Dead or Alive: Makes No Difference-Ch. 4

“Who wrote this?” Milo demanded to know.1

“We don’t know. I came back here ‘cause I left my phone in here earlier this morning. When I came in here I saw it. I called Caitlyn up and told her. She then got you.” Luke explained.2

“Where’s Jess?” Milo asked, noticing then that there were only three of them, rather than four.3

“We didn’t get her, figured she’d been shaken up enough today.” Caitlyn told him pointedly. Milo glanced over at Luke. Luke gave him a look saying that he shouldn’t worry. Milo walked over to the wall and seemed to be analyzing the blood, he then turned and looked at the two.4

“Where’d the blood come from, did you and Jess clean up the mess this morning?” he said, looking mostly at Caitlyn.5

“We did. I don’t know where the blood came from. It’s very possible someone snuck into the blood cabinet and brought some up here, because Mr. Parson’s blood was completely cleaned up.” She told him.6

“Someone should test it, find out where it came from.” He said as he stepped away from the wall. He walked over to Caitlyn and Luke who were standing in the middle of the room. 7

“I’ll do that, I’m supposed to be in the lab anyways going over blood samples.” Luke said. Milo walked over to a cabinet in the room and pulled out a cotton swab and a plastic bag. Taking the swab back over to the wall, he swiped the swab across it taking of some of the blood. After putting the swab in the bag, he handed it over to Luke.8

“Has anyone checked on Frankie since this morning, or last night even?” Milo questioned suddenly, his thoughts going to the group’s project. The project had been affectionately named by Luke.9

“I was busy with you taking the body up.” Luke told him, Milo’s gaze went to over to Caitlyn.10

“Not today, after we cleaned up we headed into the running part of the hospital. Dr. Charlt started us on work early.” She said; her voice gave way to the fact that she had not liked having to go to work early.11

“So, you’re both telling me that no one has checked on this thing that we’ve been working our butts off on after what happened this morning?” Milo questioned in a calm, yet cold tone.12

“Dude, take it easy. We were just preoccupied with other things, you didn’t think of it either.” Luke said, recognizing the signs of his friend about to seriously loose it. Milo sent a cold, hard stare towards his blond haired, blue-eyed friend. Luke gave a subtle gulp at the stare he was getting, as it was on very rare occasions that he was on the receiving end of his friend’s anger.13

“What makes you so darn sure that I didn’t think of it. Maybe I was just waiting for one of you dimwitted, so called doctoral residents, to think of it, to actually take the responsibility for once.” He shot at both of them. Caitlyn cringed slightly at his outburst, sure she got under his skin and they were always at each other’s throats, but never had he spoken so vehemently to her. She watched as he took an angry glance at them before he proceeded to pace, his breathing heavy.14

“Mi, we’ll check on Frankie now, Caitlyn and I will go, make sure everything’s still as it should be.” Luke said after a minute, hoping to calm his friend down. The last time he’d received this side of Milo was when they were rooming together during their senior year at Case. He didn’t even remember what it was about; all he knew was that it had to have been something bad for Milo to have been so angry. It wasn’t usual for Milo to make outbursts of anger though, from Luke’s experience he would get angry and before he said anything he might regret he’d walk out and just take a walk around the city to clear his head.15

“No, we’re splitting up. From this point on, you’re with Jess, Luke; the two of you will stick together, don’t let her out of your sight and Caitlyn, you’re with me.” He said, looking at Caitlyn now. He had now stopped pacing. He took one last look at the two of them before leaving the room.16

“Ok, now what, should I follow him or something?” Caitlyn asked, once he was gone.17

“No, wait. Milo gets like this once and awhile, usually when something big is going on. Just give him a little time to cool down and then go find him.” Luke told her. They walked out of the room and headed towards the working part of the hospital.18

“So any idea why he placed Jess with you?” she asked as they walked. He turned at looked at her, or rather slightly down at her. He was tall, but so was she. She’d reached about an inch below Milo, who was only about six feet, while he was 6’5”.19

“I don’t know, maybe he was afraid he’d scare her or something.” He said, attempting to make a joke. He knew the reason he had been placed with Jess though, because he had been given the job originally to watch her, mostly because she trusted him more than she really trusted Milo. Her quiet stature only made Milo annoyed most of the time.20

“Yeah. Doesn’t he realize he’s gonna die early if he doesn’t ease up?” she said sarcastically. They had just about made their way to the bustling end of the hospital. Luke let out a sigh before answering. There were few moments he was serious, to him life was fun and being that he worked in a hospital where death, unfortunately did occur on a daily basis, he planned to make the most of his life, however, when matters of his friend arose he was serious. Milo was like a brother to him and never once would he speak wrongly of him when he wasn’t around, because then it would not be in fun in hopes to get his attention.21

“Caitlyn, there’s things about Milo that people don’t know unless they’ve known him most of his life. Few people outside of that scope know enough about him to understand why he is the way he is. I know he’s hard sometimes, but he’s not a bad man. Just lighten up on him a little, alright.” He said looking straight at her. She was looking at him as he spoke and when he was done she turned her blue eyes straight ahead of her. They were walking down the hallway towards the blood lab. She didn’t know how to respond to what she’d just heard. In less than an hour she’d been thoroughly shocked, which she liked to think was hard to do, twice. Shocked once by Milo and his angry outburst, shocked a second time by Luke who had spoken in a tone more sincere than she’d ever heard from him. 22

Luke waited to see if she’d respond to what he’d told her, but didn’t push her to say anything. She was quiet, as she thought about all that had occurred in the last hour. It was when she caught Luke stopping that she realized that they’d reached the lab.23

“Wanna come see what was on that wall?” he questioned, a smile on his face as he held up the plastic bag. He was back to his old self, the seriousness gone.24

“Right. I’m gonna go find Milo and see if he’s come across anything, maybe I’ll even check on Frankie.” She said looking at him.25

“Good ‘ol Frankie, he’s done us good so far.” Luke said, speaking as if he were talking about a child or something. Caitlyn only rolled her eyes at him, but allowed a small smile to shine through.26

“You do realize that Frankenstein was the doctor, not the monster right?” she questioned, looking at him with an eyebrow raised. Frankenstein was Frankie’s full name.27

“Uh, yeah, but the monster had no name, so in tribute to the great doctor, we will name him Frankenstein, or rather, Frankie.”28

“Yeah, hopefully we’ll be more successful with Frankie than Frankenstein was with his monster or creature, whatever you want to call it.”29

“We will, plus that was a book, this is real life and the time of modern day medicine.”30

“Maybe.” She said. She didn’t let him say anything else before she took off to find Milo to hopefully find that he’d cooled down and that he might’ve found something.31