Page 120 of Ghost Ribbon

The specialist - Dr. Aldenberg, a man in his sixties with silver hair - was reviewing the records Ilya had acquired when the door opened and a nurse entered.

She was carrying a small tray.

On the tray was a needle.

I crossed the room in two strides and caught her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Dr—” she started, voice shaking. “Drawing blood. I need to draw blood.”

“Alexei.” I felt Marco’s hand on my sleeve, tugging lightly. “Alexei, let go.”

“It’s just blood work,” he said softly. “She’s doing her job.”

I looked back at the nurse. She was trying very hard not to cry.

I released her wrist. She moved to Marco’s side with the wariness of someone approaching a dangerous animal’s owner.

“Are you scared of needles?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m used to it.”

Used to it.

He was used to it.

He was used to being stuck with needles.

My hand came up and settled on his head, fingers sliding through his dark curls, cupping the back of his skull with a gentleness I didn’t know my body was capable of producing.

He leaned into the touch and the nurse inserted the needle.

I watched the dark blood flow into the tube and felt something in me go very, very still.

I hated the fact that he had endured this all of his life.

That his earliest memories probably included this. That somewhere in his mind, in the childhood recollection, there was a version of him - small, frightened, too young to understand - sitting on an examination table just like this.

That was his life.

That had always been his life.

A body under surveillance.

I kept my hand on his head until the nurse finished, my thumb moving in repetitive strokes against his temple. When she finally withdrew the needle and pressed a small cotton ball to the puncture, I reached over and held it in place myself, my fingers replacing hers.

“All done,” she murmured, then fled the room.

More tests followed.

An echocardiogram. An EKG. A stress test that made me grip the edge of my seat so hard my knuckles went white because watching Marco walk on a treadmill with sensors attached to his chest while medical staff monitored the slow degradation of his heart was, I had decided, a form of torture that should have been banned by international convention.

He was tired afterward. Eventually we were sitting in Aldenberg’s office.

I sat with my legs apart, elbows on my knees, staring at the doctor.

Aldenberg was reviewing the results. “Who was your doctor before?” he asked.

Marco shifted. “Dr. Reiner.”