Pricked

3

"Yes sir," Charles says trying to mend his pencil but failing miserably.

"Hold this for me." Manson states holding out a three test tubes, "I need to run some tests. I need her blood."

"Hello vampire," I think back to all the legends and myths my friend Mitch would tell me about vampires and werewolves. "I think I would like to keep my blood if that alright with you?" But they don't find my humor humorous. Charles holds the tubes, their rubber ends towards Manson so he is ready for the blood Manson will soon suck from my arm and deliver to the tube. Manson slaps my arm once more then he quickly jabs my arm. Even though I can't feel anything I flinch when the needle goes into my arm assuming it would hurt. Before this I was never a sick person, never had to see a doctor so all of this is new and strange.

He pulls back on the syringe and I watch the blood appear. He fills the syringe to the top and slowly removes the needle and injects it into the test tubes. The suction of the needle going into the tubes is irritating, in and out, pop. Manson takes the tubes from Charles and places them delicately into his bag and pulls out three more, along with a clean needle.

Manson hands off the tubes and needle to Charles and Charles takes them with great pleasure of being given the opportunity to do such helpful work for Dr. Manson. Manson yanks off the band from my arm leaving a red mark where it once was and moves to the other side of the bed, Charles follows. He repeats this process on my opposite arm for the next blood draw.

"You are going to bleed me dry, Doc." I say as he continues to drain me, "Seriously, if I'm going to die, I don't think you are helping the situation."

Once all the blood he needs is collected he takes a fresh needle, this one is at least twice the size of the previous and jabs the top of my hand. The needle irritates my skin immediately and a small rash starts to form on my hand. He connects the fluid bag to a long tube then to the needle.

"Come back in about an hour Charles to take the needle out when the fluid bag is done." Charles nods and gives a huge smile to Manson. I think if he smiles any larger his teeth will pop out. Once done, Manson disposes of the unclean needles and places everything else into his leather case. He walks out without another word, Charles follows quickly after him scribbling in his notebook again, but I'm not sure of what.

*********

Later that day Manson and Charles appear again in my room, along with a guard. The guard pauses at the door and allows Manson get situated, then formerly introduces-

"Sir. Angus, of the kings counsel," and Sir. Angus enters. He's on the King's Counsel if you didn't get that. I try and contain my attitude even though they can't see me making faces at them or my disapproving stare. Manson gives Angus a nod and Charles gives a slight bow, his knees shaking. On closer examination his face looks much paler than mine.

"You alright?" I ask moving towards Charles, he continues to shake slightly. "Help him out," I state, looking into Charles flickering eyes and clammy face. He looks as though he's going to faint now, but Manson isn't looking at his assistant, he keeps his eyes focused on Sir Angus. I push at Manson's shoulder to look at Charles but he doesn't feel my pressure.

"Thank you for coming in today. I've reviewed the blood work and did a full work up on her and it seems as though..." Charles lands on the floor with a thud, stopping Manson from his speech. Manson doesn't look concerned, but he does however look angry. Manson gives a slight kick at Charles back side.

"Get up, darn boy." Manson says giving him another kick. Sir. Angus looks confused and frustrated at this waste of time. I'm sure he has much more important things to do then listen to the physician talk to him about an unknown girl and her traumatic condition. Since the royal family is on holiday after Aurora's birthday, the palace decided to keep me under observation and testing until they decided what to do with me.

"I can come back later," Sir Angus says dully as he starts to turn and leave.

"No, no, no." Manson says trying to calm his voice from irritated to professional, but I can see the urgency in his eyes. "Please, we can just ignore him..."Sir. Angus turns back to Manson, looks down to Charles and gives a small nod to continue. "Well you see," he grabs the notebook Charles must have taken notes on earlier of the workup and results of the blood work.

"For the workup, physical examination," he clears his throat and it sounds like scratches along a chalk board. "Everything is normal besides the fact that she is highly dehydrated, but I set up a fluid bag this morning that should have helped temporarily."

Sir. Angus looks even more bored then when he first got here, but Manson doesn't seem to notice. "But the blood work was what really should have told us something about the condition," he flips a few pages in the notebook and gives Charles another kick. Charles eyes flutter, but he stays unconscious.

"You see," Manson says holding a finger out to the lab report. I move over to Sir. Angus and stand beside him to see the results. Manson said lots of numbers and letters, BUN, TSH, hemoglobin, creatinine, I'm no longer a person to him I'm just something to fix. ALB, WBC, RBC, platelets, and more, he goes through every test and every result only when he finally finished does he say... "Everything is normal." Sir. Angus and my eyes shoot up to him.

"Normal?" Sir Angus questions and my jaw drops.

"Yes. Everything is normal. I checked it multiple times but all the results are normal. I have no idea why she is the way that she is."

Sir. Angus smiles a tight painful smile and says, "Thank you, I shall tell the kings secretary," and left. The king? The thought made me shiver, why would he care about me? Manson nods reaching to shake Sir. Angus's hand but he is already gone. Once his focus and mine has left Sir. Angus, we look at Charles who is now slowly waking.

"Damn you boy," Manson yells kicking the barely awoken Charles. Once Charles realizes that he is on the floor with Manson above him angrily ready to kill him for his inconvenience. Charles rushes to his feet and brushes the dust and dirt off of himself, apologizing immediately.

"Please forgive my..." Charles doesn't seem to know what to say, his eyes flicker up to the ceiling then back to Manson. He doesn't know what happened but he looks to know it must be bad. Charles looks over to my body then back to Manson. "Please Sir, I don't remember what happened, but I shall surely fix whatever I did and never do such a thing again. Please sir?" His voice is so tiny and scared. Why would he want to work with such a cruel man? Manson shakes his head aggressively, turns and leaves with Charles following closely behind him.

"So what am I to do?" I call after them, running to catch up. They have left but, I still have questions. I follow them as far as I can but, I can't stop them from leaving and they can't hear my complaints anyway. "What do you mean everything's normal? I can't be like this and be normal!" When I reach as far as I can extend away from my body, I feel a pull and I can't walk any further. I watch Manson walk off and Charles follow him at his heals. "Please!" I yell out to them "What do you mean normal? Then how can you fix me?"