Midnight Star
by Lady Dawson
Chapter Five: Hospital Confrontations
I would just like to take this moment to say that I really, really, really hate hospitals. Especially when I'm forced to spend hours upon hours there when there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. It's pointless and unnecessary. Maybe it's the whole thing with being in a place where they're sick and dying people all around me that makes me so adverse to them, but I really hate them. Hospitals are very sad places and I've had more than enough sadness within the past few years to last me a lifetime.
The infirmary back at camp wasn't so bad, but they had nectar and ambrosia to help with the healing process, plus as soon as they knew that I was perfectly fine, they would let me go. Hospitals, on the other hand, just continued to keep me there, even though I wasn't even hurt just to spite me. I didn't have a scratch on me! What was the point of keeping me there against my will when I wasn't even hurt? Why did I have to wait around for them to tell me that I was fine? I was well aware of that fact, thank you very much, so why I couldn't I just leave?
Tyler was on the bed across from me, getting his head stitched up by a nurse, apologising to me over and over again, saying that he didn't know what had happened, that he must have slid on some ice or something, but he didn't even remember going that fast. I think that he might have apologised on bended knee if the nurse would've let him up.
Charlie didn't help, when he got there about fifteen minutes after we had been transported to the hospital. He arrived in full police uniform, looking strained and anxious, which melted away into relief as he saw me on the bed, perfectly safe. Once he had made sure I was fine, he began berating Tyler, promising him that he had seen the end of his driving days. If it were possible, Tyler looked even more devastated now that he was being grilled by the Chief of Police. I actually felt sorry for him.
It wasn't actually his fault, the accident. I wasn't sure what had happened, but Tyler had no idea what he was doing. It was almost as if something or someone was controlling him, compelling him to hit me with the van . . .
But that was impossible, right? Could someone have controlled him just to take me out?
Maybe. It wouldn't actually surprise me. I didn't know what kind of creature had the power of mind-control, but I'm sure that there were some and if they had learned that the daughter of Poseidon was here . . .
Well, who knows what they would do. One thing for sure, Tyler hadn't been responsible for the accident.
It wasn't until many hours later that I met Edward's dad Carlisle, who was a doctor at the hospital. He was a pretty okay guy, but just as overwhelmingly handsome as any of his children, looking more like a model than he did a doctor, with the same golden eyes that his children had and the same pale skin, as though he hadn't seen the sun in many, many years, and his blond hair was slicked back, away from his face.
He had come to check up on me, to make sure that I was all right and after doing a few tests to make sure that I didn't have any concussions or anything, he allowed Charlie to take me home, though extracting a promise from both of us to come back if I experienced some post-traumatic stress or disorientation, but he was sure that I would be just fine.
Post-traumatic stress . . . I wanted to laugh at that one. I was already going through that. I had come here just so I could get away from all the trauma from losing my friends.
I kept my mouth shut about Edward pushing me out of the way and saving my life, but I had a feeling that Dr. Cullen had checked up on me just so he could make sure that I hadn't seen anything that I was going to spill out to the rest of the town. Besides, nobody else had seen Edward there, so I wasn't about to say anything.
When Charlie went to sign some paperwork, I caught sight of Edward's reflection in one of the windows and stepped closer, towards the corner, poking my head around it and saw him with his father and sister Rosalie. I wasn't about to let him get away without an explanation, but I stopped where I was when I realised that they were having a heated discussion.
Although I couldn't hear what they were talking about, I distinctively heard Rosalie say something like, "anybody could have seen."
"What was I supposed to do, then?" Edward looked very angry, his golden eyes more dangerous than I had ever seen them before as he regarded his sister. "Let her die?"
"This isn't about you," Rosalie shot back, her beautiful features filled with anger and rage. "This is about all of us."
"I think we should take this into my office," Dr. Cullen murmured, appearing to be the referee between his two children. His eyes had travelled past Edward and Rosalie, over to where I was standing, watching them. Rosalie scowled at me, her anger increasing, and Edward's head turned towards me, his anger melting away, replaced with a guarded look.
"Can I talk to you?" I asked, keeping my voice level and even. "Now?" I added pointedly.
"Rosalie," Dr. Cullen said, taking his daughter by the arm and pulling her away from her brother, who stood still for a minute before he reluctantly walked over to me, his hands shoved into his pockets.
"What?" he asked when he finally reached me. I was caught off guard by the unfriendly tone and the wary, cautious look in his eyes and for a second, I just stared up at him, trying to figure out what to say.
"How did you get over to me so fast?" I said carefully, keeping my eyes fixed upon him, trying to detect any kind of lie, which was hard, because he seemed to be a professional at it. And it didn't help that my head was spinning thanks to the events of the day, trying to come up with an explanation that made some sort of sense.
And the only one that I could come up with was the one that I didn't want to believe.
The question that I asked was the easier of any that I could have asked, but nevertheless, his features slipped into their guarded position, refusing to relinquish any of the answers that he kept locked inside his head.
"I was standing right next to you, Susan," he told me, wide-eyed and innocent, as though willing me to believe what he was telling me, but his guarded gaze revealed the lie, even as well-delivered as it was.
"No," I corrected stubbornly, determinedly. "You weren't anywhere near me, Edward. You were standing next to your car, which was on the other side of the lot, and then suddenly, you were standing right next me, as though you have . . . superspeed or something." Something flashed behind his eyes, but it went by so fast that I wasn't sure if I had imagined it or not. "Would you like to explain how you could do that?"
"Susan," he said, giving me a pacifying smile, trying to force me to believe the lies, "you hit your head. I think that you're a little confused. You should go home and get some rest and—"
"My head is fine, thanks to you," I said, folding my arms across my chest, starting to get annoyed with him. If I was an ordinary, everyday teenage girl, then I might have believed his lies, might have believed that there was nothing abnormal going on here, but the problem was that I wasn't normal, not by a long shot. "And I know what I saw."
"And what exactly was that?"
"You stopped the van," I pointed out, keeping my voice low enough so that nobody could hear what we were talking about. There was nobody around, but even walls have ears. "You pushed it away with your hand, Edward." I grabbed his hand, the one that had pushed the van away, and held it up to him, examining it swiftly. "That should have broken a bone, at the very least, if not crushed your entire arm. And yet . . . not even a mark to show for it. No human has the ability to do that." Some half-humans, but that was beside the point.
His expression had slipped back to angry as he yanked his hand away from me, shoving it back into his pocket. "Well . . . nobody's going to believe you," he told me.
I stared at him in amazement; is that really what he thought? That I wanted to know the truth just so I could spill it to the townsfolk and have them come after the Cullens with pitchforks? Did he really think that I was going to spill the secret of his abnormality to everybody?
Not that they would believe it, even if I did. Humans have the amazing ability to convince themselves that any kind of supernatural activity has some logical explanation.
Well, that, and the fact that the Mist can cover up anything that those of the supernatural world want to hide. I never have been able to figure out how to control the Mist, though my cousin Thalia, daughter of Zeus, was able to do it when we found Bianca and Nico.
Surprisingly, my voice was steady when I finally pried my tongue from the roof of my mouth and was able to speak.
"I wasn't going to tell anybody," I said. Edward glanced at me, surprised by the utter sincerity in my voice. "But I need to know what happened there, Edward. I have to know and believe me, it's not for the reasons that you think."
"Can't you just thank me and get over it?" Edward demanded, sounding angry again, but not, I realised, at me. Whatever he was angry about, whatever his sister was upset about, he wasn't angry at me.
"Thank you," I said sincerely, but I wasn't going to drop it. I meant what I had said; I needed to know the truth. I was a daughter of Poseidon. I couldn't just let this rest like it was a piece of homework he'd helped me with or something equally important. If nothing else, then I needed to know the truth so I could be sure that they weren't coming after me. When you're a demigod, you can't be too sure.
Edward read my expression carefully and let out a frustrated sigh. "You're not going to let this go, are you?"
"Nope," I said, shaking my head. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't let things go that easily."
"Speaking of disappointment," Edward said, his voice suddenly as cold as ice, "I hope that you enjoy it, because if you try and find out the truth, you'll be in for a great deal of disappointment."
He turned on his heel and was about to walk away when I whispered, "You're not the only one with secrets, Edward Cullen."
Stopping dead in his tracks, Edward turned around to face me, his golden eyes meeting my blue-green ones. His were filled with anger mixed with confusion while mine were steady and unyielding.
"You're not the only one," I repeated.
Edward stared at me with an expression that I couldn't quite recognise; it might have been surprise, wonder, or disbelief—or it might have been a combination of all three, but he just stared at me as though he had never met anybody quite like me before.
Ha. He didn't know how much that was true. Unless he was more than fifty years old, he never could have met a daughter of Poseidon before.
But instead of saying that particular thought, I turned on my heel and walked away from him, leaving him with my parting words as I steered towards where I knew Charlie was. He was finishing up the paperwork and had unpleasant news with him; he had called my mother.
And she had been furious—not that I had been in a car accident, mind you, but that Charlie had actually had the nerve to call her, interrupting a dinner party that she was having with her friends, to inform her that her wayward daughter was in the hospital. She apparently had some pretty nasty things to say to her brother before she had hung up. So now, in addition to everything else that was going on, Charlie was pretty angry at his sister.
The whole way home, he kept muttering under his breath. "Irresponsible . . . her own child . . . doesn't even care . . . careless, childish, pleasure-seeking . . . never should have been allowed to be a parent . . ." He muttered a few things about Dad, too, something about leaving me in the irresponsible hands of my mother.
Not wanting to make Poseidon angry enough to start up a storm, I quickly put in, "It wasn't Dad's fault, Uncle Charlie. He seriously did help me out after I ran away. He was the one who . . . got me into the school that I was in and helped me out when I needed it."
"Humph," Charlie grumbled. "Well . . . maybe. You know, you never did tell me what your dad does."
"Um . . ." My mind frantically searched for an answer that wouldn't sound like an outrageous lie. Or too close to the truth. "He takes care of the sea and the animals there."
Charlie accepted this easily as we pulled into the driveway and headed into the house.
Being in a near-accident is nowhere near fun, but apparently, Charlie thought that I'd had a traumatic enough experience that I didn't need to have food poisoning and earn a second trip to a hospital, so he picked up a pizza on the way home, which cheered me up immensely.
Of course, that was until I got home and found out that Charlie had called Percy and when I got home, the answering machine was blinking furiously, showing that there were a number of missed calls. I groaned as soon as I heard the first message, which was practically yelling at me to call him as soon as I got it, the second one demanding to know why I hadn't called him back and so on and so forth.
Of course, every message wasn't from him. No, about half of them were from Briar, whom Percy had called to alert him to what had happened. Annoying, overprotective boys.
"I can take care of myself, guys," I muttered as I erased the messages. Charlie was having a hard time not laughing as he heard Percy yelling—actually, screeching is more like it—at me to pick up the phone so he could make sure that I was still alive.
Shaking my head in annoyance, I picked up the phone and dialled Percy's number. His mom Sally was more than a little relieved when I spoke. I always liked Sally; she's always been more of a second mother to me, more of a mom than my real one, anyway. And she's always been nice to me and to Tyson, Percy's and my half-brother, whose a Cyclops.
When Percy got on the phone, he was relieved to find that I was still alive and then proceeded to tell me off for being so reckless, though how I could have reckless when I was just standing there, next to my car, I had no idea.
I thought about telling him about Tyler, about my theory of him being controlled by something or someone, but I immediately decided against it. While it couldn't hurt to have another half-blood here, I didn't want him worrying about me. Besides, I didn't have any proof and until I was sure that something was going on with that, I didn't want him to worry.
And besides, if he knew that the Cullens weren't entirely human, if I was living in the same town that there were otherworldly creatures living at, I knew that he would come directly to Forks so he could drag me back to camp and put me under surveillance twenty four hours a day, seven days a week just to make sure that I wouldn't sneak back.
Have I mentioned that having an overprotective big brother can be very, very, very annoying?
Gods, if I didn't love him so much, I would probably just knock him out with my sword half the time. Actually, I have done that, one time during Capture the Flag, but it was an accident. It was!
After many, many assurances that I was fine and he didn't need to come to Forks to check up on me—and Percy demanded to talk to Charlie just so my uncle to tell him that I was okay—I finally managed to convince my brother that I was fine and get off the phone and actually enjoy the pizza that Charlie had gotten for dinner.
The baseball game had been turned on while I was on the phone, so after I was finished eating, I wandered into the kitchen and did the dishes, cleaning up the kitchen as best I could before I headed upstairs.
I couldn't focus on my homework—besides, I didn't even have that much, just some problems for math and I could do those during lunch tomorrow or maybe before school—so I just crawled into bed, hoping very much that tomorrow would come quickly.
Maybe the day's events had wiped me out more than I had originally thought, because while I thought that I would stay up for hours, I was asleep within ten minutes.
And that was the first time that I ever dreamed of Edward Cullen.