It turns out it is Lieutenant Acton who has called her and told what has happened, how she was found out on Canyon Road.
"For a minute". Sometimes SRD's humor is so...pitch-black...For a minute, I had an impulse to grab the Olds and head for Canyon Road-out toward the mountains east of the city, where only the richest of the rich live- and start banging doors until I found wherever it was Alathea'd come from. It was a crazy idea....
Then they wait together, they wait for a very long time until a doctor finally shows up...her condition is stable and soon they can see her but still in a coma and the doctor don't know when or if she will rise out of it. Depends on how much her brain has been hurt. Seems like Alathea's case is rather unusual, her mind fighting the body as hard as it can and then a backlash...
Ginny and Lona leaves for the elevator but Brew lingers and asks the doctor some questions after he explains who he is. Among them an utterly cruel and blunt one:
I was so surprised at Brew's insensitivity when I read this. Brew was upset of course, and in chocked, but still...but it is also effective, storytelling-wise. In all the commotion going on at this moment, comes this question, it really gets to you..."Is she a virgin?
He grimaced. Disgusted at me-or at the question. Or at the answer. "Not by a long shot."
Brew catches up with Ginny and Lona. They take the elevator to the eight floor and find the room where Alathea is. At her door they meet another doctor entering; dr Stevens, a freckled man with red hair...He tells them to wait and enters. After three minutes he leaves and Brew get bad vibes from him...
They see Alathea looking like death herself. Lona starts to cry and so does Brew.
Brew is in an emotional turmoil, changes from sorrow to anger, becoming more analytical again. A hard moment for him, seeing his niece close to death like this...Then Stretto enters and starts babbling, this gets Brew going, asking Stretto how many people knew Alathea was where she was...Then Ted enters, wanting to discuss something with Brew, almost accusing them for missing the point, that the children were kidnapped, not for the sake of drugs but for the sake of prostitution. They were kidnapped by a pimp. Then Ted gives Brew a description of a man who lines the girls up...Seems like old Ted has been digging up something really worthwhile...Red hair, freckles, called Sevin Rinlassen...I shamble dover to the window, trying to control myself. For a couple of bad minutes, I couldn't seem to do it. But slowly my anger came back, and my eyes started to clear. I hit my knuckles on the windowsill until I could see straight again. Then I looked around.
Brew paralyses, he realises it is Dr Stevens that came with a bag but left without...Time stands still, seconds feels like eons, while Ginny comes up with Dr Stevens black bag. It is filled with dynamite and it is ticking...Lona faints, but Ginny takes hold of the situation, tells Ted to go the nurses station, tell the cops and the hospital the situation, tells Stretto to take Lona, tells Brew to open the window!...is she going to throw the bomb outside with people out there?...it's a good action-sequence here...then tells him to leave with Alathea, he starts to do that but is meetin Stretto and Ted and tell them to take her. He goes back to Ginny, she is holding the bomb outside the window, protecting herself with the wall...a nurse comes for an old lady in the room...Ginny refuses to let go of the bomb or leave it to Brew, but he still can persuade her to use her left arm, then the bomb goes off...
This was some chapter! Fantastic action-sequence to end it with...but I have always wondered if it was the right thing to do, to keep the bag out the window the way Ginny did, was there really no other way? I don't know what I would have done though, maybe just put it on the windowsill, but we're talking about seconds here, I don't know...Great chapter!!! WOW!Her left hand was gone. What remained of her forearm was just mangled meat. But her heart was still beating. Blood pumped out of her stump on to the floor. It looked like all the blood in the world.
kasten