Chapter 7

Vanessa Caulfield really wasn't happy. News of what happened had reached her early in the morning, as well as the news of there being no batteries in the emergency button.

"If Joyce's brother wasn't in charge of treating my daughter, as well as being the only one who actually knows what the hell he's doing, I'd be suing the ass off the hospital right now!" she shrieked down the phone. "This is the USA! We pay for this service and we get this kind of crap in exchange! One more slip-up like this and you'll be hearing from my lawyer!" With that, she slammed the phone down and turned to her husband. "Can you believe this?" she asked Ryan, her face red with fury.

"Maybe we should look at going to see Max instead of yelling down a phone?" he suggested.

"We do need to see Max." Vanessa agreed. "But we need to make our complaints heard here. Apparently when she was first taken in, they didn't hook her up to an IV or anything! She went for two days with nothing supporting her!"

"Please tell me you're joking!" Now it was Ryan's turn to lose his temper. "At least tell me they're feeding her!"

"They haven't fed her since her heart stopped because she vomited when they restarted it. They're leaving it to keep her stomach settled. I don't know about before that."

"Right, I think we need to get in the car and drive down there." Ryan said as he grabbed his coat and car keys.

A forty-minute drive later, they were at the hospital. They checked in at reception and raced up to Max's room. Nothing could have prepared them for the shock they received. Max was sitting there in bed asleep. Her face was pale and drawn.

"I wouldn't wake her just yet." Ian's voice caused them to turn abruptly. "I've just had to break some terrible news to her."

"What news?" Vanessa asked. If Ian gave her the unthinkable news she was dreading, she'd kill him or die trying.

"The CT scans didn't show the cause of these attacks she keeps having, but it did show the damage. There's a series of small patches of damaged tissue covering a large area. I'm surprised she doesn't feel like she'd got a permanent migraine already. If we can't find the cause soon, it'll just get worse. Max is very ill." Vanessa collapsed into a sobbing mess. Ryan dreaded the question he had to ask.

"Could she potentially die from this?" he asked.

"If we can't find what's doing it, I think it's all but certain." Ian said sadly. "Chloe and Rachel are coming over later. They're going to take her into the garden at the back for some fresh air."

"What are you going to try next?" Ryan asked.

"There's a lot we can try next." Ian said. "What you should be asking is what we can do should it not give us results. All I can say is that I wish Max had accepted the option of the hospital transfer. The care here is abysmal, but I've just filed some paperwork of my own. I'm going to all but move in here and I won't rest until this place has a full crew of staff who actually do what they're supposed to and know how to do it."

"What actually happened to those batteries?" Ryan asked, his voice leaving him.

"I found out where they disappeared to." Ian said. "One of the idiot nurses here took them for her pager. I've seen to it that the only time she gets near a hospital again is if she's the one in the bed."

"Thank you." Ryan said, shaking Ian's hand.

"The pleasure's all mine." Ian replied. "I get that she doesn't want to be here. Who actually does anyway? But she's a brilliant girl and I'm so sorry this has happened to all of you."

"You couldn't have stopped it. None of us could." Ryan muttered.

"Like I said, I wouldn't go waking her if you can avoid it; but you're welcome to go and sit next to her. We won't need to run any more tests for a while yet." Ian said. Ryan nodded and helped Vanessa into a chair next to the bed.

"Don't worry, Vanessa. Max is tough in her own way. She'll find a way around this!" Ryan sensed the hesitation in his own voice. Was he really so desperate that he was just trying to convince himself?

This is a pretty short chapter, so I'm going to double-update to make up for it. That, and I couldn't wait to post the next chapter anyway. As always, please feel free to review.