Page 50 of The Unraveling

I could not endure another day with my mother waking me up as she knelt in prayer at my bedside, sunlight splitting through my white lace curtains behind her—like the hand of God was reaching out to her while I lay out of reach in a cold shadow.

The plane tickets were the last thing my father ever handed me, along with the bit of cash he could spare from their bank account. Dr. Todd told them not to worry about a return ticket yet as he couldn’t be sure how long my treatment would last. He didn’t want them to burden themselves either, saying that he would pay for my costly hotel stay during my participation.

I had no hopes of any treatment working—the details of which were supposedly too vague and cloaked in confidentiality for me or my family to know—and hoped to die before it was time for me to return home. In the hotel bed, or cut up on a basement floor . . .

As far as I was concerned, I was alive no more. The sooner I died, the quicker my family could move on after realizing no amount of hope could save me. At least if I were to be murdered or held captive, my diagnosis meant any horror could last only so long.

“It’s all right, Isla. No rush. I truly have all night, so give your racing heart a chance to understand it’s safe,” Dr. Todd says.

I blink, my eyes dry. Am I . . . safe?

I swallow hard. Perhaps I should be terrified beyond belief to where I run screaming from the room. But first, I would need reality to feel far less surreal for such horror to fill this gaping hollowness.

The crispness of reality has been out of reach for months, anyway. My oncologist said I’m numb, which is ironic, considering I’m in pain every day.

“You’re not human,” I deduce, glancing at the unmarred flesh of his wrist again. “So what are you?”

“I am walking proof my treatment works. Cured. Immune to all diseases and in a perpetual state of healing through which I cannot scar. I have not aged past the day I received the antidote, and am susceptible to permanent death in only three easily avoidable ways: sunlight, beheading, or full removal of my heart.” He smiles. “I am what you could be, Isla. Healed. A healer, with the very antidote thriving continuously inside you.”

Dr. Todd’s eyes study mine as he smiles with teeth so white, not one hint more at what he’s suggesting. I feel like he can see through my unblinking gaze how my thoughts spin out of control.

“You’re talking about . . .” I draw in a deep breath, unable to get the word out despite how my teeth press into my bottom lip.

The corners of his lips deepen into a warm grin. “There’s no clinical term for it . . . But yes, Isla. I’m a vampire.”

If I hadn’t seen with my own eyes how his slit wrist healed, now might be the time I start laughing. Not with humor, no. But with the distinct shrill of irony that has colored my life so far.

Blood roars in my ears, a thousand implications pounding in my head. “Then my treatment . . .” My brow furrows. “You’re offering . . .?”

“Yes,” he says plainly.

My lips part dumbly, a thousand questions tangling on my tongue.

He clears his throat, smile softening into the serious line of a medical professional preparing to outline a potentially lethal but lifesaving procedure. “Initially, your treatment would involve the frequent ingestion of my blood for a period of time, through which I would consume yours. My own body would purify it, and it would be returned to you. A cyclic process, essentially, wherein it further provides medicinal effects. Through frequent consumption, you will experience pain relief stronger and more pure than morphine. You will sleep better and feel stronger throughout the day. Alone, it won’t cure you, but it’ll prepare your body so the final treatment isn’t a complete shock to your system—so you are more likely to survive it.”

I don’t feel my own lips moving when I say, “The final procedure . . . Turning me into a vampire?”

He gives me a single, firm nod. “Yes. I will bite you without drinking, thus leaving the antidote in your system. Clinically speaking, after it heals you and destroys every illness in your body, it will stop your heart. You will die briefly, but when you wake, you will be cured.”

I can’t remember the last time I blinked, so I force myself to do so now. “Would it hurt?”

“Yes,” he says. “The pain won’t last forever, but afterwards, you will.”

Memories from every piece of vampire media I’ve consumed flash through me. It sounds like a dream, if not for one problematic point. “I don’t . . .” I shake my head. “If I have to kill others just to live . . .” I choose my words carefully. He is a vampire, after all. “I don’t mean to offend you, but I can’t do that. Trade lives for mine.”

“That’s a very important line to draw, Isla.” His smooth smile makes my heart skip. “I have access to blood donations, so you would never have to kill. In fact, I do not heal those who even admit to entertaining the idea.”

The knot in my throat loosens, but I still can’t help but ask, “Would I want to, as a vampire?”

He shrugs. “Like all new creatures, you will be born with urges. But I am a doctor first, and a vampire second. Being a killer is the antithesis to my nature, just as I’m sure it’s the same for you. I will ensure you remain Isla. Your treatment will have follow-up care.”

I stare unblinking at him for a long moment, and he merely waits as I process everything. Or, attempt to, as there’s only one thing I can think to ask next.

“Why did you pick me?” The words ghost past my dry lips with a breath.

Doctor or serial killer, the question works both ways.

His lips purse. “You weren’t targeted, if that’s what you mean.”