Laci shot awake in her creaky bed, heart fluttering. The room was dark, except for the starlight that streamed in from the barred windows. Sultan comforted her softly, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Her pain had returned, and the blows Chase had given her stung like they were fresh. She had long since ceased her hunger, but her body was breaking. It was hard to even keep her head up straight.
“You seem pained, little dove. What is hurting you?” Sultan inquired.
She felt her gums with her tongue, raw and bleeding. “I’m tired and sick.”
“How long has it been since you ate?”
Her brain felt like it was melting when she tried to recall. “Five days. I think.”
The meals they had given her had become more modest, but that didn’t make it any easier to throw them out. She had taken to drinking gallons of water from the bathroom sink to try to fill her stomach, but it hadn’t helped much. Her body was craving sustenance so badly that it was shaking. The headaches, exhaustion, and weakness were becoming harder to ignore. The doctor commented on her condition the last time she saw him, but Chase dismissed it, swearing up and down she ate every meal.
“You’ll only need to hold on a little longer,” Sultan said, patting her gently.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she worried aloud.
The door to the room creaked open, and the night shift doctor walked in with Chase and Gabriel by his side. Chase still looked lethargic from his encounter with the black filly, and Gabriel was nervously flitting behind him. Laci did not move, head hanging over her lap listlessly.
“Good. She’s up. It’s strange, normally dark magic hits the cold blooded horses harder. But she slept the whole afternoon,” the doctor said.
Chase nodded quietly, and yawned. “I don’t know. Maybe the filly just used more magic on her than the rest of us or something.”
The doctor came closer and put his stethoscope to Laci’s side. She pricked her ears, but was too weak to fight him.
“Her heart is beating very slowly. Not normal,” he said.
Chase cocked his head. “She’s a sport horse. They have slow heartbeats.”
“No, this is too low. Dangerously low,” the doctor professed. “Has she been getting enough to eat? She looks awful.”
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“She eats everything I feed her. I hand feed her three times a day and there’s never anything left when I come back,” Chase assured.
Gabriel stood in the back of the room by the bathroom, and glanced in. There was a blue stain on the inside of the toilet.
“Chase, wasn’t breakfast blueberry cakes this morning?” he called out.
“Why would that matter?” Chase shot back. “This intern is a piece of work,” he whispered to the doctor.
“I think she’s been flushing her food down the toilet.”
Laci wrestled against Chase’s grip on the halter as they walked her down to the infirmary. Even in her desperation, she was barely able to resist his pulling. They shoved her into the chute and slammed the headgate shut. The doctor was mixing some kind of foodlike concoction into a funnel bottle and attaching it to a tube.
“Is this entirely necessary?” Gabriel ventured.
Chase looked ready to slap him across the face. “You’re here to learn. So shut your mouth and watch.”
They pried her mouth open with a speculum to get the tube in her throat. The doctor poured the formula in, and she gagged violently. She could hardly breathe as they force fed her for ten minutes. By the end of the ordeal, Chase, Gabriel, and the doctor were all splattered with the concoction. Chase panted and hung his head as the doctor finally pulled the tube out. She coughed painfully, her sandpaper throat tearing and bleeding.
“Why’d she quit eating?” Gabriel asked.
“Who knows?” Chase retorted. “If you’re so smart, why don’t you figure that out and tell it to the class?”
The doctor sighed and washed his arms in the sink. “I’ve seen horses do this before, but it’s rare. Laci has no history of anorexia. I have, however, known horses like her to sniff out drugs in their feed and stop eating it.”
“Why in heaven’s name would she do that?” Chase said.
“Because she wants to exert some kind of control. Even if it will kill her,” the doctor said. “Take her back up. Update the morning shift doctor when she gets up and watch her to make sure she eats. If she doesn’t, you’ll have to tube feed her again so she won’t colic.”
Laci plodded up the stairs, dragging her feet. The food hadn’t quelled her pain at all. Sultan had his ears pinned and was wringing his tail beside her, furious.
“This is ridiculous. Force feeding you like a research animal. I’ve had enough,” he said, in a menacing voice that scared Laci.
As soon as Chase and Gabriel left her, Laci flopped onto the bed again. Sultan did not approve.
“Laci, I know better than anyone that you’re tired, but it is time to fight back,” he said darkly.
“How am I meant to fight back? Did you see what they just put me through?” she wailed. “I have been starving myself for days only for them to drug me anyway. Because of you.”
Sultan stamped a forefoot and hissed in annoyance. “Get up and walk. I want those shoes to be worn paper thin by morning.”
“What good will that do me?”
He smiled and caressed her cheek. “I think that at this ‘show’ Chase speaks of, we will be certain to make a splash.”
Is Sultan helping Laci?
