Blood Bond

The scent of antiseptic stirred me back into the land of metal and sterile white. I had returned to my prison. Or was it my sanctuary? The rhythmic drone of the heart monitor felt almost welcoming now, a familiar hum beneath the silence. The IV pole stood as a silent sentinel, holding out its bag of poison as it dripped into me. Was another round already starting?

My hand rested upon the paper-thin sheet. The weight of Meris's hand still lingered upon my chest. Her eyes still pierced me, watching over me. And her voice still shrouded me with comfort and shelter. But that presence, sharp and poignant as it was, was only the ghost of a fraying dream.

The sound and smell of the hospital solidified around me. Weariness weighed me down, a familiar cloak woven from the chemo. I looked for Mom, but found only an empty chair beside my bed. She probably has to finally take care of all the things she'd dropped to look after me – that ever-growing stack of bills, and... the groceries. Is Maya even getting cereal?

A wave of nausea, subtle at first then more insistent, churned in my stomach. The chemo. Right on schedule. My hand instinctively traced the path of the IV line, bringing back memories of what I had accomplished the previous day: Blood magic, here on Earth. I had also managed to find the 'key' to destroy chemo-like poison of the elves. I could most likely do it here as well.

It'd mean I wouldn't stir up the hunger again. The thought made my heart jump, registering on the heart monitor as a sharp spike. I don't want to feed again.

But the chemo is for battling leukemia. I couldn't just waste everyone's efforts in helping me – Dr. Sharma, Nurse Miller, and especially Mom, who's practically been my personal nurse through all this. We need the chemo to kill the cancer.

I frowned, my gaze falling to my arm, to the spot where the IV was taped. Though, could my power take care of the cancer by itself? I could potentially bypass this whole ordeal, save trouble for both of my worlds.

But first, I needed to see how my power perceives my cancer in the first place.

I focused upon my veins and reached out to the blood flowing within them. The strain was less this time. And almost instantly my senses merged with the cells flowing through that dark channel. I searched for cells that felt unhealthy or just different, and found them almost instantly.

There were clumps of them, misshapen, and wobbling about together, half stumbling and rolling through the bloodstream. They weren't responsive to my attempt to connect with them. In fact they felt almost alien and yet also not at the same time. I willed my cells to cut through them and they did easily after taking the form of blades. But then more kept coming in.

I followed the trail of malformed clumps up my bloodstream. The closer I got to the source the wider the pathway got, the stronger flow was, and there were more clumps now. There were beats reverberating through the channel, like tides rushing past: I was nearing my heart.

It was then that I noticed it. All around the walls of the channel were shadowy, root-like dendrites that seemed to get thicker the closer we got to my heart, as if they were reaching, crawling out from my heart itself. It throbbed and pulsated with the beat of my heart, and there was a strangely familiar glow around it. It was deep red, and fleshy.

The air froze in my lungs. I was back in the wardstone chamber, right after my forced seeding. Right when the wardstone had become a fleshy, beating heart, when I had seen all those writhing tendrils of red. This was that! That exact same color. That glow. And it was pulling me in, like gravity, sucking in the flow of blood toward it. Whatever that thing was. It was in my heart! It was going to consume me!

Primal fear, stark and absolute, tore through me. I jerked back, causing the IV pole to clatter against the bed. The beeps of the heart monitor became a continuous shriek again.

The door burst open, and Dr. Sharma rushed in, his head darting from side to side.

"Leo! What happened? Talk to me!" He was at my bedside in an instant, his immediate focus on the blaring monitor and my evident distress. Quick footsteps in the hall, perhaps another nurse responding to the alarm—filtered in. I was gasping, trembling, rubbing at my chest, the horrifying vision of those fleshy, red dendrites still throbbing behind my eyelids.

Dr. Sharma's calm, authoritative voice cut through my terror, his instructions to breathe steady and rhythmic. "Easy now, Leo. Match my count. In... and out... That's it." His hands were gentle but firm as he checked my vitals again, the frantic beeping of the monitor slowly subsiding to a more regular, though still rapid, pace. My own ragged gasps gradually eased, the iron band around my chest loosening its grip. The world stopped tilting.

As the immediate, blinding fear receded, my vision cleared enough to take in more than just Dr. Sharma's concerned face. Mom stood a few feet away, her knuckles pressed white against her lips, her eyes wide and dark with a fear that mirrored the terror I'd just felt. Seeing her there, so stricken, sent a fresh pang of guilt through me.

Dr. Sharma straightened up, his expression still deeply serious. He exchanged a brief, worried glance with Mom before turning his full attention back to me, his voice now grave.

"Leo," he began, and I could hear the careful measure in his tone, "this is the second time you've had an episode like this." He made a small gesture encompassing the now-quiet monitor and me. "Your heart rate became dangerously erratic, and you were in acute distress, seemingly without a clear external trigger. Last time, we attributed it to potential stress, but a recurrence is very concerning."

He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in. "This pattern, combined with your highly atypical blood work, tells us there's something complex happening that we need to understand urgently."

He exchanged glances with Mom a second time. This time, the discourse in their eyes felt more complex. It hung in the air. Mom then answered with a dip of her head.

"There's an opportunity that's come up which I think you should take advantage of. I have already talked to Dolores about this, but I want to confirm with you, Leo."

An opportunity? To do what exactly? I'm kind of stuck here.

My confusion must be written all over my face, because he patted my hand. "You know the Blackwood Medical Institute, yes?"

"Yeah… Naomi's mom worked there." And just about everyone else in this town. "And our school's bio lab is named after them, I think. Well, what would've been my school…"

"You will be going back Leo, for sure." Mom was quick to reassure me as she sat down on the other side of me. "But you should listen to what Dr Sharma has to say."

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All eyes turned to Dr. Sharma. He cleared his throat, a slight adjustment of his glasses seemed to indicate the start of a well prepared speech. But there was something else that the other half of me noticed: the slight twitch at the corner of his eyes, the way his hand trembled ever so slightly when pulling away from his throat–a sense of unease was here.

"Right." Dr. Sharma puffed out his chest. His body was a little too rigid and voice a tad too stiff. "Well, Leo, as I mentioned, your case presents… a rather unique immunological and cellular response profile. Blackwood Medical Institute, as part of their ongoing research into advanced hematological conditions and therapeutic resistance, maintains certain… ah… proactive screening protocols."

He paused, and for a split second, his gaze darted towards the closed door before returning to me, a little too quickly. "Through these, they utilize sophisticated algorithmic analyses of aggregated, anonymized patient data from affiliated regional hospitals…"

There's something off here. I was brought back to the time when I was eight, sitting in the throne room at the keep. Father was seated on the throne, leaning forward with his chin upon a fist, and his eyes intensely narrowed at the richly dressed lord before him. Words were pouring profusely out of the minor lord's lips, rich, glib words that seemed to just float away. His hand gesturing to and fro in sync with the flailing pitch of his words. I had him marked: Guilty.

Mother sitting beside me then, tapped me upon my arm, her voice as always crystal clear despite being whispered. "Elara dear, did you see and did you hear? Always observe closely and find what lies beneath."

"...So, while the initial flag was, of course, based on de-identified data points, the… ah… compelling nature of the anomaly prompted them to reach out to me in regards to your case." He gave a tight, forced smile. "Essentially, Leo, you've been… Well, 'selected' is perhaps a strong word, but your unique situation has come to the attention of researchers there who can offer better insight and care than what we can provide here."

I sat still, not answering, letting the moment stew like Father liked to do when interrogating someone. Dr Sharma shifted nervously under my stare, his eyes darted off to the side, back to the door again. "Leo, what do you say? Their facilities are far better than here."

"If it's anonymized, how did they flag me specifically? If they can trace this… anomaly to our hospital, then it's not truly anonymized, is it?" I said slowly and deliberately as I watched him.

Dr Sharma put up his hands. "They're given certain leeway since they have supported the regional hospitals so much. Look Leo, they really have your best interest at heart. They just want to help. All you need to do is talk to them. They have a wealth of resources and offer support in and out of treatment. I believe you can even get a stipend if you're part of their research."

There were warning bells all over his motions and voice, but I was struck by the words: Wealth, Resources, and Stipend. Finally, there was a way for me to help Mom and Maya. I wasn't just going to be dead weight anymore.

—

A polite knock, and then the door opened to admit Dr. Sharma. He wasn't alone. "Leo, Dolores," Dr. Sharma said, stepping aside with a more formal air than usual. "This is Ms. Julia Vale from the Blackwood Medical Institute. She's one of their lead cellular analysts and will be conducting the initial consultation we discussed. And," he added, a touch of pride in his voice, "you might have heard of her father, the esteemed Professor Anthony Vale."

Ms. Vale, who had been offering a brief, professional nod, stabbed Dr. Sharma with a glare of daggers, making him visibly flinch.

When our eyes met a prickling sense of deja vu rushed over me. She was the flute player by the fire. Her face held the same refined lines, androgynous, sculptured curves, and almost too perfect proportions. Except, her ears weren't pointed, and the color of her eyes—muted hazel—looked normal. A thought crept up my spine: Blackwood sounded so dangerously close to Deepwood. It's just a coincidence, right? They couldn't possibly be related.

Ms. Vale stepped past the still smarting Dr. Sharma, and made her way to my bedside after acknowledging Mom with a slight incline of her sculpted face.

The moment she got close, however, all illusions of cool perfection dissolved. I noticed the trails of dark coffee stains dotting the sleeves and collar of her otherwise pristine white lab coat. Rebellious strands of blonde hair escaped what looked like a hastily tied bun, and her leaning closer revealed a pair of narrowed pupils, maniacally focused upon me.

"Now, let's see," she declared, her crisp, clinical voice completing the disillusionment. "No visible bruising… no significant skin discoloration, looks surprisingly healthy, even… no rashes or active lesions… Nails appear strong, hair shows no signs of thinning yet. And this is… the third round of induction, correct?" The words tumbled out in a rapid, unbroken stream, more a verbal checklist than a conversation.

When she caught me gawking, she eased back a fraction of an inch. "So boy, bowel movements regular? Any significant impairment to ambulation? Just the standard dizziness and fatigue, I presume?" Before I could answer, her fingers, long and surprisingly cool, touched my neck. Was she checking my lymph nodes? Then they darted with unnerving speed down my arm towards the IV site without a word of warning.

"Ms. Vale!" Dr. Sharma's voice was sharp, exasperated, as he stepped forward. "Please! We adhere to strict protocols here. You can't just begin a physical examination on the patient like that."

Ms Vale waved him off, like he was a teacher nagging about some outdated rules. "Oh, relax, his T-cell counts are, quite frankly, through the roof according to your latest panel. There's minimal immediate concern for opportunistic infection from a simple palpation." She squinted one eye and looked closer. "Well, boy, you are feeling mostly fine, aren't you? Relatively speaking."

"My name is Leo. Aren't you supposed to be telling me about how your institute can help me?"

She blinked, then frowned, her eyes darting about as if my words had jarred something loose in her head. "Oh, right. The sell."

Behind her, Dr Sharma smacked a palm to his forehead.

Ms. Vale refocused on me. "Right, well the Institute does sport the most advanced facilities and the best researchers in… the world, really. Nowadays, most Leukemia cases, especially when caught early, don't require that level of intervention. But your case is different."

My own interest in Biology, my late night readings, my attempt at probing myself surged forward. "Is it because my body is chemo resistant? Or something else? What are you going to do? Try other drug cocktails? What are your diagnostic methods? Have you actually dealt with cases like this before?"

Ms. Vale's eyebrows raised, and her hazel eyes lit up. She leaned closer again, her earlier intensity returning. "Oh! We have extensive records, highly detailed sets of data across several dedicated data warehouses. We cross-reference everything. But our first step, always, is to thoroughly characterize the anomaly. We need to understand precisely what we're dealing with."

"How… how are you going to do that?" I swallowed, a knot of apprehension tightening in my stomach despite my curiosity.

"Blood work. Lots of it," she stated, as if it were the most exciting prospect imaginable. "And we have a veritable arsenal of machines for every type of testing. From advanced MRI and PET-CAT scanners down to cryo-electron microscopes for cellular-level imaging. We even have dynamic assay systems, centrifuges capable of incredible g-forces, even specialized flow cytometers that border on being research accelerators themselves."

It was my turn to be stunned into silence for a moment, blinking as I tried to process the sheer scale of it. This hospital felt like a country doctor's office compared to what she was describing. "Could I… make use of those? I want to, umm… help understand what's wrong with me." I want to know what that thing inside of me is.

Julia's lips blossomed into a wide smile. "Oh, absolutely! I wouldn't mind having a helper like you. You'll love some of the imaging equipment we have. Just being able to see individual cells react in real-time to your own uniquely constructed proteins… it's mind blowing."

She's basically harmless, I decided. A little obsessed with her research, sure, but I sensed no actual guilt or guile in her. She doesn't even seem capable of true malice. Well, it's more like I'm sure she just doesn't care about anything else. "Dr. Sharma mentioned I might be able to get a stipend if I participate?"

A momentary hmm as she glanced to the ceiling and then she turned back to me. "Well, our budget is pretty much unlimited when it comes to specimen acquisition, so I don't see why not. How much were you looking for?"

I was left speechless. On one hand she was basically admitting I was going to be a research guinea pig for them. But on the other, she was practically giving me, and by extension, Mom and Maya, a blank check!