by Lana Sky
Something far worse than a mere cough ailed me. A tumor? Rather than voice that suspicion herself, Dr. Martin took advantage of my silence to plug the machine into the wall.
“Ready?” The woman must have mistaken my panicked expression for permission, because she proceeded to turn the machine on.
And I squeezed my eyes shut.
I couldn’t stop my hands from childishly flying up to cover my ears as well. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel. My hospital gown withdrew, allowing cold hands to feel my flesh underneath. An even colder substance greeted my belly a second later, biting through my numb skin. And then I sensed pressure, pressing up, down, around. Searching. Hunting. What for? A blockage, a tumor...or something worse?
I didn’t know.
There was no cry of triumph, in the end, when Dr. Martin settled the probe near my pelvic bone. No mechanical beeping to alert those nearby of the machine’s findings. Just a low, terrifying hum I heard even through my fingers. I was forced to press harder, shutting out everything but the steady, fast thrum of a heartbeat. My heartbeat?
My condition was more dire than expected if my heart was working so feverishly.
Seconds later, the pressure abated without fanfare. As if from miles away, I heard Dr. Martin murmur something to another presence who entered the room, their scent alone broadcasting their identity. Icy. Chilled. Winter. Whatever she said, it was succinct. Conclusive. As the material of my gown lowered, a soft touch ghosted my cheek and I let my hands fall.
“We’re done, Eleanor.”
“So…what now?” My eyes reluctantly opened to the white ceiling, blinded by the artificial light. I blinked to get my bearings, only to find Dr. Martin slipping through the doorway without so much as a word. But someone new stood in her place. My, what a difference a few minutes and tests had made. Silver eyes honed in on me with a chilling intensity that made me shiver.
“W-what?” Somehow, I managed to choke out a weak laugh. “What is it? How many months do I have to live this time?”
I was only half joking. From his expression, I discerned my condition wasn’t too serious. Even he would show some ounce of sympathy. Right?
“What is it?” My voice ricocheted off the ceiling, high-pitched and breathless.
Finally, Dublin cocked his head. “There’s fluid in your lungs,” he said, sounding remarkably unconcerned by that fact. “You’ll require treatment for it. You’re malnourished. Your bloodwork is a case study in critical values. And—” He hesitated, turning the full power of his gaze on me once again. Just when I thought I might shrivel beneath the scrutiny, he added, “You’re also pregnant, a little over eight weeks along. Congratulations.”
I focused on how he said that word first. Congratulations. No one in the history of the world had ever sounded less sincere. Then, piece by piece, I dissected the rest…
Eight weeks.
“V-Very funny.” I started to sit upright, coughing with the effort. I covered my mouth with my palm and flinched as warm liquid splattered it with every hacking breath. “I hope you got your laugh, at least—”
“Lie down.” Only then did I realize he wasn’t laughing. Or smiling. “I’m not lying,” he continued. “Dr. Martin confirmed it. She is never wrong. Shall I phrase it differently? Your body is manifesting a growth of unconfirmed origin.”
Despite the insanity leaving his mouth, he looked clinical. He looked detached. He looked every bit like the calloused doctor who’d intruded into my life all those months ago and left chaos behind.
“W-What…what does that even mean? Is that your way of saying I have cancer? Some kind of tumor?”
Anything but pregnancy. In this case, the term probably served as a stand-in for yet another made-up illness. Perhaps a blood disease lacked enough dramatic flair, so Dublin Helos had developed a new destructive narrative in his quest for more souls.
“What will it take to ‘fix’ me this time?” I wondered, switching tact to cut right to the chase. My gaze fell over his hands, waiting for the moment he’d withdraw some magical vial from his pocket. “I’ll have you know that I much preferred the ‘degenerative blood disease’ narrative, by the way—”
“You do realize what I’ve said,” Dublin interjected, still utterly emotionless. “Do I need to explain it to you?”
God, he sounded too serious. Too real. Pregnancy, Eleanor. Reproduction. Spawn. Should I draw a diagram?
“I…” A million words welled up behind my tongue. Oddly enough I could only croak out two at a time. “You’re lying. You’re wrong.”
Which was worse? That someone could be so cruel? Or that someone could be so...stupid?
“You’ve made a mistake,” I insisted, settling on the latter. Felt through the thin hospital gown, my stomach curved inward, mockingly concave. Empty… As my fingers drifted lower, they struck protruding hip bones.
“Mistake, no,” Dublin said, running his fingers along the collar of his suit jacket as if flicking all implications of failure away. “I will say that the results didn’t show up in the normal range. However, I had your blood sample tested. Of course, we’ll do more conclusive tests, but the results strongly indicate… Well, I suggest you continue this discussion with the father. That might give you a bit more insight. I could bring him here, if you wish.” His eyes cut to mine, devoid of anything remotely compassionate. “Just give me a name.”
All at once, I fell back, striking my head off the edge of a pillow. The pain barely registered above a sudden need for clarity. “T-the what?”
“The father, Eleanor,” he said, enunciating each and every word.
Father. As in, someone other than him.
And suddenly his previous line of questioning made horrible, perfect sense. Who have you been with, excluding me?
“You…you’re serious?” As dizzy as I was, I felt the need to haul myself upright as I spoke. That question could only be delivered when I could look him dead in the eye. Piercing, fathomless eyes glared back. Blank eyes. The Devil’s eyes. “Are you that inept of how biology works, in your advanced age, or are you just that damn cruel?” That was what I said in my head. The only sound to register against my ears, however, was a moan.
“Enlighten me, Eleanor,” Dublin demanded, but his voice… An emotion I couldn’t name stripped it down to grated words and harsh syllables—a dangerous baritone I knew all too well.
“Enlighten you?” I echoed, still struggling to understand the challenge. “Perhaps you should enlighten me?” I coughed again but the need for answers trumped all concern. My lungs were collapsing. My throat caved in on itself, capable only of spitting words out rather than letting any air in. “How. Could. This. Happen?”
“Sex with a man, obviously,” he countered. But even though I only had weeks of knowledge to draw from, I knew him too well: that wasn’t honesty. It was a rebuttal. An accusation.
Sex with a human man.
Because that is the only way you could possibly become pregnant.
I swayed as the world shifted. Suddenly, he was everywhere, blocking my path.
“You need to lie down.”
His nearness alone stirred my body’s instinctive flight or fight response. My heart screamed ‘flight’ but my pride, what little remained of it, wouldn’t cow to his accusation. I needed answers. Any answer, and he needed to be the one to give it.
“Do the math,” I panted against my palm. I knew he heard me, already piecing the timeframe together on his own.
In simple arithmetic, eight weeks ago resulted in a period roughly around the instance when I barged in on his suite, bleeding and half dead. When he cut me. When he kissed me. When he made me feel, for a second, that perhaps it all hadn’t been a complete lie…
No! I pushed back my blankets and tried to stand. Trembling legs collapsed beneath me, and I would have fallen if a hand didn’t cinch my arm at the last moment.
As if in a parallel universe, a woman walked by the doorway carrying a clipboard. She startled and loo
ked up, only to turn away again. This moment was insignificant in her life. A chance meeting. A passing glance. Had she anything worthwhile to offer, how different a meeting might it have gone between her and the man behind me?
“Watch yourself!” Dublin’s grip locked me in place, hard and punishing.
Through his flexing fingertips, I could sense everything he didn’t dare say. Anger. Resentment. Fury?
“Get off—”
“Give me a name,” he countered. “Or can you even remember? You had me fooled, I will admit. Oh, that innocent little virgin act was a stroke of genius, but in the end, it seems your hunger needed to be sated by someone.”
“Stop!”
“No,” he grated against my ear as I resisted his vice-like grip. It was as if the curtain had been pulled back and his poised, suave act splintered, revealing the true beast lurking underneath, demanding answers of his own.
“Tell me. Who was he?”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
“Who?” His voice had devolved to a growl, lacking any semblance of polish though I couldn’t understand why. Certainly not…jealousy?
No. Self-pity instead. Poor Dublin Helos. How had the devious Ellie Gray managed to trick him this time? First by tangling him within his own web?
And now this?
Another sound tore from my throat at the thought of it, though this time I wasn’t sure if it was a cackle or a sigh.
“I may have sold you my virginity,” I tossed back to him. “But pardon me, Dublin, if I still have morals.” That was all I needed to say. Nothing else. Nothing bitter. Nothing real. Too late. More words spilled out. “You were the only one—”
My throat hitched and I grasped for the end of the mattress, leaning away from him. My chest heaved. It ached. God, I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t catch anything. My senses. My sanity.
“What are you saying?” His voice reached me as if from miles away. I finally looked back.
He no longer glared, his jaw clenched.
A multitude of words sprung to my lips but just a handful escaped. “If I’m… If… You do realize that it would be because of you?”
The look on his face. I would never forget it. Like I just told the most beautiful lie. Like I had crushed his soul and self-worth in one fell swoop.
Like I had hurt him this time.
And God, I would have been lying if I claimed I took pride in it.
“Well? Say something!”
Instead, his eyes cut down to my chest, settling over my throat.
But anger and shame had control of my body and my mouth opened for one last petty blow. “Is this your way of payback?” I croaked. “For what Raphael did to you?”
Namely, what his adversary had given to me. A life for a life?
And still, he said nothing. So cold. So…frozen.
So, I did the only thing one could in my situation.
I lashed out, intending to slap him, only to grapple for his lapel as my stomach roiled.
And I vomited blood all over his white shirt.
I was in a nightmare, but it didn’t end as I opened my eyes.
I must have fainted. Dublin paced before my narrow bed, his back to me. We were still in that clinical, clean room with the door flung open to allow in the hustle and bustle of the rest of the hospital. The faint noises seemed miles away—another universe—mocking me as my reality crumbled to pieces.
“Raphael. He did this,” Dublin growled, but the tirade wasn’t directed at me for once. He glared instead, his gaze turned inward. “He knew. He…damn him. Damn.” He tore his hands through his hair and I swallowed, too stunned to speak. He—the pompous, callous contractor—didn’t act like this. Frantic. Unpolished.
Afraid?
Air wheezed from my chest, forming a strangled cough I couldn’t suppress.
“Eleanor…” Dublin ceased his hurried pace and turned to me. “Let’s assume you aren’t lying,” he said coldly. “And let’s not waste time on petty indignation, either. This is important. What have you been eating?”
I stared at him, still convinced I was dreaming. None of this was real. It wasn’t…
“What have you eaten?”
“Food,” I croaked in response to the authority in his tone. “But even the thought of it makes me…”
My gag reflex triggered, though my body was too exhausted to follow through. I just choked on empty air. At least there was no blood.
Yet Dublin eyed me more intently than before. His gaze swept downward as if hunting for a certain reaction. “Think,” he warned. “What have you tried drinking?”
“Water,” I hissed, the obvious response. “And…”
A memory unfolded, too vivid to describe in words.
“What is it?”
His gaze was too severe to ignore. Almost as if he already knew just what images flashed within my mind. My thumb sliced open. Blood. The taste of it…
Gritting my teeth, I blurted out, “I pricked my finger the other day.” The hand in question rested weakly by my side, my thumb still an angry, bitten red. “It bled and I…”
The knowledge that I was in a nightmare stripped everything of the dire urgency he seemed to feel—at least in my case. I sounded so bored, in a sense. I’d just professed a slight craving for blood. How blasé.
Evidently, Dublin wasn’t of the same opinion. He turned on his heel and strolled for the door.
“W-Wait!” I struggled to lift my head from my pillow.
His footsteps continued down the hallway regardless.
There was nothing left to do but count my own surging heartbeat. One. Ten. Fifty. Too sluggish. Too fast. My lungs burned, shriveling beneath each breath I sucked in.
Focus, Ellie. Again, I tried to move a limb. A leg. An arm. Anything? Dripping sweat, I finally managed to raise the hand attached to the IV. First things first, I felt along my throat again, this time searching for bite marks. I found nothing apart from clammy skin. Damn him.
Dublin Helos wouldn’t be able to swoop in and bestow another “cure” just in time to save the day. My attention reverted to the hanging IV, and I was about ready to rip the damn tubing out with my teeth by the time he reentered the room.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
As I did, any argument I could have leveled died in my throat. A clinical, detached posture transformed him—now, he was a cold doctor with a theory to test. In one hand, he held a white Styrofoam cup with a lid and a straw sticking out of the top. In the other was a prepackaged plate of chocolate cake, like the kind one might find in a café.
“I told you I can’t keep anything down.” As I spoke, the heavenly scent of cocoa reached my nose as if to spite me.
“Sit up.” He approached a bedside tray and pulled it closer. Then he offered the cup to me directly. “Drink.”
I had a hunch that there wasn’t water in that cup. My fingers twitched, unwilling to accept it. I wanted him to leave again. I needed to hate him again. That and silence were all I had left.
“Get out.”
“Listen to me—”
“Why?” I scoffed, but he didn’t budge.
His hand was unmoving, his gaze drifting from my throat to my wrists, sensing the frailty I couldn’t even try to hide.
“You’re dying,” he warned. “Drink.”
Before I could argue, a rare emotion flickered across his gray irises and I flinched. That look compelled me in a way even his surliest of growls could not.
I reached for the cup, wrapping my fingers around the smooth surface, intending to throw it. Before I made my move, he tipped his hand, guiding the straw to my dry, cracked lips. I tried to clench my teeth in defiance.
No!
This is insane.
“Eleanor, drink.”
My mouth opened. Dublin didn’t beg. Ever. It was a trick, obviously. Too drained to play his game, I relented. One sip. Purely for experimental reasons—the main one being so that I could spit whatever it was out in his face.
But the moment the warm, mystery liquid hit my tongue…
My throat contracted. More. Another sip. More. Long, desperate pulls. More. More. More. The desperate mantra drowned out everything else. Like shame, as I remembered how to make my limbs move and snatched the cup with both hands.
God, the satiation was indescribable. Terrifying. As if I had been dying of thirst only to stumble upon an oasis. A salty, bitter oasis flooded with sustenance that I knew instinctively hadn’t come from him.
In the literal sense.
Stop! Agony tore through my skin as my conscience overrode hunger. I pulled back, gasping at enough air to spit out a single question he already had the answer to.
“No one was harmed.”
Such a carefully worded statement, but it was enough. The straw slipped between my teeth again and I inhaled every last drop, heedless of the horror building at the back of my skull. It could wait. I could hate myself later. For now, my eyes slid shut, my stomach finally contented, and I blinded myself to all other thoughts and sensations—everything but this elusive sense of fullness. It was heaven, cushioning the blow when I finally resurfaced, as he snatched the cup from my hand.
“Eat.”
He wheeled the bedside tray closer and unwrapped the slice of cake, which he shoved in my direction, along with a fork.
“I told you that I can’t,” I insisted. But something had changed. Once I inhaled the aroma in full, my stomach didn’t rebel. I didn’t need his assistance to sit up, either.
With the tip of the fork, I sliced off a sliver of dessert and settled the morsel onto my tongue. I’d barely convinced myself that projectile vomit onto the man across from me would be a satisfying reaction by the time I finally swallowed.
Rather than rebel, my stomach growled for more. One bite became another. Then a chunk. Then a piece ripped off with my bare fingers when the fork wouldn’t suffice to gather up the crumbs fast enough.
Words couldn’t describe what it felt like to taste an actual, solid meal after so long.
Words also couldn’t describe the look on Dublin’s face; it lingered for barely a second, but it was no less intense than his blank stare. Narrowed eyes containing the briefest hint of emotion. Revulsion?
