A Lover Cursed

Ghosts

"Don't let her..."

"Of course. But Thornent, you must release me so I can work."

"What? Oh, yeah."

Havers moved back as the Brother Vischous moved up behind Thorment to steady him as his hand released.

Havers staff was already in action, moving swiftly around the female. A nurse was charting, two were bent over now bare limbs to try and place IVs into veins. But the female was writhing, muffled cries coming from her swollen face, the pain was making it difficult for her to both move and stop moving. Nash was at the head of the bed, trying to asses the female. As Havers came around to the other side of the bed, Nash looked up at him.

"She's moving too much. If she can't calm down I'll have to give her something for pain."

"Her blood pressure is already low." A nurse interjected. "A narcotic will stop her breathing."

Havers wasn't usually slow to jump into action when it came to a patient who needed help. But this, this felt different. Just looking at her, he knew they couldn't take the risk of giving her pain meds. She was going to need the pain just to stay alive with how emancipated she was. But she did need to calm down. Calantha has closed her one good eye, and whimpered as she moved her head from side to side.

Havers bent closer to her and placed one hand gently on the top of her head, because it seemed to be the only place on her body not covered in a scape or bruise.

"Calantha." He said, just loud enough that he was sure she could hear. "Calantha, look at me".

Her one good eye opened, and searched for just a split second before focusing on his face. The pain in Havers chest, the pain that was always there, sharpened when he saw that she had jade green eyes but that the parts that where supposed to be white were filled with blood instead.

"Calantha, I'm Doctor Havers. I need you to listen to me and do your best to do what I ask. Do you understand me?"

Calantha was still hyperventilating, her limbs jerking from uncontrollable cramps. But she nodded once. She closed her eye again.

"Calantha, keep looking at me. I need you to try and take a slow deep breath, but look at me."

She opened her eye again, and by some miracle her breathing slowed as she fought to control it. Somewhere in the periphery of Havers' attention, a nurse proclaimed that she had placed a working IV.

"That's good, Calantha. Just keep breathing. You're safe now, I've got you. You are safe..."

Havers kept eye contact with Calantha, even as his well-trained team ran around him and this female. He found himself stroking her forehead and the top of her head, lost in the connection for a moment. He hated, with a surprising passion, the kind of monster that would do this. But he would fix it. He could fix what those monsters had broken. He felt the need to put things right deep in his bones. But suddenly he was pulled out of the connection of eye contact when something changed. Calantha's stomach contracted in a strange bit familiar way.

"Turn her to her side!" Havers shouted. He grasped her shoulder and pulled her towards him. No sooner was she on her side than her stomach heaved. The smell of half-digested blood filled the air and his shoes as he held the female against him so she didn't aspirate on her own vomit. Having been a doctor so long, Havers certainly has had plenty of shoes ruined by vomit. Nonetheless, she was throwing up blood that she'd recently taken from a male, probably Tohrment. This was a symptom that spelt trouble. Calantha was in much worse condition than she seemed, and was going into shock.