by S. M. LITTLE
Copyright © 2021 S.M. LITTLE
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 9781234567890
ISBN-10: 1477123456
Cover design by: Art Painter
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America
BLOODBORNE
THE CHANGED BOOK 1
S.M. LITTLE
TO AIDEN
Contents
Copyright
Title Page
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTYER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Acknowledgement
Books By This Author
About The Author
PROLOGUE
MANHATTEN, NEW YORK CITY
Protesters lined Broadway all the way down and around to Fort Washington Avenue. Columbia Irving Medical Center was surrounded. It was just the latest protest in a long line of protests. The country had been inundated with them as of late, and nobody saw an end in sight.
Signs littered the crowd, ranging from ‘Synthetic blood is wrong’ to ‘You will kill us all’. Clergymen and women lined the streets, proclaiming synth blood was sacrilegious and a direct slap at God himself. Only God could create life.
Men, women, even children came out in droves to protest the manufacturing of synthetic blood. They had been protesting all morning after the news came out the previous night that scientists and doctors were close to perfecting ‘synth blood’, as it had become known. Their effort was to little avail, as the people inside the labs couldn’t see, let alone hear, their protest.
One protester even tried to rally support to storm the buildings in an effort to put a stop to this abomination. He had managed to garner quite a few people to join his cause. But he was quickly put down by the National Guard members, who had been called in by the Governor. The rest of the attackers were thwarted at the gates. The sight of an M4 barrel pointed at you will do that.
The frightened protesters backed away, even as they continued to berate the soldiers who had drawn their weapons against them. Anything to create commotion and chaos in an effort to draw more attention to their protest.
Inside the lab, scientists worked feverishly to finish what they had started. They were aware of the commotion outside but didn’t care as long as the soldiers did their job.
“Cynthia, can you put these samples in the centrifuge?” Max asked. Dr. Maxwell Johnson was one of the brightest minds in medical research. He had spent his entire life dedicated to obtaining knowledge for the betterment of humankind.
“Absolutely,” Cynthia replied. Currently, her job was to assist Maxwell in anything he needed. This current task was a simple spinning of the blood to separate it. Place the blood vials in the centrifuge machine, close the lid, and hit a button. Nothing to it. It wasn’t her dream to be pushing buttons, but the opportunity to work with, and learn from, such an esteemed colleague was too good to pass up.
Cynthia placed the vials into the centrifuge, closed the lid, and hit the button. She stood transfixed as she watched the vials slowly start to spin. As the machine picked up speed, she soon could not keep track of the individual vials. She watched as they became one spinning unit.
“Cynthia, are you ok?” Max asked her.
Jarred out of her stupor, she replied, “Yes, doctor. Yes, I’m ok. Just a little tired, I guess.”
“Maybe that boyfriend of yours should try flowers instead of so much wine?” Max retorted in jest. He knew Cynthia quite well. At least he thought so, having grown quite fond of her, in a father to daughter kind of way over the last few months. He was much too old for someone of her age, but he cared for her nonetheless.
“Yes, well, if Robert would produce a ring, he wouldn’t need to use so much wine,” she replied with a chuckle. Everyone in the lab knew she was smitten with her boyfriend of three years. She wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of her life with him but was tiring of waiting for him to pop the question.
“He still hasn’t asked?” Another voice asked her. It was the voice of Dr. William Beagley. He was Dr. Johnson’s partner, in professional terms. They had gone to med school together, completed their residencies together, and now were on the verge of one of the biggest breakthroughs of humankind.
“No, he hasn’t, and I’m running out of ideas to give him hints,” Cynthia replied.
“Maybe you should stop hinting and ask him? It’s not out of bounds anymore for the women to ask the man,” William told her. “I mean, if you love him, ask him.”
“I know, but it’s a girl thing. We want to know our man wants us, and the ultimate way is for the man to ask, not the other way around,” Cynthia said. “Besides, men need to be loved, women need to be wanted.”
“Touché, my dear. Touché,” Max said. “She got you with that one, Bill.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so. In my defense, to know that would be to know what goes on in a woman’s mind and that will never happen,” William said.
“You two have so much to learn for being so smart,” Cynthia chided. “Women are not this abstract thing that no one can figure out.”
“I beg to differ with you,” William said. “Women are the most frustrating and dangerous species on the planet. Yes, I said species because you all are in a world of your own. I’ve been married for twenty-five years and I still cannot tell you what my wife wants on any given day. That’s just speaking of what she wants. I haven’t even mentioned the many moods you all have.”
“Ok, can we get back to the job at hand?” Max laughed. He had to save his buddy before the hole he was digging got too deep.
The others relented as Max went over to the centrifuge. It had finished while the three were joking around. He retrieved a sample and placed a drop of the blood on a slide for inspection under the electron microscope. The ‘scope’, as Max liked to call it, was the best way to see if they had achieved the reaction they needed. The scope allowed them to see individual cells within the synth blood. He needed to see if the proteins had attached the way he wanted them to.
“Ahh, yes. I believe we have obtained complete bonding between the protei
ns,” Max said. He wasn’t one to shout or jump for joy. There were too many times that he had failed at an experiment when he thought he had it figured out and it had taught him not to celebrate prematurely.
“Are they holding?” William asked him.
“So far, so good. Cells look stable,” Max answered.
“Does this mean we did it?” Cynthia asked excitedly.
“Not yet,” Max answered. “We need to see if the bonding will hold. Bill, could you set us up for storage tests?”
“Yes, doctor,” William answered. He knew Max hated being talked to like that and loved to annoy him.
“Enough with the ‘Yes, doctor’ crap,” Max barked.
William said nothing while he went to work prepping for the storage tests. He did smirk and chuckle a bit though.
The storage tests were to test the viability of the ‘synth’ blood after long-term storage. They did not know how long the product would be sitting around waiting for someone to use it. It was the last hurdle they had to jump before they could get FDA approval for mass production.
Outside the lab, the protesters’ actions were reaching a fever pitch. They had worked themselves up until they were almost foaming at the mouth. The voices were turning angry. The once peaceful protest was about to turn violent.
Finally, someone threw a brick at the guards, knocking one out. Next they lobbed several Molotov cocktails at the guards and that’s all it took.
The National Guard soldiers fired back with rubber bullets meant to stun their opponents. However, when someone stands too close to the rifle firing said rubber bullet, it can inflict deadly wounds, as was the case here.
After twenty minutes of close quarters combat between the National Guard troops and the protesters, twenty protesters were dead, while three soldiers and over one hundred protesters had been injured.
Not all of the deaths were directly related to the rubber bullets. Some had been caused by the sheer anger of other protesters. As the furious protestors retreated from the onslaught of the rubber bullets, they ended up stomping on people that had fallen, running over others and there were also several heart attacks.
Of course, the soldiers would end up shouldering all of the blame for the deaths, right or wrong. In the end, it was another example of how divided the country had become.
Nobody had any idea how divided they would be only a few short months later.
CHAPTER ONE
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
Lucy Bailey had just left a room that contained a patient with a serious case of the clap. It wasn’t really what she had envisioned when she had attended medical school, but a girl does what she has to, and in this instance she felt she had gone above and beyond for her young age of twenty-eight. She had graduated high school with her first two years of college completed through a dual enrollment program, allowing her to start training earlier than most for her future career as a doctor.
Lucy had been accepted to, and graduated from, the medical program at Washington University in St. Louis. It wasn’t as prestigious as Harvard or Yale, but it was closer to home and more affordable.
“Affordable,” she mumbled to herself as she walked to the nurse’s station to pick up the chart for the next patient. Affordable to her meant her student loans were just slightly smaller than those of other universities.
She had committed herself to learning everything she could while at school. While her friends were out on a Friday or Saturday night, meeting boys and such, Lucy stayed in her dorm room and studied. She also stayed during the summers, taking every credit she could towards her degree. By doing so, she managed to shave off another year of school, allowing her to enter Washington University’s med school and then her residency program almost four years earlier than other students.
Lucy had visions of being an elite doctor, working in highly specialized labs, or performing missionary work around the world. That was not to be, at least for now. She had to establish herself, and that meant jamming needles in people’s rear ends because they couldn’t keep their zippers up.
Lucy mildly thought her mouth and attitude might also be holding her back from her dreams. She had a propensity to ‘speak her mind’ as her mother used to say, and her sister informed her she still did.
Lucy was the type to never back down from a fight. Instead, she charged in like a bull that had just seen a red blanket. She may have gotten that from her father, but she would never know. He had disappeared from her life at an early age. Mom told her he went to the store to get smokes and lottery tickets. He must have won because he never came back.
The stories mom had told her led her to believe her father was a mouthy, pushy, arrogant S.O.B. If she was the female version of that, then so be it.
“If they don’t like it, too bad,” she mumbled again.
“What?” a patient asked her.
“Oh, nothing,” she replied. She had entered the next room without realizing it. “What seems to be the issue today, Isaac?” She didn’t need to look at the paperwork to recognize her patient and know the reason for his visit today. They were going to start awarding him frequent flyer miles if he didn’t change his ways.
“It still hurts,” Isaac explained, like she was supposed to know what hurt. Unfortunately, she did.
“Isaac, there are these things called condoms, and if you wear them, it won’t hurt to pee anymore,” she chided him. “Stay here. I’ll go get the shot.”
She went out of the room, prepared a dose of penicillin, and returned. Isaac had already assumed the position, pants down around his ankles.
“Oh, holy shit,” Lucy stammered. She knew Isaac was brazen, but damn son! “What the hell are you doing?”
“Just figured I would save a little time,” Isaac said. Isaac was seventeen and clearly had an infatuation with the good doctor. In his mind, he thought he was a studly man, entitled to affection from any woman he encountered.
“Trust me, son. Time is something that won’t fix what you have, and I don’t mean the head on your shoulders,” she blasted him.
“Oh, come on, doc, you know what they say. Once you go Isaac, you’ll want to buy it!” he said.
“Oh god, I think I just threw up in my mouth a little,” she stammered. Lucy cleaned the injection site and just before she gave him the shot, he said, “Not gonna rub it a bit?”
She ‘accidentally’ shoved the needle in as far as it would go and pushed the plunger. She was rewarded with a scream of agony from Isaac.
“There, there. It’s not that bad. Let me clean up the blood a little,” Lucy said. She grabbed a cotton ball and pressed it against Isaac’s butt-cheek, hard.
“Gotta make sure we stop the bleeding,” she chuckled.
“I’m good,” Isaac stammered out between sobs.
“Ok, so no more hitting on the pretty doctor lady, ok?” she gleefully informed him. “And wrap that thing next time!”
“Yep,” Isaac said as he ran out of the room.
She leaned out the door and yelled, “Don’t you want your band-aid?” but Isaac was gone.
As soon as Isaac was out of the office, the nurses let go with belly laughs that could be heard up on the next floor.
“What the hell did you do to him?” one nurse asked.
“Showed him what a night with me would be like. Apparently, he’s not into S&M,” Lucy chuckled. “What’s next?”
“Your appointments are done for the day, but E.R. needs you,” another nurse told her.
“Oh joy, E.R. duty,” she mumbled. Her perfect day was even better now.
It was common practice for this hospital to have its doctors help in the E.R., if they had no more scheduled appointments, due to the growing gang problem spilling out from Little Rock. The problem had grown substantially in the last year and the gangs were expanding into the surrounding communities. It was not too far of a stretch to have at least one gunshot victim every day.
On her way to the em
ergency room, Lucy stopped at the cafeteria for coffee and a smoke. She knew smoking was horrible for her health, but the habit was hard to quit. She had picked it up in med school as a way to keep herself awake during her long hours of study.
In the cafeteria she ran into Dr. Long, with whom she had every intention of showing what a night with her would be like. Maybe his name was hinting at something, she thought to herself.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Long,” she said, presenting the most dazzling smile she could muster. “How are you today?”
“Oh, just dandy,” he said. Dr. Long had specialized in Oncology, which Lucy knew she could never do. How could you become close to your patients, knowing that their chances of survival were so slim?
“Heather passed away this morning,” he stated rather sadly. “Her family didn’t make it in time to say goodbye. It was gut-wrenching.”
“I would imagine so,” she said, trying to put as much empathy as she could into her voice. She knew that caring about your patients was one of the hardest things a doctor could do. She may be hot-headed, but she wasn’t stone-hearted and she genuinely felt sad for him.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked him.
“No, I don’t think so. It’s just…days like today make me question why I went into oncology, ya know? It’s rewarding when you can tell a patient that they are in remission, but today…?” he left the rest of his sentence hanging.
“Greg,” she said, using his first name, “You are one of the most caring doctors I have ever seen. You give so much of yourself to them it must hurt. The thing is, most of them need that. They need to know the person treating them, cares. With you, I don’t feel like a number on a sheet.”
Greg was not sure if she meant to say ‘I’ or not, but decided it was a minor slip and paid it no mind. It wasn’t, even though Lucy didn’t realize she had said it.
“I understand what you 're saying, Dr. Bailey. I guess I just don’t know how to disconnect from that?” Greg said.
