Page 30 of The Unraveling

A little ember of a memory glows in my mind. “Yes. He was a familiar to one of Dr. Todd’s fledglings, right?”

She hums in thought. “No . . . a fledgling’s human family member, I think. A nephew or second cousin⁠—”

Dr. Smith hollers for Julian to shut it, and I hold my breath as Daisy’s hand freezes on my shoulder.

“He’s a lunatic who won’t listen to scientific reason, John!”

I scramble off the bed and stumble across her twirling room before she catches my arm.

Chapter 11

I’m gasping for breath by the time Daisy helps me back to the study, collapsing in my chair across from Victor, whose pale face is flushed red.

“Victor, you can continue to repeat poison like a broken record, but there’s no immediate observable interaction between Bradley’s blood and mine,” Dr. Watson snaps with a tone so confident, it’s as if he could have said as much when Dr. Smith first asked him to test. “Simply a sample of two healthy immortals’ blood mixed. His cells aren’t killing mine—or whatever nightmare you believe his blood has been enacting inside your veins.”

“Such a simple test proves nothing!” Victor argues. “You know damn well that’s bad science! Mixing blood in a tube tells you nothing about what happens inside a living body—or have they stopped teaching basic physiology at Harvard?”

I look at Dr. Smith for input, but he merely stares across the room with his arms crossed, deep in thought.

“It’s like I called it.” A dark, disgusted sneer shapes Dr. Watson’s lips. “You murdered your patient—your fledgling—for nothing.”

That snaps Dr. Smith out of his contemplation, who barks at Julian to mind his tongue.

Victor bristles, baring his gritted teeth. “How dare you! We all know we can’t test conclusively at this point, so you’re simply trying to declare what you know I can’t disprove empirically! You know I can’t do further tests here!”

“No!” Julian straightens, as if he doesn’t already stand taller than my love, who suffers, keeled over his desk. “From the evidence currently available, this sickness—this poisoning you whine about—has affected only the cannibals in this room. You have done the unnatural for decades, and it has finally caught up with you. You drank Bradley’s blood, and when your body rejected it, you punished him for it.”

Victor gapes at him, then simply blinks and says, “Julian, we’ve been poisoned. You behave as if we’ve committed some punishable crime. Preferences and morality do not cause illness. You should know this.”

As if he couldn’t hear a word Victor said, Julian spits, “There’s clearly something wrong with your immortal biology to begin with if you opted to sustain yourself on vampire blood over human. It’s not just sickening—it’s downright fucking weird. I bet it’s changed you and your lineage in ways that diverge from the rest of our species.”

“It’s my ability,” Victor explains with a deep grumble. “I can’t enjoy human blood from non-patients when I can taste their entire chemical makeup and the implications of how it’s developing. How am I supposed to enjoy the taste of a donor when I can tell she’s a young woman who will start developing dangerous blood clots soon?”

I lower my eyes. The evening he sampled that woman’s blood from a donor bag returns to me as a fractured but clear piece. He was so quiet after emptying it, the helplessness burying him in a silence that few questions could pierce.

I asked him why we couldn’t track down the donor, but even if he went through the effort, no human doctor nor tests could corroborate a thing he claimed. Even if he spoke to her directly, what right did he have to suck her into treatment before she was truly suffering? Before he could know if one of those clots would really be fatal?

“It doesn’t matter!” Dr. Watson roars. Even from across the room, I spot the panic flaring in his eyes. “Vampires feed on humans. That’s the way of the world. We may play God with our patients, but we can’t change our fundamental nature any more than cancer can change! Who are you to make your own rules?” His piercing gaze flies to me. “Or impose them on your own patients?”

Daisy and I release a noise of disbelief in sync, and I say, “I choose to drink immortal blood! And I’m not his patient anymore. I’m his wife!”

It was something I could share with Victor—with his patients. Sharing that way gave me the sense we were one big extended family. A closed circle. But I could always sense that it wasn’t what my undying body needed; it wasn’t natural in the way drinking human blood was, but it never felt wrong.

I used to think there was no harm in it . . . but what if Dr. Watson is right despite how cruelly he tries to make his point? What if we’ve done this to ourselves?

I’d say more if I had the breath. But the fury over his audacity has my vision pulsing and the feeling of Daisy’s arms slipping away. The moment I think I’m about to pass out, the panic from my own spasming heart gives me a dose of adrenaline to remain awake.

As if Dr. Smith can sense the slow failure of my body, he stalks with purpose from the room and to the kitchen, returning with two crystal glasses. He moves swiftly, piercing a vein in his wrist with the elongated nail of his thumb and releasing a mouthwatering fountain of crimson into each glass. Julian watches with a scowl and a curled lip. Once Dr. Smith has filled them both halfway, he untucks his sharp nail from his wrist and it recedes as his flesh mends.

“You’re no better than a necromancer!” Julian snarls as he drags his judgmental stare back to Victor, whose focus is locked on the blood as Dr. Smith approaches. “You raise undead livestock for your own selfish needs, while Dr. Smith saves brilliant minds⁠—”

As Dr. Smith hands a glass to each of us, he interjects with, “Julian! Perhaps demonstrate some of that brilliance by shutting up!”

I bring the glass to my lips, cold blood washing over my tongue—smooth and sweet—as I tip it back, my eyes fixed on Victor so I can see him drink, too. With the sight of Victor and the strength of John’s powerful blood battling my condition, I soften in my chair and nestle deeper into Daisy’s arms.

Calm washes over Victor’s expression as he gulps the blood, the wrinkle between his brow smoothing. He swallows hard and exhales a breath of relief as he sets the glass down.

“Dr. Watson,” he says evenly. “I’m sorry you have not had”—he gasps for breath, and my heart lurches—“the human life you were promised, but I am not your enemy. I’m not asking you to prove yourself to me as a vampire or a doctor, and I do not wish to fight you.”