“Lucia!” Elijah called as wandered through the house, he hadn’t seen her all day and he had news to share.
He could whip round the entire house in a matter of minutes but Sariyah had informed him that his super-speed ‘creeped Lucia out’ so he continued to walk at an incredibly restrained pace, making his way to the foyer at the front of the house. “Lucia!” He tried again, but still no reply. “I picked a dress, don’t you want to check it isn’t too dessert-y?”
As he approached the top of the stairs leading to the main doors, he could feel himself becoming irritated. He had put a lot of thought into his dress choice and actually cared whether or not she liked it, hiding away from him and pretending she couldn’t hear him was simply childish and rude. It felt like with every step he took in the right direction with her, she pushed him two feet back, by the time they reached the aisle they might actually manage to like each other even less than they did when she arrived. Well, he hadn’t disliked her when they met for the first time, he just hadn’t felt anything… which was almost as bad as far as he was concerned. The woman who was meant to be his wife for the rest of his hopefully long life had looked at him with such venom that he couldn’t even enjoy the moment, the only emotion he had felt in those moments was shock, maybe tinged with a little annoyance at her attitude…
His internal monologue was cut short as he stepped down the first stair and froze at the sight of what was at the bottom.
Lucia lay flat on her back, her arms and legs held out slightly as though she were half-way through a snow angel, her hair curled around her face and out along the ground like tendrils of a wild plant growing free and untamed, her eyes were closed and her lips slightly parted, if she weren’t lying at the bottom of the stairs he might have thought she was taking a nap or maybe meditating, she looked completely at ease.
However, she was at the bottom of the stairs, and while Elijah had not met a great many humans in his time, the ones he had had been exceedingly clumsy. He raced to her side and thankfully she was breathing, although he was concerned to find when he lifted her wrist that her skin was chilled almost to that of the temperature of the marble floor, she had been there for a long time.
He pulled his phone out and hurriedly called the clan doctor, Dr Farris, who gave him instructions as he made his way to the Bonnet mansion from his clinic situated a few acres away among the general clan housing.
“Don’t move her neck or spine, if she’s fallen down the stairs those are going to be the two areas we need to be most concerned about, if you move her you could damage her further or tear something that was fine before.” The man explained through the muffled line.
“Yes, sir.” Elijah answered, hovering over Lucia uselessly.
“How far has she fallen from?”
“I don’t know, but she’s at the bottom of the stairs in the entrance.”
“How high are those stairs? I need a maximum fall distance.”
“You’ve been here before, don’t you remember them?” Elijah snapped, he knew in the logical side of his brain that he had no right to be angry at Dr Farris, it wasn’t his fault Lucia was injured, but the panicked side was screaming at him to hurry up and get here and just DO SOMETHING.
“With there not being any humans living in the Bonnet mansion for quite some time I haven’t been needed as much, son, in fact my most recent clear memory of being in your home was your birth, so if you could give me an estimate on those stairs?”
“Right, apologies, around ten feet, I believe?” He looked over his shoulder at the imposing pile of steps to confirm his estimate. “I don’t think more than fifteen…” He winced, “Definitely not more than twenty feet.” he said uncertainly.
“Okay, I don’t like that the number is rising here, Mr Bonnet, the higher the fall the more likely for there to be a head injury.”
“Right.” Elijah replied, purely because he had no idea what else to say. Dr Farris pushed open the left front door and darted to Lucia’s other side, pushing his phone back into his pocket. He was carrying an enormous bag in one hand and a stretcher in the other, how he had managed to not break it carrying it under his arm like that Elijah had no idea but the old man seemed relaxed enough as he laid his things out around him and stood the stretcher to one side.
“And head injuries are one of the most common causes of mortality in falls.” Dr Farris added, continuing their conversation as if they were still on the phone. He took a torch from his bag, pulled back her eyelids and shone it in. “Was she unconscious when you found her or has she had her eyes open at all?” Satisfied with her pupils, he took his stethoscope and began pressing into her chest from different angles.
“No, she’s been unconscious the entire time.”
“Hmm.” He said, the sound didn’t fill Elijah with the relief he was hoping for from Dr Farris.
The older man threw his stethoscope back into the bag and pulled out a blood pressure machine and a pulse oximeter, he attached them to her (one on each side) very delicately, Elijah held his breath as her arms were shifted, the doctor’s earlier words about jostling her spine running through his mind like a flashing sign, he didn’t technically need to breathe but he couldn’t help it, the nerves were making him act stupidly.
“Has she reacted in any way even in her unconscious state?” He pressed the green button on the blood pressure machine and watched the small screen carefully. “Any convulsing, rolling eyes, gagging?”
“No.”
“Hmm.” He read the reading but gave no reaction and Elijah didn’t know what numbers he was hoping for, Elijah was born a vampire, he had never been sick or needed medical attention in his life. Dr Farris lifted one hand ever so slightly and squeezed each of her fingers and did the same on the other side.
“She’s breathing.” Elijah offered weakly.
“Yes, and luckily with young people they tend to either get on with it and die or they survive so this is a great sign.” He replied cheerfully, moving to pull her shoes off just as gently as all of his actions so far. “Not like the elderly, goodness, just when you think they seem to have made a full recovery - poof!” He shook his head and pushed himself up.
“That’s… good?” Elijah asked weakly. Dr Farris ignored the question.
“We’re going to need to get her into the medical wing here in the house so we can do a CT, x-rays, monitor her vitals.”
“I couldn’t smell any blood, is that a good thing?”
“Well, blood doesn’t always mean an injury is more severe - in fact my biggest concern at the moment is her brain swelling against her skull and killing her. Now, step aside so I can get her stabilised, I don’t want her neck moving at all as we wheel her through.” He took a large red block that had been resting on the stretcher and began to attach it around her neck.
“Back to the brain swelling-”
“Mr Bonnet, if you could please stop dithering around I’d like to concentrate on doing my job.” he gave Elijah a firm look before returning to the velcro straps he was securing.
“Yes, okay.” He stood back and allowed the doctor to stabilise her, lower the stretcher, slide her onto it from a plastic board and push her to the medical wing. Elijah had never had a reason to go there but Dr Farris seemed confident enough in his sense of direction so he kept quiet and followed.
~
Elijah was sent to sit in the empty ward while Lucia was taken to be scanned. He felt like a naughty schoolchild awaiting chastisement, the chair he was balancing on didn’t help, it was small and plastic and blue just like the ones he had seen in human primary schools on television.
Dr Farris trundled into the room with a stack of papers in his arms looking surprisingly unfazed.
“Okay,” He said without looking at Elijah as he separated his papers, “while she has her scans with Dr Varnava, I need some background information on your sweetheart,” he unclipped a pen from his shirt pocket and attached it to a clipboard he was adding sheets of paper to. “congratulations on the engagement by the way, did you get my card?” He finally looked up to raise his brows at Elijah.
“Oh,” Elijah was thrown off by the pleasantries and had to take a moment to think about the question, “no, I think… I think my parents probably have it.” he responded slowly.
“No problem, it was just a silly ball-and-chain joke with a black and white photograph, I thought it was funny.”
“I’m sure it was.” Elijah replied awkwardly, he had never come across a social situation such as this and was quite bamboozled as to what to say. He was utterly petrified, worrying for his bride-to-be’s life, and Dr Farris wanted his opinion on a comical congratulatory card.
“Anyway, your beaux, I have a couple of forms for you to fill out with her basic information,” He handed Elijah the clipboard and pen. “but first I need to ask the questions that actually apply to the incident at hand.”
“Of course, go ahead.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
Elijah wanted to be sarcastic, say his fiancée fell fifteen feet all the time, that it was a hobby for her. “Um, I haven’t seen her fall down before.” He mumbled instead.
“Have you witnessed her faint before?”
“No, sir.”
“Does she drink?”
“Um, not as far as I’ve seen…”
“Is she on any medications?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Any pre-existing conditions?”
“I don’t know, I would assume not as my father probably checked for that before he picked her.”
“Thank you, Mr Bonnet, you’ve been very helpful.” Elijah knew that was a lie but he gave a grateful smile anyway. “If you could just do your best with those forms and I will update you as soon as I have news.”
“Thank you very much, Dr Farris.”
Dr Farris strode out and left Elijah alone with the clipboard. He bit his lip, the only question he could answer on any of these forms was ‘first name’, maybe ‘last name’ if he put ‘Bonnet’ although that was a little premature. His pen hovered over the box for a few minutes before his cousin’s voice plucked him from his confusion,
“Martinez.” Sariyah offered.
“Pardon?”
“Martinez. Lucia Adrienne Martinez.”
“Oh, thank you.” He nodded and wrote the names down. “Don’t suppose you could be so kind as to know the answers to the rest?”
“Her date of birth is sixteenth of August nineteen-ninety-eight.”
“Thank you.”
“She’s not on any meds but she does drink occasionally.”
“Okay.” He ticked the appropriate boxes and tried not to dwell on how his cousin knew these things about his betrothed… had Lucia been drinking since she arrived at their home? Had she been drinking in their home?
“That’s all I know, kid.” Sariyah’s voice dragged his eyes up to view her grim expression. “Mind if I sit tight with you and wait to see what Dr Farris says?”
Elijah took a deep breath that he didn’t need to steel his nerves and nodded, “How did you know something had happened?” he asked quietly.
“That nurse, the one with the harsh bob, she let me know as she was dashing past to pick up some supplies for the good doctor.”
Elijah almost physically felt his ears prick up, “Supplies?” he repeated, “What did they need? Was it gauze? Is she bleeding?” he searched Sariyah’s frozen face for any hint of an answer before she had even opened her mouth.
“I-I don’t know,” Sariyah stammered, “and I am as worried as you so stop blathering, it’s making me feel sick.” she added with a stern look that wouldn’t have been out of place on a headteacher facing down an insolent child.
“You can’t get sick.” Elijah countered, although even he could hear in his voice that his heart wasn’t in it, he didn’t have the energy to bicker.
“Well, I feel it, so be quiet.” Sariyah dropped into one of the blue plastic chairs with little grace and rested her chin on her hand.
Elijah sighed but obeyed.
What felt like hours of silence passed, despite the clock only registering a few minutes having been completed. Elijah’s head was swirling with worry, his mind creating awful scenarios and then refusing to flush them out no matter how hard he tried to replace them with other thoughts… translating poems he had read into Latin and back again only occupied so much time when you were used to moving and thinking at a hundred miles per hour.
“He said her brain could swell up.” He finally whispered. “That it could press against her skull and kill her.”
“Elijah.” Sariyah whispered warningly.
“What if she’s dead and he just can’t face me?”
“Elijah, I mean it.” She growled, her eyes full of despair. “Shut up.”
He nodded, pursed his lips and tried to think of more poems to translate.
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