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“Not much fun,” he replied with a slight smile, “but, yes, it was good since it was under controlled conditions and gave me a great deal of information. I’ve made adjustments and suspect it will be smooth sailing through the remainder of the procedure.”
“I’m all for smooth,” I assured him. “That was enough excitement for one day.”
“I understand completely, Angel,” Dr. Nikas said. “The good news is that there’s nothing you need to do but be still for about half an hour while the parasites commune.”
“What’s the bad news?”
“You’ll need to be still for about half an hour while the parasites commune.” His eyes flashed with amusement.
“Are you accusing me of being fidgety?” I made a show of trying to roll my duct taped chair. “Jacques made sure I wouldn’t break anything this time.”
Dr. Nikas laughed and shook his head, then moved off to check the monitoring equipment. “Philip, how are you feeling now?”
“Good. I had a killer headache during the procedure, but now I feel better than when I came in,” he said, his voice clear again. “The leg pain is gone, and I’m not as tired.”
“Excellent.” Dr. Nikas made notes on the whiteboard and muttered to himself. “Excellent,” he repeated a moment later as he stepped back to take in the whole of what he’d written. “Thank you, Jacques. That’s all I need for now.” The lab tech nodded and departed, and Dr. Nikas glanced our way. “Everything appears stable, so at the moment we’re simply waiting. Philip, keep the ice pack on your jaw.”
His cell phone rang, and he answered with a simple “Yes?” then listened for a few seconds. “Now?” He frowned, glanced back at us, then to the whiteboard. “Are you—? Yes, all right.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket, glanced at us and gave a vague smile, then departed.
“You sure you’re okay?” I asked Philip.
“Bright and shiny, Zombie Mama,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to do that every day, but if it helps me, I’m not going to complain.”
“Good deal,” I said, truly relieved. “You sure are full of surprises.”
He snorted. “If I heard right, it was your parasite that overreacted.”
“And yours that couldn’t cope,” I teased. Laughing at the horror of it made it easier not to freak about it.
“Angel, you need to hold still,” Philip reminded me, and I realized I’d started fidgeting and swiveling the seat. I needed something to distract me.
“Damn,” I muttered. “I left my phone with my audiobook in the central lab.”
“What are you listening to?” Philip asked.
“Uh . . .” I racked my brain for something that didn’t sound as stupid as what I was actually listening to. “Moby Dick,” I blurted.
There was a moment of pregnant silence before Philip spoke again. “Really?”
I groaned. “No. I lasted about five minutes into that book before I gave up on it. Now I’m listening to Passion of the Viking.”
He made a strange cough that I knew damn well was him choking back a laugh. “Is his helmet horny?”
“Shut up.”
“Does he go all berserker with her?”
“I swear to god, I will cut you.”
He snickered, but wisely held back any more commentary.
I busied myself by counting tiles on the floor, then tiles on the ceiling. Thankfully, Jacques entered right about the time I was trying to figure out how many speckles each floor tile had. I gave him an expectant look, but his full focus was on the readings on the computer screen. Not that I expected him to be all chatty. He wasn’t exactly known for being overly talkative. But it was still better than counting tile specks.
“Almost done?” I asked hopefully.
“Forty seconds,” he murmured, eyes glued to the screen.
“Good,” I said with a sigh of relief. “I’m starving for some real food.”
