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"I am." I forced a smile and nodded. "Thanks for being here." I stared at her while we drove down the street. "Your hair is pink and blue," I said with a smile.
"Do you like it?" she asked, running her hand over her pigtails, which bounced perkily when the car drove over bumps in the road.
"You look like Harley Quinn."
She laughed. "That's the effect I was going for."
We drove on, and my smile faded when my thoughts turned from Amy's love of Joker's main squeeze to my brother Graham. There was nothing left to do but wait until we got there to find out what the hell happened.
Finally, after what felt like ages, we stopped in front of the Mass General entrance and I got out of the car, slinging my book bag over my shoulder. I leaned in to the open window and caught her eye.
"Thanks for this."
She nodded. "Do you want me to park and come in?"
I glanced around at the busy parking lot. "No, that's okay. I know you have classes this afternoon."
"I can cancel if you want. I can stay with you."
I shook my head. "I'll call you if I need you. Go on. One of us should attend class."
"Okay," she said doubtfully. "You text me and keep my up to date with what happened and how Graham's doing. You know I always had a crush on him."
"Eww," I said and made a face of mock disgust. "I know you had a crush on my brother. You still do."
"I do," she said with a sigh. "Tell him I hope he gets better soon."
"I will."
She blew me a kiss and drove off so I went into the hospital and worked my way through the maze of hallways and elevators until I found the ICU. I went through a set of double doors and down a busy hall with a row of individual rooms with big glass windows so the nurses could watch the entire ward.
People lay on beds, the heads raised, and some were intubated, tubes either in their mouths or through tracheotomies. Wires and tubes ran from their bodies to machines, and telemetry recorded their heart rates and respirations. The beep-beep-beep of the ECGs was like a cacophony and it set my nerves off. My hands actually shook.
I went to the nursing station and stood at the counter, waiting for someone to notice me. The nurses were busy consulting a chart or on the phone. Finally, a man in scrubs with a stethoscope around his neck turned to me.
"Can I help you?" he asked. An older man in his fifties with thinning grey hair, he had a kind face and warm brown eyes.
"Yes, I'm here to see Graham Parker. I'm his sister, Celia. Someone called me and said I should come right down."
He nodded. "Yes," he said and pulled up a screen on his monitor. "I'm Doctor Malone. Your brother is in Room 12. Just down the hall."
"How is he?"
He stood and came over to where I was at the counter. "He's been beaten pretty badly and was unconscious when the EMTs brought him in. He has a concussion, some cuts and bruises and internal injuries. We had to wire his jaw shut because it was broken. I'll take you to see him."
I followed him down the hall. While we walked, he recounted what happened.
"According to your brother's friend, Graham left with three men in a van he met outside his office. They must have beaten him up and then dumped him in the back alley behind his building. Your brother's friend called the ambulance and they brought him here."
We went into a tiny room and it was hard for me to believe it was Graham for his face was beaten so badly that he was almost unrecognizable, his eyes swollen shut and already turning blue-purple. His head was wrapped with white bandage.
"Oh, my God," I cried and covered my mouth. "What did they do to him?"
"He's lost a few teeth. And they did this," the doctor said and lifted up Graham's gown to reveal a large bandage. He peeled back one edge and lifted the bandage up. Underneath were several letters carved into his abdomen, the edges bloody and held together with butterfly sutures where there weren't stitches.
The letters read '7 DAYS'.
"Seven days?" I stepped closer. "What does that mean?"
