06. In the Hospital

"What have you done?!" Shandra screams, panicking, looking at her mother collapsed on the floor. She immediately drops the phone and runs to her.

Sam replies with absolute calm and fullness

"I didn't do anything."

"How did you not do anything?! Mom!" The young woman shakes her genitor quickly, and then puts her hand on her wrist to feel her heart rate. It seemed faint.

"I already told you I didn't do anything."

"She just fell down and passed out in front of me, don't tell me that was going to happen one way or another!"

"Fine. I won't tell."

The way Sam spoke, full of reassurance while panic stretched into every brain cell in Shandra, made her even more nervous and prone to outburst.

Making a decision, the girl rushes to the phone once again, finally managing to make the emergency call. Panicked, she explains that her father fell down the stairs, her mother probably had a heart attack, and gives the address right away.

About ten to twelve minutes later, a shrill siren is heard. Shandra rushes to open the front door and talk to the paramedics.

After a quick check-up and the usual questions are answered, the girl finds herself getting into the ambulance along with her parents lying on makeshift stretchers. The vehicle moves at high speed along the road, heading for the nearest hospital.

Perfectly upright and balanced, Sam is beside her. Shandra doesn't know if she wants to or can talk to him at that moment.

"I didn't do anything. I swear."

His voice sounds again in her mind, and although it still attests to a certain arrogance, it sounds like a true statement.

Well, maybe he really hadn't done anything. Maybe the parents were just paying, all at once, for the horrible things they did and would be doing right now to the little girl.

One of the doctors asked Shandra:

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen. But I turn eighteen next week."

"Do you have any family members that we can notify about your parents? You can't be unaccompanied in the hospital."

Sam quickly speaks up:

"Tell them your uncle is in town."

Shandra tries at all costs not to change her placid physique as she looks at the doctor, but mentally asks the demon:

"What?"

"Just say it."

"I have no way to sustain that lie, Sam."

"Say it now."

The doctor is still patiently waiting for the young woman's answer. She cracks a weak smile, scratching her head and forcing a false yawn.

"I'm sorry. I'm sleepy. You asked me if you have any family members who can accompany me?"

"Exactly," he replies.

"My uncle is in town. I can try calling him."

"All right, then. When your uncle arrives at the hospital, remind him to identify himself at the front desk before entering."

As soon as the man starts to go back to fiddling with the technical-name devices that Shandra didn't give a damn about, she frowned at Sam's absurdly placid expression.

"I hope that plan of yours works."

A wide, absolutely sensual and dangerous smile appeared on the boy's lips.

"All my plans work."

"You planned to stop me from saving my parents, and it didn't work."

"Fine. To be honest, all my plans that don't directly involve the need for someone else's permission work."

Grumpy, Shandra doesn't answer anymore. She looks at the pale faces of her parents, who are still absolutely still. None of the paramedics wanted to tell her clearly how serious their situation was.

When they arrived at the hospital, as soon as her parents came through the door, the young woman was told by the older doctor to wait near the reception desk and call her uncle.

She picked up her cell phone and, following Sam's specific instructions, simulated a perfect conversation between a desperate niece and a worried uncle. The girl took the necessary care to speak loud enough to be heard by the other paramedics.

"Okay, now what?" She mentally complains, putting her cell phone back in her pocket.

"Now you go in, sit down in one of the reception chairs, and wait a few minutes."

"Why?"

"Trust me."

As if she had a choice!

Snorting audibly, the girl walks inside the cold hospital reception. The cold air from the air-conditioner is the first thing she notices, and the girl crosses her arms as she tries to preserve some warmth.

The second thing Shandra notices, however, is how the place is practically empty. Apart from the presence of the young woman herself and the receptionist, who already knows who she is and therefore doesn't give her greater attention, there is only one unknown man fiddling with his cell phone in one of the far chairs.

Shandra does as the demon instructed, and while she waits patiently for him to appear, she starts fiddling with the locket. How could that ordinary five dollars and fifty cents thing be so magically strong as to sustain an invocation?

Now that he was with her, did they both need to review some sort of agreement? Draft a document? All Sam had told her was that he was there to help her get what she wanted, destruction of enemies and revenge.

For now, even if the man insisted on saying that he had nothing to do with it, she could swear that her parents' current situation was directly linked to this desire.

The day when Shandra, in total desperation and panic, made a magic circle and gave the only one to a ritual she thought was merely a fake, deep in her soul she felt that it worked. As soon as her blood dripped onto the center of the symbol, her heart beat so fast she thought she was going to die.

Thanks to her interaction with Sam, she now knew that demons not only existed, but also a real, literal hell. I wondered if there was an opening there for her as well. Making pacts didn't exactly make her a good person.

Her thoughts are interrupted when the double doors of the hospital open.

A middle-aged man wearing a black overcoat, slacks, heavily shined shoes, and a hat looks at the disclosure chairs, looking quite distressed and anxious. He is rather gray for his age, a bit fat and cheeky.

And he looks very, very much like her father.

His blue eyes fix on the girl, and he rushes over to her, his voice hoarse with concern:

"Niece! Where are your parents?"