by Rae, Nikki
“Does it still hurt?” he asks, slowly pushing up my pajamas and moving my calf to the left, then the right.
I can’t get a clear view, but I can see that it’s covered in white cotton.
“A little,” I admit. “More now that you’re moving it.”
He immediately stops. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I hope.
Myles starts slowly unwinding the gauze from around my shin. We’re both quiet for the longest time.
Then he breathes out.
“What?” I ask.
He takes his hands away, turns, and looks at me. “You’re okay,” he says before smiling.
I inch up so I can see for myself. My entire leg is bruised up pretty badly, and there’s still little blue threads poking through what used to be the wound, but it's just a thick pink mark now. It looks like it’s a few weeks old rather than just a day.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah,” Myles says, wiping at his face with his forearm. “I’ll take the stitches out, and then it’ll heal the rest of the way.”
I breathe out.
Myles stands again and walks over to the corner where the same red bag is from before. We’re quiet again as he walks back, and I can only see part of my leg where he has tweezers and a pair of tiny scissors, snipping and pulling the threads out.
“Does it hurt at all when I do that?”
“No. I can’t feel anything.”
Then he pulls on one last thread, causing the rest to come out. I can feel it, but it doesn’t exactly hurt.
“That’s it?” I ask.
He laughs a little. “Yeah.”
I stare at the wound that is no longer a wound.
And then I watch as it slowly becomes a wound again.
The puffy pink line where the stitches were slowly separates. First it’s just a tiny smile of red, then it turns into a gaping frown.
“Myles,” I say, but he’s already looking.
“Shit.”
The last time he said that, things didn’t end too well either.
Undecided
Chapter 16
“Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracle aimed for me.”—Neutral Milk Hotel
I wasn’t aware I passed out again, but I’m not exactly surprised. That comes when everything focuses again. I’m on my side. My ribcage, my stomach, and my throat are on fire. It’s like there are razor blades floating around in my bloodstream, and those razorblades have just come out of a furnace.
There are cold hands on my neck, keeping my head still. Behind me, more cold hands hold down my legs. I can’t see anything but blurry outlines of what are supposed to be people. There’s something cold and wet on my forehead. My hearing fades in and out, like it can’t tune into the right frequency. One minute there are muffled voices and I catch a word or two, but the next all I hear is white noise.
I don’t know how long I stay paralyzed this way. In pain, held down, not being able to hear or see what’s going on.
Eventually, everything rushes back in vivid detail.
Myles is in front of me, kneeling down. His dark hair hangs in his face like he’s been sweating. I hear him say that it’s okay. The pain disappears.
Everything is so quiet for a good two minutes.
Then there’s nothing but fire. Fire and darkness.
I’m coughing so much that I can’t breathe and some kind of liquid spills out of my mouth and onto the pillow next to me. I’m not sure if it’s from my stomach or my lungs, but I immediately stop caring.
Because I manage to prop myself up on my arms long enough to see what it is before my elbows give out.
Blood.
Dark red blood.
I’m pushing hands away that won’t budge and I’m crying, yelling when I can grasp onto enough air.
I’m aware now that Evan’s in the room. They’re talking to each other but I can’t make it out, and Myles is shushing me and saying, “It’s alright.”
Like hell it is.
The pressure on my legs lets up as soon as I stop struggling against it, which isn’t hard to do because my body won’t listen to me. If it was, I would be getting up right about now and running. Just running.
“It won’t work,” Evan says suddenly.
Another cramp rolls through me and I cough up more warm liquid.
“Shh.” It comes from Myles, but I’m not sure if it’s meant for me.
“There is only one way. . .” Evan continues.
“That’s enough, Evan,” Myles snaps.
“She is too different,” Evan raises his voice slightly. ”You know this and I know this. There is only one—”
“I said enough,” Myles doesn’t raise his voice at all but the tone scares me.
As the pain in my body starts to subside, I watch as Myles stands. Evan moves toward the door. They don’t say anything. Myles is next to the bed, not taking his eyes off of Evan, and I can’t tell if they’re communicating in their heads or just staring each other down.
Then Evan speaks out loud, “I have to go take care of Ava.” He opens the door and is gone.
Without my screaming, it’s completely quiet.
“Sophie,” Myles says once the door has shut. He takes the pillow next to me and throws it onto the floor where I can’t see it.
“I’m infected,” I say. “Aren’t I?”
He gulps. “We have to try something soon,” he says, and that’s enough of an answer for me. His voice seems to bounce off of everything, including my throbbing temples. “I’m sorry.”
“Why did he say that?” I ask, my voice sounding like it will fade away any minute. “I’m too different?”
Myles takes the cold washcloth from my forehead and sets it down on the night table. He’s staring at me like he’s looking for something. Waiting for more blood to shoot out of my mouth.
“It’s never moved this fast before.” But he’s not looking at me anymore. I can tell he’s lying and I can’t believe he thinks he can get away with it.
He glances at my face; he knows he’s caught.
“That’s bullshit.” My voice comes out louder now. I wish I could scream, but I have more to say, and I don’t want to risk losing my voice. “Are you serious?” I don’t care about the tears threatening their way to my face. “You’re going to fucking lie to me again?”
Myles stands. I’ve never seen that look on his face. Agitation, anger, and sadness all rolled into one. He’s quiet, fidgeting with his hands as I stare at him.
“I’m sorry,” I barely hear. “I am so sorry.”
I make sure my voice is even before I speak again. “You told me that I could ask you anything. That there was nothing you wanted to hide.”
He comes closer to me again but doesn’t sit on the bed.
“There are some things I can’t tell you,” Myles whispers. “There are things that I’ve had to lie about.”
“What?”
“Sophie,” he says, pausing to gulp again. “I’m really sorry,” he repeats. “I’m really sorry that I’ve lied and kept things from you. When this is over, we can work it out.” He glances at me for a brief second before staring at the floor. “But there are more important things we need to be talking about right now.”
“Right,” I say, my voice as flat as I can make it when it’s this flimsy. “That’s real convenient,” I say. “You have me locked up in this hospital-place, I’m not allowed to call anyone, and secrets seem to be falling out of the sky around you,” now my voice is actually sounding like the yelling that I want. I hope it lasts. “How am I supposed to trust anything you say?”
Myles stares down at me but somehow avoids my gaze at the same time. “You’re dying,” he practically whispers. “I think we should talk about how to stop it.”
That shuts me up mid-rant.
There are so many things one can say to someone else when they’ve been told that they’re dying. There’s the initial denial: What? No I’m not.
There’s anger
: What the fuck are you talking about?
And there are more questions. Questions that I can’t even ask because before I have a chance, my leg, then my hips are cramping up, spasming to the point of convulsion.
“What’s happening?” I ask like an idiot. He just told me. I’m dying.
Myles is holding me by the shoulders. “Michael’s blood is moving too fast,” he says. “I meant that.”
I whimper.
It’s quiet as he holds me, as I fall apart in a whole new way I never thought I was capable of.
When the pain has stopped yet again, I push him away. “I want to talk to Jade.”
Exasperated isn’t the right word for the expression on Myles’ face, but it’s all that comes to mind. “Sophie,” he says. “I—”
“No,” I practically scream.
Myles sighs, looking indecisive for a moment before moving closer. “Here,” he says.
I flinch when his hands are at the bottom of my shirt. Myles notices it, a bright blue flash as his eyes meet mine for a second before he ignores it and continues to lift up my shirt.
“Stop.” It almost doesn’t come out and when I try to push him away, my fingers collapse against his hands.
“Look,” he says.
I make it a point to stare at the ceiling.
Quickly, Myles is behind me. His arms are under mine. He lifts me up so I have no choice.
He says what I’m seeing before I can take it in. “The marks are coming back,” he says.
Myles removes layers of gauze that are already soaked through with my own blood. The small scratches that were once there are now fresh wounds that look like they never healed.
“It’s destroying your veins,” Myles says, lightly placing a finger and trailing it across my stomach where a deep red line is forming and spidering out. “Destroying you.”
I shake my head like it will make what I’m seeing and what he’s telling me one more lie he’s made up.
“Yes,” he says, holding my head in place with a hand. “And if we don’t do something about it, you’re going to die.” His voice softens now. “I’m sorry.”
He rolls my shirt back down so I don’t have to look at myself.
“I’m sorry that this is happening to you and that you have to go through this.” He gently shifts his arm from under me and stands, lying me back down. “But this is more important right now, okay?”
My eyes are burning, my stomach is killing me. My head is spinning and my limbs feel like they’re tied to the bed.
“You were right,” Myles says suddenly. When my eyes are on him in question because I doubt I can talk at this point, he says, “This is why he kept you alive.”
To torture me.
To torture me until I die.
So Myles could watch it all happen.
Because I’m “unnatural” and should die. That’s what he said the first time, wasn’t it?
My abdomen and arms start cramping up, not with pain yet, but there’s a promise that comes with the sensation.
“There isn’t much time,” Myles says. “A few weeks at most.”
“Before I die.”
He kneels down. “I won’t do anything unless you want me to, but you need to decide soon,” he says. “Or else you’ll be too weak.”
My vision blurs and I’m not sure if it’s from tears or whatever’s pumping into me through the IV.
“Can you at least call Jade for me?” I ask. “Tell him I’m okay . . . again?”
Myles swallows before grasping my hand. I allow the contact. “Okay,” he says. “You get some sleep, and I’ll call him.”
It’s not what I want. What I want is Jade. Here. With me. But I can’t have that for whatever reason, so I let this compromise ease my mind and lull me back into restless sleep.
***
I don’t know how long I hang in between sleep and being awake. One, two, three days? I still can’t sit up on my own, but the pain in my limbs dulls to an ache.
The window near the bed has dim light behind the blue curtain. It’s either sunrise or sunset. I scan the rest of the room and find Phyllis, sitting on the couch in the living room. I realize that she’s not alone; Alex is with her.
“Oh,” Alex says, standing up and turning off the TV. “You’re awake.” She’s standing next to the bed now, but I’m not sure if she’s moved that fast or if it’s the drugs messing with me.
Phyllis moves at normal, human speed, stopping at the IV stand, adjusting something near the base.
“How you feeling, sweetie?” Phyllis asks as I become aware of the other machines I’m hooked up to.
There’s a low beeping coming from behind me that I recognize as a heart monitor. There’s plastic around my left index finger, taking my temperature. There’s also air being pumped through my nostrils.
My arms are completely covered in various sizes of rectangular bandages. Some have dark brown splotches in the middle and some have bright red stains around the edges.
“Crap,” I whisper.
“I think you look a lot better,” Alex says.
Phyllis ignores her. “Can you sit up?”
I shake my head.
“That’s okay,” she says. “Alex, will you help me?”
She smiles. “That’s what I’m here for.”
I expect them to lean me against the headboard but Alex gently hoists me over her shoulder.
“I’m just going to change the dressings on your back,” Phyllis explains.
I hadn’t thought of that. My back was bitten too, wasn’t it? And if that’s true, then the wounds will be coming back there as well. My wings are going to be destroyed along with everything else, then. I completely break down, sobbing into Alex’s neck as Phyllis peels off old, bloody sheets of gauze and replaces them with new ones.
It only takes her a few minutes and Alex lays me back in my original position.
“You don’t have to stay, Phyllis,” she says, handing me a tissue from the nightstand. “I can stay with her.”
“You sure?” she asks. “I can stay a little longer.”
“Nonsense,” Alex waves a hand. “Myles will be back soon anyway.”
Phyllis glances at me one last time before removing her gloves. “Alright,” she says. “Just let me know if anything changes.”
“Sure thing.” Alex is fluffing my pillows and covering me up with the blanket.
I hear the door open and shut; she and I are now alone.
“You’re not in pain anymore at least,” she comments.
I blink a few times to make sure. No cramping in my muscles, no razor blades in my veins. I nod as she touches my cheek.
“You’re cooler too. That’s good.”
I try to smile at her, but the soreness of my throat gets worse when I do, so I give up.
“Where’s Myles?” I ask.
“He had to step out a minute.” She shrugs and I immediately think she’s hiding something, but I let it go. I don’t want any more confrontation. I’m too tired. “He’ll be back, though.”
“How long was I asleep?”
Alex is still fooling around with the blanket, tucking it into the mattress beneath me. “You were in and out the past two days.”
“My God,” I say to myself. “This can’t be happening.”
“I’ll make you something to eat,” is Alex’s response. “Would you like that?”
She’s walking through the living room and into the kitchen before I answer. I’m about to protest, but I can’t deny how hungry I am.
The drugs make it almost impossible to stay awake, so I drift off again. It can’t be more than a few minutes before I’m fully awake and Alex is in front of me once more. I feel a little bit stronger, so I sit up on my own this time. I eat the chicken noodle soup she’s made me without really tasting it, the mere action of lifting spoon to mouth proving to be too much activity for my body to handle.
Alex sits down in the chair by the window. “Turning isn’t so bad,” she says.
I glare at her as I set the empty bowl on the end table to my left. “Alex, look,” I say. “You don’t have to tell me about it.”
“But I do.” And when she stares up at me, her cobalt blue eyes are big and unyielding.
“Okay,” I say just so she’ll stop looking at me like that.
“I was about your age in the early 1930s,” she says. “My father was a painter, my mother was a music teacher. We lived in Germany.”
I have to lean my head back against the headboard because the room is starting to sway.
“All of us got sick.” I can hear her voice crack the tiniest bit. “Really sick.”
Now my head is full-on against the pillow. It’s the only way I can keep the image of Alex from spinning without closing my eyes.
“We all went to the same hospital to get treated…I was the only one to walk out, although I wasn’t alive when I did.”
She smiles to herself. “Myles came and saved me. Made me strong. Made me what I am now.”
“What?” I croak.
Alex gazes right through me. “He turned me,” she says.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
She shrugs. “It’s not really your business.” Alex doesn’t sound rude when she says this. She’s just stating a fact.
“Anyway,” she continues with her story. “Myles eventually went off on his own and so did I. I met Adrienne not long after. He was human when I met him.”
“And you turned him?” I’m trying to be patient with this. I really am. All I want to do is go back to sleep as the world I know is crumbling around me. When I have these huge choices laid out in front of me and she’s on this mission to convince me to lean more toward her side of things.
“No,” she says. “Only older vampires can turn a human. I had to find Myles so he could do it.”
My mind is cutting in and out now, and I don’t know what to take as true or a dream at this point. “Okay.”
“Don’t you want to know why?” she asks.
I try to muster the same tone, but with my sore, broken, body, I can barely compare to her. “Because you wanted him to?”