Raven's Peak by Lincoln Cole Page B

collapsed back on the bed, groaning. “What was that?”
    “An injury,” the doctor said. “Something you sustained last night.”
    Haatim felt the wound with his right hand. It was bandaged and hurt like hell. He suddenly remembered the door exploding in his apartment and the feeling of the wet blood as shrapnel ripped through his skin. It was vivid and clear and powerful, and it felt very real.
    “How did I get it?” he asked.
    “We believe you fell down and struck your shoulder against something sharp.”
    Something in Haatim’s mind screamed that wasn’t true. He rubbed the injury, trying to piece things together.
    “All right,” he said, not entirely convinced.
    The doctor gestured with the clipboard again. “Please sign.”
    He hesitated. “Do you mind if I sign a little later. After the pain goes away.”
    “We can give you some painkillers—”
    “No,” he interrupted, “no more drugs. I just need a few minutes to relax and recover.”
    The doctor frowned at him for a second and then nodded. He pulled the clipboard back. “Very well. I believe we’ll have to gather some other paperwork for you as well, so we might as well get it all at the same time and spare your shoulder the worst of it. Nurse…?”
    “I’ll grab him his lunch while I get the discharge paperwork ready,” the nurse said.
    “Very good,” the doctor said.
    The nurse stepped out of the room, and he heard her feet clacking down the hall. The echo was loud as it filtered back to them, a lot louder than he could have expected from a hospital hallway.
    The doctor turned back to Haatim. “We were able to pump the drugs out of your stomach, but if we knew what in particular you were administered we could do more to stop what’s already in your system. Do you know what it was?”
    “No,” he said.
    “She didn’t mention anything before giving it to you?”
    “She said…” Haatim started then trailed off. “Wait. How did you know it was a ‘she’?”
    The doctor blinked. “Lucky guess,” he said. “I think you must have mentioned that it was a woman while you were raving last night.”
    Haatim frowned. “She said it was poison.”
    “Ah,” the doctor replied, unfazed. “What kind?”
    “I don’t know,” Haatim said. “But it wasn’t. You said it was drugs, right?”
    “It is most likely a narcotic of some kind,” the doctor said. “But it could have been mixed with something else. Belladonna, maybe.”
    “Nightshade?”
    “Yes.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “What about Agrimony or Hyssop?”
    “I don’t know what those are. You can’t find it in the tests?”
    “No,” the doctor said. “And we need to know what it was so we can release you.”
    Haatim absently rubbed his arm, shaking his head. It took him a second to realize the skin was smooth; the cut was gone, as was any trace he’d ever had a wound there. “What about the scratch that was here?”
    “What scratch?”
    “The one on my arm,” Haatim explained. “It’s been there for several days.”
    “There was no scratch.”
    “Are you sure?” Haatim said. “I remember it from before being drugged. It wouldn’t go away.”
    “I’m telling you,” the doctor replied. “There was no scratch.”
    The nurse stepped back into the room. She was carrying what looked like a prison tray with disgusting looking food slopped into the various compartments. Just looking at it made Haatim’s stomach turn.
    “I’m not hungry,” he said.
    “Nonsense,” the nurse replied, smiling. “You need to get some food into your stomach to help soak up all the bad things. After you eat this, you’ll feel right as rain.”
    “No thanks,” he said.
    The nurse looked at him, her smile fading, and then set the tray on the bedside table.
    “I’ll leave it here, in case you change your mind,” she said. Then she disappeared out of the room, leaving him alone with the doctor once more.
    “She’s right, you know,” the doctor said, still scanning his