Edwards found Beth sitting on the floor in Carol's room shortly after his disastrous meeting with Dawn.
He paused when he saw her, his gaze moving to the figure on the bed. "Do you know her?"
She just stared ahead, her face blank. "If I say yes are you gonna turn off the machines?"
The doctor exhaled and pulled the end of the stethoscope down from around his neck, approaching his new patient. "I know you think I'm a monster, Beth, but I'm not the one who makes those calls."
She kept her eyes trained on the wall. "You say that but it doesn't make any difference if you're still the one lettin' people die."
Beth pushed herself off the floor and walked over, standing across the bed from him and taking her friend's hand in hers.
Edwards saw the gesture. "What's her name?"
Beth looked down at the familiar face. It was hard to reconcile the frail person before her with the strong woman she knew. "Carol. Her name is Carol."
He recognized the affection in Beth's voice, and wished he had better news to tell her. "Is she family?"
Beth nodded quietly, her eyes never leaving her friend. "Is she gonna be alright?"
Edwards didn't answer, but put the earbuds of his stethoscope in and started listening to the patient's heart, then moved it lower over her abdomen where the skin was covered in angry looking purple splotches. He glanced up at the heart monitor, noting her pulse had dropped from the mid-60s when she'd been admitted last night to the low-30s. It was as he suspected.
Beth watched his every move anxiously, and asked again. "Well?"
He met her gaze across the bed and replied gently. "Beth, look at her. She has a broken clavicle, broken ribs and severe internal bleeding. Her organs are shutting down and her pulse is dropping by the minute."
He nodded at the monitor, where it now showed a heart rate of 27. Carol's breaths were becoming shallower. Edwards gestured to how distended the woman's stomach was, trying to convince Beth of the severity of the injuries. "Your friend's abdominal cavity is filling up with blood and her heart is failing from the drop in blood pressure. I know you don't trust me but please believe me when I say I wish I could save her."
As he pleaded with the younger woman to understand, Carol's heart finally gave out.
The only sound in the room now was the ventilator, and the doctor shut it off.
Beth's shoulders slumped over in despair, and she looked up at him through fresh tears, her chin trembling. "But this is a hospital! If you can't save people then what's the point in bringin' them here?"
Edwards shook his head sadly, truly at a loss for words. He walked over to the counter and returned with a knife and a weary expression on his face. As he plunged the blade into his patient's temple, Beth closed her eyes and looked away.
What a cruel coincidence, she thought, to be reunited with a member of her family and then not be able to save them. Overwhelming guilt brought on a new wave of tears, and she leaned over to place a kiss on Carol's forehead, choking on her words. "I'm so sorry."
The doctor turned from the bed and rubbed a hand over his forehead. "It's just, if they hadn't hit her so hard with the car then I might have been able to help her."
Beth's head was bowed in grief when his last words registered. She looked at Edwards and wiped a hand across her eyes, bewildered. "What do you mean she was hit by a car? Who hit her?"
He glanced over at her with a guilty look and dropped his gaze to the floor. "The cops here. That's what they do sometimes to capture people." He shrugged his shoulder and grimaced. "It's barbaric, but that's what happens."
She moved over to the end of the bed, incensed at this new revelation, and lifted her cast. "Is that how I got this?"
Her question caught Edwards off guard, and he froze for a second before answering in a quiet voice. "No." He chewed on his lip briefly before deciding to say more. "It's not a wrist fracture. You were bitten."
Beth's emotions swung from anger to confusion at his response. "I wasn't bitten." She scoffed at the idea, thinking back to her last memory that night. "I'd remember if I was. Someone hit me over the head from behind and I blacked out."
The doctor leaned up against the wall and processed what she said. It didn't make any sense...he saw the bite on the inside of her wrist when Gorman and his partner brought her in, but then a horrible thought occurred to him. "Oh my god." He brought a hand up and covered his eyes, not wanting to believe it.
She was getting worried waiting for him to explain.
Edwards dropped his hand and regarded the young woman before him with a tired sigh, wondering where to begin. "I was working at the CDC, studying infectious diseases when the city fell. It was only luck that I wound up here, but when Dawn took over she soon discovered my real area of expertise and has been pushing and threatening me ever since to find a cure for this plague."
He glanced at Beth. "I did develop a theory after some time. It wasn't a cure. More of an experimental treatment for a bite, but I kept it to myself because I didn't want Dawn subjecting the wards to tests. But she came to suspect, I think, and knew I wouldn't risk a patient's life unless she had one brought in that was already bitten." He shook his head and pounded his fist against the wall behind him wondering why he hadn't guessed it sooner.
Beth stepped forward, still confused as to how his story related to her. "I wasn't bitten by a walker, though. I don't get it."
Edwards pushed himself away from the wall, feeling sick. "No, you wouldn't. But I've come to know Dawn very well, and I can see her giving the order for her officers to find someone out there who was relatively healthy and then purposely inflict a bite to force my hand."
She suddenly felt nauseous and held on to the edge of the door. "No. No one would do that."
His expression was apologetic as he looked down at her. "You've only seen the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Dawn will do. I'm afraid there's no moral boundary she won't cross if it serves to further her vision."
Beth lifted her cast, thinking back to this morning in her room. She spoke in a whisper, almost afraid to ask the question. "What did you do to me, then?"
Edwards rubbed his ear and shrugged lightly. "It really wasn't complicated. I just copied a procedure that was commonly used to deactivate viruses in donated blood. Yours was run through a dialysis machine with a pH filter to lower the infection spiking through your system after the bite.
"My one worry was not being familiar enough with the makeup of this particular virus, and how its DNA would react to that kind of manipulation inside a live person. I must say, you responded very well to it physically, though. It seems to have brought you back to perfect health."
He eyed her cautiously, hesitating before continuing in a soft voice. "But it did more than just that, didn't it?"
Beth was still holding on to the door, trying to process everything the doctor had just told her. She turned her head slowly and looked into his eyes, unsure if she should reveal anything.
Nodding his head reassuringly, Edwards tried to coax the truth out of her. "It's okay. I saw the table move in your room this morning, and I don't think you realized it yesterday, but it was you that made that door slam shut in the hallway. I remember you were upset. Things seem to happen when you experience any intense emotion, am I right?"
She still didn't say anything, so he continued. "And Gorman." The doctor watched her flinch at the name. "You didn't just kill him. You pretty much pulverized the man's skull."
Beth folded her arms defensively, but Edwards just threw up his hands like it didn't bother him. "Hey, I've got no problem with it, really. The guy got what he deserved."
She swallowed thickly and tilted her chin up. "So you're the reason I'm a freak now?"
Edwards shook his head and took a step closer. "No, Beth. You couldn't be further from it. The fact that the treatment saved your life is amazing, but that it's given you these abilities is nothing short of a miracle. It's very exciting."
"Excitin'?" She huffed out impatiently, hardly believing what she was hearing. "What's so excitin' about it?"
"You don't get it." He put a hand on her arm and locked eyes with her. "This is so much more important than the stupid breeding program Dawn's got going here."
He looked around him and laughed, his voice starting to shake with anticipation. "Your response to the treatment could very well be the first step to saving the human race from annihilation. I'll need to start a comprehensive series of tests on you to begin understanding if there's something specific about your DNA that made this work. It could take quite a while, so the sooner we get started the better."
Beth ripped her arm out of his grasp, her features twisted in anger. "I'm not stayin' here." She eyed him warily and took a step away from him.
The doctor clenched his jaw and cocked his head at her defiance. "Don't you understand how important this is? Your genetic makeup could save a lot of lives, so I'm afraid that trumps your personal rights. From where I'm standing, you're stuck here whether you want to be or not, and if you need to be strapped to a bed to make it happen then so be it."
He moved forward quickly and grabbed her right arm from behind as she spun away. She winced as he tightened his grip, feeling the familiar heat growing inside her again at this new threat.
As they struggled, Beth glanced up over her left shoulder, seeing Edwards' face bristling with indignation. The man gave no indication he was going to back down, but she growled a warning at him anyway. One last chance. "Let go of me."
It made no difference, and Beth's sneakers squeaked on the floor as she lunged forward, loosening his arm that was wrapped around the front of her waist from behind. She bent her left arm and swung her elbow back in a wide arc, connecting solidly with his neck.
Edwards staggered back, his mouth gaping as he fought to breathe through his crushed windpipe. She turned and watched as the doctor dropped to his knees, eyes wide and clutching his throat as he looked up at her in disbelief.
Beth took a single step toward him and he toppled backward, fearfully kicking his legs against the floor to put some distance between them. Her chest was heaving with anger as she glared down at him. "I told you to let go of me."
His jaw opened and closed like he was trying to say something, but the air wheezing through the hole in his trachea prevented any last words. The man's face was blue as he collapsed against the wall, head tilted to the side and eyes staring ahead unseeing.
Beth reached down and held two fingers against his neck to be sure he was dead and felt no pulse. Knowing there wasn't much time before he turned, she moved to the doorway and looked up and down the corridor to check it was clear.
Satisfied, she grabbed the shoulders of his white coat and pulled him through the door and into the next room. The shades were drawn, and she dragged the body through the dim light around to the other side of the bed. Her mind was racing with what to do next as she turned and headed for the door, but stopped short when she saw O'Donnell walk in.
A grin that was devoid of any humor spread across his face. He seemed to relish his luck at finding her alone in a dark room before reaching around and slowly pulling the nightstick out of its holster on his belt. "I think you're gonna be my new favorite toy from now on. You just need a little breaking in, first."
Beth's calm expression belied the fact that barely controlled rage was seething underneath the surface, poised to strike out at anyone who now challenged her freedom from this place. She watched as he raised the baton up, preparing to strike, and focused the entirety of her will over the man's body.
His expression changed from bewilderment to panic as he froze in the odd position, unable to move. Standing in front of the officer, Beth closed her fists, breathing in deeply through her nose and exhaling out through pursed lips. She trembled at first with the effort it took to keep O'Donnell still, and the two of them stood like two bizarre statues for over a minute in the darkened room until Beth relaxed a bit, confident that she could move and still maintain enough concentration to keep the officer from hurting her.
O'Donnell's eyes were blinking rapidly in fear, and followed her as she approached his side.
A wordless cry of pain left his mouth as her hand grazed over the back of his, a few heat blisters appearing on the surface of his skin. Beth unclipped the ring of keys hanging on his belt and removed his sidearm, along with the extra clip which she tucked into her bra. Hearing a slight rustling sound from the other side of the bed, she backed up and snapped the knob off the inside of the door, tossing it into the corner.
Beth took one last look at the officer, who could only watch her out of the corner of his eye now, and stepped into the corridor, pulling the door shut behind her.
Free to move now, O'Donnell rushed to the observation window and looked out at where she stood in the hallway. He pounded his fists on the glass and yelled a stream of obscenities while she looked in at him. The cop was too busy shouting his threats to notice the glance she made toward the movement by the bed.
As the white coat drew nearer, Beth placed her hand on the barrier between them, and O'Donnell pounded the glass one more time in a fit of indignation.
She brought her face up to the window and made eye contact before speaking her next words harshly.
"You're gonna be in a lot of pain, and I want you to understand that it's nobody's fault but your own."
His answering sneer was cut short when a pale hand appeared on the officer's shoulder, and she watched as the walker that used to be Dr. Edwards clamped his teeth down on the back of O'Donnell's neck.
Beth turned away from the window as the cop started screaming, and headed for the stairwell where she'd nearly escaped with Noah. She halted and spun in her tracks though, gun raised, when she heard a familiar voice yelling her name.
Dawn stood fifteen feet away, her 9 mm pointed at Beth, as O'Donnell's loud cries for help carried through the glass until finally his bloody hand slapped against the window and slid out of sight.
The officer stared back at her ward, enraged. "What did you do? You have no idea how much it's taken to get us here. What sacrifices we've made for the sake of building a future. Who do you think you are to come in here and try to undo all of our hard work?"
Beth knew the officer's accusations were meant to frighten her into submission but the woman's speech barely registered. Instead, it brought perfect clarity to what needed to be done.
As Dawn took another breath to continue her rant Beth squeezed the trigger and watched the woman's head snap back before crumpling to the floor, a bullet hole between her eyes.
Bending over the officer's body, she took her sidearm and spare clip too, hoping it would be enough to get her out of the city. It would be better to have a quieter weapon, but she had no idea where her knife and clothes were and didn't want to waste time looking.
Tucking the spare gun into her waistband, Beth made the decision to do one more thing before leaving.
She jogged over to Joan's door, hoping she'd be healed enough to come with her, and almost called out her friend's name upon entering the room but stopped abruptly.
A white sheet was pulled up over the woman's face, her curly hair still visible on the pillow. Seeing the small red stain next to her head, Beth sighed and brought a hand to her forehead, wishing she could afford to sit down and have a good cry but now was not the time. She pushed down the emotion and stepped back into the hallway.
Looking to her right, a small group of wards were cautiously approaching Dawn's body, but they cowered back when they saw the gun in Beth's hand. Seeing they were frightened, she lowered the weapon and shook her head. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Edwards and O'Donnell are dead, too. There's still a few other cops left, but I don't know where they are. I've got a key so if any of you want to leave then you need to come with me now."
They seemed too scared to move or give any response, so Beth turned and sprinted toward the stairwell.
Unlocking the door, she hurried down the steps alone this time, trying not to replay the events of the last hour over in her mind. By the time she reached the bottom, though, the weight of the deaths she caused left her feeling like an empty shell of the person she once was.
There were no signs of her being followed, so she inserted the final key and walked out into the parking lot, numbness spreading through her at what her freedom had cost.
Note to self. When Beth says to let go, just let go, already. How many times should a girl have to ask? Geesh.
If anyone was hoping for a big confrontation with Dawn, well, sorry. I always get irritated when the bad guy is allowed to ramble on incessantly when the good guy can just shoot them and be done with it. You know, like Rick should have done right off the bat during his meeting with the Governor.
Please leave a comment on what you thought of the chapter!