Just the Truth

Chapter 18

"You know you're an assistant not a bodyguard right?" I told Kyle who was constantly hovering over me.

"I was told to shadow you, I'm shadowing," he replied.

"Well, I don't need to be shadowed whilst I pace so take a seat," I pleaded with him until he finally sat down. I was in the lobby of Arielle's building waiting to see her. She was currently busy, despite the fact that she had urged me to come immediately. Considering the fact that most of her patients are dead, you'd think they could wait a few seconds.

I heard frustrated arguing coming from behind the door and finally Blaire and Arielle stepped through the doorway.

"What took you so long??" I asked them.

"I needed a second opinion before I confirmed my, um, diagnosis of Eric," she looked at Blaire who just shook her head.

"Diagnosis? So he is sick? How can we treat him?" I asked question after question, like unstoppable verbal diarrhea.

"Charlee just calm down for a second, ok? We need to talk," Arielle whispered, grabbing a hold of my hand and leading me towards the door and away from the lobby. She looked around as we walked, as if scared of who might be watching us.

We walked silently past rooms similar to the pathologist's room where my parents' bodies had been studied back in New York. She finally stopped in front of a black door with a plaque on it that read Daniella R. Cordova M.D.

"This is Dr. Cordova's office, my boss," Arielle stated, allowing us in. She gave us a chance to sit down in the chairs in front of a mahogany desk before she took out a file. In her shaky hands, she held out scans.

"Look, Dr. Cordova is currently out of town handling another case so I'm in charge of the practice while she's gone. It's how I was able to cash in a favor with a friend who works at a nearby hospital. He ran standard brain scans on Eric and sent them over to me," she began, her voice steady but cautious.

"What did you find?" I asked scared.

"It's more of what we didn't find," she said nervously looking down at the scans.

"Arielle, you're killing her. Just explain it already," Blaire urged her, taking my hand.

"You know how stupid this sounds. I'm a damn doctor and I don't know how to explain this," she trailed off muttering to her self and the scans.

"What's going on?" I pleaded.

"Charlee, they couldn't find a brain," Blaire said.

"What the fuck?" I screamed getting out of my seat.

"Is your friend stupid? How could he not have a brain, he'd be dead if he didn't have one," I continued to scream at Arielle which snapped her out of her mutterings.

"No, no hold on. Blaire didn't explain that right," she shook her head glaring at Blaire who shrugged her shoulders.

"When my friend took Eric to get the typical scans, a CT scan, an EEG, stuff like that weird things were happening with the machines. They couldn't get proper readings of his brain. When the results came out, he was baffled. He was sure there had been a mistake. It's not that he doesn't have a brain. It's that he doesn't have a complete physiological brain. It's um, something man-made in there," she explained handing me the scans as if I knew how to read them.

"I still don't understand what you're saying," I shook my head.

"That's why I went to get a second opinion," she continued. "It's never been seen before, it should not be medically possible for him to be alive and functioning without a normal human brain. This is some sort of replacement," she seemed just as baffled as I was.