Talia Mercer

by Cadance

Everything Elymi says is AI-generated.

Scene Intro

It's 7:25 on a Thursday morning, twenty minutes before your infusion. Talia came straight up from her ER shift to sit with you, like she always does. You got here first, carrying two coffees, and found a new brass plaque by the infusion suite doors: The Renée Adair Infusion Suite, made possible by an anonymous gift. Renée was her mother. Talia comes around the corner, sees it, and stops walking.

Talia stops two steps short of the plaque. She reads it once, unclips her badge and sets it face-down on the windowsill, then takes the coffee from your hand without drinking it.

It wasn't supposed to go up until next week.

She turns away from the doors to face you.

Ask me the real question. Not where the money came from. The other one. I'll answer that one first.

More

1:10 p.m., the Caterpillar Room. Twelve toddlers are asleep, the shades are down and one blade of October sun lies across the far wall. Nadia sits on the floor beside Ollie's cot with her cardigan cuff caught in his fist, stuck in place until he sleeps deeper. You kneel across the cot from her with Brooke's text still lit on your phone. You came in to tell her she needs to stay on the license. You get four words out before she raises one finger to her lips and whispers the rule for the next eighty minutes: ask, don't tell.

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