The Virgin and the Whore

Chapter 13

I was sitting in the waiting room of a clinic, flipping through a medical magazine about the protease enzyme scientist had found that was supposed to be involved in the early development of Alzheimer's.

"You've got ten minutes Nik," the receptionist told me, snapping me out of the fingers stained magazine.

I put it back on the little table and grinned at her. "Thanks Nora."

"Hurry up, I'm doing you a favor," she pressed.

"You're an angel."

She rolled her eyes, unfazed by my antics. "That's nine minutes now."

I chuckled and headed to the main office. I knocked twice on the door and walked in.

"Erin, you look lovely today," I greeted one of my father's old students.

She glared at me, pointing at the door. "Out. As long as you've dropped out of med school, I'm not indulging any of your demands."

I ignored her command and went to sit in the couch in front of her desk. "Is that why you've been ignoring my calls?"

Still pointing, still glaring. "Out. No talking."

I shook the envelop with Blake's brain scans. "Come on, just look at it."

She sighed, giving up. "I know what I'll look at, Allen already called me five times."

I pressed a hand to my chest. "I'm hurt."

"Me too, I'm always hurt when a potentially decent doctor shits the bed," she shot back.

Good one. But, that wasn't the point today, at least I hope it wasn't. "Just humor me, pretty please." I full on batted my eyelashes to sell it.

She made a grimace. "I'll do you one better. Here's my advice. Go back to med school, specialise in neuro trauma and fix him yourself."

I shook my head. "That would take too long, I'd rather you fix the problem now."

"I'm not taking trauma patients anymore, my research is on Alzheimer's, you know this."

"I do know this. I also know that you were one of my father's best assistants. I'm sure you could crack this case," I pressed, full of pep in my voice.

She sighed, fixing the files on her desk. "There's no cracking this case Nik, it's always going to be an issue. You can make a thousand different combination of meds, if he keeps doing shit like sleeping for three hours or using art supplies without proper ventilation, it's going to keep degenerating."

"I have him on insomnia meds and we upgraded his work place."

She looked at me like I was stupid. "He jumped off a cliff the other month."

"It was recreational, not suicidal."

She glared. "That doesn't make it better."

"I'm working on it." And by it, I meant trying to make Blake stop being an imbecile.

"This is borderline degenerative at this point Nik," she told me, her tone sounding exhausted, "are you seeing the same trauma I'm seeing or you were never really interested in being a doctor?"

"I see it, I'd just prefer that you'd tell me I'm wrong," I admitted.

"You're not wrong Nik. And any doctor you refer him to is going to offer bogus treatment to get some cash from him, but this is not curing, it's managing."

"Well, tell me how to manage."

She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. "He doesn't have Alzheimer, so I'm not interested."