Page 19 of The Unraveling

I release a strained sigh as he wavers down the path, pausing incrementally to ponder bushes heavy with growing buds and lingering to study those already unfurled.

“Perhaps you should draw our blood and look at it,” I suggest, fiddling with the cuff of my sleeve.

Leaning forward over a bush, he tries inspecting the other side, voice strained as he says, “Yes, I should.”

His fingers sort clumsily through greenery and petals.

My heart pounds in my ears, the hand of fear locked around my throat. “You should examine me and catalog my symptoms. Yours as well.”

“That’s an excellent idea.” He says it so easily, as if this doesn’t feel detrimental to him. As if a rose is more imperative in helping us. “Oh—here’s the perfect one, love.”

Victor reaches forward into the rose bushes with both hands to snap off an unseen stem. My eyes widen as he collapses forward into them, guttural choking rattling out of him.

I wrangle a breath, voice shrill as I holler, “Victor!”

Roses and thorn-covered canes shudder with every twitch of his body. The noise twisting out of him is so awful, it has me on my feet with a weak surge of adrenaline that propels me to him.

The door flies open, and Daisy scrambles across the porch to my right, asking what’s wrong through a mouthful of food as she pants and darts to my side.

As we reach for Victor to drag him from the bushes, he goes limp. We both freeze, my pulse thrumming in my ears and banging against my ribs as I gape at him.

I’m too breathless to speak, but a flood of relief pushes out the guilt when Daisy says, “Dr. Todd! Are you okay?”

He groans before a teary gasp of breath—a strangled, low whimper—squeaks out of him. “Daisy,” he grits out. “Please call Dr. Smith.”

She straightens beside me, her gulp deep enough to be audible. “I did while you were in the bathroom with Isla, Dr. Todd. He’s already on his way.”

An extended moment is filled with his noisy breathing before he whispers, “Thank you, Daisy.”

Chapter 7

“God, I’m thirsty,” Victor chokes out as we help guide his fumbling feet through the back door and into the kitchen, with Daisy and I on either of his sides. “The fridge, please.”

With so little energy between us, the journey is painfully slow. Daisy supports most of his weight, his arms slung over our shoulders, as I grip both him and the counter so I’m not the one who sends us toppling onto the floor. My breathlessness forces Victor’s desperate steps to slow. His throat is raw with thirst as he speaks, and I manage only a little air for apologies.

We finally make it to the fridge. Victor leans against the counter as Daisy pivots to help me return to the table so I can rest my wobbly legs. She plops down beside me and scoops up a torn chunk of my abandoned sandwich.

Victor’s visible through the dining room doorway as he grumbles and heaves the fridge open like the seal was stuck—despite how the resistance is clearly a consequence of our dwindled strength. He unsteadily runs a hand through his hair to brush it from his face before taking a human blood bag in his fist.

“Do you want me to warm it for you?” Daisy asks as she chews, setting down the sandwich she’s nearly finished like she’s preparing to stand.

He shakes his head as he slices into the tube with a knife and sets it between his lips. Crimson rushes through the plastic before he freezes, the liquid retreating back into the bag.

Victor stares at me, unblinking, the tube still pinched between his lips.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

When he swallows hard, it looks like a stone moving down his throat. His lips part as he slowly lowers the blood bag.

“It tastes like . . . like . . .” He shakes his head, expression souring.

I grapple with what could be wrong with the blood, trying to shove the thought away that it’s something wrong with him.

“Like blood?” Daisy offers.

“Yes,” he breathes, eyes snapping to hers. “Like when you’re human and get a mouthful of your own.”

My gut tightens with the horrible wrongness of that.