Red

Chapter 11

Clarissa  

 It was a little after one thirty. Nate was nowhere to be found. 

 I had woken up maybe fifteen minutes ago. I had scanned the room for signs of my boyfriend when I realized he was no longer in the bed with me. I'd grabbed my crutches and, after a few minutes of struggling to figure out how to work them, I began to search the house. 

 With no luck I'd tried to call him.All I got was voice mail. Right now I was sitting on the front porch, waiting for Mike to come back. 

 I raised my head when I heard a car. I jumped up, quickly grabbing the crutches, when I saw Mike behind the wheel. I slowed down a bit when I saw someone else in the car with him.

 Mike parked the car, and both men climbed out. Mike looked a bit nervous. The other guy was nothing special. He was middle aged, with short, silver hair and glasses. He wore a white coat, the kind a doctor would wear, and a blue shirt with a tie underneath. The one thing I didn't get was that he was wearing sneakers.

They both approached me and the house. "Clarissa," Mike said, "This is my professor, Dr. Dorado. He wants to look at your leg."

"Nice to meet you," I said, inclining my head.

"Let's go inside, shall we?" His voice was kind.

Mike held the door open for us while we went inside. I immediately headed for my room and collapsed on the bed, crutches clattering to the floor. My leg felt like it was on fire all of a sudden. I let out of groan of pain. Mike must've heard it from outside the room because he and the professor darted in. I was lying flat on my back. I would've curled into a little ball, but the movement hurt too much.

Mike called out to me. "Clarissa? Clarissa, what hurts?"

I clenched my teeth as another wave of agony washed over me. "What do you think, Mike? But at the moment, my whole body."

"Alright," I heard Dr. Dorado say, "I'm going to roll up your pants leg to look at the damage."

"Fine." I closed my eyes, red flashing across my vision. I heard a sharp intake of breath a second later.

"What?" I cracked one eye open.

"No no, don't look." Mike pushed me back down on to the bed when I tried to sit up and get a peek at what was making them so worried.

They started whispering to each other, and I could only catch a few words.

"......worse than I thought......take...hospital...now......"

It was at that point I passed out.