Page 5 of Booked for Kidnapping

I’d done a lot of weightlifting in the past few days to forget about the ongoing dispute with my family and friends.

Some days, I wished I could disappear again, but I couldn’t afford to leave, not until I found answers and justice.

After, I’d evaluate the tangled mess my life had become.

“You carry a painful burden, and to have worked so hard to save the lives you could. That is an admirable thing. I had not known exsanguinators could hold such moral integrity.”

Of course not. He wanted to see people like me eradicated. “It is thanks to prejudices like that I couldn’t become a nurse or doctor. Had I been allowed, many more lives would have been saved.”

“Yet you knew how to save those people attending the rally.”

“Livestock,” I informed him in as neutral a tone as I could muster.

“Pardon? I don’t understand.”

“I helped vets treat livestock, and I honed my skills helping butchers make certain the animals had a calm and peaceful passing. People like me are not invited to go to school to learn how to save lives.”

Because of people like him. I somehow kept my gaze focused on my foot, and I kept my mouth shut despite wanting to inform him he was a hateful waste of air.

“Yet you saved those lives.”

I shrugged. “What was the worst that would happen? They would die? They were already dying. I did what I could. I succeeded, and that is all that matters. Nothing would have saved Senator Maybelle. She was dead before I reached her.”

“So we were told.”

“Exsanguinators are many things, but we can’t bring back the dead. But I can circumvent the heart in the case of a torn aorta, and I can staunch bleeding as easily as I can cause it. I can purge your blood of infection, I can detect, just by looking at you, if you have diabetes.”

“Do I have diabetes?” Representative Kennedys asked, his tone curious.

I glanced at him, narrowed my eyes, and concentrated. Sure enough, I detected the telltale signs of sugar imbalance in his blood, the sensation matching what I associated with someone in the early stages of diabetes. “It’s either early or well-controlled, but yes. You have diabetes.” I shrugged, and I focused on the flowers on the stage. “If you haven’t been diagnosed, you should see a doctor.”

“Can’t exsanguinators fix it?” he challenged. “If you’re so good at such things.”

I snorted a laugh. “No. I can’t control your pancreas and convince your body to produce insulin. I work with blood, not with faulty organs no longer able to properly do their job. If you had a blood disease, perhaps I could, but diabetes isn’t a disease of the blood for all it is detected in the blood. Diabetes is sourced from a failure to produce insulin, which is not an exsanguinator’s domain. You would have to ask a doctor for the specifics. It’s ultimately your choice how you handle your sickness. All I can do is detect the imbalance of sugars in the blood, but the blood isn’t the cause of your problems. I am not a doctor, nor am I a nurse.”

Technically, I lied. I could—and had—helped purge excess sugar from the blood in last-ditch efforts to save diabetes victims close to death. I couldn’t stop their diabetes, but I could temporarily rebalance their bodies while doctors worked at managing their insulin needs.

And sometimes, not even my magic could stop death. There was only so much I could do, no matter how hard I tried.

“Yet you saved those people.”

“Yes, I did. If you had been the one shot, despite your obvious loathing of who and what I am, I would have tried to save you, too.” Fed up with asshole politicians, I unlocked the wheels of my chair and eyed the crowd for the best path to escape to the street, where I’d have to wait for a ridiculous time for somebody to cart me back to my apartment. “Have a good day, Representative Kennedys.”

“Wait,” he ordered.

“I am not yours to boss around, Representative Kennedys.”

“We got off on the wrong foot, I see.”

“You only have yourself to blame for that.” Already regretting my choice to brave the crowds, I turned my chair and began the slow journey across the park to the street.

“Perhaps you are right. I apologize. You are not what I expected from an exsanguinator of your strength.”

Muttering curses under my breath, I stopped and turned my wheelchair to face him. “Well, yes. You decided to believe in a common prejudice without bothering to get to know me. It doesn’t matter how many lives I save when it comes to the prejudiced like you. I am still an exsanguinator, and that is all you need to know, isn’t it?” I allowed the merest hint of my scorn to show in my voice. “Unless you have something important to discuss, I have better things to do than pander to some politician who doesn’t even like me.”

The man gaped at me as though I’d kicked him in the groin.

I raised a brow and waited.