Pulse

by Danielle Koste

  Left by Miller to enter the observation room alone with a bag of previously collected blood, Rowan swiped her key card, which chimed confirmation now after a change in security. She walked through the sliding glass door and waited for it to shut behind her before letting out a breath she felt like she’d been holding since leaving the room last.

  All the lights were still off, just as she’d left them, but Lyall had proven before that he hardly needed sight to sense her. “You just can’t get enough of me, can you?”

  Her shoulders loosened with the sound of his tired voice. She headed for him immediately, meeting where she’d heard his hand, sliding up, bracing him against the wall as he rose to his feet and came closer.

  He leaned his forehead against the glass once he reached it, trying to get a better look into the observation room, and when Rowan stepped close enough for him to make out the shadow of her shape through the low light, he managed a weak noise of disbelief that fogged the glass between them as it escaped his lips.

  She couldn’t help her own breathy laugh in response, her stomach flipping in relief. His appearance had improved, but was clearly exhausted, the color lacking from his face and the whites of his eyes bloodshot. His attitude clearly reappeared, though.

  “What do I have to do to get you to leave me alone to die?” Lyall managed a bit of sharpness with the words, but Rowan learned the fine line between his threats and his teasing, and responded by rolling her eyes.

  “You’re not getting rid of me that easy,” she said simply, putting her fingertips to the glass to give him a noise to follow as she moved closer to the security door. “I said I was going to help you get out of here.”

  “Come to break me out?” he asked, following with his eyes, a joke burning in them despite how tired they looked.

  She made a disagreeing noise, and watched the corner of his mouth turn up. “Not exactly.”

  Lyall mocked a yawn. “How boring. What’s the plan, then?”

  Rowan paused, knowing the answer to that question would put a halt to the tolerable exchange between them. She knew his place when it came to receiving an antiviral. The whole point was to change that position. Hopefully.

  Not yet, though. For now, she wanted to just enjoy her moment of victory. “I brought you something.”

  “I was starting to wonder if you were just teasing me.”

  When she moved to the security door he followed to the other side, and this time Rowan found herself barely hesitating as she lowered to her knees and feed the blood bag through the hatch.

  “Take it slow, there’s no rush anymore.”

  Despite her reassuring, he was still quick to collect it from her grasp, the sound of tearing plastic and thick, heavy swallows closely following. Rowan settled in, her back against the door, far less disturbed this time by what she knew was happening on the other side of the steel she leaned on. His thirst didn’t make her skin crawl in the same way it used to, his threats no longer leaving her frozen in fear. Maybe she was just getting used to it, used to him, or maybe there was just other things to be more disturbed over.

  Too lost in her head, Rowan hadn’t even noticed when he paused with his meal, words leaking out into the space between them, as if he heard her thoughts. “You shouldn’t want to help me. You should be scared of me.”

  Rowan scoffed. “Scared of what?”

  “I have your blood on my tongue, and you ask what you should be scared of?” he added, this time a fraction sharper, his tone accusing. When Rowan chose to let the silence hang instead of responding, he continued, so quiet she had to hold her breath to hear. “Sometimes, it feels like the hunger is something inside of me. A beast, growling in my gut, and when I feed it, it just gets more angry.”

  Her throat went dry with his words, making it hard to swallow. Once she did, she managed a response, trying to be reassuring. “There’s a bit of a monster in all of us.”

  She heard him inhale, letting out something heavy from his lungs. “Other times, though… It doesn’t feel like something inside of me. Sometimes, I feel like I’m the monster. I want it all so badly. The power, the hunger, the fear. I don’t know where the line is. I’m not even sure there is one. I don’t know who I am, without the taste of blood in my mouth. I don’t… Trust myself.”

  Rowan sat as quietly as she could, worried she might disrupt the moment of vulnerability he shared with her if she reminded him that there was someone on the other side of the door. Instead of speaking, when the silence grew thick and heavy, Rowan had a foolish idea.

  “You don’t have to trust yourself.” She moved her hand from fiddling in her lap, to slide it along the cold floor towards the opened hatch between them, just enough to feel with the tips of her fingers the edge where the door met with the floor on his side. “I trust you, Lyall. So just… Trust me.”

  He let out an unsteady breath. She heard the sound of his shoulder shifting against the door, and then, her hand twitched ever so slightly at the spark of his skin, as he carefully weaved his fingers between hers.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After the first day, Rowan’s observation duty, as Miller called it, never went quite as smoothly as she’d like.

  It was already frustrating enough not being allowed to know the research’s progression or how the antiviral was coming along. Within a few days, it became clear the biggest reason Miller agreed to Rowan’s proposal was simply to keep her out of the way. Being cut off from the rest of the project had not been part of the plan, but Rowan put herself between a rock and a hard place with her desperation, and Miller knew that. With Lyall’s life, and both Cameron and her own livelihood in jeopardy, she had no room to argue Miller’s new rules.

  The actual part of the plan that Rowan had control over also wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. The moments of weakness Lyall shared with her at the beginning became few and far between once he was being fed again, and while she was happy to see him being a more familiar version of himself, at times it was also discouraging.

  As the days went on, no change to his situation in sight, he became fickle and hard to read, his mood swinging on a dime, making her have to tiptoe around him with her words frequently. He’d make sure to remind her he was ready to die in that room constantly, that she was stupid for trying, that she should just give up and leave him to die. Then, moments later, he’d be whispering to her, in a tone that was too alluring.

  “Let me out, Rowan. Open the door. I know you want to.”

  Sometimes, when he really wanted to torture her, he’d even beg.

  “I can’t stand it in here anymore. Please, Rowan.”

  She got more and more frustrated with her isolation, her lack of knowledge, her helplessness, and he’d fed her uncertainty with dangerous ideas that would linger far too long in the back of her head.

  “You’ve been so generous, feeding me. I want to give back. We could punish them, you and me. Just a little bit of my blood is all it would take. Be a monster with me, Rowan.”

  He wasn’t a monster, though. At least, not in the way he thought he was. There was something there in him, burning in the blacks of his eyes, a darkness in him he had trouble controlling, that bloomed violent red sometimes, but Rowan could tell it was only there out of trained necessity, out of survival. He had been alone for so long, of course he learned how to protect himself. How to keep people away or lure them in.

  Rowan had a lot of time to speculate while trying to ignore his attempts at manipulating her. Being what he was, he probably spent his whole life avoiding this exact situation. He never needed to let his guard down, to open up to someone, to trust. In fact, being so vulnerable was not in the best interest of a predator. A predator kept their teeth bared even while backed into a corner.

  It was clear there was a part of him that had given up, though. A part that decided this was the end. When his moods swung away from the usual smirking, manipulative manic state, he’d grown quiet and defensive, the wolf grin sliding away from his face into
something less prickly.

  Sometimes, the exact number being so few Rowan could count them on one hand, he’d sit next to her on the other side of the glass in a silence that would stretch into something as close to comforting as she could offer. From these moments, she could clearly see him for what he was, behind all the bluffing.

  A scared, broken boy waiting for death.

  As terrible and hopeless as it made her feel to see him like this, she also liked to think it made her special. That this tamer side of him was just for her, a small glimpse at the part of him that wasn’t always thinking of blood. They were prisoners together in the situation, sharing a common enemy, and while she was sure the fact that she was the only one feeding him also made him more inclined to be polite, she liked to think it was more than that. They’d shifted, from victim and villain, to something almost friendly.

  As friendly as the prey could be with the predator, of course.

  “How much longer are you going to put me through this torture?”

  He’d meant his words to be playful, sarcastic, but with the days turning closer to weeks, his little patience in her was wearing even thinner.

  Rowan offered a gentle scoff as she sat down, cross-legged, her back to the glass separating them. “It’s not that bad… I just need you to bear with me.” She tried to downplay his complaining, but she knew he had the right to be frustrated.

  She teased him with a plan to get him out, but hadn’t revealed her idea yet, and could only continue to ask him to trust her when he clearly struggled to do so. It wasn’t really her fault, though. There hadn’t been news on the antiviral yet, and she was terrified of bringing it up with him. He wasn’t ready yet. In the state he was in, he wouldn’t accept her plan. If Rowan was getting a bit of cabin fever, she couldn’t imagine how he must feel.

  “I’m going crazy in this room,” he added, as if he’d been in her head too, before joining her on the floor, on the other side of the glass, letting his temple rest against it after a disgruntled noise.

  Rowan hummed, trying to offer some condolences. She could tell he was struggling. He paced a lot, and she caught him scratching at his arms again, even though the wounds never stuck now that he fed regularly. She could talk him down sometimes, but other days, he’d just blow up at her. The animal simmered just under his skin, waiting for a few wrong words to rear and snap.

  He was calm today. At least, he seemed like it, so Rowan tried a gentle joke. “I’d let you out if I knew you wouldn’t go on a killing spree.” She watched for his reaction, noting that if there wasn’t a wall between them, they’d be brushing shoulders with how close he’d placed himself.

  She fully appreciated the grin when he reacted to her words, wickedness flashing across his features in his response. “What if I promise to only kill a couple people?”

  Rowan hummed again, used to his humor now, and played along for a moment. “Nope,” she finally said, shaking her head despite him being unable to see her.

  His grin stretched as he reconsidered, pushing a step further. “What if I promise to kill only you?”

  Rolling her eyes, Rowan answered, “And how will I know if you keep your promise if I’m dead?”

  Sticks thrown in the cogs of his logic, he shrugged playfully, conceding for a moment and letting the silence between them roll in a little.

  He wasn’t finished yet, though. Third time was always the charm for him. When he spoke again, Lyall lowered his voice to the tone he used when trying to tempt her, the humor completely gone. “What if I killed everyone but you.”

  He didn’t say it like a question, but instead, an offer.

  Rowan felt the air escape from her lungs without her permission, the first time in a long time that he’d made a chill run up her spine. This time, it wasn’t from discomfort or bone rattling fear. Instead, she found herself momentarily seduced by his suggestion. The monster in her that sat curled up on her frustration and helplessness, purred in satisfaction. Everyone gone, so she was no longer stuck in the middle, stuck between her career and her morals. Lyall, no longer caged.

  That was the problem, though. Lyall, if allowed his freedom now, with the virus still intact, would be even less reasonable than he ever was. If she let him out, he would kill everyone.

  On the other side of the glass, Lyall gave a frustrated noise. “Don’t lie to me, Rowan.” Because he already knew what she was going to say, despite her rapid heartbeat and shallow lungs.

  She said it anyway, if only to banish the dark thoughts from her own mine. “Being done wrong doesn’t justify doing wrong.”

  He chuckled, but it hid a note of bitterness. “Dog eat dog.”

  Rowan let her eyes drop to the floor as she countered. “You can’t spend your whole life alone, Lyall.”

  “I already have,” he said, as if it proved a point.

  Snorting with the irony, she added, “Yeah, and look where it got you.”

  His expression shifted to annoyance, but he resisted letting his tone get too sharp when he responded. “Point taken.” He followed with a defeated sigh, which she copied to try and shake off some of the negativity.

  When the somber air between them became too much, Rowan tried to offer some reassurance, not wanting his decent mood to go too sour. “I’m going to get you out of here, I promise. It won’t be much longer, I’m sure. Once the antiviral is finished—” She’d said to much, cutting herself off but the mistake already made. She hadn’t meant for her personal mantra to leak out onto her lips, but it had, her tongue betraying her.

  She cringed away from the glass, preparing for him to react violently to her plan being spilled, but the angry outburst never came. When the silence grew palpably thick, Rowan turned back to see his expression go deflated and cold.

  “I should have known.” Lyall lifted his knees to his chest, wrapping them in his arms and leaning his head back against the glass, shutting his eyes. “There’s no other way, is there?” He said finally, but the question sounded more like it was to himself than her.

  Timid to answer, Rowan fiddled her fingers in her lap for a moment before she got the words out. “They’ll definitely never let you leave like this.”

  He huffed at her confirmation, letting the somberness of that point settle for a second before adding another question. “And you?

  “What about me?” Rowan stumbled, unsure what he meant.

  He’d smirked a little, but it was far from playful. “You don’t want me like this either. You want me to be human.”

  “You are human,” she objected, garnering a scoff from him.

  “You know what I mean,” he added sourly. “You want to fix me. No more virus.”

  Rowan sighed, pulling her legs up to her chest like him. “It’s not like that…” She offered, but the response was not good enough. He made another noise, a sharp exhale full of disbelief, and Rowan forced herself to continue, her own tone picking up a defensive note. “I just don’t understand. You’re suffering. You can’t argue that. Why wouldn’t you just want to get rid of it?”

  He shook his head, his lips twisting up a little, but it was just a look to cover something else that had passed his expression. Something pained and too real. “You wouldn’t understand…”

  “Try me,” she pressed, because clearly, whatever he was holding back made all the difference in the world. If he would just tell her, maybe she could finally understand.

  Lyall considered it for a moment, but instead resisted a growl and ran a stiff hand through his hair. “What difference does it make. It won’t change anything.”

  Irritation tightened his shoulders, and this was usually the point where Rowan would keep her mouth shut until he settled again, but she found herself frustrated as well, his stubbornness bringing more words to her lips.

  “You’d think the least you could do is give me a decent reason why, if you’re going to make me suffer through waiting for you to die in here.” She tried to be gentle with her objection, but too much of her own anno
yance leaked out, making the point of her words taper to a dangerously sharp edge.

  The black in Lyall’s eyes sparked with something dangerous. “Make you suffer? What kind of pain do you have to go through?” He’d lifted his voice, as if her words had been a joke, but it was obviously one he hadn’t found the least bit funny. “You’re not the one locked up, tortured, starved. The other doctors are mean to me, boo hoo. You have no idea what real suffering is.”

  She hadn’t meant to upset him. Actually, the moment his words shifted to fire, Rowan felt the burning in her own chest drowned with regret. “Maybe I don’t. I just… I don’t want you to suffer any longer either. Why do you insist on holding onto the virus, when all it’s brought you is pain?”

  She tried to backpedal, she tried to reword herself, but her thoughts came out of her nervous mouth all wrong, only making matters worse.The blacks of his eyes seemed to darken a fraction as he narrowed them in response, his anger boiling over. He stood, taking a pace away from the glass but unable to hold back his outburst.

  “Who are you to tell me about pain? What do you know about suffering? Suffering is watching from under the floorboards as a mob of monsters who look and sound just like you, butcher your mother like an animal. Suffering is not understanding why they yelled “fiend” and “demon” as they hung her corpse up by the feet to bleed her out. Suffering is a child, alone in the cold, waiting to follow his mother to the grave. You know nothing about my suffering, doctor.”

  There it was. The happening that made him the broken animal he was now. The pain burning like coals in his eyes when she got too close to him. The memory making him bark and snap at everyone and everything that dared to even look at him. It read on his face as a reopened wound, deep and bleeding, and Rowan felt her own heart fissure.

  He was something beastly now, but once he had been just a boy. A boy who saw something red and violent, blooming a darkness within him. A boy surrounded by nightmares like her. What he became only seemed fitting: a monster born of blood with a taste for nothing else.