Page 25 of The Unraveling

Dr. Smith steps in with, “Then what happened?”

“My first instinct was to pull Isla away. She looked shell-shocked. She sensed it, too . . .” Victor shakes his head, jaw twitching as he stares off in thought.

“What was the first physiological symptom you experienced?” Dr. Watson asks evenly, pen poised and ready.

Victor’s stare continues. “I . . .”

I rack my mind for the answer, but my thoughts route to waking up on the floor, my drumming heart demanding my full attention.

Victor blinks at Dr. Watson. “Apologies . . . Who are you?” He turns his attention to Dr. Smith. “John? When did you get here?”

Dr. Smith steps closer with a careful smile. “This is my protégé, Dr. Julian Watson. We’re here to help you and Isla⁠—”

Victor gasps. “Yes . . .” His chest heaves, and he grips the edge of the desk. “I recall.”

“Fucking hell,” Julian mutters. “Like dealing with dementia patients⁠—”

Victor jolts before coughing and rubbing his hand across his chest. “You were asking me a question. What was it? Did I answer?”

Dr. Watson repeats the unanswered question. Victor takes a few extra moments, lips pressing tight then parting like he can’t decide what to say at first, before finally whispering, “I recall waking on the floor, believing Dr. Smith and I were at our clinic in England. I was rambling about something—then Isla was there, and I was gripped by the horror of our sickness.”

I try to untangle the events to offer a proper timeline, but the edges of each hour before now feel eroded. Thankfully, Dr. Smith asks Daisy her account of things, and I recall her earlier words as she fills him in.

As if sensing our firsthand accounts will prove less helpful, Dr. Smith proceeds with examinations.

Dr. Watson moves to me as John approaches Victor. He carries an air of pity as he checks my vitals—the standard blood pressure, oxygen levels, and heart rate—and records them with neat notes. He regards me as if I’m a victim of cannibalism in a different manner than Victor, despite how I chose to partake in drinking from Bradley, too.

I can’t help the ghost of a smirk that flashes across my lips when Dr. Watson produces a thermometer and tucks the end beneath my tongue. A flutter of memories follows: my questions as to why Dr. Todd needed to use a tool when, as a vampire, he was an expert at measuring human temperatures—for scientific accuracy, he stated—followed by my coy comments about bending over for him to take my temperature a different way. I swore they would have turned his face tomato red if he could blush.

When Dr. Watson checks the thermometer and flattens his lips, I freeze. My chill deepens when I glimpse the distorted backlit number on the screen when he draws it away.

“Fever . . .?” My heart palpitates in my throat, and I cough so hard against it that a twinge radiates through my ribs. “Do I have a fever somehow?”

Dr. Smith takes the thermometer and checks Victor, expression stoic as he glances at the screen before scrawling the reading down.

102.3°F.

“The thermometer must be broken,” Victor mumbles as he takes in the number.

“It’s not,” Dr. Smith says evenly, then to Dr. Watson, he asks, “Hers?”

Julian’s words are twisted in the perplexed lilt of his voice as he says, “Similar to his.”

How can a vampire have a fever?

A silent conversation passes between Dr. Watson and Dr. Smith’s gazes until Victor says, “That makes little sense.”

“Yes, it’s perplexing . . .” Dr. Smith’s cheeks puff as he exhales forcibly.

Clearing his throat, Julian’s eyes flash crimson, and the tip of his fangs peek from behind his lips as he chokes out, “I’ll need you to take both their blood samples. I can’t help.”

Dr. Smith gives him a tight-lipped, solemn nod.

“Fear we might be contagious?” Victor quips.

After clearing his throat again, Julian says, “Blood-borne contagion is something worth considering, but—” He swallows the rest of his words at Dr. Smith’s long stare.

“But what?” Victor demands, only for the color to drain from his face moments later. His voice shoots up an octave. “But . . . what . . .?”