After putting her on a gurney, Ava and I then were escorted to where Liz was being held, though I could have found her without their help. However, having blonde hair, blue eyes, and pale skin in the middle of Indonesia made her a fairly unique patient. When I described her to them, including her age, they knew exactly who I was talking about.
My heart sank into my stomach when we walked into the room.
Liz wasn’t just sick. She was deathly ill.
She was emaciated, and the doctors had been required to get creative with how they treated her, because they couldn’t prick her skin with an IV. Needless to say, she had a tube running out of her nose that went into her stomach to feed her. She had been unconscious since she had been brought here, the cause of her illness completely unknown – they couldn’t do bloodwork or even x-ray her body. I gave them both Trinity and Zane’s descriptions, hoping they had some information on them, but the doctors hadn’t met either of them, which was unnerving. If they weren’t with Liz, then I wasn’t sure I could ever find them. Between Liz’s emaciated form and the realization that I didn’t have a way to find Trinity, I had never felt so defeated in my entire life.
I knelt down next to the bed and grasped Liz’s small bony hand. Ava rested her hand on my shoulder, her fingers trembling.
“Jake,” she whispered after a moment. “How did you make Jordyn better?” she wondered.
I looked up at her in surprise, a new realization dawning on me.
Jordyn had believed I could take her lethal virus, make an antidote for it in my body, and give it back to her. And, as far as I knew, it had worked. She had been cured of the illness within a day. Could I do the same for Liz?
I sure as hell was going to try.
Without answering Ava, I carefully inserted a thread of my blood into Liz’s wrist, traveling throughout her small body until I reached her heart. What I found horrified me.
“No,” I gasped.
“What?” Ava exclaimed.
“No, no, no, no!” I yelled in disbelief. This couldn’t be happening.
“Jake!”
I couldn’t look at her, as I fixed Liz’s problem in an instant. “I did this,” I struggled to admit.
“What?” she repeated, sounding bewildered.
I looked up at her as I realized the implications. “Ava, I did this to her. I tried to give her some of her blood back. Except, I never really did. The blood I put inside of her never became hers. I just found it, stuck to her heart, feeding off her like a parasite.”
Ava’s eyes widened in shock.
I bolted to my feet, causing her to flinch by my sudden shift in expression.
“J-Jake?” she croaked.
“I have to find Trinity! I only gave Liz a little bit of blood, but Trinity…” My voice trailed off as I winced. “Ava, I tried to return a lot more blood than this. If Liz is this bad after only a few days…” I couldn’t finish, because if Liz was this bad, then would Trinity even still be alive?
Shit! I felt my world falling apart all over again. I couldn’t live with myself if I’d killed her.
“I’ll stay with Liz,” Ava reassured me. “But how will you find her?”
I met her gaze, seeing that her expression was sincere. She was worried about Trinity too. “I don’t know,” I replied helplessly. “I guess…I guess I’ll find my way back to where they were staying. Maybe I can track her scent if I use Zane’s ability.”
I knew that probably wouldn’t be enough though. Would there still be a trail to follow after almost four days? Would my nose be sensitive enough to find it? Would my wolf form be enough?
Ava nodded her head slowly in response to my suggestion, before her eyes brightened. “Jake, what about Jordyn? Did you absorb any of her blood?”
I gasped. Because I had.
Could I use her ability too? Could I find anyone I wanted to find?
I was desperate. More desperate than I had ever been in my entire life. Without caring what Ava or anyone else would think, I fell to my knees, and clasped my hands together like I was praying.
Really, I was praying. I didn’t believe in God like Ava, but if there was a god, I was definitely pleading with them now with everything I had.
“Please,” I begged out loud. “Please. Trinity, where are you?”
I felt Ava’s hand rest on my shoulder as she knelt down next to me. “Picture her, Jake. See her face, and let Jordyn’s ability tell you where she’s at.”
I tried. I tried so hard it hurt.
But nothing happened.
After several minutes with nothing happening, I punched the floor, causing the tile to shatter. Ava flinched, before wrapping her arm around me more firmly. “Jake, try to relax. Take a deep breath. I know it’s hard, but try to focus your thoughts.”
My hands were balled into fists on the floor in front of me. Ava reached out and gently rested her warm fingertips on one of them.
I forced out a ragged breath I’d been holding, before sucking in another deep one. I tried to focus on the warmth in her fingertips, the warmth in her arm around my shoulders, and then cleared my thoughts. I let go of my guilt for the moment, put aside my self-loathing, and I focused on the person I needed to find.
Unexpectedly, like a hazy memory, an image of Trinity appeared in my head. She was laying underneath a tree that had partially fallen, colliding with another to create a dangerous tent. Her skin was extremely pale, her face bony and emaciated, her breathing heavy and labored. She appeared to be unconscious. The image began pulling away, revealing countless animals all around her, all of them dead.
Suddenly, I saw a leopard approaching her, lured in by the scent of death. It got too close, crossing over a clear point-of-no-return, and fell over dead in an instant, having walked into Trinity’s death trap. The image pulled away more, before rapidly zooming away, passing landscapes and towns, until suddenly I flew backwards over a familiar city, only to find myself in my own head again.
I gasped, my head jerking in Trinity’s direction when I realized I knew exactly where she was, along with every obstacle that existed between us.
I bolted to my feet.
“Take care of Liz,” I said urgently.
“I will,” Ava promised.
I didn’t wait to see if she had more to say. I ran out of the room and ran straight down the hallway, the tiles snapping underneath my feet as I dove for the window. We were several floors up, but it didn’t matter. It shattered as I flew through it.
The moment I was airborne, crimson wings shot out of my back and I took off. I didn’t care if anyone saw. I’d rather them see and I make it to Trinity in time than the alternative. I was sure sucking out animal lives helped, but it was nothing like the healing she got from people. Even as bad as Liz had been, Trinity was much closer to death. She had so much more of my blood inside of her, destroying her from the inside as it tried to survive without its original body.
It made me wonder what would become of me if enough of my body was destroyed – if I was splattered out into a thousand pieces. Would those individual pieces continue to try to survive as mindless parasites, feeding off whatever was available?
The idea chilled me to the bone.
But in that moment, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was Trinity.
Flying wasn’t fast enough though.
As soon as I cleared the city, I dropped to the ground at full speed, smashing into the Earth like a meteor, before taking off on foot. Within a half dozen steps I was on four legs, completely leaving behind any sense of self as I repurposed every fiber of my being, every rippling muscle, towards getting to Trinity.
I ran as hard as I could for at least an hour, jumping clear over a couple of rivers along the way. I crossed roads, scaled rock formations, passed small villages, and navigated thick forests. Nothing would stand in my way, with my body just straight up smashing through entire tree trunks occasionally when they were too packed together. Even despite the obstacles, I was still running faster t
han a speeding racecar. I was an unstoppable force, bolting through the countryside like a midnight bullet of rage and desperation.
And then I finally picked her up on my internal radar, which spurned me on even harder. I ran so desperately, pushed my muscles so hard, that I actually began panting, something I didn’t think was possible. As far as I knew, I wasn’t capable of fatiguing, but then again, I’d never had a reason to try to surpass my limits. I’d never had a reason to try harder than my body was capable.
And then she came into sight, her withered sickly form lying unconscious just as I had seen in my vision. I didn’t want to risk waiting. I shot my blood out far ahead of me, a thread bolting through the air and stabbing into her gut.
What I found inside made me hate myself even more.
Because it was even worse than I had imagined. So much of my blood was feeding off her, everything that I had tried giving back to her had turned out to be a curse, a death sentence I had given out to the person I cared for most in the entire world.
Instantly, I called it all back.
The mindless parasite returned to my body, becoming indistinguishable from the rest of my blood, as I shifted back to two legs, coming close enough to enter her range of death. I stopped short though, because just as I reached it, I saw her. Unlike the colorless flame, she was like a spiritual version of what I could become with my blood. Hundreds of thin invisible tentacles of energy floated in the air everywhere, originating from her emaciated body, many of them extended outward to their full length, ready to suck out the life of whatever got close enough.
And apparently, like my body had done to her – the event that started all this – her body was too desperate to determine friend from foe. The moment I reached the edge of her death trap, several of her invisible arms collided with me at once.
I greeted them with my own short third arm, grasping her invisible hands tightly with my own. A pulse of energy erupted between us, and an undeniable need burst into my mind as Trinity’s unconscious self realized who I was. It was so loud it was almost as if she had screamed it verbally.
Just one word. A single, devastatingly desperate word.
HELP.
I loosened my grip on her invisible arms, and she did the same, allowing me to pull away. I then did the only thing I could.
I went hunting.
I found everything living I could manage and tossed it into her range, everything dying instantly the moment it crossed the threshold. But they were all animals. It wasn’t the same as her stealing the life of a person, but there weren’t any humans close enough that I could even consider that as an option.
So, to save the person I loved, I hunted for anything with life in it, decimating the wildlife in the area in the process. The sun set, the moon rose, and I continued to find things to throw at her.
The body count only further reinforced what I had done to her.
When I had stolen a large portion of her blood, she had maybe stolen the life of twenty or thirty animals before she recovered. But this?
This was a horror scene.
I had spent so many hours hunting for her, that when I coldly tossed a monkey onto the heap of bodies, I turned around without waiting to see its death, only for it to jump away shrieking. Confused, I quickly caught it a second time, tossing it again.
It landed on the bodies and then ran away unharmed.
Tentatively, I approached her range again, immediately seeing her a second time.
The invisible arms were gone, all of them retracted back into her body. Shocked, I bolted up onto the pile of corpses, before sliding down to reach her underneath the partly fallen tree. I grasped her face in my hands, hoping she’d wake up, but knowing it was unlikely anytime soon. She still looked emaciated. Even if her damaged body had recovered significantly, lifeforce couldn’t restore her muscles to the way they were. She’d have to eat food for that to happen.
So instead, I scooped her up in my arms and moved locations, heading back towards the major city far off in the distance.
I walked through the rest of the night, and then into the early morning, looking down at her repeatedly, wishing she’d open her eyes.
Just after I had crossed one of the rivers that I had previously leapt over, the most beautiful sound in the world filled my ears.
“J-Jake?” she whispered.
I stopped in my tracks to look down at her, seeing her crimson irises just barely peaking out of her bright blue eyelashes. I couldn’t even speak, my throat closing up as a sob hitched my chest. I fell down to my knees, curling her up against me.
“Jake,” she repeated quietly. “I…I don’t know what happened. My power…it went out of control. I was in the market…and I…I started killing everyone…I couldn’t go back…”
“I’m sorry,” I finally whispered, kissing her on the forehead before meeting her lethargic gaze again. “It was my fault. My blood…” I cringed. “It was killing you.”
“What?” she asked, her brow furrowing just slightly.
“I tried to give you back some of your blood. But it turned into a parasite. It was killing you.” Tears slipped down my cheeks, as I felt another sob coming on. “I’m so sorry.”
She reached up with her bony fingers, trying to rest it against my cheek. I grabbed her hand in mine as soon as her fingertips rested against my skin, shocked to feel so much warmth in them – not physical warmth, but the warmth I had only recently identified as an emotion I was sensing from her.
Love. Affection. Tenderness.
Did she not understand what I was telling her?
“But I’m okay now, right?” she wondered.
I shook my head, because she really wasn’t. “You’re alive at least,” I managed.
“I’ll get better,” she replied simply, before her brow furrowed slightly again, her blue eyebrows knitting together. “You’ll nurse me back to health, right?”
I pressed my forehead against hers, my tears falling onto her cheeks. “Yes,” I croaked out.
“Promise?” she whispered.
“Promise,” I agreed. “In sickness and health, I promise.”
I’d never meant anything so strongly in my entire life.
Chapter 21: Ghost
I took my time squeezing a calorie pouch into Liz’s mouth, knowing she wasn’t used to eating quickly even when at full health. Her eyes were open just barely, peeking at me through her eyelashes. She was too weak to even enjoy me feeding her, though that didn’t stop me from sensing a warm glow coming from her with the knowledge that I had returned.
When she started coughing, I carefully leaned her forward on my arm and patted her back gently. She took a shallow breath after a moment, and leaned her head into the front of my shoulder.
We weren’t in the hospital anymore, having found refuge in a wealthy household just on the edge of the city. I figured that out of all the possible people we could crash with, it would be best to pick someone who could afford the company, and my newfound power made them willing to help. They certainly had more than enough space. The rooms were massive, along with wide hallways, and a massive dining room.
Liz was currently in a decent sized bed, dressed in pink silk pajamas provided to her by one of the man’s three daughters – I hadn’t used my power on them, other than asking them to keep what they saw to themselves. Instead, they were just willing to help when their parents agreed to it. If anything, I suspected the three daughters enjoyed having such odd company. They had an older brother, but he was living on his own now.
I had retrieved our military supplies yesterday, including the syrup, from the apartment where Farah and Sarah had been staying, initially making a trip there to see if I could find Zane or Farah. However, neither of them could be found, even after I attempted to use Jordyn’s ability a second time. The fact that Zane was missing was of course bothersome, but we had to prioritize everyone else’s safety first.
After I initially brought Trinity back to the hospital, Ava and I decid
ed that we couldn’t stay there. It was far too risky, considering Sarah knew Liz’s location. However, we were also the only two people who weren’t in critical condition at the moment. All our friends were in pretty bad shape, including Blair.
Thus, we had the hospital staff move all of them to a different floor, together in the same room, so that Ava could protect them while I was gone. I then made a round through all the hospital staff, making sure no one would share our location with anyone – even Zane, in the event he had been compromised too, though I wanted them to inform me and Ava immediately if he did show up.
Moving locations within the hospital had been a temporary fix in my opinion, because for all we knew the portal guy might be capable of swallowing up the whole place. Thus, I explained to a couple of doctors what had made Blair and Liz sick, knowing they wouldn’t share the information, and was relieved to hear that while they recommended the patients remain in the hospital, our friends should be alright given Blair’s rapid healing ability and the fact that Liz’s underlying problem had been resolved.
My next task was finding a place for us to stay, and then having everyone brought there in a taxi in the late evening. We knew that Farah finding us was a risk too, but our friends weren’t healthy enough to make long trips across the country. We had to compromise for now.
Overall, Trinity had been in the worse condition, with most of her muscle mass completely gone. However, after only a day, she was also the only one moving around on her own again, readily eating the moment she felt hungry to regrow her muscles. She explained that her body had a set point it would return to, given enough nutrition, even commenting with a grimace that she had suffered through having several of her fingers and toes bitten off, only to have them regrow, bone and all, when she was able to eat enough food.
I didn’t ask for clarification, realizing that I didn’t know the full extent of what she had endured when in captivity for a year of her life, and knowing that this wasn’t the best time to ask. Ava and I had manually fed Trinity for her first and second meals respectively, but she was able to do it herself after that.
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