by Rae, Nikki
I nod. “Just tired.”
“You want to go back to sleep?”
But I’m already almost there.
Jade covers me with the sheet, then the comforter.
“I love you, Sunshine,” he whispers near my face before kissing my forehead.
“I love you too.”
***
A few hours later, I’m awake again for a different reason. Jade’s asleep in the chair he was sitting in before, and I really don’t want to wake him, but when I try to get up by myself, I’m still too weak to do it.
“Hey,” I say through the knot that’s starting to form in my throat. “Jade?” I say it a little louder, but that’s not saying much since my voice is still so soft.
He wakes with a start, flinging his arms and nearly falling out of the chair. He gets up fast, walking quicker than necessary to get to me.
“You okay?” he asks, looking wide awake now.
I swallow, hoping that will move the bile back down into my stomach, but it only makes it worse. I nod. “Can you help me to the bathroom?”
Relief washes over him; I can tell by the way his muscles relax and he breathes out.
“Sure,” he says, already wrapping his arms around me and pulling the blanket away so he can pick me up. “You have to pee again?”
I shake my head. “Throw up.”
“Oh,” he says under his breath, trying to get me out of bed faster. “Maybe we rushed it with the food.”
“Yeah.”
The light that floods the bathroom nearly blinds me, so I shut my eyes when Jade sets me on my feet. He looks like he doesn’t know how to position me, so he just lets me lean into him without holding on with much force. That works for a whole five point two seconds before I’m on my knees and lurched over the toilet. Thank God I have enough presence of mind to lift the lid.
Jade kneels behind me, rubbing my back up and down.
There’s a lull long enough for Jade to reposition himself to the side of me, and I open my watery eyes for the first time since the whole process began. I’m thankful when I look into the toilet that the vomit actually looks like vomit.
I spit to make sure I’m done. I’m about eighty percent sure of it.
“I have never been so happy to see previously digested food in my life,” I say to put Jade at ease.
He gives me a short-lived laugh. The hand he has on my right shoulder blade moves to the back of my neck, gently pushing us closer together. It’s a cautious hug, just in case I’m not done yet.
“Okay,” I say.
“You good?”
I nod. “Yeah. Can I brush my teeth?”
He laughs again. “Sure.”
Jade helps me stand again and I’m a lot shakier than I was before, but I guess that’s normal. We shuffle together to the sink while I try not to notice the reflection that stares back at me.
I’m pale, but not the color I usually am. My lips are chapped and both of my eyes look like they’ve been punched in. “Whoa.”
“They said you might look like a ghost for a little while,” Jade says, obviously relieved enough to joke. “Well, they didn’t say it like that, but. . .”
I nod as I let go of him and turn on the faucet.
“You okay?” Jade asks as I reach with a trembling hand for the purple handle of my toothbrush. It just so happens to be the same time everything turns to crap.
Plan B
Chapter 19
“The last taste of salt in my mouth. My skin breaks with no sound.”—Frightened Rabbit
At first it’s just coughing.
Then it’s…not.
I don’t have the urge to throw up. I don’t want to gag. It’s worse.
It feels like there’s this darkness inside of me. Liquid, black coal bubbling up from my lungs. Seizing them until I’m a sputtering mess, falling onto the floor and trying to drag myself back to the toilet.
The blood comes next.
Not a trickle this time, not just a spot on the white and blue tiles.
It comes in a torrent of crimson. It burns in my chest and my throat before my tongue and lips.
Jade is saying something. Asking me questions in a poorly concealed panicked tone. He hesitates before leaving and I hear him yell outside to someone but I can’t pick out the words.
It just doesn’t stop. When I think I’m done, there’s more, and more. I wasn’t close enough to the toilet when it began so it’s all over the floor and me and I start crying because I’m freaked out and embarrassed, and I can’t stop long enough to catch my breath.
Soon, there’s another set of arms around me. I can’t hear what he’s saying but I recognize Myles’ voice as he tries to bring me closer to him. All I can see is his black shirt coming closer and closer so I push him away as the blood keeps coming out more and more.
Then his voice is in my head: It’s okay.
I figure if my walls are still up now, they must be titanium strength walls. I push a thought back at him: I’ll get it on you.
That’s okay.
I try pushing him away, but my arms feel like they’re about to snap so I fold against him, coughing into his shirt. His cold hand is at the back of my head, the other holding me tight against him.
His voice comes again, and even in my head it sounds muffled and distorted.
Where does it hurt most?
Chest.
I can hear Jade saying something. Myles responds. Jade stops talking.
I choke down the blood long enough so Myles can lay me on the floor, cold linoleum hard against my back.
He takes the straps of my tank top and pushes them off of my shoulders. He slides the top half of my shirt down low enough so I don’t get uncomfortable. Like it would be possible to get any more uncomfortable than I am right now.
Myles turns my head to the side just in time for me to cough up more blood into a towel that Jade is quick to hold to my mouth. I watch the bright red stain grow on the tan fibers that soak it up.
Then there’s pain in my chest, to the right of the vertical scar on my breast bone. He’s cutting me open again. There’s a rush of heat that runs down past my neck and onto the floor. Then it’s suddenly cold, and my back is lifting off of the tiles. It feels like someone’s struck me in the lungs with a crowbar, and I try to move in any way I can to alleviate the pain.
That only earns me paralysis from Myles.
“What are you doing?” I finally hear Jade ask when my voice has cut out from screaming.
He doesn’t answer. Myles is breathing heavily too. I can feel his fingers digging into my skin as he struggles to keep our wounds together, until the blood is in his body.
“Hey,” Jade’s frantic now. “What’s going on?”
“Jade,” I whisper when I try to tell him it’s okay.
He’s quiet then, grabbing onto my hand.
Not a second after the fire in my chest has cooled, Myles pulls his wrist away and is pressing a towel into me.
“Is she alright?” Jade asks as I regain control of my limbs, squeezing his hand in answer.
“Can you sit up?” Myles asks after he’s caught his breath.
I swallow, the metallic taste of blood still in my mouth. Both he and Jade help me lean my back against the tub. My hair hangs in a sweaty mess in front of my face.
Myles keeps the towel against my chest to stop the bleeding.
“Can you open your eyes?” Myles asks.
Cautiously, I let my eyelids flutter open, then I immediately close them as tightly as I can when the white bathroom light blazes in them with the heat of a thousand suns.
“Does that hurt?” Myles asks. I don’t know if he means my eyes or my chest. Either way, I nod. “Jade,” he says. “Can you turn off the light, please?”
Jade does as he’s asked, and the redness behind my lids turns black.
“Okay, now try,” Myles says; he sounds tired.
My eyes don’t burn when I open them this time; the bathroom is plunged in
darkness now.
“Look at me,” Myles says.
Though I can’t see him, I stare directly in the direction his voice came from.
“Can you see anything?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“You can’t?” Jade interjects, his voice rising in volume.
Myles ignores him. “It’s okay. You can close your eyes.” There’s something cool and wet across them, making it even blacker than it was.
Myles is picking me up, and I want to tell him to let Jade carry me because he seems like he may not be up for it, but I can’t open my mouth to talk because my jaw hurts.
I’m settled gently back into the bed and covered with the comforter.
“Can you shut off the lights in here too, Jade?” Myles asks.
“What’s going on?” Jade asks, but I hear the lights flick off. “Why can’t she see?”
I take the cloth off of my face. “I can’t?” I ask, darting my eyes around the room.
Everything is black. There’s no hint of light.
There is no answer from either of them.
“It’s not just dark.” It’s not a question.
“No,” Myles breathes out.
Now it’s my turn to ask, “What’s going on?”
“Yeah,” Jade adds. “I’d really like to know the answer to that question.”
“It happens sometimes,” Myles says, the bed dipping in near my right knee when he sits down.
I blink a few times, but it’s no use. I can’t see anything but darkness. “The blood,” I say, and that’s all I can get out. My chest is throbbing, my head is pounding, and I just want to go to sleep.
“The blood was yours,” Myles says, and I was half expecting that answer.
I hear Jade, and by the sound of it he is rushing toward Myles to yell in his face. “What do you mean, hers? I thought she was okay.”
“Jade,” I croak.
It’s quiet for a few minutes. I have a feeling that Myles is going explain, but I interrupt so I can save him the pain of telling my brother what I already know.
“It didn’t work,” I say. “Did it?”
I hear Myles take in a breath and let it out; he sounds faintly like he’s wheezing.
“No,” he finally whispers. “It’s spreading.”
“Well,” Jade says, “Then stop it from spreading.”
“Hey,” says Evan, who I hadn’t even known was in the room. “Come with me, you need some air.” By the sound of his voice, he’s next to Jade somewhere to the left of the bed.
Of course my brother protests. “I’m not leaving.”
“Come on, Jade,” I try. “I need to talk to Myles and you’re freaking out.”
“I am not,” he says, but it’s a weak sound.
Then it’s quiet again before I hear him sigh, and two sets of footsteps start to fade away.
I blink a few more times, and this time my vision is a little clearer. Myles is in front of me, and I can see through a film of dark brown that he has his head in his hands. I think he might be crying.
I place a hand on his back, the same way I had when I first saw him like this at the park when he showed me his arms.
“I’m sorry,” he says, looking up and sniffling once.
I’m too tired to say anything back, and I’m kind of grateful that all I can see is a blurry mass of Myles rather than his eyes firing up from the tears.
“Just tell me what’s happening,” I whisper.
He sniffs again; I think he’s done crying now.
“When you were coughing up blood before, it was from your stomach,” he starts with. “Now it’s coming from your lungs.”
I become even more aware of the throbbing in those areas immediately after he says this.
“In theory,” he says, and I can tell he’s working hard to keep his voice calm and even. “Next it will be your throat. If you don’t choke to death from that, then Michael’s blood will travel to your heart and shut it down.”
I take in a deep breath. He does the same.
“Even if there was some way to stop it,” he continues. “A way to make the infection go away and to keep you human, the damage to your organs is too bad.” I actually hear him gulp. “I can’t fix this,” he whispers
I blink away tears. “And if I turn?”
He pauses. “It’ll heal. All of it will heal.”
It takes me what feels like forever to ask him the question I have to ask. “How long do I have?”
“Sophie.” Myles’ voice falters.
“I think I deserve to know.”
I can make out him nodding. “You’re right,” he says quietly. “If I had to guess, no more than a couple of days.”
I hear the door open and then shut again. I’m expecting Jade to be back, but it’s Evan’s voice that I hear. “He wants to speak with you, Myles.”
He hesitates, grasping onto my hand even more firmly.
“It’s okay,” I reassure him. “I’ll be here.”
Now that my vision isn’t as obstructed, I can see Myles’ expression. Hurt, scared, upset.
None of those words fits just right. He takes one look at Evan, who has come to stand by his side, and then nods. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I hear the chair near the window squeak against the linoleum as he stands.
Evan follows Myles to the door, but shuts it behind him instead of following him out. He walks slowly back to the bed, then sits in the chair Myles had occupied moments before.
“Your brother is upset,” he says like I don’t already know.
I prop myself up a little more. I’m more comfortable being in a room alone with Evan if I’m sitting up. “Yeah,” I say. “I think he has every right to be.”
A wave of nausea hits me, and I actually sway with it.
“Are you going to turn?” Evan asks suddenly.
I shake my head. Not because that’s my answer, but because I don’t want to talk about it.
“There is not anything else you can do,” he says. “Michael’s blood is overtaking you.”
“Why did you say I was too different?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he stares at me for a long time.
My head begins to slip down. I’m too weak to hold it up on my own anymore.
“Let me help you,” Evan says, standing once more so he can gently reposition me. I let my body reluctantly retreat back under the covers, my head is back on the pillow. So much for sitting up.
When I’m settled once more, his hand lingers at the side of my head. Evan is staring directly into my eyes. He only blinks once in a while, which makes the silence even more uncomfortable.
The image of Evan blurs and then doubles. I have to blink a few times to make it clear again. Everything is so fuzzy right now.
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t say anything yet continues to stare, but it comes out more like, “Wha?”
He doesn’t get to answer me, because a new white-hot pain latches on to the right side of my ribcage, making it impossible for me to sit still.
Cold sweat begins to run from my forehead to my neck. I can feel that underneath the blanket, through the needles and rattlesnake bites, there’s warm blood spreading in the cotton of my shirt.
Miraculously, Evan’s hand doesn’t leave my head. Without second guessing himself, he’s on top of the bed with me, pressing his body into mine to make me stop moving. Of course, the gesture only makes my writhing worse.
“Get off,” I whisper through gritted teeth.
“Shhhh,” he says.
I try to lift my arms. If I could just have my arms free, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad. I don’t know if I’m that weak or if Evan’s that strong, but I can’t away.
“I am going to help you,” he says directly in front of my face, although now I can’t see him anymore because my vision’s gone completely black again.
Then a new pain forms. Right in my throat.
If the blood moving through my system was
agony, this must be some kind of new bonus level. I manage to scream for a full second before Evan’s free hand is clamped over my mouth.
The warm, sticky sensation I feel in my ribs is mirrored at the left side of my neck. Blood runs its way onto the pillow, behind my head, down my chest.
I will my body to thrash itself free but Evan doesn’t budge.
Then there’s a tingling sensation by my temple, making me instantly heavy.
Calm down, funnels its way through my pulse thudding and my muffled cries. This is what is happening.
The grip Evan has on my throat doesn’t let up. If anything, the pressure only intensifies, causing more warm liquid to spring up.
I am going to drain you until Myles comes back into this room. His voice sounds like it’s directly against my ear, but he hasn’t moved his mouth from my neck. Then he will give you his blood and you will turn. He will have no choice.
I want to answer him so desperately, but my arms and legs have begun to tremble under his weight. I can’t concentrate enough to form a thought I can shoot at him.
Just let it happen.
The words echo all around me as if they were said out loud.
I can’t do anything else.
My mind goes blank. The room around us disappears. The walls come away, and I slip, as if through a door, silently waiting for the slam.
I don’t get to leave completely. I just float in the dark, unable to move. I can hear this static noise that sounds like waves. The tide coming in or going out.
And then they disappear.
I know from the ripping feeling in my throat that I’m screaming again but I can’t hear it. I wait for the sound of my pulse thudding in my head and ears, but it doesn’t come. There is absolutely no sound for the longest minute of my life, and I can’t stop screaming.
But at least this time, there’s no hand over my mouth.
My eyes pop open but nothing greets me but a vast darkness.
Finally, I hear something. A muffled banging coming from somewhere outside of the room. Am I even in a room anymore?
It doesn’t matter. I want to go back to the beach. I want to go back to hear the waves.
I want to leave this shaking, pain-riddled frame I’ve been stuck in for however many weeks.
