When I walk through the common room again, Phantom is at the sink finishing the dishes while Siren and Bones scroll on their phones. Joker is nowhere to be found, but I can hear music blaring from inside his room, loud enough for me to understand the lyrics clearly.
I make my way to the barn, looking around at the surrounding forest. It’s quiet, only the birds singing among the pine trees disrupting the peace of the morning. Shouldering through the side door, I find Delilah standing just inside the threshold, playing with the loose strands on the cuffs of her tattered sweatshirt.
“Follow me, please,” I say gently, nodding toward a place deeper inside.
Delilah looks up and nods, falling into step just behind me as we head over to the medical bay.
I unlock the door with my fingerprint, flicking on the lights as I enter. The space is as close to a trauma treatment center as I could legally assemble. And even then, there are a few things in here that definitely came from suspicious origins but are necessary for the types of injuries I tend to treat with this pack. I motion for Delilah to sit on the gurney, pulling a tablet off its charging station and pulling up a stool.
“I was able to access your chart from inside the facility, but obviously I can’t really trust anything they wrote about you. So if it feels like you’ve answered these questions before, you probably have, but I want to hear the truth from you directly,” I start, tapping through menus to find her chart.
“Are you a doctor? Like, an actual doctor?” she asks, her voice small.
I glance up at her, tilting my head to the side as I give her a searching look. She’s curled up on the gurney with one leg tucked under her hips, the other knee pulled up to her chest with her arms wrapped around it. Protective, but not fully closed off. Which is a start.
“Yes. I was a medic in the Navy, and then I went through med school on Uncle Sam’s dime,” I explain.
Delilah nods but leaves it alone which is for the best. She doesn’t need to know more than that for now.
I start with simple questions, demographic information, family history, the basics of her medical history before she went into the facility. She answers in short, often one-word sentences whenever she can get away with them. There’s something distant in her pewter eyes that I don’t like, and I make a note of it alongside the others I’ve been taking.
“If it’s okay, I’d like to do a physical exam,” I say, speaking gently.
Delilah looks up at me from the spot she’s been staring at for the last twenty minutes, brow furrowed.
“What do you mean?” she asks, a little hoarse.
“It’ll be quick, and then I’ve got something you can change into after,” I say, patting the pile of clothes on the counter beside me.
Delilah looks at me for a long moment, and I do my best to push out soothing pheromones for her, trying to reassure her that I don’t mean her harm. I watch her posture relax bit by bit, not quite going into a full trance like she would if an alpha barked at her, but enough for her to take the first deep breath I’ve seen since she arrived.
I stand when she nods, putting on gloves to keep this as professional as I can. “Can you remove your sweats? If you don’t have a layer under them, then they can stay on,” I say, keeping my voice even and calm.
Delilah nods, pulling up her sweatshirt and laying it on the bed beside her, leaving her in a thin tank top and her bottoms. I stare for longer than I’m proud of, my stomach turning.
Her skin is so pale that it’s almost translucent, stretched thin over her bony frame. I can see her collarbones clearly, and I would bet an absurd amount of money that if she removed that tank top I’d be able to see more than one pair of her ribs.
I approach with caution, keeping my hands where she can see them the entire time as I start my physical exam, checking her eyes, ears, nose, throat, and lymph nodes.
“They had you on a ton of meds in there. Did any of them actually help you?” I ask, making conversation as I work.
Delilah shrugs. “The heat suppressants. I should have gone through two heat cycles while I was in there, but I missed them entirely. Everything else just…”
“Numbed the noise?” I finish for her, pulling back slightly to look into her eyes.
She nods, holding eye contact for a moment before looking away. I let that go, making a mental note. There are a few meds that could be risky to cut off cold turkey, but I’m inclined to do it anyway. She deserves a chance to live without the fog of medication over her. And we can always add the medications back in as needed. But I will absolutely be reaching out to my contact to get my hands on some sort of heat-suppressing medication. The last thing she needs is to go into heat while she’s with us.
I listen to her heart and lungs, relieved that both sound normal. Motioning for her to lie back, I go through the rest of the exam with quick, professional standards. Other than being severely underweight, Delilah seems to be relatively healthy, which is a huge relief.
“I’m going to get some more suppressants for you, but the biggest thing we’re going to do is get your weight up,” I say moving back toward the counter and removing my gloves.
“My…no, I’m okay. We don’t—”
I turn around with a stern look that has Delilah stopping dead. She shrinks back from me, and I sigh, relaxing my face.
“I know it’s not going to be easy. I’m not a therapist or a psychiatrist, but I can tell your relationship with food is complicated. I’m not talking about forcing you to eat morning, noon, and night. I want to make sure you’re getting all the nutrients you need. We can do supplements until you’re more comfortable eating, how’s that?” I offer, picking up the pile of clothes and holding them out for her to take.
Delilah looks at me for another long moment, searching my face. Whatever she’s looking for, she seems to find as she takes the clothes from me and holds them to her chest.