The Arrangement (unenhanced Edition) by AnnaRCase (books to read now .txt) 📖

Coming from someone who’d had things shoved into every orifice in their body, saying she felt violated meant a lot. Which is exactly the way Amberleigh described what came after Grayson Godwin’s driver picked her up outside the back entrance to the Cobra Club at precisely midnight.

The driver was brisk and direct as he opened the back door for her in the black car, and placed her luggage in the trunk. A man of few words, and apparently no personality, as he informed her under Mr. Godwin’s order he was transporting her directly to medical facility. No more, no less. When she tried to get some details, he engaged in the silent game, eyes forward on the road. Well, that’s also brought back childhood memories, because many times her mother had treated Amberleigh like she didn’t exist.

Amberleigh watched the city passing by. They were in the clean, cheerful parts of Omega City where you could see your reflection in the gleam of the buildings, and you didn’t have to keep a death grip on your purses. In this part of the city, it was harder to see the lie that everyone wasn’t fucked and living on borrowed time.  Here, the lie was white washed like the marble façade of the buildings lining Fifth Avenue. Truth was if LEDA didn’t find that cure soon, and these walls were breached, well this city was going to die, even while wearing their designer threads. Death didn’t give a fuck if you smelled like Chanel number five or a sewer. It was coming for us all.

Children of the Fringe, or even worst out in the Wastes beyond the city wall, didn’t have the same luxury to ignore that inevitable truth. If the infection or the infected didn’t get you, a shit ton of other things would. Amberleigh remembered days with no food in their roach invested apartment and being subjected a variety of questionable characters her mother paraded in and out of her life. One of whom thought it was hilarious to get a five-year-old Amberleigh drunk and high for his own entertainment. Good times. At least it made the top of her do not do when I have kids list.

People like the Godwin’s probably let their kids have sips of fancy champagnes and shit as they grew up. Broke them in early to those acquired nasty as fuck haughty drinks. Amberleigh didn’t get such courtesy as she was forced to drink cheap beer and threw up. The other half certainly had it so much better. These were the random thoughts cycling through her head as the car pulled up to some state of the art medical center in downtown Omega City. Oddly enough the place was well lit, but only the employee lot had cars in it.

Amberleigh soon discovered the reason for this, this facility was only open during the day to the public, and the Godwin had paid to have a private session. The driver with the receding hairline, monotone voice, and tight suit, led her wordlessly to the back of the complex. There a man in a white lab coat, dark slacks, and shoes made of real Italian leather, let her in the back door. At least his face had expressions and he greeted her like she was a person and not a job. And he shook her hand!

“Miss Dubois, I’m Dr. Gainey.  It’s nice to meet you. I’ll be preforming a thorough medical work up on you tonight. All tests and procedures will be thoroughly explained to you beforehand. Right this way please.”

“Nice place you got here. It’s so clean and shiny.”

The doctor chuckled. He wasn’t bad to look at. Mid-thirties, his skin the tone of dark chocolate, with a charming goatee which accented his luscious lips, and notably no wedding ring. Down girl, you just signed a contract, be fuckin professional, Amberleigh warned herself as she followed him down the hallway.

This place was top notch, muted pastel colors, bamboo floors which took away that sterile hospital feel. Paintings of flowers, though one looked suspiciously like a vagina, and there was even a fuckin legit garden in the main lobby. You could walk a path around this garden which even had a fish pond, no lie. There was a fuckin self-serve latte bar for fuck sake!  Bottles of sparkling water, and tablets docked on a charging station for your use. Damn, rich people got to watch fish and smell flowers while they waited for their appointment, or sit with their pampered ass in plush, white chairs while they watched reality shows and shopped online. At these clinics in the Fringe, you waited in an overcrowded room with often nowhere to sit and your entertainment was to play the game is that man dead on the floor?

The doctor chuckled again when Amberleigh whistled at the fancy set up. He led her first to the lab, where a phlebotomist with shiny hair jabbed a needle into that fat vein in the crook of her arm.  She withdrew enough blood to fill tubes every color of the rainbow. Amberleigh was sure she would need a blood transfusion afterwards. The purple band- aid, cookie and juice after did make her feel a bit better. As did the Dr. Gainey’s grin and encouragement she did great.  That was of course easy to say when you weren’t the one who just had half their blood supply removed from their vein.

While at first she found Dr. Gainey’s boyish grin charming, several hours later, Amberleigh wished she could just throat punch him. Honestly, how many more fucking tests and shit could these people possibly do?