Blood Bond

"And step forward. And back. Now to the left, and then right. Step back and turn," Meris's voice trailed after us in sharp staccato.

My hands were pressed into Kael's as he led me through shafts of sunlight splaying across the glossy, veined marble. He used his own body as an anchor, steering me in an arc before drawing me into a turn that resolved with me facing him again, closer than before.

He was too close, unbearably so. His hand on the small of my back was a brand of solid warmth through the thin fabric of my dress. His heart was beating steadily against my chest, echoing the pulse that I could sense through my blood flowing within him. I smelled his perspiration. The scent reminded me of the hay in the barn—not the unpleasant odor of manure, but the raw, earthy smell of dry grass and dust. It was the scent of desperation, of our survival and him being there for me. I smelled it again now as his chest brushed against mine. Had I ever been this close to anyone before? I couldn't remember.

There was a faint channel in his left eyebrow—some cut when he was kid? A dark mole on his left cheek. His jawline wasn't strong, but it was present. I wonder what part of him Astrid finds attractive?

I was brought back to my last dance ever. It was in sixth grade, right at the start of middle school. The music? I think it was some kind of fast-paced electronic dance song, with machine-gunned beats. The bass shook the gym's linoleum floor. Everyone was dressed in their Sunday school finest—ill-fitting suits and fluffy dresses. Most of the boys were stuck to one side, while the girls were on the opposite. I had the audacity to walk up to one of the girls huddled together near the drinks tables, and ask her to dance with me.

Jenny—I believe her name was—took my hand, and we hopped onto the near-empty dance floor. The multi-colored lights swirled over the curls of her hair as she began to swing from side to side with an easy rhythm. I tried to follow, except I had no idea how to dance! My feet felt disconnected from the beat. My body gyrated like a wayward top to the pounding music. My flailing arm caught another kid, and his cup went flying. The cold shock of the spilled drink on my shirt was nothing compared to the hot flush of shame as laughter and pointed fingers erupted all around me.

"You're blushing." Kael's soft voice brought me back as his fingers led mine through another turn. "There isn't a need to worry. This is just practice."

"Now arch," Meris called out.

I arched my back and leaned over Kael's waiting arm. He lowered me a few inches from the ground. His face was beside mine. "Don't worry. Nothing will happen. I'll be there."

It sounded like another oath.

After I'd lost track of the number of run-throughs, Meris finally let us take a break. By then, my hair and body were soaked with sweat. The sheer fabric of the dress clung unpleasantly to my damp skin, and I refused to let myself think about what I must smell like to Kael.

Anya offered me a drink and I downed it quickly, earning a disapproving glare from Meris. Anya half-covered a giggle behind her hand. I was glad her eyes were no longer fixed on my chest, but that knowing smile of hers had returned. She's clearly thinking something mischievous about me.

"So, you two were certainly staring," she said between her smile as she took away the empty glass.

I stared back hard at her. "What? No! That wasn't what's happening. He's just my protector."

"There are plenty of tales of high princesses and their protectors," Anya said dreamily as she waved a hand in the air for emphasis.

"This is no fairytale." More like a horror novel, actually. I turned away from her wide eyes; she'd obviously dreamed up all sorts of sordid tales about us. "Besides, he's already taken. By someone far better than me."

Meris's voice then called out. "Enough chatter. Your Highness, let's go through that again. We're running out of time."

—

The sounds of laughter chased me all the way into my dreams. Kids were doubling over and pointing at me even as I tried to escape the gym. But I was hemmed on all sides, and soon the sea of their laughter and jeers swallowed me up.

"Big Sister Leo! Wake up! You want some juice?" A straw was thrust in my mouth, which I immediately spat out.

"Annie! What are you doing here?"

I licked my lips; it was just apple juice. I sat up and threw on my glasses, and the room sharpened into view. All around me were the seamless glass walls and the ultra-clean white of the Blackwood facility. I was on my bed, where Annie was sitting cross-legged beside me, her beat-up teddy bear propped against a pillow. But most of all, the room was silent. There were no inanimate beeps of the heart monitor, and the glow of their green LED screens.

I glanced down at my onyx wristband—the BMI Link, as they called it. I suppose I have this to thank for the silence.

"You were shouting in your sleep, so I woke you up!"

"Aren't there rules against this kind of thing?" I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. "What about infections and stuff?"

Annie tilted her head, looking at me quizzically. "I'm clean, and Nurse Pratch said you're clear." She pointed at her own black link and then at my glass door. "It won't let me in if I'm not."

I rested my forehead in my hand and ran my fingers through my hair. Of course. They must monitor immune system compatibility between patients. Everything is high-tech here.

Annie held her sparkling red bow out to me. "Can you help me put on my bow? My last helper, Ms. Rice is gone."

I took the bow and helped tie it around her reddish-brown hair. As I did, my hand came away with a clump of loose hair. She must be in the middle of her induction rounds. Goosebumps rose over my arms at the memory of her telling me how much time each patient had left. I realized I never asked how much time she saw herself having, and then stopped myself, praying that she couldn't see it.

As I sat there on the edge of the bed, a strange new sensation prickled at the edges of my consciousness. It wasn't a sound or a feeling in the room, but something distant—like I was suddenly connected to a dozen little pins of light scattered somewhere deep within the facility. They sparked for an instant and then were gone. Before I could get a grip on what it could be, a soft chime emanated from the laptop on the desk.

A video call window popped up on the screen, Maya's smiling face filling the square. I felt a jolt of surprise, then checked the time on my BMI Link. Saturday morning. I'd completely lost track.

"Hey, Maya," I said, warmth spreading over me as I answered, pulling the laptop closer.

"Hi Leo!" she chirped. "Mom's still sleeping from her shift, but I wanted to say hi! I can't wait for tomorrow!"

"No problem. I'm really glad you called."

Just as she was about to launch into what was surely a detailed debrief of her latest school day, a small, curious face with reddish-brown hair popped into the bottom of my screen, right beside my shoulder.

"Who is that?!" Maya's voice was sharp with surprise and a hint of accusation.

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Annie, who had been sitting quietly on the bed beside me, leaned further into the camera's view. "Are you Big Sister Leo's sister?" she asked Maya, her head nearly fully sideways as she filled the screen.

"He's my brother!" Maya repeated, her voice indignant. "Brother!"

"She's just another patient here, Maya," I tried to explain, my cheeks flushing.

Annie, completely unfazed, reached over and grabbed one of my fingers, holding it up for the camera to see. "We're sisters," she declared happily. "Scary sisters."

"Why are you hanging out with that weirdo, Leo!" Maya demanded, her eyebrows and forehead fully wrinkled in disapproval.

"She's just a little girl."

"I'm eight!" Annie shot back, puffing out her cheeks.

"Maya, listen," I said, trying to steer the conversation. "Annie's been showing me around this place. You actually wouldn't believe how nuts it is. There are these huge glass rooms with—"

"Ahem."

The deep, calm clearing of a throat from my doorway made me jump. I spun around to see Nurse Pratchett standing there, his expression patient but firm.

"Leo," he said, his grainy voice steady. "You have visitors. And I do wish to remind you that you signed a confidentiality agreement upon your admittance here."

Visitors?! Who could possibly visit me here? The question blindsided me, my mind racing.

I turned my attention back to the screen, where Maya was now looking confused and a little hurt. "Leo? What's going on? Who's there?"

"Oh… sorry, Maya. It's just the head nurse." I stammered, feeling cornered. "But I have to go. Something's come up. We'll see each other tomorrow, for sure! I promise! Love you!"

—

When I asked who it was, Nurse Pratchett just chuckled softly, a warm, reassuring sound. "No spoilers, Leo."

It seemed a little suspicious, but what could I do? I waved goodbye to Annie, who pouted when Nurse Pratchett told her she couldn't come along.

We walked through the hallway of the patient wing and came to a stop at the double glass doors of the decontamination airlock. Nurse Pratchett gestured for me to go through. Waiting on the other side was Ms. Julia Vale, who looked up from her touchpad, her expression as neutral as ever. The older, gray-haired man beside her, however, was practically vibrating with an energy that was anything but neutral.

"Leonard," Julia began, her voice crisp. "This is Professor Stanley Herbert. He's the head of one of our cellular research divisions."

A flash of recognition washed over me. I'd seen him before, coming out of one of those white side doors in the lab corridor. The one with the cages and the maze... and the rats with wires in their heads.

"A marvel, Leonard! Truly!" Professor Herbert stepped forward before I could even nod, his eyes gleaming with a hungry fascination behind his glasses. "Your blood is… it's unprecedented! The cytoprotective properties your cells exhibit are beyond anything in our databases. They don't just resist our cytotoxic agents; they seem to actively deconstruct them! Not just that, they seemed to survive in quite a few hostile environments."

"Yes, you do have an interesting biology for our research," Julia agreed pragmatically, falling into step beside me as we began the walk back toward the elevators. "However," she cautioned, her tone clinical, "your circulating lymphoblast count remains dangerously high. The data suggests your anomalous cells aren't just neutralizing the chemotherapy; they appear to be protecting the malignant blast cells as well."

I thought back to that mass of dendrites in my heart. Was it real? Was my own blood actually protecting it?

As we neared the elevator at the end of the corridor, Herbert, too excited to contain himself, held out his touchpad. "Look at this pattern, Leonard!"

My eyes widened. It wasn't just data from today; I could see trend lines from my entire hospital stay, dates and times that corresponded to my initial diagnosis. Anonymized my ass. Did Doctor Sharma know about this all along?

Herbert's finger tapped on a specific part of a graph. "The anomalous signatures, the spikes in your cell counts… they don't occur randomly. They happen in a single, sharp burst each night." He pointed to the timestamps. I peered at the screen, trying to match up the times with when I had stayed up late researching, or just fallen asleep tired. These, I think, matched with the times when I had fallen asleep.

Herbert and Julia might have continued talking, theorizing about metabolic shifts or sleep cycle triggers, but I didn't hear them. A single, breathtaking thought slammed into me.

My trips to Aetheria… they weren't dreams that lasted all night. The switch, the transition between worlds, happened in that single, sharp instant shown on the graph. That's how I could experience a full day in Aetheria during what was only a single night on Earth. It wasn't a dream. It was a near-instantaneous transport of my consciousness.

We reached the elevator at the end of the long, white corridor. Professor Herbert, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet with restless energy, turned to face me, his eyes gleaming behind his glasses.

"I must return to the labs—we have a lot of new models to run through! There's so much data from the pre-clinical xeno work," he declared. He gave me one last, intense, appraising look. "But I can't wait to see the results from your first clinical tests. Especially now that your baselines are reset."

Work, tests? I don't like where this is going. The way his eyes were trying to devour me brought back the strange sensation I'd felt in my room earlier—that feeling of being connected to distant, sparking pins of light. Was his work the source of them?

—

The doors slid open, not to the sterile corporate lobby I expected, but to a small, comfortable-looking guest area furnished with soft chairs and muted art on the walls.

And sitting in those chairs, looking up with wide, startled eyes, were Naomi, Sam, Chloe, and even Kyle.

For a moment, my brain stalled, unable to reconcile their presence with this impossible place. Then a wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over me, so potent it nearly buckled my wobbly legs. They were here. Real. A living, breathing piece of my world in the heart of this alien facility.

"Wow, man, you look a lot better!" Sam broke the silence with his usual lack of subtlety as he jumped to his feet.

A real, unforced smile broke across my face. "The chemo hasn't started again, yet. But what are you guys doing here? How did you possibly get in?"

Naomi stepped forward, her smile a little shy but to me they were the widest in the world. "My mom," she said softly. "When I told her yesterday you were being transferred here, she said she might be able to get permission for us to have a short visit. I guess she pulled some strings."

"Yeah, it's great, your mom must have a lot of pull."

Sam's voice sounded almost too eager, there was something guarded about the way his eyes darted. But I didn't care, just the sound of Naomi's voice up close and right in front of me was a soothing balm, a simple reason in a place that defied logic. My friends. They were here for me. An overwhelming urge surged through me—to close the distance, to hug Naomi, to clap Sam on the shoulder, to feel that normal, physical connection I'd been so starved of. I took an instinctive step forward.

"Physical contact is not permitted, Leonard."

Julia's voice, calm and clinical, cut through the air like a scalpel. She hadn't moved, but her presence was an absolute barrier. "Close proximity is fine for the allotted time, but there is to be no touching. It's a necessary precaution to maintain the integrity of your sterile environment and your own health." She paused for an inexplicable moment on Sam before turning to Naomi and smiled. "Facility protocol mind you."

Naomi didn't seem to be paying her any attention, instead she held a hand up toward me as if she was holding up against a screen. I put mine up in response. Our hands met but for a thin layer of air between us, an invisible barrier where the warmth came leaking through. Those eyes of hers grew larger and as always swallowed me whole. "You're good?"

"Yes"

"I'm glad," were the only words she needed to say as we stood staring at each other.

"Come on, guys! Knock it off. There are people… oOf!" Sam said with a laugh before Kyle cut him off with an elbow to the head.

Chloe rolled her eyes at the two of them. "Leo, you got to get back. You know how bad Sam is. Well, now you get clowns times two." She then eased back, the playful scowl on her face eased into a gentle smile. "But really glad you look so much better now. We were a bit worried."

I told them a little bit about my life at the facility. Julia gave me the okay, for "non-technical details", which I could read between the lines on. I told them how nice the rec room was, how clean and nice everything was compared to the hospital, and about Annie the cute little girl who always follows me around with her bear.

"Don't you already have an annoying sister? What's with you and little… Hey!" This time Chloe pounded a fist on his head.

"Hey, speedy. Sam and I thought you might appreciate this." Kyle stepped up to me wanting to slap me on my back but then paused when Julia cleared her throat, her glare was sharp like razors.

"So, we are trying out for the cross country team in a week, and knew you couldn't make it. But we talked to the coach, and a few of the guys and us got together." He dipped his chin to Sam who nodded back. I felt that sense of envy clawing at my insides again. Since when have they gotten so close!

"Well, we got them to reserve a spot for you," Kyle said beaming.

"Yeah, your name is written out in the list. The first one!" Sam echoed enthusiastically.

I found myself trembling, tears came down when I was least prepared for it. Right then, I wanted to reach out and pull them all against me.