Back Home (Edited) Book 4 of the Guardians Saga

CH 1.3 Off to the Doctor

Alex slid into the backseat of Grange's car and gestured to Rile to join her. He jumped out of the front seat and joined her in the back seat.

Grange glanced at them in the rear-view mirror as he drove.

"I don't want you to go into too much debt over me," Alex said. "An ER doctor is fine."

"If you don't believe that I care for you in a non-sexual way, I'll tell you that you're an investment and there's no charge," Grange replied.

Alex leaned against Rile, but then grabbed his sleeve and saw the creeping blood stain. "Hey! You liar! You said you weren't shot! Grange, we need to get him to a trauma surgeon right away!"

"You asked if I was hurt, not if I was shot," Rile said defensively. "It doesn't hurt much. A lot less than a sword slice."

Grange whipped the car around a corner and nodded. "Trauma surgeon is easy - we have those on call 24/7. A herpetologist will be a little trickier."

"I do not have herpes," Rile said, indignant.

"A herpetologist is a reptile specialist," Alex clarified calmly. "Now please take us to the trauma surgeon - two for one".

Grange pulled up to a large, concrete building with a single, grey garage door. He pressed a button on his dashboard and the yawning door opened with an electric hum. Grange drove in and the door closed behind him with a gentle thud. He beckoned Alex and Rile to get out.

Alex huffed and fussed over Rile while he donned his Stetson hat as they walked through the musty garage into the industrial hallway. The walls were painted in off-white and were speckled with gray carpeting that muffled their footsteps.

Grange stood in front of a steel door and pressed his thumb against a dark panel beside it - the lock clicked open and he gestured for them to enter. Inside was a tidy waiting room with medical posters on the wall; beyond that, a contrasting white exam room with an exam table in the center and two plastic chairs against one wall. It smelled of antiseptic, bleach, and latex.

When the man wearing scrubs and carrying a tablet walked up, Alex accosted him. "He was shot!" Alex waved at Rile. "Look at him first."

"I'm fine. It doesn't hurt much," Rile said.

"You were shot." Alex waved her hands.

"I'm fine." Rile indicated that Alex was crazy by circling his finger by his head. He loved using human idioms and expressions.

"I'm the doctor," the man pointed to himself. "You two are the patients." He pointed at Rile and Alex. "Both of you sit down. Tall and leathery on the exam table." He pointed at it. "Shorter and bossy human on the chair." He pointed first at Alex, then at the chair.

Alex plopped on the plastic chair and crossed her arms.

"Where were you shot?" the doctor asked. The doctor's turned warm and gentle, a stark contrast to the cold, sterile walls of the exam room.

Rile gestured towards his left upper arm and responded in a quiet voice, "Here."

"Take off your shirt," the doctor said without looking up from his tablet.

"Say please."

"Rile!" Alex exclaimed. "He's the doctor, and he's helping you!"

"He can be polite and still be a doctor."

"Please take off your shirt, Mr. Rile. My name is Dr. Swain." The man in scrubs grinned.

"Since you asked nicely, Dr. Swain." Rile peeled off his shirt.