Page 94 of Ruthlessly Mated

“From singles and divorcees.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“We should see the doctor,” I repeat.

This time, he agrees.

That same afternoon, the three of us are taking up all the space in the waiting room. When Mandy comes bustling in, her eyes run across all of us. “None of you seem to have any bullet holes in you, which is a good thing. Which one of you wants to go first?”

“We’re not here for us,” I say.

“You’re not?” she says. “Usually patients come here because they need treatment.”

“We think there’s something wrong with Kita.”

“Oh? Has she been nauseous?” She takes a shot in the dark and misses entirely. Strange. I imagine if a doctor had to guess the reason for someone’s visit it would take them a very long time. Highly inefficient.

“Uhm. No.”

“Okay,” she says, seeming surprised. “What is wrong with her?”

“We think she might be possessed.”

Her lips quirk in an odd way, and her eyes seem to sparkle.

“Possessed?”

“Yes.”

“Well, fortunately, possession is not a medical condition, so I think we can rule that out.”

Conroy starts. “She’s been behaving very…” We look at one another.

“Temperamentally,” I explain. “She doesn’t seem like herself.”

“In what way?”

“She has the temperament of a rabid badger,” Tailor says.

“She’s drawing blood,” I add. “And she’s eating a lot. Quite a lot.”

The doctor nods. “Any weakness? Dizziness?”

“The opposite. I’ve never seen her so strong.”

“Alright, well, she sounds healthy and what you’re saying her is quite normal given her situation.”

“What situation?”

The doctor looks surprised for a moment, then clamps her mouth shut, her lips forming a thin line oddly reminiscent of a vault. Whatever she was going to say will never be said.

“If you have any real concerns about your partner, bring her in for a checkup. In fact, bring her in,” she says. “But possession is not a medically diagnosable condition, though behavioral changes are sometimes linked to hormonal shifts.”

“I don’t know if she will come in.”

“Tell her I would like to see her tomorrow for some monitoring,” she says.

“She won’t like it.”