Page 46 of Dark Rebel’s Reckoning (The Children Of The Gods #93)

46

FENELLA

F enella flipped through the pages of an old magazine she'd found on the table in the waiting room, not paying attention to the gossip articles that were old news or the Photoshopped pictures of celebrities that looked too good to be real and obviously weren't.

Not unless they were flawless immortals.

She'd been a pretty girl before her transition, but the subtle changes that followed smoothed out all the little imperfections, making her skin flawless, almost luminous, and her hair thick and glossy. Her figure was perfect no matter how much junk she stuffed down her throat or how much alcohol she consumed.

Makeup was no longer necessary.

Fenella had more trouble pushing men away than attracting them, and after five decades of that, she was pretty sick of that whole sexual dance. Men just weren't that great even though they thought they were, and she would have gladly done without, but another aspect of her changed physique was an almost insatiable libido. So, even though her mind and heart weren't into men and sex, her body was.

Next to her, the girls were talking with Jasmine and Kyra in hushed voices, but she tuned them all out. They were a family, and she was an outsider. The sooner she could carve out her own space, the better.

As the patient door opened and Laleh emerged, Fenella tensed.

She'd waited until all of them were done, and now that it was her turn she couldn't let them know she was nervous, not after all her tough talk about just getting it done and moving on. She'd offered to go last to buy herself time to steel her nerves.

Fifty years of solitary survival had taught her to project fearlessness even when she was terrified, and she was maintaining that facade with practiced precision right now.

"Fenella?" Dr. Bridget called from the doorway. "Ready when you are."

"Coming." She dropped the magazine on the table and rose with a casualness she didn't feel. She flashed the girls a reassuring grin. "No need to wait for me. I'll see you upstairs. Don't eat all the ice cream before I get there."

Laleh's eyes widened. "There is ice cream?"

"Three different flavors," Fenella said as she walked into the examination room. "Check the freezer."

Once the door closed behind her, Fenella felt her carefully constructed bravado begin to crack. Despite looking nothing like the cell she'd been kept in, it was small, and the sight of the tray with all the vials waiting for her blood triggered unwelcome memories.

The nurse handed her a container to pee in and a folded hospital gown. "The bathroom is through there." She pointed at the door. "You know what to do, right?"

"Pee in the cup and try not to pee on my hand." She winked at Gertrude before ducking into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

There had been no bathroom in the cell, so this one should not have evoked bad memories, but it still looked like something that belonged in a hospital and Fenella hated it.

After taking off her clothes, she did her business in the cup, screwed the lid tight, and wrapped the thing in a paper towel in case a few drops had missed the container. She put the gown on without bothering to tie it in the back and walked into the room.

"You can put the cup next to the sink, then hop on the bed and give me your arm," the nurse said with too much cheerfulness in her voice. "It's just a standard blood draw. All you'll feel is a small pinch, and we'll be done before you know it."

Fenella nodded, sitting on the bed and extending her arm while focusing on a watercolor landscape on the opposite wall. The painting depicted a mountain stream winding through a meadow dotted with wildflowers, and she imagined herself walking through it, using it as an anchor against the memories threatening to pull her under.

"You're quiet," Bridget observed as she prepared her instruments. "How are you feeling?"

"Peachy," Fenella replied, her Scottish accent thickening as it always did when she was nervous. "Just eager to get this over with."

The doctor's smart eyes saw more than Fenella was comfortable with. "If there is anything that is bothering you or anything that you want to get off your chest, feel free to say it. This is a safe space."

A bitter laugh escaped before Fenella could stop it. "Yeah. Safe space." She hadn't intended to sound mocking. "Sorry," she added. "It's been a rough few... decades, really."

Bridget nodded, waiting for Gertrude to finish.

It took a while to fill all those blood collection tubes, but when it was finally done, Gertrude collected the tray and the pee sample and rushed off to the lab they had in the back of the clinic.

"I'm impressed that you can do everything in house," Fenella said as she lay down on the hospital bed.

"It's necessary." Bridget wrote something on her tablet. "We can't allow immortal blood to fall into the hands of humans."

"Is there anything that can give us away?"

Bridget gave her an incredulous look. "Not in a standard blood test, but someone might want to run more than the standard tests, and we can't have that, can we?"

The examination proceeded much as Kyra's and the girls' had, with Bridget explaining each step before taking action. Fenella responded to questions with minimal words, focusing on maintaining control as memories flickered at the edges of her consciousness.

"I need to do the internal exam now. Would you prefer me to walk you through it step by step, or would you rather I work quickly and quietly?"

The consideration in the question and the acknowledgment of her agency nearly undid her.

"Quickly," she managed, her throat tight. "Please."

Bridget nodded. "Deep breath. This will be over soon."

His hands had never been gentle. He'd called it "examination" too, but his eyes had burned with something that had nothing to do with medical interest.

Fenella forced herself to focus on her breathing. In for four counts, hold for four, out for four. A technique she'd learned in a yoga class back home all those years ago, during that brief period when she'd tried to find peace in ashrams and meditation retreats. Before her restlessness had driven her back to the road, to poker tables and bars and the endless search for something she couldn't name.

"Almost done," Bridget assured her, true to her word about keeping the examination brief. "You're doing great."

The praise, simple as it was, lit a small flame of warmth in Fenella's chest. How long had it been since anyone had said something encouraging to her?

"There we go, all finished," Bridget said, stepping back. "You can get dressed now. I'll be in my office right off the waiting room. We can talk there."

"Yes. Thank you," Fenella murmured before escaping to the bathroom.

When she emerged into the waiting room, Kyra and the rest of the gang were gone, and the door to Bridget's office was open.

The room was tiny, with barely enough room for the desk and chairs, but it looked much less threatening than the other spaces in the clinic.

The doctor sat behind the desk and motioned for Fenella to sit. "First things first, I didn't detect a pregnancy, and the urine test was negative. We still need to wait for the blood test to make sure, but I think you can relax. You are not pregnant."

Fenella let out a breath. "That's a relief. What about all the other stuff?"

"As we both expected, your body healed all injuries and probably all the chemical damage as well, but we still need to wait for the blood test results, and some of them take time."

Fenella nodded, having expected nothing less. One of the blessings of immortality was rapid healing.

"Thank you," she said. "What about the fertility drugs? Could they have worked?"

Bridget shook her head. "No. We tried using them to increase our females' fertility, but human fertility medications had no effect on us. Our bodies work differently."

"The fake doctor had no idea what he was doing," Fenella said dryly.

Bridget tucked a strand of flaming red hair behind her ear. "Would you like to talk to someone about the psychological impact of your captivity? We have a clan counselor with whom I can put you in touch."

Fenella stiffened. "I'm fine. I've dealt with worse."

"Have you?" Bridget asked, her tone neutral. "Fifty years of independence, suddenly stripped away. Imprisonment. Violation. Drugging and abuse. These are significant traumas, Fenella, even for someone as resilient as you clearly are."

She'd clawed, bitten, kicked—used every dirty trick she'd learned in back-alley bars across Europe and Asia.

He'd seemed almost impressed before the needle had slid home and darkness had claimed her. The second time, she'd still struggled. By the tenth time, she'd stopped counting, stopped fighting, stopped hoping...

"I survived," Fenella said flatly. "That's what matters."

"Survival is the first step," Bridget agreed. "But healing is the journey that follows. You don't have to do it alone."

Fenella looked away, uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation. She'd spent decades building walls around her vulnerabilities, learning to depend on no one but herself. The thought of dismantling those defenses, of examining the damage beneath, was terrifying.

"I'm fine, really," she insisted. "I'm not broken."

"I've never suggested you were," Bridget said. "But acknowledging your emotional scars isn't weakness, Fenella. It's the opposite—it's recognizing your own strength in enduring it."

Something about the simple statement caught Fenella off guard. All her life, or at least the last fifty years of it, she'd equated vulnerability with weakness. To admit pain was to invite exploitation. To show fear was to become prey.

"You might experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress," Bridget continued. "Flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance, emotional numbness. These are normal responses to abnormal situations."

Fenella frowned at the doctor. "I haven't heard you talking with any of the others about getting psychological help. Why me? Do I look weaker than the others?"

"Of course not. You are incredibly strong. The only reason I can talk to you is that I have you here alone and that I know you can handle it. The girls are not ready to talk, and Kyra is going on a mission tomorrow."

That was a relief. For a moment there Fenella had thought that Bridget could see through her tough facade.

"I've been having flashbacks," she admitted reluctantly.

The nightmares had started during her captivity—vivid dreams of freedom, of open skies and endless roads, only to wake to concrete walls and the smell of fear. Sometimes, even as she'd slipped in and out of drug-induced hazes, she'd no longer been sure which was the dream and which was reality.

Bridget nodded. "That's a common symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Your mind is processing what happened, trying to make sense of it."

"How do I make it stop?" Fenella asked.

"It doesn't stop overnight," Bridget said gently. "But there are techniques and therapies that can help manage the symptoms and, eventually, reduce their frequency and intensity. Vanessa will walk you through it."

Fenella scoffed. "Talking about my feelings is not really my style."

"There are many approaches," Bridget said, unfazed by her skepticism. "Cognitive-behavioral therapy, mindfulness practices. Vanessa is an expert. I don't know if you are aware of the fact that the clan rescues victims of trafficking and rehabilitates them. Vanessa runs the sanctuary."

"That's really nice, and kudos to you, but I don't want to be seen as a victim," Fenella finally admitted. "I can't stand pity."

"Healing isn't about victimhood," Bridget said. "It's about reclaiming your sense of self."

She didn't have a rebuttal for that, so she said nothing.

"The clan will support your recovery in whatever way you need," Bridget said. "If you don't want formal therapy, that's fine. Just living in the safety of our village and finally being among people like you might be enough."

"What if I want to return to Scotland or somewhere else entirely?"

Bridget hesitated. "We have a community in Scotland that you can join, but living alone is not recommended. There are many more Doomers than clan members, and as you've experienced, they are not good people. You are a highly coveted commodity to them, and it's much easier to identify an immortal female than it is a Dormant. That said, I don't want you to think you will be confined to either location. After you recover, you can travel as much as you want, but we will keep tabs on you to ensure you are okay."

"That sounds perfect. Thank you."

Bridget smiled. "You're welcome, Fenella. You have a home now, and you belong to a community of people like you. You are no longer alone."