Mission Cure

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE - M:FAC/3 - Clare

CLARE

Jaime was awake when they returned to Spencer's apartment. He was still tied to the couch, but he didn't seem to mind. Behind him, Richard and Cohen were standing over a precarious map of tubes and containers. It looked like they were playing a game of Mouse Trap and both of them were winning.

"We're ready to start," Richard declared. "Are you guys ready?"

Clare set her bag and gun on the empty sofa, distracted. Then she realized her mistake and quickly moved her stuff to the floor so Jace could have the couch.

"You think it will work?" Dreary asked, trailing behind the wagon. Jace had tried to walk. But he'd been too slow for Adrian to handle. So, Adrian had practically forced the boy into the wagon and pulled him the entire way.

"We know it will," Cohen answered. He was filling a plastic bag with some kind of liquid.

Dreary helped Jace out of the wagon and into the larger couch. "How long does it take?"

"Not very long," Cohen answered, coming around to the front of Jaime's sofa. "A couple of hours at the most. We should see incremental improvement from the beginning."

"Once we start Jaime's treatment, we should get Maggie's going," Richard told Cohen.

"If we have enough." Cohen was checking the level of fluid in one of the vials.

Clare frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's a slow process," Richard explained as he grabbed something from the table. He came around the sofa holding a long tube and a pair of gloves. "You're up," he told Clare.

"What?" she asked, not sure what he was asking her to do. All she could concentrate on was the feeling of excitement in the air. It was a cloud of vying emotional static. Hope and fear, hurry and hesitance. Penetrating her skin and collecting in her gut, making her feel uncertain.

"You have to give him an IV."

She scowled, finally pulling herself into the moment. "Why? Aren't you just going to give him a shot?"

"A shot won't work," Cohen explained. "Only an intravenous treatment is effective. And I don't administer IVs. Doctor Moore was the medical doctor, remember?"

"And he's not available right now," Richard said, giving Cohen an accusing stare.

Clare looked from Richard to Cohen and back again. "What does that mean?" she asked.

Richard sighed when he met her eyes. "Cohen infected him. On purpose."

"What!?" she shouted. "You said it was an accident, that it was because of his negligence that he got infected!"

"Alright, alright," Cohen rubbed his forehead. "Can we just let this go? We can't fix it now."

"Actually, we can fix it now." Richard handed Clare the pair of gloves.

She pulled them on, still glaring at Cohen. How could one person be that horrible? One minute, he was kicking cats, the next he was infecting their entire Fleet with a sickness that might have no remedy? Clare promised herself if this didn't work, she would find a way to balance the scales.

It took quite awhile for her to get the needle in properly. It was a lot of pressure having everyone depend on her to do something she hadn't done in years. There wasn't a lot of need for IVs during home-births, and it wasn't something she was practicing on her weekends at home.

Finally, with Richard and Cohen holding Jaime still, she was able to find a vein and attach the IV bag. But right before she released the fluid, she paused. "What's in here?" she asked Cohen.