Doppelganger

Chapter 8

Alec thought the kid looked freaked out when they reached a staff entrance on the back side of the hospital. Logan had said that the guy wanted to meet them at this entrance since if they came in the normal way, they would have to check in if they wanted to get past the waiting area.

While Logan reached forward to push the door open, Quip stepped backward and slipped halfway behind Alec's legs. He glanced down at her and caught her staring wide-eyed into the building as Logan pushed the door open, revealing the stereotypical white hallways and chrome fixtures. Seriously, couldn't they switch up their color scheme a little? Alec smirked. Maybe Joshua's love for abstract colors was rubbing off on him.

"Come on, squirt," he said, reaching back and nudging Quip forward when she hesitated. "It's just a door."

She flashed a frown up at him but pressed against his right leg as they stepped through the doorway and into the hospital. He didn't blame her. Places like this gave him the creeps, too, and brought up bad memories that he didn't want to experience again. Blue-tiled hallways, bare rooms, red lasers, syringes, saws, drills, scalpels, masked faces...

Violently, he flung the thoughts back into the recesses of his memory and focused on the present. Why was he here again? The warm little shape that seemed glued to his side. That's why. Oh, and there was a cute nurse, redhead, leaning against the wall with a clipboard in hand. Long fingers, long hair, long legs. Damn, he liked redheads. And brunettes. And blondes.

He felt someone staring at him, and he turned his head to see Max watching him. "What're you grinning about?" she asked, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Nothing." Ms. Redhead would probably like some nice guy to talk to. She looked bored. And hot.

"Mmhmm. Sure," Max replied. "I swear, Alec, if you steal something from here, I will hunt you down and make you pay it back. And extra."

"Will that be a payment in money or pain?" he asked, "'cause it matters, you know."

"You're impossible," Max said, shaking her head.

Alec was about to retort when Quip's weight suddenly disappeared from his side. He glanced down and caught sight of the heel of one sneaker zipping around the corner of a nearby counter that framed a small reception area. He quirked up an eyebrow and looked down the hallway to see Logan standing beside a man with a receding hairline who was wearing a lab coat. The metal name plate on it said Dr. Carr.

Oh. No wonder the kid was playing Escape-and-Evade.

Sighing, Alec walked over to the counter. He smiled at the doughty, middle-aged woman who was sitting behind a computer, her hand wrapped around a ceramic coffee mug. "Sorry to bother you, but you don't happen to see a kid back there, do you?"

The woman looked up at him, and her eyes lighted up with appreciation as she took in his Manticore-crafted, Sandeman-approved face. "Sorry, honey, but I'm not sure..."

"My little sister seems to have disappeared on me," he said. He picked up a pen that was laying on the counter and put it back in a cup with other pens and pencils before he looked at her again with that disarming smile he knew so well how to use. "She doesn't really like hospitals, and she's a little nervous about being here, so I think she hid back there when I wasn't looking. Maybe she was looking for her teddy bear."

There was a quiet, irritated growl, but he still heard it. He nodded to the floor-level cabinets that were behind the woman. "Maybe if you check in those. She likes small spaces."

"Oh, sweetheart, I don't think she'll be there," the woman said even as she turned her swivel chair around, "And I would have heard her...but I'll take a look."