Invisible Death

Mutant Horror Picture Show

Adam let go of Emilia and his hands shot up to his temples as if he were trying to stop his head from splitting open.

"Is Donna alive?" Shalimar jumped from her seat. "Adam, there is hope Donna is still alive!"

"I can't say." Emilia shook her head. "I was transferred that very afternoon, I never returned to the Vault."

Slowly, Adam sat back on the bed, planted his elbows on his knees and pinched the bridge of his nose. His eyes had sunk into dark, plum-colored circles and there were new lines on his forehead and around his mouth. His face was so pained; his hurt was so obvious; he seemed to have aged ten years in five minutes. "Donna is dead, Shalimar. Her bond with Angela was severed." He sniffled.

"You heard Emilia, she could be alive!"

"She is not. Please..."

Brennan pulled Shalimar to his chest and held her, his fingers brushing his mouth in the classic "Silence" gesture, but the feline couldn't stop. "Brennan, she could be alive! Why is he so adamant?"

Adam shot up to his feet clenching his hands into fists. "Because I can't bear the thought that she might still be locked up in that hellhole, being systematically raped in body and mind!" He suddenly stopped, his mouth working, but no other words coming out. He blinked several times and sat again, his hands holding his head one more time.

"Is the headache back?" Samihah tried to talk to him.

"With a vengeance," was all Adam could say and he could barely be heard.

Emilia didn't waste any time. She pulled an old fashioned BP unit from her bag, and made Adam lay down. She cuffed his arm and pumped air, a stethoscope already hanging from her ears.

"This is ancient!" exclaimed Brennan. "I can get something modern in a flash."

"No time for that," snapped the nurse. "Besides, I trust my ears, not some electronic gadget." Little by little, she deflated the cuff and listened intently. "He is spiking! His BP is skyrocketing, already over 200."

She rummaged through her bag and found another small bottle full of a transparent liquid. Pulling another hypo, Emilia made to fill up the syringe, but Shalimar was faster. The feline grabbed the nurse's wrist and pulled her up. "What the hell is it?" she asked, her eyes flashing feral.

"A beta-blocker, it is..."

Shalimar dragged the young woman away from Adam, slammed her against the wall, pinning her by the throat. "I don't know you, and I don't trust you. He dies, I kill you!"

"Leave her alone, Shalimar!" exclaimed Samihah. "She's right! He needs it fast or he might stroke out! This is an emergency hypertension medication!"

Still holding the nurse by the neck, Shalimar turned her head and looked at Adam, who had slipped from the bed and was kneeling on the floor, the balls of his hands pressing his temples. The feline remembered seeing her friend and mentor like that once before when he had been robbed of all his memories and his brain was short-circuiting.

Brennan held Shalimar's shoulder and gently pulled her away from Emilia. "Let her help, Shal."

After another moment of hesitation, the feline released the nurse and let her do her job, watching closely as the young woman injected the medication and helped the fallen man lay down to rest.

"He can't go on like this." The young woman was readying her instruments to careful monitor her patient's BP readings. "How old is he, anyway?"

"Late forties, early fifties... Nobody knows for sure," answered the elemental.