindly, shut your fucking-"
"I'll do it then."
Everyone felt some waning relief at the mention of that vague answer from Mrs. Stockton. Houston looked away and looked back at the two doctors, his arms crossed in patience. Clover and Hoxton regarded each other before looking back at the conversation. The she-Cloaker appeared to be trying to escape again, her eyes far away from focusing on the doctors and beading on the heisters. In all of this, Mrs. Stockton's grim face was starting to look soft.
"Okay Bain, it looks like we can finally get the checkup on her now…I can't have made this faster! Stock's got his marriage a bit loose and tight here."
The atmosphere seemed to warm up. Mrs. Stockton turned, and walked slowly to the she-Cloaker, bringing her suitcase of medical supplies with her. The she-Cloaker turned to the approaching woman, regarding her slow, calm steps. Mrs. Stockton stopped and looked at her with mild disgust, the same shared by Mr. Stockton when he looked at her, who was now picking himself off the floor.
"Ahh…that smarts. Ouch…Thanks Karen."
Mrs. Stockton's left eye turned back and looked on with the stare of an angry dead fish.
"I'm only doing this because they have guns Brandon. We'll talk about this after the checkup. Or anything else that pops up."
When her deathly apathetic voice finished talking, she looked forward and Houston and Dallas had pulled up the blue screens to conceal what was behind.
When she was sure the screens were on, Mrs. Stockton opened up the suitcase and pulled out the gloves and hair cap from the organized mess. She looked around the woman in the chair, seeing the dust, discarded cans, used gloves, and drops of blood on the floor. A harsh chill ran through her spine, not exactly helping the excess warmth in her body. A clear, open workstation was usually required to do checkups. Usually.
Steadily, she wrapped around her cap around her hair, feeling some of the sticky sweat until all of it was inside. Then she grabbed the gloves, and then quickly distanced her hands from herself realizing there were splotches of black liquid on them. The black dye was apparently easy to remove with enough sweat and stress. Mrs. Stockton knew it was non-toxic dye, so she hurriedly pulled the gloves tight on.
There was the woman in the chair. The fact that she was restrained meant that she could be dangerous to approach and examine her closely. Perhaps drugs or money had a lot to do with the danger this individual presented to be restrained in this...chair. The spikey Velcro in contact with her only solidified her purpose of being immobilized so harmfully. How the fuck am I supposed to do this if she's this dangerous?, Mrs. Stockton observed.
Additionally, the quiet nature of the woman begged the question if she was mentally conscious. Mrs. Stockton took a tongue depressor stick from the suitcase and approached her face. Clearly, decent fingernails of the woman were forgone for whatever the reason she chose, but that was where she would touch the stick. With her precision, she held the stick closer and closer to a digit. But a 2nd glance on her eyes made the stick stop, since you didn't have to touch someone who was keenly aware of you about to touch, and then aware of someone else in the area.
A low whistle blew before becoming shriller to the ears. Mrs. Stockton twisted her vision and saw the 1st woman she looked at earlier with a piqued interest in her eyes, a half-smile mysterious and dangerous on its own. Supposedly, this woman was not Ms. Aines according to the gunman from earlier. What would she be doing here?
"My, My. First day jitters? Or are you still disturbed by what your husband said to you?"
"Yes. I'm still…disturbed. But I can still do this. Let me-."
"Yeah, I know! Just get on with it!"
"Let me concentrate."
Mrs. Stockton looked back to the woman in the chair. She didn't look trustful of her new company, just like Mrs. Stockton herself.
"Ah relax! I'm just here to see that nothing shifty gets pulled here and you get fixed up. And well, you both already know what happens if you do. No pressure though."
Mrs. Stockton met the urchin's eyes with a less apprehensive stare. As much as she hated having someone just watch over her, it was oddly motivating in this case. She was still facing an internal emotional rollercoaster, but somehow it felt controlled, like she could still move her hands where she wanted them to go. In testament to this, Mrs. Stockton had subconsciously summoned a remedial checklist for the woman in the 'chair'. First, emotional and mental overview, then external injuries, then internal injuries, then finally prognosis, diagnosis, and prescription. It felt startlingly simple. Now she had to open with a question.
"So…How are you?"
Mrs. Stockton's question was taken by the woman as a frank one. She leaned backward in her restraints to look away from her, trying to make sense of the doctor's intelligence in asking the question. Then after a brief consideration of security, she looked up at the doctor's eyes, not taking them away, and leaned as forward as she could. Her inflamed bruises and coagulated blood shined in the light. Mrs. Stockton held herself from approaching, before orienting her ears closer. The woman in the chair opened her mouth, but a strained air only seeped out, and more of it came out with a flapping of her fish-like lips. Mrs. Stockton was now in delicate concern. Given the absence of a clear syllable from the woman's attempted talking, it was clear she had lost her voice, or at least control of her voice-box. But if that was the case…
"What happened to her?"
It was a briskly-stated question and Clover didn't look like she had the answer. She turned outside, an eye still on the doctor.
"'Ey! You guys know what happened to the lass in the chair? Doc's wanting to know."
Outside the blue screen, the crew was seething in annoyance.
"Why would we need to say this? Doesn't the doc just fix up what she sees is wrong and everything's better?"
"No. I do need to know what happened to her. Several things can happen that can cause her to lose her voice. Psychological trauma, physical trauma, severe allergic-"
"OH SHI-Wait! Bain! I got this. Look, Miss Stockton, we really hurt her because… she was about to kick our ass. So, we uh, had to go for the throat. Really hard."
"…Right. But-did you really choke her strongly enough to make he-"
"No. We threw a server at her throat. It knocked her out."
Mrs. Stockton's hypothesis was confirmed. Only she could know in the medical world that this woman more likely needed an immediate laryngoscopy or hopefully something else less worse. The good thing here was that she brought the appropriate tools to look over the possible affected areas. The bad thing was that the operation was going to have a massive expenditure of her anesthesia, but that couldn't be an issue anymore.
She needed additional help however.
"I need Bran-Mr. Stockton to be here."
"Why? You need to hold his hand?"
"No. This isn't a check-up anymore. We're going to have to start an invasive surgery. Now."
Mrs. Stockton looked to Clover for an appropriate response. She crossed her arms, before pointing with her head to what was behind her.
"Go right ahead and tell him yourself."
Mrs. Stockton stiffened, but righted herself towards outside the blue screens, and walked out from behind them. The crew waiting outside turned to her, with Mr. Stockton following suit before looking both stiff and concerned by her approaching. He shoved his hands into his coat pocket, when she stopped in front of him. The cleanly dressed man from earlier shuffled forward, half of his shape nearly blending into the unlighted areas behind him.
"Oh…what's up-?"
"Brandon. I'm going to need to start an invasive surgery. In here. And I need an anesthesiologist with me to do this properly."
"Wait what-uh-What's happening with the bitch?"
"Well…sir, because of what I think…happened… to her throat, massive damage I believe, it is possible that she has an internal tear or vocal cord injured. You're going to have to wait for the-"
"No wait. If you know who we are, then you should know that we can't wait here. So, the woman doesn't have to…wait…Excuse me for a second."
Dallas pressed into his ear, as if listening in to an earpiece, but there weren't any wires that anybody could see, or that no civilian could see. Wireless was the next best thing to assume.
"…Okay…But we really should get out of here…How important is she?"
Dallas's raised hands dropped down for a moment, and then he covered half of his face in his dress shirt. As weird as it was point out, the man seemed to be control of whoever who held a gun up to anyone, so what did that matter. After some grimaces were seen on the man's temple, his chin was soon seen again with his rested smirk upturned to a tired frown.
"So. I guess we do have to stay longer."
Houston's hands clenched tightly before being released, much like his breathing. Clover and Hoxton looked grim but seemingly unperturbed in body behavior. Mr. Stockton pulled his nervous hands out of his pockets, his nerves forced to be less on edge for the task he would have to refuse.
"Karen. You know I can't do this. I will not break that oath I took after what happened in Geneva. I do not want to risk it-"
"Brandon. Screw your ethics. Just help me clean her out."
Mr. Stockton's mouth closed faster than the punch he received earlier. He didn't have a reason for her when she was this focused. She had to know that she could easily refuse them as he threatened Mr. Dallas with. But looking at the possible hostility he and she were facing, it was going to have to be touch and go. He looked to his associate in the eye.
"Let's go then."
He followed her to behind the blue curtains, breathing deeply as he passed Ms. Clover, and observed once again the VIP herself. Ms. Bines, or 'Pusface', still looked the same, but with a more or less relaxed look in her eyes, as if she felt she was in a regular hospital. She looked peculiarly sharp for her circumstances. Mr. Stockton looked back to his wife for a shared impression. She wasn't sharing one at the moment.
"What? Get the anesthesia. We can't do this yet until you prepared her."
"Wait. No. Not ready yet."
If they were really going to have an invasive surgery, why wasn't the woman showing the conditions that resulted from a life threatening throat injury? Wouldn't her neck be red and inflamed from internal injuries? She should be expelling blood from cuts made in her trachea. She was still breathing, and probably just well enough when they took her from whatever hell that was.
"Miss…Bines? If that's really your name. Do you think you know what hurts in your throat?"
She shifted to her left before looking back and shaking her head no.
"Okay. No matter, just don't worry about it. But, we are going to help you."
The She-Cloaker's eyes seemed annoyed for some reason. She fidgeted in her restraints as she nodded no again.
"Brandon, you can't just take your time here! We could be caught in any moment!"
"Shush, Karen. Now, what are you trying to say?"
Her hands stopped moving, then seeming to grab something in the air, tried to remove her hands.
"Okay, I see. Let me help you."
One of the leather restraints was touched and then slightly grasped. Before he knew it, Mr. Stockton felt a large slap on the back of his head and his body falling to the side. While he was rubbing his head, Clover appeared in front of him, a wooden stick with a bulbous end in hand. Mrs. Stockton didn't move out of over exhausted surprise, just opening her eyes a little bit.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing!? She's in that chair for a reason!"
"Augh. Alright. I knew what I was about to do. It was a mis-"
A hand gripped Clover's shoulder, and she whipped it away while mildly smacking Mrs. Stockton. A moment of calm seemed to strike her in her urgency.
"Stop. I…You."
Mrs. Stockton looked to the restrained woman, then back to the club-toting heister.
"She's trying to write. She needs a pen. Or something to write with."
Clover's arms and anger in the form of her club went down.
"What?"
The blue screens were pulled the side and Mr. Stockton was more than unhappy after he saw the barrels of pistols. His work area was trespassed on by Dallas, Houston and Hoxton aiming lasers at his body. Clover turned to Mrs. Stockton in her dazed confusion, who was already reaching for her suitcase. She didn't move further when Houston aimed his pistol at her, again.
"ALRIGHT, what the bloody fuck did I just hear? What were you trying to do?"
Clover lowered her club and slowly steadied herself, aware of the sudden conflict that would happen if she did nothing. Mr. Stockton yammered to himself as he got himself up, not completely caring about how close he was to be shot.
"Argh…no. No! Get out already! This is supposed to be a cleared off-area!"
Clover took in a quick breath and glided over to Hoxton and Dallas, forcing their guns away from Mr. Stockton. Hoxton's steely gaze seemed to lose its certainty when she stepped in from of them.
"Wait. Wait... Don't go shooting his body out just yet. Doc was apparently wanting to see if she could write."
The crew that threw down the blue screens held their guns for a few seconds longer, before relaxing into their 'I'm watching you' positions, their guns ready to fire but not ready to kill. Mr. Stockton briskly stepped up from the floor and proceeded to search through the briefcase, Mrs. Stockton later searching out a pen from inside her pockets. Soon after a 'click' was heard, the swift sound of grabbing medical papers was heard as well. The she-Cloaker looked around herself in patient wariness as Clover moved one of the rolling tables closer to her right while Mrs. Stockton handed the pen to the she-Cloaker's right hand, the utensil being grasped tightly and quickly. Mr. Stockton quickly regarded the woman with the same courtesy smile he gave before to his patients and exchanged the tray of surgical tools with blank medical forms.
"Right. So…I get to release her arm?"
The heisters looked at Mr. Stockton's absurdly placed question with tiresome impatience. Mr. Stockton would slowly start to get on with it, but Hoxton thankfully interjected.
"Yeah. Just do it."
"Okaaaaaaay…"
The leather was removed and instantly Mrs. Stockton and Mr. Stockton were more alarmed than shaken to observe the savagely injured woman. The woman's wrist was covered in blood-red spots lined with black scabs when it slowly raised itself up a pen in hand. Her forearm's fair white skin was also stained with purple bruises probably from other stresses. Other wounds now visible were best forgotten. The she-Cloaker then seemed to gingerly massage her throat first for a few seconds, ignoring Houston's deliberate aiming, before sensitively touching the pen to the paper to write. The crew exchanged glances with the Stocktons before the she-Cloaker shortly pulled back her pen and turned her writing to face the crew.
The crew only looked more frustrated, much to the Stocktons' and she-Cloaker's disbelief. Her moderately sized text was wildly unreadable cursive, worsened by jumping ticks in the letters.
"Um…write this better. We can't read this."
The she-Cloaker looked at Dallas disapprovingly, an air of annoyance in her eyes. Supposedly, her writing should be able to be read, with a little discerning and nuance obviously, but it wasn't that poorly written. She righted the pen back to the paper, and after staring them down for a moment, focused as hard she could to write in a print format. Then after a considerable but not distressing amount of time had passed, Dallas lowered his gaze to a newly written message. The letters were still written with an unsteady hand, but were slightly less curvy and otherworldly to be able to be read.
There. Does this help you?
Her writing was now a little bit more legible, more literate to read. Dallas nodded to the woman, who took back the paper and wrote once more, pausing occasionally to gingerly scratch her nose. Then she finished, and the paper was pushed back with a huff.
Everything hurts, but that's because of you fucking assholes. I don't know why I can't speak. but I know that Wolf was who hurt my throat. Are you trying to get me to talk about the agency? I won't tell you anything.
Dallas looked at the text skeptically for what the woman was possibly hiding. From what the woman was sharing, she didn't give a shit about herself, which was a lot harder to work with. He pushed the paper back to share his words.
"We know that already. But nothing about how you use that radio of yours. To make this easier for all of us, Mr. Stockton'll-"
"Karen would be doing the operation for this, not me."
"-…Mrs. Stockton'll fix you up so you can talk better. Or as much as she can, and we can just try to make you more…pleasant so we can reach an agreement. The whole point to this is so you can open up to us about what you know, and we can hurt you less the more we're happy. "
The she-Cloaker squinted at him. This seemed too simple for a 'lieutenant of the Payday gang' to state. Where was the blatant bluffing and lying? Still it was a forceful statement.
"I just want to tell you this because we're not a dangerous group of criminals. We're the dangerous band of criminals that can be your worst enemies or best friends."
The she-Cloaker took this with uncertain regard. To her, it was all a huge assumption on what would happen next; one party was going to bully the other, and the other would submit to them, and suffer as a used puppet. Clearly times were not changing. She was in their possession, so she could, in technicality, not be able to do anything at all to hinder their motives. But as the woman had to hate her tormentors, they couldn't actually kill her as the circumstances seemed to entail. They apparently wanted to hold back on her. The bastards were actually wide open for her. She was in their possession, so she could, in reality, be able to do anything at all to stop them at their tracks. It was an entirely new assumption on what was really happening; one party was going to serve the other, and the other would find a way to escape them, and finally bring them what they asked for.
"Oh hey, Mr. Stockton, if we don't get this done, Bain said that we're allowed to take you…"
The woman looked back to Dallas, whom observed the slight openness of the woman's eyes with mild surprise. In the time that passed, she went still a minute ago, dropping the pen, slowing her shivering shoulders, and relaxing into an odd meditative state that rang silent alarms in Dallas's cognition. She was thinking something that he didn't see, or she was actually suffocating. But it wasn't the matter at hand, because he could easily deal with that later. Now he just wanted the woman to not be nodding off just yet. And also be off her high pillar of justice.
"Hey! Back to us. Back to us."
Dallas quickly grasped the woman's chin and shook roughly the woman out of her sudden stupor. Once the woman nearly grabbed his arm, he wrenched it away from her.
"We have to do your stuff now Stock. Listen to what-"
"Enough Mr. Steele. Sorry, but let me try being specific so I can get an idea of what's really going on in her throat."
Dallas was roughly pushed aside by Mr. Stockton. Like Dallas, the other heisters felt compelled to use their weapons against the doctor's flippant desire to skip the 'necessary' chat, but they had to shut up and let the medical savant do what he needed.
"Now miss, do you think you can…uh…"
"Brandon, it's her throat."
"Oh, thanks Karen, okay...what do you…specifically feel in your throat?"
A written response was given back.
Dry, and something hard. I don't know what it is.
The Stocktons looked at each other with knowing concern. Evidently this pointed to a foreign object that was restricting air flow through the vocal cords. It would have turned into a malignant bulge that could permanently affect the woman's voice if left alone. Looking at the room they had to do the operation, it would be too cramped for them to progress with the procedures. Mr. Stockton then looked to Dallas with such potent intent in his eyes that Houston stopped smirking from the letter.
"My associate is right. This is serious Mr. Steele. If your…valued person of interest is to speak within acceptable standards, she really needs an immediate invasive surgery. A laryngoscopy to be exact."
Mrs. Stockton followed suit in her husband's grave visage.
"We need to get a lot of space for this. This operation. It can't be this cramped anymore."
Dallas turned to the crew. Houston looked annoyed. Hoxton was skeptical. Clover was concerned.
"You heard the lady. Let's move the bitch outside and clear up the space so the docs can get their jobs done!"
The crew shared a face of surprise and disbelief hearing his words, but immediately Clover and Hoxton nodded and headed outside the room. The Stocktons collected their medical supplies, while Houston watched on with confusion now coloring his face.
"What? Why? She can just talk to us the way she's doing now."
"Well, Bain wants us to still have some kind of good image, or so he says, so we have to treat the bitch like she's the…uh, Taxman."
The she-Cloaker glared once more in the chair hearing this, but limped over in sort of exhaustion. Dallas briefly stopped, wary of a fake nap, but soon he stepped behind her and readied himself to lift the woman out of the room. Houston still stood, defiantly confused.
"Then why the fuck do we have to help her this much? She probably dreams of us rotting in prison!"
"Ey'! Are you going to move the fucker or what? The bitch's not looking good."
Houston turned and readied himself to call the bastard a dumb bastard, but it stopped at his lips when he saw the burns. He stopped himself and thought no more of it, because as much as he hated the guy's roguish self-righteousness, he never felt so distanced from someone that lost half their face just for the Gang, or anybody else for that matter. Unnerved and quiet, Houston turned to the half-asleep she-Cloaker, took a deep breath, and heaved up her chair, silently seething for whatever reason. Dallas noted the sudden silence that his brother had and acted quickly.
"Hey, it's just a job."
With a low head and equally low tone, Houston simply said back:
"I know."
The operation was long and tasking. After releasing the surprisingly limp Cloaker from her chair and placing her on an improvised operating table made of turned over shelves and thick clean blankets, she keeled and expelled her insides all over Houston's jeans. Not only did this hammer on many sensitivities in the able-bodied, but it also spelled only more discomfort that they would have to endure.
Thankfully, the Stocktons didn't seem to be inhibited by the vomit and were unfazed to the preparation of the instruments, the execution of the operation, and the final prognosis. The heisters acted as their unwavering impromptu assistants (some less than others) but they themselves started to keel over from the mental stress of following very medically nuanced directions, but if it were not for the patience of Mr. Stockton and Dallas's expansive consensus, it would have been a botched job.
Considering the spirit of the clandestine operation, after repeatedly cleaning the operating area from vomit, constantly fishing out medical equipment from Mrs. Stockton's suitcase, and dealing with the infernal remarks of Mr. Stockton, the woman wasn't looking so ugly.
"I suppose this is fine."
The she-Cloaker had a new body, or so to speak. A couple of bandages and stitches here and there, but nonetheless cleaner than before, if you considered a bloodied half-dressed mummy clean.
"How odd. Supposedly you should have been able to feel a broken microphone in your throat that would restrict your vocal cords. The only way it could have been forgotten would be when something strongly numbing was consumed."
The bandaged woman looked away sharply to the statement of Mr. Stockton with her eyes wide open. Then as suddenly as she quaked from it, her disturbed face (as much as it was after the operation) vanished into a resolute one.
"Anyways. Try not to yell so much. Your throat is still recovering from the stitches, but these cuts heal after a week or so. In the meantime, try to refrain from hot or cold foods. They could disturb your throat and limit the amount of healing it goes through, and then you would have to see me again!"
The she-Cloaker seemed to exchange a silent thank-you with the Stocktons within the confines of her terrible chair. Expected light humor was lost however in the gratitude.
Mrs. Stockton took a deep breath. This was going to be the last surgery outside of the hospital she would ever do. Even if the Payday Gang would be there. How could Brandon do this, for other individuals, and all apparently just for her…their…sake. It just felt…dirty; touching, but dirty. No, it was just dirty.
She felt a tight grasp on her arm and she flashed to her side to see Mr. Stockton just locking his hand around her. She felt slightly startled to run away, but his grasp was too gripping to let her go. He smiled a little at her, just for comfort's sake. This was usual when they worked together that they celebrated, but it didn't have the same effect as other times before.
"Well…Good job. We did it."
Mrs. Stockton said nothing, only nodding on the affirmative. The brother of Mr. Steele stepped in front of her and hoisted the despicable chair up to step outside the door. She watched as the morning light colored the desolate public grounds, faded and dilapidated buildings with alarming depth appearing where they always were. As the patient was pushed into the van, the rest of the dangerous posse filed out and stepped into the van's other shaded interiors. She could see their tired, grayed eyes as they took seats and quietly prepared to leave.
"Hey!"
The burn scar man that helped her with providing stitches looked back with a distant 'what?' look.
"What doc?"
Mr. Stockton held up a smiling mask. A rather displeasing image it was.
"Ah. Thanks!"
The man stepped out, took the mask before placing it on his scalp. Mrs. Stockton silently yelped when the man looked at her. It only just took the mask's stare to further confirm who they were actually dealing with.
"Miss Stock! I know that this might not help you enough, but I think you deserve this."
Hoxton pulled out a binded dollar bill stack out of a hidden pocket and held it at arm's reach. Mrs. Stockton's eyes glanced between him and the cash with uncertain trust. When an awkward second seemed to pass, Mr. Stockton stepped forward to grab the bills, which Hoxton pulled back in annoyance.
"'Oi! This money goes to your wife! She did good work in there."
Mr. Stockton was a little taken back, but he stepped back in understanding. Hoxton then extended back the bills to Mrs. Stockton, waiting for her grip on the stack.
Mrs. Stockton's coat ruffled in the breeze as she slowly and softly touched the bills, and pulled it from Hoxton's hands. She felt the crisp folds and slightly heavier paper, the money of a criminal. She looked at the other people waiting inside the van, before settling on the smile of Hoxton's mask. She took a small step back.
"Soft little thing you are. You have good hands though."
He looked to Mr. Stockton and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Thanks for the surgery."
Mr. Stockton held his hands behind his back to reflect the professional tone they had to keep.
"Keep yourselves safe."
With that, Hoxton and the woman pulled the doors closed and the van drove out of the lot and out of sight. Mrs. Stockton held the bill stack close to herself, before she crushed it in one of her hands and faced her husband. She needed answers.
"Brandon."
"Yes, Karen sweetie?"
"We have to talk about this now."
"…about what?"
"About why you're in here. Why you're helping these people."
When they walked back inside the pharmacy, Mr. Stockton himself had this tired look in his eyes. It was also displeasing.
" *sigh* Look. It was just I got in touch with a friend who gets things done. No…He got in touch with me. He said he needed a person to fix people up with no scruples."
Mrs. Stockton didn't think this was the answer she needed. She just wanted him out of this place.
"Look, Brandon…You could have went and got permission to work another shift. You could have participated in those international missions or something-"
"No. They don't help. They don't pay as well as you think."
The cash in Mrs. Stockton's hand never felt so much heavier, and yet she felt she could throw them as far as she could. Her husband was apparently a part of some black market monopoly, and if it meant dealing with people like who she just met, it wasn't worth the pay.
"I wouldn't get as much money as I need-as we need…to get a fix for your-"
"Brandon…You don't have to work anymore."
A pause struck the already heavily stirred air. Mrs. Stockton would soon introduce a considerable counterpoint.
"Why?"
"I don't want you to."
"But…I just said, I just said we needed money to fix your condition. And-"
"I accepted not being able to have kids. And you should too."
Mr. Stockton's eyes twitched. His whole body twitched, but Mrs. Stockton didn't seem perturbed. A shaky voice came and grew shakier as it talked.
"Denton said he knew a possible drug to help us. An effective but forgotten one. Something that could actually help you get pregnant."
Mr. Stockton's fists closed up, but Mrs. Stockton wasn't backing down, even though she knew she would be facing a firing squad.
"He asked me to work up a price for 2 years. It costed that much to remake it, and I still have 2 more weeks of this before I'm finally done. Then I have to wait 2 more before it's delivered to us. And now…"
His stomp on the ground seemed to shake the entire floor. As far as Karen knew, Brandon didn't have the right body to do so, but if it really was about kids…
"How can I wait, work, and live…when you don't even want to have kids anymore!?"
Quickly before he could get hand contact on her, Mrs. Stockton quickly jammed her fist into her husband's xiphoid process. Because he was pigeon-breasted, Mr. Stockton was easily sent back a few feet into the pharmacy's entrance.
Mr. Stockton snarled in rasping pain in his chest. Slightly blinded by the morning light, he staggered but righted himself to put himself on course. The light was a little too blinding. He turned his eyes away and faced the darkness to find his wife. And there she was. In her white bloodied coat, her hands placed in precise locations to be best used, familiar attire and behavior at the operating table.
It was her.
He stopped moving. Mr. Stockton wouldn't and couldn't do this to his wife. He didn't need words to convince her what he was doing was right. He knew it was right, and she knew it was right, albeit in a desperately twisted way. He didn't need to go any further. He let himself become more fluid, less solid, because he only wanted to hear what kept him going.
He looked at Karen and noticed the panic and determination in her eyes that oh so needed to be gone.
"Karen."
Her shoulders hunched back.
"You wouldn't object to kids though. Would you?"
The innocent question hung over them like flies over a rotten piece of flesh. Mrs. Stockton seemed to wave off this question with regained firmness. Only Mr. Stockton could see a conflict seemed to cloud her, making her look away from her husband, before festering in her the weakening shoulders, and rotting her entire straight stature into a curving and writhing shape. All these small movements in her body told him he was right.
She looked back at him with conflicted resolve, still not wanting to give up on her statement. Mr. Stockton took a deep breath and brought his hands into his pockets. He ignored the blinding light at his left.
"Karen. I'm still doing this."
Mrs. Stockton let her hands fall to her sides. She pursed her lips in contempt.
"So what…do you still want to keep doing this? Even though you know it's not right?"
Mr. Stockton's shimmering shadow appeared more misplaced than ever.
"It was something…more convenient. Just something promising to make us happy."
With Mr. Stockton's side next to the entrance, Mrs. Stockton could see his long shadow creeping from the light. Her husband bathed in it, his face nearly disappearing into a shade of no discernable humanity, but his eyes she could definitely see.
There were tears after all.
