Shapeshifted by Cassie Alexander

to be inappropriate.
    “You can give me a kiss,” he said slowly, leaning dangerously forward.
    I put a hand on one shoulder to press him back upright. “No, thank you. Why’re you here?”
    He laboriously rolled up one sleeve, revealing the scars of living down here. Divots of healed ulcers from skin popping, and some straight cuts over his wrists, maybe self-inflicted when he was sober. The price of hard living and infrequent access to medical or mental health care.
    Not finding what he wanted on that arm, he rolled up the sleeve of the other, and I saw it. A wound dressing that was almost as grimy as he was, right in the bend of his arm. He’d punctured himself either with a dirty needle or into an unclean site, and pushed germs from the outside world inside his flesh where they could grow.
    I knew from my own brother that there weren’t any safe needle exchange sites in this town. I pulled on an extra set of gloves.
    Unfortunately, looking at his wound required being in breathing range of him. I tugged at the tape, which had fused with his arm hair. He grunted in pain until I managed to rip it loose. When I did, the packing at the center of the abscess popped out. It smelled worse than he did, and I was surprised there weren’t maggots inside waving hi.
    “You wanted this changed?” I asked him. His whole arm was red and swollen, and I didn’t need a thermometer—I could feel his fever through my gloves. He seemed stuporific. Was this his natural state? Pickled from alcohol? Or had the infection gone to his brain? It was hard to say when you didn’t know someone’s baseline. “Hang on.”
    I grabbed an entire box of alcohol wipes out of the cabinet, and started using them one by one to draw grime away from the wound, to find its margins. The surrounding area was puffy and tight, and the center gleamed with lymph and pus. Once I determined the edges of his infection—heated swollen skin down almost to his wrist and going up his upper arm, like the points of a flame—I made a face.
    “You’re going to need some antibiotics.” From a hospital. I didn’t envy whoever was going to have to start his IV. He muttered something; I didn’t know if he was talking to himself or to me. “I’m gonna get the doctor, sir.”
    I took a step toward the door, then turned. “Hey,” I said, and held up a hand to wave until his eyes tracked on me. He did live down here, after all. “Do you know anything about Santa Muerte?”
    With his good hand, he tapped a cross over his chest. And then he passed out on me.
    *   *   *
    I stuck around to help watch him until the paramedics came. He woke up a few times and tried to get out of the room, until I redirected him. Luckily, he couldn’t talk well enough to refuse medical care. Nothing was sadder than a patient who was lucid enough to say, “Leave me alone, the liquor store closes at nine.” The paramedics navigated their gurney in through the narrow hall and out again like pros, lashing him down onto it with casual efficiency. Unsurprisingly, they already knew him by name.
    Once they were done, Dr. Tovar came back from signing papers and jerked his chin at me. “Cellulitis? Good catch.”
    Not really. Just looking at him, smelling him, you knew that he was going to have something. I’d bet money he was covered in MRSA. Good thing my immune system was already strong-like-bull from prior hospital time.
    I couldn’t not wonder how my brother was doing. If he even knew about Mom’s cancer. If he even cared.
    Frank had a mother too.
    “You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” Dr. Tovar asked, eyeing me. He seemed concerned.
    I shook my head, and caught back up with reality. “No. Just not used to working days yet is all. But I will be, by the end of this week,” I promised with a smile.
    His gaze softened. Maybe he knew false bravado when he saw it. I bet he saw a lot of it down here. He exaggeratedly looked at his watch. “Why don’t you go to an early