Claws of Mercy. Natalie Yacobson

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СКАЧАТЬ the attending physicians with a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates, as they will treat your ailments with great compassion. Of course, sometimes there are honest people.”

      “But the best way out of illnesses is not to get sick. Therefore, in my spare time I do sports and drink vitamins by the handful.”

      Ruslan noticed the strange shadows on the construction site again. It seemed that they were whispering something and giving him strange thoughts about the coming immortality. No wonder. In the shadow of the temple such thoughts should come to mind. And the palace that Vereskovsky is building is exactly like a temple.

      Ruslan threw back his head and looked up. There were no birds flying about, neither small nor large. So where do winged shadows come from?

      “He’s spotted us!” A nasty hissing voice said.

      Dima had just stepped back to throw away the pizza wrappers and empty bottles when something on the construction site suddenly tilted. It seemed as if a crane had suddenly turned, but the chauffeur’s booth in it was empty. Was the rotunda collapsing?

      Ruslan looked back at it, but it too stood as still as a monument.

      “You saw us!” A nasty voice whispered in Ruslan’s ear.

      Suddenly something huge covered the sun. It was no longer a winged shadow, but something rectangular and bulky. A huge block seemed to have fallen off from somewhere. But from where is it? And where will it fall? If it’s right on top of him, it’s too late to run. At the same time there was the sound of falling bricks and an obnoxious giggle. Ruslan felt an unbearable weight on him, and his eyes darkened.

      The mysterious brunette

      The creepy giggling was in his ears. The workers couldn’t be joking like this, could they? They don’t seem to care about jokes. Everyone was swamped with work. Everyone had frightened faces. A block at the construction site had indeed fallen. Ruslan expected all his bones to be shattered, but it turned out that he had only abrasions. The rubble had been cleared away, but the bandages from the first aid kit were not enough to stop the bleeding.

      “Wait, we’ll get you to the hospital,” Dima wailed over him.

      His buddy’s voice was overlapped by someone’s whistling whisper. A winged shadow loomed over Dima.

      “It will crush you too,” Ruslan wanted to shout, but only wheezes came out of his mouth. Somehow he was sure that the winged creature that had collapsed the block was a girl. He must have imagined it. Dima was still fussing over him, giving some urgent orders and calling on his phone. Ruslan’s consciousness was falling into darkness. Probably he was going to die now, and the winged figure he saw was an angel from hell.

      Ruslan woke up in bed, covered with a thin blanket. The first sensation was the needle of a syringe frozen in his skin. The nurse’s manicured hands were giving him an injection. Fingernails covered in red nail polish were pulling back the plunger. The syringe seemed to fill with blood.

      Apparently he wasn’t being injected with a dose of anesthetic, but blood was being drawn from his vein for analysis. Ruslan lifted his head from the pillow and thought he was dreaming. Next to his bunk was that mysterious brunette in a nurse’s uniform. She appeared even more beautiful up close. Her face was as pale as a ghost’s. Her black eyeliner and eyelashes seemed painted on. Her lips, thickly painted with scarlet lipstick, somehow reminded hime of beautiful vampires rising from their coffins at night. It was night, by the way. The blinds on the hospital windows were raised, and the moon was visible behind them.

      “Don’t move!” The beauty warned.

      Ruslan noticed her shapely breasts heaving under her uniform and thought that it would be a pleasure to be treated under her supervision. Just think of it! He was glad he’d come to the hospital because she was here. He used to be scared as hell of hospitals, syringes and various surgical instruments. And now there’s a crazy thought in his head that he’ll be pleased even if a stranger cuts him open alive for the sake of experimentation.

      “That’s it!” She removed the syringe, which had no blood in it.

      He couldn’t have been dreaming, could he? Or did he hit his head too hard when he fell?

      “I was going to give you a medicine dropper, but I can see you’re coming around. You just need to get some rest.”

      The beauty’s voice flowed like music. Ruslan could barely make out the words. In any case, he didn’t understand much about medical terms. More than listening, he liked to look at the nurse. She was as graceful as a model and more beautiful than all the superstars put together. What stars, she was more beautiful than the Olympic goddesses! There was something Asian about her features. One of his classmates often said that Asian women were the most beautiful. Ruslan hadn’t shared his opinion before, but now it was as if he had fallen in love.

      “You remind me of a fox demon,” Ruslan said, remembering some of the doramas he had watched in his student days.

      The beauty took no offense.

      “Call me Tamara.”

      “Tamara?” Ruslan was surprised to hear a typical Russian name. He was ready to hear something exotic.

      “And the last name?”

      “Just Tamara,” she smiled. The nametag on her uniform was blank.

      “I’m Ruslan.”

      “I know.”

      “How is it?”

      “I had to fill out your admission form. Your friend brought you and your papers.”

      “He is my colleague,” Ruslan corrected.

      “Colleagues are usually friends.”

      “It is not always,” Ruslan remembered the sullen construction workers from the oligarch’s lands. You couldn’t get a friendly word out of them. But they were all his colleagues. Well, at least employees. After all, they worked on the construction of the mansion in the same team. And now he’s in the hospital.

      “How are you feeling?” Tamara touched his forehead, checking his temperature. He liked her touch. It’s the same when the night touches you. Tamara’s hand was cold and smooth as marble.

      “I feel strange,” Ruslan admitted to her, “as if I were already dead.

      He wouldn’t say that to a doctor. Tamara didn’t panic. She studied the patient with her eyes, not with her instruments.

      “Would you like to listen to my heart or take a cardiogram?” Ruslan joked.

      “No,” Tamara answered seriously. “You’re healthy. You’ll be discharged in three days.”

      “Healthy people don’t go to hospital. And why do you speak about three days?”

      “No one stays longer than three days.”

      “This hospital is magic!”

      Tamara waved her black mascara eyelashes to hide her eyes for a moment. It made it seem like she was hiding something.

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