Sophie
Medical Staff
- Best answers
- 0
- Color #
- C8A2C8
Trials and Trust
Part 2
Part 2
The neighborhood they were now driving through was a wasteland this early in the morning. Dull gray tones gave the streets a solemn, dusty view previously hidden by the night. Stagnant water puddles stained paved cement while both neglect and disrepair showed through cracks of all sizes. Colonies of matted rust devoured visible metallic surfaces while aerosolized neon left layered marks on all things vertical and flat.
One noticeable house was coated in brick-red paint, with a dark oak door and whitewashed windows. It was the home of an old woman who had been fostering children for nearly thirty years, and a once-familiar place to the passenger of the silver Camry. As they passed, the waking eyes of sleepy locals attached to the vehicle like billiard balls to a passing magnet.
Chase once had an acquaintance who insisted on charity. She had a list of orphanages and, while it was convenient, recruited him to drive about San Francisco delivering care packages. Eventually, his work got in the way, and she had plenty of other men willing to help her out — many who were much easier to convince than Chase.
The brick-red house stayed in his memory because the old woman who owned it was strangely bitter. She had told him not to play with the children, he would disappoint them later when he never returned; best not to give if only to take. Ever since, he wanted to prove her wrong, but she remained painfully right—
“Director Devineaux?”
He turned towards the voice, awoken from temporary reverie.
“Yes, right,” he paused, “Turn right, ahead.”
A flicker of concern crossed her eyes as she glanced at the man beside her. In the last eight minutes, all Sophie had to gauge of his condition — medical or not — were the glimpses caught within the passenger-side wing-mirror. Bridled tension fixed his posture, but his expression remained characteristically esoteric, betrayed only by the fleeting notion of restlessness that clenched at his jaw. The alternations of light and dark from passing streetlamps only served to further eclipse his sharp features, the weight of his brow a shadow over his light eyes.
“You’d said that someone else was injured,” she continued, with the same gentle prompting that flowed from her previous address, “Can you tell me more?”
“Hispanic male, late-fifties; he has some contusions and minor burns,” the words were terse and Devineaux considered what followed carefully, “He’s a… sort of informant, but uh… he doesn’t have official paperwork.”
Sophie nodded without remark, “And, your arm?”
“Not much,” he studied her, gauging the nature of her question but decided that she was simply being thorough. “The bleeding stopped. Once we’re done with this, I’ll stop by the AMC*.”
“How did it happen?”
That was a little harder to explain, and again, Chase contemplated his words, “I think it might have come in contact with someone’s teeth.”
There was a pause — the slightest frown — as Sophie pressed her lips together, uncertain if that was a dark attempt at humour from the Director and not keen on allowing her amusement light. The GPS application on her mobile device emitted a low ping and she obediently turned into a driveway paved with cracked concrete.
Several streets from the brick-red house was their destination: A small, two-storey apartment building squeezed unnaturally between two others. To its left was a townhouse with torn shingles and a large gap between the porch and entryway, while the other was a semi-renovated home with light greenish sidings that may have once been sky-blue in color.
“Wait out here,” Chase said, as soon as they got out of the car, “I’ll make sure it’s clear.”
To be continued...
*AMC = ACME Medical Center
