Blood Bond

The afternoon sun cast long, listless shadows across my hospital room. Ms. Vale—Julia—the name sounded so simple and normal for someone who had, in the space of an hour, irrevocably altered my future.

"Don't worry, a van will pick you up tomorrow. A special one so the hospital won't complain," she had said, oh so casually, just before leaving. But those words echoed in the sterile, inanimate quiet.

A hollow feeling settled in my chest as I looked out the window. Whittled leaves were falling from the bare, gnarled branch of a tree. We are deep in fall now.

"It'll be fine Leo. Their facilities are really good, and all the other nurses had nothing but good things to say about them." Mom's tired voice broke through to me. The lines on her face sagged a little less now. "Don't worry about that Vale lady. We will keep tabs on them and make sure they treat you right. They are still a medical facility, and us nurses, we know that they need to follow rules too."

She sounded like she was trying to reassure herself more than me. I dipped my head a few times. "Yes, Mom. Thanks…"

"Still, I'm a little surprised you asked for that much."

I looked down at my arm, at the white X where the IV was bandaged into me, the tube still steadily pouring its poison into my veins. "It's going to be in installments," I said, my voice quiet. "So it won't be much right away. I wanted it to be enough… enough in case I–"

"No." Her voice cut across mine with surprising force. Her weathered hand gripped my arm, her fingers squeezed like steel. "You are going to get better, Leo. And after that, you are going to go back to school. Do you hear me?"

What more could I say other than to dip my head and smile weakly at her. I wanted to believe, but that thing in my heart wouldn't let me. That burgeoning mass of blood-red dendrites loomed over me like an unrelenting spectre. As Mom left the room, I looked out the window again, thinking about what tomorrow would bring.

What will it be like? Will there be clear glass walls, and plain white furniture like the labs in those dystopian sci-fi movies? Will I be locked up in some kind of cage? Will it be nurses or guards watching over me?

My mind was getting too carried away. I shook my head and found myself drifting back to the other world, to me at age eleven, standing beside my mother as we watched Lady Annelise, a distant cousin with hair like spun moonlight, preparing to depart on her wedding day. She was dressed in her finest, a cascade of silver and pearls upon sweeping waves of brocade and lace, but her face was half hidden by a hand, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed. The carriage waited, and as she took another halting step, the ladies around me squealed in delight.

"Oh, she's crying such tears of joy! To be wedded to such a powerful lord!" One of my so-called friends—Lady Joseny—proclaimed.

Mother stood over me, unwavering. Her whisper reached me the way it always did—with the weight of her presence. "Elara dear, what do you see?"

I took in the sight of her: the pupils darting about, focusing and yet avoiding, the tears welling in the corners, the hand shaking as it wiped at red lips. "Pain, fear… and longing," I answered in my own whisper.

She nodded without looking down at me. Her hazel eyes, green then under the light, looked to the distant horizon. "Those are the pangs of seeing home one last time, for the place where their innocence once rested—a place to which they will never return."

—

The weight of my mother's words—both my mothers'—settled in the hollow of the hospital room while the drone of the heart monitor beeped on, unceasing, uncaring. I knew full well what I was getting into, I think.

I pushed the dread of all these unknowns away, it was no good dwelling on it. What I needed was a distraction, a line to the normal world that felt increasingly distant. My fingers, almost of their own accord, tapped out a video call to Sam.

His face, framed by his ever-present hoodie, popped onto my small laptop screen after a couple of rings. He was at his desk, a chaotic but familiar backdrop of band posters, open books, and rows of tiny plastic figures dotting terrain maps. "Leo! Dude, what's up? You look… even worse than before."

"Yeah, chemo'll do that," I managed, trying for a casual tone. "Hey, so, got some news. Looks like I'm getting transferred."

Sam paused, putting down a plastic figure in his hand. "Transferred? Where? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. To Blackwood Medical Institute. For some… specialized tests. My counts have been a bit weird, and Dr. Sharma thinks they've got better gear to figure it out."

The change in Sam's demeanor was subtle but immediate. A flicker of something guarded crossed his face, his usual easygoing slouch tightening. "Blackwood?" he repeated, his voice a shade flatter. "Why? I thought what you have is, like, a known thing."

"It is," I said, feeling a bit defensive without knowing why. "But they think my body might have developed some kind of resistance. Dr. Sharma's not sure what's going on, so… Blackwood's next, I guess."

"Oh." Sam's eyes dropped as he fumbled with something off screen. "Right. Well, uh, hope they can get to the bottom of it for you, man. They're supposed to be, like, super good." He still sounded… off. Put out, almost.

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Before I could ask him what was wrong, a voice called out from somewhere in his room, muffled but distinct. "Sam! I'm heading out to work! Dinner from Luigi's is on the way, should be there by seven!"

Sam winced, then called back, turning slightly from the screen, "Yeah, yeah, Dad, got it! Take care at work!" He turned back to me, rolling his eyes, but before he could speak, a large figure filled the background of the screen, leaning in over Sam's shoulder.

"Oh, Mr. Prescott! Sir!" Kyle's distinctive voice boomed over the speakers. "Just wanted to say, my dad sent over that proposal—hope you get a chance to look at it soon!"

I couldn't help the exasperated sigh that escaped me. "Seriously, Sam? What's he doing there?"

Sam shoved Kyle off of his shoulder with an annoyed grunt. "Honestly, Leo? That's what I'd like to know." He shot a venomous glare off-screen. "Ever since the incident with you. He's been sticking to me like superglue. You seriously got to get better and save me."

Kyle's muffled, indignant "Hey!" came from off-screen.

I shook my head, but a different, more pressing thought surfaced—one that I had no idea how to deal with. "Hey, Sam," I began, trying to sound casual, "on a totally different topic… you're into all that military war game stuff, right? With all your maps and stuff?"

Sam raised an eyebrow. "Uh, yeah? My mom thinks I'm obsessed. Why?"

"Well, this is, like, totally hypothetical, okay?" I said, leaning a bit closer to my own screen. "But if you had a small group of men, like, really strong, elite guys, and they needed to take on a much bigger army… maybe by infiltrating from the inside out, and then like, take over… What's the best way to even approach that? Strategically speaking, I mean."

Sam stared at me, his expression shifting from guarded to utterly bewildered. He held up the little plastic armored figure he'd been painting. "Umm… Leo, dude? You do know I just paint miniatures, right? These aren't real armies, and the biggest strategic decisions are, like, based on which rule book we're using."

Kyle's voice, however, piped up again, clearly having overheard. He shouldered Sam aside, his face filling the screen, alight with unearned confidence. "Armies? Infiltrating? Hold up, Vega, I got this! If you're talking about armies, about getting a group of men to work together, right? That's all about teams! Teamwork! It's fundamental!"

Sam groaned loudly, his hand slapping dramatically onto his forehead. "Oh, here we go again. The peanut gallery has an opinion." The gesture was so reminiscent of Dr. Sharma's reaction to Ms. Vale that a small, tired smile touched my lips.

Kyle, meanwhile, was on a roll. "So, you want to get your team to beat the bigger, more badass team, right? What's the number one thing you need?!" He struck a pose, flexing a bicep with his exaggerated game face on.

"That's right! Teamwork! Cohesion!" he declared, as if we'd answered. "You need to build up that fighting spirit so that you can take on the big guns! You need to communicate, talk to your guys, really connect..."

It was kind of mesmerizing, the way he was gesturing as he talked, the way the muscles of his arm and chest tensed in sync with the words he seemed so very confident in. I remembered the way some of the ladies of the court would sometimes gather on the sun-drenched patio, their fans fluttering as they chattered about new trainees at the academy or visiting squires – how one young man had such a fine chest, or how another possessed a handsome, square jawline that flowed strongly into the muscles of his neck. Well, Kyle's jawline certainly isn't bad. It's quite well-defined, actually.

My mental gears shrieked to a halt. WAIT! NO! WHAT AM I THINKING?! My face burned.

Kyle, oblivious, powered on with his lecture. "...And the key to all this! The absolute foundation?" He paused for effect. "It's food, man! You got to get to their stomachs! Like, throw a massive pizza party after a killer practice, or everyone mobbing a burger joint together. You know? That's where the real bonding happens!" Kyle declared as he jabbed a finger at the screen.

I couldn't focus, and had to look away. My mind was in shambles. "Kyle, Sam, sorry I gotta go," I blurted out, my fingers scrambling to find the disconnect button. "I, like, really need to use the bathroom!"

The screen went blank.

Eyebleach! I need eyebleach!

My fingers, on their own again, pulled up Naomi's contact. Her dark, flowing hair and beautiful face popped up on the screen after just one ring.

"Oh, hi Leo. I was just thinking about you." She tilted her head and leaned closer to the screen. "You alright? You look… really flustered?"

I took a few deep breaths to focus and then calm my mind. "Yeah, it's… just been a rough day. But I'm better now."

Her warm smile came easily to her gentle face. She rested her chin upon her hands and those large brown eyes stared into me. "That's good. It's nice spending time with you, even if it's through this."

A beat of comfortable silence passed between us. "Oh right, your Mom worked at Blackwood right?"

Her face darkened ever so slightly. "Yeah, why?"

"Is there something wrong with that place?"

She sighed. "No, not really. It's nothing like that. I'm just being unfair, I guess. I sort of blame it for taking up all her time when she was working, and then… then for her getting cancer, even though I know, logically, they had nothing to do with it."

"Oh…"

"Why do you ask?" Her eyes swallowed me up again.

I hesitated. "I'm sorry to spring this on you, but… I just agreed to transfer over there."

"What?!"

"It's my blood. I think I've developed some kind of resistance to the chemo, and they don't know how to deal with it here."

She dipped her head, considering. "Mom would never tell me much about what goes on there, only that her work is classified. But I do know they have some of the best equipment for cancer research in the country… So I think you made the right choice." She bit her lower lip. "Are you going to be alright?"

"I'm not sure. But I hope they will let visitors in. The person in charge of my case, Ms. Vale, seems pretty loose with the rules."

Naomi nodded and placed her hand against the screen. I mirrored the gesture, my fingers touching the cool glass over hers. We stared at each other across that digital divide until finally it was time to say our goodbyes.

I closed the laptop and turned to the window. Out there, past the gnarled, bare branches, a few stars pricked the deep indigo of the night sky—they were faint due to the orange glow of the city's light pollution, but I could see them out there. I knew that when I woke up next, I would be on the other side, facing all the troubles waiting there. A soft smile touched my lips as I remembered Kyle's ridiculous food speech. But then a shiver stabbed through me, forcing me to clutch at the right side of my chest. The feast, the music, the wine, the poisoned meat. The trap that the elves had set for us. It was all through food.