If. I bet anything Elijah and Gabby had made that nearly impossible to do. It was like they had this planned.
Queen Antonia’s threat from a year ago echoed inside my mind. Revulsion crawled over my skin. She’d promised she’d do this, and she’d made good on her promise. I’m certain she’d given Elijah and Gabby the idea. No wonder they’d tried to cut healthcare programs in Malovia so quickly. They wanted me sick, so when the cult needed my blood, they could come and take it easily. Without my medicine, I’d be too weak to fight back.
Fuck her, and fuck them. I was surviving this. I would get out.
Tygrys noticed the tears drying on my face and purred. He flew to me, rubbing his head against my cheek.
“Guess it’s just you and me, huh, buddy?” I asked. He growled.
A short time later, I heard Ethan approaching my dorm room, but he was stopped by whoever was outside my door.
“Don’t go in there,” I heard Kiara say. “You’re putting her at risk.”
Ethan asked questions, and Kiara gave a couple low responses I couldn’t hear. The silence afterward was aching.
“Fuck!” I heard Ethan curse. There were the sounds of a couple of crashes in the Rec Room, and a scuffle— Ethan was breaking things. The boys were probably trying to hold him down.
“Ethan.” I pressed myself against the door. He wasn’t listening to me. I got inside his head.Ethan, stop. This isn’t going to help.
The reality of the situation had provoked the wolf in him.This is my responsibility. If I hadn’t been so foolish, become the cursed Phantom—
It doesn’t matter now.I sunk against the wall, and Tygrys sat on my shoulder.All we can do now is what’s in our control.
Problem was, it was hard knowing what we could do. The whole thing was out of our hands.
A week passed,and gods, it felt like a month. I didn’t leave the safety of my room at all during that time, and though we’d been working on finding solutions, nothing had changed.
Ethan was my mate, which meant my insurance was tied to him. By Malovian law, we couldn’t be put on different healthcare plans. I was still a student, so I couldn’t leave the university and get a job— no one would hire an uneducated sorceress who hadn’t finished her degree, not in Dolinska, and I was too sick to hold down a regular job anyway. I tried applying for my mom’s insurance, but when they discovered I had a pre-existing condition, I was denied coverage.
I could leave school and go back to America, where there might be a chance I’d be able to obtain insurance, but what would the fae do, then? I had a destiny as the Worldweaver, to save Malovia. I couldn’t just jump ship.
My options became less and less. I didn’t know when this nightmare was going to end.
“Mom, you can’t sell the diner,” I told her in exasperation. We were on the phone, trying to figure out some way to get my medicine back. “It’s your job, and everything you have.”
“You’reeverything I have,” Mom said. She’d been in a panic ever since I’d delivered the news. Whatever she said, selling her restaurant wasn’t an option.
“Even if you did, my treatment is two-thousand dollars a week. We’ll eat through that money in no time,” I said tiredly.
“I won’t let you go without treatment, Emma.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I said weakly. We’d argued about it a little while longer, until I’d become too tired to say anything more and went back to bed.
Stefan had offered to pay for it, but I refused to accept his family’s money. I wouldn’t do that to a friend unless I was completely desperate.
Though it looked like it was getting to be that way. I didn’t think I'd fall so ill so quickly after missing just one treatment, but it hit me hard. Fatigue like none other plagued my muscles. Walking across my room felt like running across a sports field. I was barely strong enough to drag myself to the bathroom. My skin turned ashen and pale, and the area underneath my eyes grew hollow. Fluid filled my lungs— I coughed up copious amounts of green bile, and struggled to sleep at night, for it was difficult to breathe. My spleen was so swollen, it hurt to sit up or bend over. There wasn’t one part of my body that wasn’t sore.
The isolation was worse. I couldn’t go to class, or visit my grandparents, or even just go down to the student lounge to get a coffee. My friends had been dropping by meals to make sure I ate. Each time I opened the door to grab the takeout boxes from where they’d placed it on the floor, I felt terrified that there could be a rogue infection lurking in the air, waiting to infect my lungs.
When I tried to eat, I puked food back up. I was sticking to toast and soup, but even that was too much for me to take down. I dropped five pounds in a week. Lack of nourishment weakened me, and I began sleeping constantly.
Kiara was bringing my homework to me, slipping it under the crack in the door. But since I wasn’t attending classes, I had no idea how to finish it, or what I was doing. I scraped together answers from my textbook, just to turn something in, but I was sure half the answers weren’t correct. I bullshitted a paper that was due, and was afraid to check my grade on it, certain I’d gotten a D or worse. It was so hard concentrating on school when I was going through this situation, but I kept at it, hoping that it would make a difference once I actually got back to class.
Even the most boring of classes— hell, even Korva’s class— seemed like a blessing right now. What I’d give just to be in public with other people.
Arthur had come by a few times, and we’d talked through the door. I needed my brother right now, and yet, I couldn’t even be in his presence, because it was dangerous to me. The people Ilovedwere dangerous. It was unfathomable.
The distance from Ethan was the worst. Mates weren’t meant to be separated. I could feel his loneliness through our bond, aching against my own.
