Chapter 4 - Percy
"It's so fascinating," Maisie says, drawing out my blood and tucking it away into her medical kit. "To see how these two substances interact together in the shifter body. I'm going to have to take a few more samples. If the testing goes well, I may be able to publish a paper on the subject."
We're down in the compound. After giving me some pain meds and stabilizing me, Maisie brought a wheelchair and wheeled me all the way to the clinic, saying it would be easier to care for me with all her equipment.
"You know, Maisie," I say, my head lolling to the side. Pain is radiating from the wound on my side and through the rest of my body. "I'm starting to think you're the vampire, with how much blood you're taking from me.
I mean it to be a joke, but her face crumples as she looks over me, shaking her head.
"I'm so sorry about all this, Percy," she murmurs, reaching up and taking my hand. "Just feels like you can't catch a break, you know? It's just one thing after the other with you."
I laugh weakly, giving her hand a squeeze before letting it go.
"Life's a box of serums and venoms, or so I'm told."
Instead of laughing, she just gave me another weak, watery smile, then left the room quickly. Based on her expression, I'm starting to think I might not make it through this. I can feel the venom worming its way through my body, nosing into my veins and spreading out. My lungs feel tight, but I don't know if that's more about the venom or my anxiety over the whole thing.
If I'm being honest, I'm not that afraid of dying. I've stared it in the face too many times to harbor a fear of it. What I am afraid of is letting down the people around me, leaving them behind.
Right away, I think of Veronica. Despite the fact that it's been years since we were together, I can't keep her from coming to mind. She is the one biggest regret of my life. I shouldn't have left her the way I did—disappearing into thin air. But every time we were together, I got closer and closer to forgetting myself and doing something that could seriously hurt her.
There's a reason humans and shifters can't be together romantically—our bodies are not physically compatible. With penetrative sex, a shifter could potentially cause serious damage, or even kill, a human. Pursuing a romantic relationship with a human is reckless, and unethical.
And that's why I didn't tell the team about what happened between Veronica and me all those years ago. I'd asked for a sabbatical, to stay in New York City and hang out with my cousin—which was true, she did live there—but it was all so I could spend more time with Veronica.
When Byron almost caught me with her, I realized it would never work. We wouldn't be able to have kids, be together publicly without me facing major ridicule from other shifters. They would dig into our sexual lives, asking how it was possible for us to be together. We would have to justify our relationship, constantly.
On top of that, Veronica had no idea I was a shifter. She was so scientifically minded, one of those humans who laughs at the idea of an axe murder house being haunted, or of things existing outside their realm of understanding.
Those humans would swim right past a river nymph and assume it was just a weird fish, or feel the cool touch of a wraith on the back of their neck, and assume they were catching a cold. There were many times that Veronica ignored any sort of supernatural explanation, even when it was the only plausible choice.
After seeing a new teen movie in the theaters that focused on werewolves and vampires, Veronica and I walked back to her place hand-in-hand, enjoying the comfortable silence.
"What would you do if you ever saw a werewolf?" I'd asked, cutting my eyes at her and trying not to be too obvious.
"Assume I was drugged," she'd laughed, shrugging and cuddling into my arm.
"But, like, if you were stone-cold sober, and you saw one, and there was no other explanation."
"There is always another explanation, Percy. Werewolves aren't real, so you can just rule that out right off the bat. Haven't you ever seen Scooby-Doo?"
"Sometimes the monsters are real," I'd pointed out, my heart racing. "Like Scooby-Doo and Zombie Island ."
"Forgive me," Veronica had laughed, "I don't think I'm as current on the Scooby-Doo catalog as you."
That was true. What was also true was that I didn't have a clue how to tell her about the whole "shifting into a wolf" thing without her just assuming I had a severe mental illness. She might have checked me into a hospital ward or assumed the drinking water was poisoned.
Her reaction last night clearly indicated how tightly she would cling to her version of reality, even when faced with clear evidence to the contrary.
The door to the clinic bursts open and Maisie jumps, spinning around. We watch in horror as Ado and Byron rush inside, a limp woman in their arms. The woman has long, shiny brown hair that's so dark it's nearly black, but not quite.
When her head lolls to the side, and I see her face, my heart rate spikes enough that the machines I'm hooked to start setting off warning noises. The fine features, strong chin, dainty cheekbones. I watch Ado lay her down gently on a cot, arrange her arms so they're not hanging off the sides.
"What—" I start, but Maisie is already moving toward her.
"What happened?" she asks, starting to look her over, checking for any wounds. I watch closely, my heart beating like it's where my throat should be.
I feel every single bit of the mating connection to her that I felt in the first place. That undeniable tug, the sense that I could slot right into her. We're fitting puzzle pieces, matching silverware, and stacking chairs.
Except that we're not, I remind myself. We're a shifter and a human, and we can't be together. That's why I left in the first place.
When Maisie pushes her head to the other side and lets out a gasp, I draw up, sitting and looking to see what's making her gasp like that. Smooth, pale skin, and then, like two mistakes on a perfect canvas, the puncture marks of a vampire, sinking its teeth into Veronica's neck.
A wave of nausea rolls through me, and I sit back, trying to breathe through my nose so I don't get sick. I want every bit of Maisie's attention on Veronica.
But even as I think that, I know the truth—even though I left Veronica all those years ago to keep her safe and protect her from this world, she's here anyway, and in worse shape than I ever could have imagined.
"We have to go," Byron says, bouncing on his feet. His hair—normally some bright shade, typically blue- is now fading, practically back to its natural color. "Aris wants us to scope out the rest of the town, make sure the vamps didn't follow us back here."
I can't talk—if I open my mouth, I might vomit.
Veronica lets out a low moan when Ado and Byron hurry from the room, making my heart skip a beat. From what we know about humans and vampire bites, there are only two things that can happen to her now: either she survives the bite, and turns into a vampire, or she dies from the poison. Typically, one in ten bitten humans will survive in the first place, and many of them go on to take their own lives when they realize what they've been reduced to.
Despite common conception, being a vampire is not some divine gift. You're frail, incredibly flammable, sickly to the point of near death, and unable to go in the sun. The only exception to this rule is when you drink fresh human blood, straight from the source. Then, a vampire has power, but only until the next time they need to feed.
Veronica wouldn't be able to stand that reality. It would go against everything in her—her instincts as a nurse—to hurt others in order to feel better herself.
"Percy," Maisie says, appearing at my side, her hand resting on my arm. "You need to calm down; you need to try and take a deep breath."
When she says this, I realize I can't breathe, and I sit up, desperately trying to get a lungful of air.
"Can't," I wheeze, "breathe."
"It's okay—" she starts to say, putting her hand on my arm again, but the touch feels all wrong, everything feels all wrong, and I yank my arm back, jerking backward so hard that I catapult halfway off the cot.
I feel, acutely, every one of the little things Veronica has stuck to me, and I start to rip them off, which just makes the machine beep louder, and longer.
"Percy!" she says, when I rip the IV out. "You're going to hurt yourself."
I can see the fear in her eyes, knowing she was here when they brought me in. Maisie saw me at my worst, when the serum had a firm hold on my behavior. Over the months that I've been here, I've thought about asking to see the video footage of the episodes the serum caused in me, but actually seeing it felt like it would be too much.
Pedaling backward, away from Maisie, I feel my back hit the wall, and I drop my head into my hands, struggling to breathe. I have to get out of here, have to get away—
Something lands on my shoulder, and distantly, I can hear Maisie saying something, to get back, maybe, but when I look up, I see Veronica standing over me, her mouth moving.
My heart starts to slow.
Veronica crouches down, getting eye level with me, and as her mouth moves, the waves crashing over my ears recede, and I'm able to hear what she's saying.
"—breathe. Look at me. Percy, breathe with me. Watch my chest."
I do what she says and drop my gaze to her chest, timing my breathing with hers until the confusion and anger flooding through my chest have subsided.
"You—you—" Maisie says, her eyes wide and her mouth opening and closing. "Veronica, you—"
"I had the weirdest dream," Veronica says, getting to her feet and looking between Maisie and me. "That someone was biting me? I think? What am I doing down here, in the clinic?"
Veronica is turning and looking around the room as though she's trying to gather information that might help her better understand what she's doing in the compound. I wonder what she remembers—if she knows she already ran away from here once, only to be rescued by the team when the vampires I alerted went after her.
Guilt flushes through my body, pooling in my stomach, and I swallow, hard, reaching up and trying to put a hand on her. It's not good for me to be around her, and when I heard Linnea saying Veronica would be leaving soon, I knew it was a good thing.
But here, now, all I want is to touch her one more time.
My hand finds hers, and she glances down at me, squeezing my fingers between hers. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright, her skin warm to the touch. So, she hasn't turned.
Suddenly, it dawns on me—why Maisie is reacting this way to Veronica being on her feet, talking to me, generally functioning.
"Veronica," Maisie says, swallowing hard. "You should be dead."