Life Blood: Cora's Choice #1 (3 page)

“S
o, remember—Spence says that school’s primary value isn’t to make you smart or even well-trained but to
signal
that you already have the qualities of intelligence that an employer is looking for,” the professor said, summing up.  “See you next week.”

“So, basically, she’s saying that what she teaches us doesn’t really matter,” quipped a guy two rows below me.  His friend guffawed.

I gathered my coat and bag.  It was Thursday, six days since I had left Mr. Thorne’s office bewildered and confused.  Six days since the doctor told me that I had five months—
maybe
five months left to live.

I had tried very hard to keep all thoughts of that day out of my mind, and now that I didn’t have to go in for an intravenous injection three times a week, I found that it was just possible to pretend to myself, most of the time, that nothing was wrong.

Most of the time.  As the one-week mark approached, though, I waited for news of the test with mounting anxiety.  My last chance.  As strange as the meeting with Mr. Thorne had been, I believed it.

“Spence’s job market signaling is only the first type that we will cover as applied to economics,” the professor continued said, raising her voice as we all clattered to our feet.  “Next week, expect to cover the other applications discussed in Osborne, and don’t forget to check the course site for the links to relevant online content.  You will be responsible for
all
the material.  Thank you!”

I slung my backpack over my shoulder just as my phone chimed, signaling that I’d missed a call during my preset no-ring for class.  I pulled the phone out of my pocket and unlocked it, and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the number.

It was the same one that I had dialed when I was first brought to Mr. Thorne.

I braced myself and stepped into the hall, leaning back against the wall.  Other students surged past me, laughing and joking about their plans for the weekend. 

Setting my jaw, I hit the button to return the call.  The phone connected, and again the man picked up on the first real ring.

“Ms. Shaw,” the pleasant tenor said.

“Yes?”  My voice shook slightly, and I swallowed, trying to calm it.  I closed my eyes, bracing myself for the last disappointment.

“You
r lab results are in.  Good news.  You are an excellent candidate for the procedure.”

“What?”
  My voice hit a high note that I had in no way intended.  “I mean—I’m so...so pleased,” I stuttered, still not certain that I had heard correctly. 

After two months of bad news, to have something, even this small, seem to go right....  I half-considered pinching myself.  Did people really do that?

The man on the phone continued coolly.  “I can tell, Ms. Shaw.  A car will be sent around to your apartment this evening.  Six o’clock.”

“I—I have to make the decision now?” I asked.

“No, Ms. Shaw.  This is in the interest of full disclosure.  Mr. Thorne will explain the procedure in detail, and you can decide how—and if—you wish to proceed.”

“Okay,” I said, ignoring the slight flutter I felt at the mention of the man’s name.  “I’ll be ready, then.  Six o’clock.”

“Excellent.  Goodbye, Ms. Shaw.”

“Bye,” I said, but the man was already gone.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  Six o’clock.  A car would be waiting.

Okay, then.

***

“Can you explain to me again why you’re wearing your interview skirt?” Lisette asked, frowning at me from the door to my bedroom.  “And the blouse?  To a doctor’s appointment?”

“It isn’t an appointment, exactly,” I said.  “More like a...consultation, or something.”

“Isn’t that like a British word for a doctor’s appointment?” she said.

I adjusted the chignon at the back of my neck one more time.  The one good thing about alemtuzumab was that unlike most chemotherapy, it didn’t make your hair fall out.  I still had the same ash brown waves that I’d always had, which, though not the most striking hair color, was a far sight better than being bald. 

The bad thing about alemtuzumab, I thought, was that it didn’t work.

“Look, the last time I showed up to a consultation or appointment or whatever there, everybody was in business clothes.”  I dabbed concealer generously over the dark circles under my hollowed-out eyes.

“At a clinic,” Lisette said flatly.

“I think the initial meetings are held at the business office,” I said.  “Anyway, if I’m going back there, I don’t want to stick out again.”

“And that’s the other thing,” she said.  “The car.  That’s just weird.”

“I think it’s some kind of super-rich corporation.  They really need volunteers for this drug trial.”  I swiped a light peach over my eyelids.  It seemed to be successful in bringing some warmth back to my brown eyes.

“It’s got to be crazy dangerous then,” Lisette said.

Four quick brushes, and the mascara was on.  Just my upper eyelashes—I looked tired enough already.  “Probably.  I’ll find out tonight.  But even trying something crazy dangerous is better than declared terminal, which is what I’ve gotten so far.”

“Well, you do look great,” she said, almost begrudgingly.

“I feel like I’m playing dress up.”  I rolled my eyes at myself before trying out the blush on my cheeks.  I’d had an internship in an office the last year, but I’d never really gotten used to the business clothes, and even there, I hadn’t bothered with cosmetics beyond mascara and lip gloss.  Now, though, a full face of makeup was my only chance of looking like something other than death warmed over.

“Oh, God,” I said.  The rouge looked garish against my washed-out features.  I reached for the washcloth.

“No, let me fix it,” Lisette said.  She grabbed a handful of toilet paper and dusted at my face.  “Much better.”

It was.  “Thanks.”

“Are you sure you’ve got enough energy for this?” Lisette fretted.

“God, Lisette, you’re like the mother I never had.  And never wanted,” I said, but I smiled as I shook my head.  “I napped for three hours this afternoon.  I’m going to be fine.”

“If you’re sure,” she grumbled.

I grabbed a safe peach lipstick and put it on.  With my coral blouse, the cosmetics managed to bring some semblance of liveliness back into my face. 

Thank God for peach,
I thought.  If I survived this, I decided, I would make a darned fine mortuary cosmetologist.

“Could I take your swing jacket?” I pleaded.  “All I’ve got is my Columbia Sportswear coat, and it’s not exactly businessy.”

“Sure thing,” she said.  “And you’re taking a real purse?”

“Already put everything in it.”  I snatched her swing jacket from the sofa and grabbed my clutch and waggled it at her.

“You’d better head down now, then,” Lisette said.  “You’re going to be late.”

I paused at the door.  “Don’t wait up for me,” I warned, knowing that she would, anyway.

She laughed.  “Of course I will.  Who else is going to get me through our Game Theory homework tonight?”

I smiled back at her, then hurried out the door. 

The elevator down was crowded with other students I didn’t know who eyed me curiously but didn’t interrupt their conversations as they headed down.  On the third floor, Geoff Nowak stepped in, all golden hair and bronze skin.  He was in most of my classes—had been since freshman year.

“Hey, Shaw,” he said, treating me to a dazzling smile.  He always called me Shaw because his stepmother’s name was Cora, and he said it freaked him out to use the same name for me.  “You look a bit dressed up for a date.”

“It’s more a business thing,” I said, returning his smile.

“An interview?”  The doors opened on the ground floor, and we all spilled out.  “Who’s interviewing now?  If you’re holding out on me....”  He treated me to a patently fake threatening glare.

“Not an interview,” I said as we went through the double doors.  “Tell you later.” 

Like most of my friends, he didn’t know I was sick.  I wondered what exactly I’d say.

The Bentley was at the curb when we stepped out onto the sidewalk.  The chauffeur swung the door open as I approached.  Unable to resist, I gave Geoff a jaunty little wave before climbing in.

“Oh, snap,” he called out after me, standing frozen on the sidewalk.  “Shaw, you’ve got a lot to explain....”

The chauffeur shut the door and I settled back against the seat with my coat in my lap, feeling a little guilty.  Geoff deserved a little teasing, but I had no idea what kind of excuse I was going to give him.  Probably not a very good one, I thought.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked the driver, worried that I would be whisked away to Baltimore again.  That would make for a long evening, even if the appointment were short, and I had class in the morning.

“Mr. Thorne has made arrangements in D.C.,” the chauffeur said.

Vague but good enough, I supposed.  I set my phone on silent and settled back against the seat to watch the lights of the city through the window, a yellow blur in the cold outside the car’s heated cocoon, each block running into the next in an endless repetition of cement, asphalt, and brick.

I didn’t realize that I had fallen asleep until the sound of my car door opening and the sudden breath of cold air roused me.  I blinked a few times and surreptitiously wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth.

“We’ve arrived, Ms. Shaw,” the chauffeur said helpfully.

“Where am I?”  I ducked out of the car and stood on the sidewalk in front of a nondescript beige rowhouse, surreptitiously stretching my stiff muscles.

“The restaurant,” the chauffeur said patiently.  “Mr. Thorne is waiting for you.”

I looked up, and I saw the sign:  Komi.  I swallowed.  Even I had heard of Komi.  One meal cost about the same as two weeks of dorm food.  It was the current food mecca of the capital, impossible to score reservations unless you called at noon exactly one month ahead.

Impossible to score reservations unless, of course, you were Mr. Thorne.

The chauffeur was already pulling away, so I had no choice but to step up the iron steps to the front door.  I was desperately grateful that I’d decided to dress up.  If I’d arrived in denim and sneakers, I would have died of humiliation right there and spared the cancer the trouble of killing me.

I swung open the door and stepped inside to be greeted by a black-clad host.

“You must be Ms. Shaw,” he said, relieving me of my jacket.  “This way, please.”

I stepped forward after the host, my head still muddled with sleep and disbelief, not quite certain that I could trust any of this to be real.  The narrow dining room was dim and intimate, with twelve tables that I counted as we passed.

There was a movement in shadows of the farthest corner, and I raised my eyes as the host led me onward, knowing who it was even before I saw him—feeling him, somehow, in the darkness.  And there he was, standing, watching me with his hungry eyes, wearing another impeccable three-piece suit and a black silk tie.

Mr. Thorne.

H
e really isn’t
that
tall,
I thought as I took the chair the host pulled out for me.  But that chiding did nothing to still the racing of my heart.  Mr. Thorne looked down at me across the expanse of snowy linen.  His slow smile was predatory.

Damn him, I thought, my breath catching.  No one has any right to be that handsome.

“Drinks?”  A server appeared at the table.

“We will have a bottle of the Valdicava Brunello di Montalcino,” Mr. Thorne said.

“Excellent choice, sir,” the server said and disappeared.

“I hope you understand that I cannot possibly afford this,” I whispered tensely.  “This is not exactly an insurable expense.”

His lips quirked.  I tried not to stare at them.  “My treat.”

I tried again.  “I don’t think this is the proper kind of setting for a doctor and patient to meet.”

“Does the name
Mr.
Thorne mean nothing to you?” he asked, delicately stressing the title.  “I am no one’s doctor.”

A waitress appeared, bearing a bottle of wine.  She uncorked it and poured a glass for each of us.  I murmured my thanks, waiting for her to leave earshot before I pounced.

“If you aren’t a doctor, then what the hell do you think you are doing?” I demanded.  “Why did you touch me?”  I shook my head.  That wasn’t what I had meant to say, and the words made my cheeks redden. 
Way to keep the moral high ground, Cora.
  “Why did you take my blood?” I corrected.

He lifted the wineglass and took a small sip, as if to hide his amusement.  “One hardly needs a medical degree to be a competent phlebotomist.  And I did not hear you protesting at my skill.”

His fingers on my wrist...  I could almost feel them again.  How could any touch so clinical become anything but?  I realized suddenly that my lips had parted, my breathing speeding up involuntarily.  I took a gulp of wine to recover. 

I tried again.  “If you’re not a doctor, how can you help me?”

“Do you think I am playing at this?”  His expression was grave.

“I don’t know.  How could I know?” I asked.  “You seem rich enough to be able to play at anything.”

“Not this,” he said, his eyes narrowing.  “Not with lives.”

Not anymore.

That thought appeared abruptly in my head, as if it had been dropped there.  Rattled, I took looked away and tugged at my necklace, then took another—much more controlled—sip of my drink.  I had a feeling that the bottle was ruinously expensive, full of subtleties and delicate bouquets that only the most refined palate could appreciate. 

To me, it just tasted like red wine.

Another server materialized beside our table.  “This evening’s meal begins with a selection of twelve mezzethakia,” he explained, setting a plate in front of each of us.  “The first:  smoked wild salmon with crème fraiche and coarse ground sea salt on a filigree of squid-ink toast.”

The food looked exquisite, though it was small enough to finish in two bites.  “You ordered for me?” I asked as the server retreated back toward the kitchen, a little offended.

Again, that slow smile that melted my middle.  “The menu is price-fixe,” Mr. Thorne said.

I stared blankly.

He added, “It means you pay a great deal of money to eat whatever the chef cares to feed you.”  He lifted the salmon on toast in one piece, holding it as if he were saluting me.  “Or, in this case,
I
pay a great deal of money.”

He bit down, and I watched, mesmerized, at the movement of his teeth and lips.  Another bite, and it was gone.

I blinked and looked down at my plate.  There was something seriously wrong with me.  No man could possibly be that fascinating.  I picked up my own squid-ink toast, whatever that was.  I took a hesitant bite.

Involuntarily I gasped, my gaze snapping up to meet Mr. Thorne’s.  The cream and salmon and salt melted together in my mouth, and the toast was the perfect level of crispness to balance the smooth melding of the other ingredients.

Mr. Thorne was watching me with half-lidded eyes.  “Exactly,” he said.

I ate it greedily—perhaps too greedily.  It had been four days since my appetite had finally returned after discontinuing the alemtuzumab, and I couldn’t have invented a better way to celebrate. 

The rest of my protests died in my throat.  Whatever reason he’d chosen to have our consultation at a restaurant, I was willing to go along for the ride, as long as that ride included more food like that.

As if by magic, our plates were whisked away as soon as I finished, and another appeared.  “A spoon of minced scallop with Greek yogurt dressing,” the server explained before vanishing again.

It was a different taste revelation, complementary to the salmon toast but tart and complex.

“I didn’t know that food could do this,” I marveled.  I considered whether it would be considered rude or—far worse—suggestive to put the whole bowl of the spoon in my mouth and suck off the last savory molecules of scallop.

“Think of all the other things in life you haven’t had a chance to experience,” Mr. Thorne said softly.  “That you won’t, unless you are cured.”

Suddenly, I was no longer as hungry, and I set the spoon down.  “And you believe that you can save me?  You aren’t even a doctor.  Why should I trust you?”

“I doubt the CEO of Merck has a medical license, either,” he said.  “Rest assured, I have a team of doctors at my disposal.  Medical researchers, to be precise.  And they have been working for years at making the outcome of our methods more reliable.”

“Do you own a pharmaceutical company, then?” I asked as another course appeared before us.

“I own many companies.  The medical research is but one endeavor, and it is not run for profit.  In fact, none of the patients are charged for our services.” 

He took another sip of wine, and I found myself unconsciously starting to mirror him.  With an effort, I put my hand in my lap instead.  I needed to keep a clear head.

“So you do it out of the goodness of your heart, rescuing the terminal from their afflictions,” I said, not bothering to keep the skepticism out of my voice.

“There is a benefit to me, as well,” he said.  “But you must fully understand the scope of the risk before you make a decision.”

“Is that what this—” I waved my hand. “—appointment or meeting or whatever is for?”

“Precisely,” he said.

“If you’re supposed to be informing me of this procedure of yours, you’re doing a bad job of it,” I said.  “All I seem to be doing is asking questions, and you’re only half answering them.  If giving an explanation was what you wanted, we could have met in your office, like we did before.”

His blue eyes went dark, and my breath caught.  He held me in his gaze.  “It is safer here.”

“Safer,” I echoed, somehow believing him even as I didn’t understand.

“Look around you,” he said.

I did.  Half a dozen servers bustled among twice as many tables in the warm candlelight.

“There are so many witnesses,” he said, the words so soft I almost felt them more than heard them.  “Too many witnesses to lose control.”

I turned back to be caught up in his gaze again, knowing what he meant, the mere mention of the words calling up a shadow of the sensations that I had felt then to rush over me again.  I saw my need reflected in his intensity, and I bit my lip hard.  He felt it too, this connection between us.  For some reason, that was far from reassuring.

“In my office, I nearly did something that I had sworn never to do again,” he said.

“Attack me?” I said, my throat suddenly dry.  I dropped my voice to the merest whisper.  I had a hard time making myself say the words.  “Rape me?”

His face tightened, whether in anger or scorn, I could not tell.  “No, it would never be a rape.  I would do nothing to you—to anyone—that you wouldn’t want me to.  But it would still be wrong.”

“How do you know that I would want it?” I whispered furiously, even as prickles of heat ran over my body to pool deep in my center.  I shifted slightly in my chair, ignoring the tugging sensation between my thighs.  “How dare you—
presume
to tell me what I want?”

I could have drowned in the darkness of his eyes.  He reached across the table.  I could not move.  He took my chin in two fingers and rubbed his thumb along the line of my jaw.  I leaned forward, into his hand, toward him.  Every nerve sang in the wake of his cool touch, reaching so deep inside me that I whimpered, my hands curling into fists on the tabletop. 

He smiled, and my heart stuttered.  “You would have begged me.”

I jumped when he released me just as the server set the next course in front of us.  “Mascarpone stuffed date, with olive oil and sea salt.”

“Thank you,” I murmured hoarsely.  I did not lift my eyes from my plate until I had eaten it clean, embroiled in my sudden confusion and acute, excruciating awareness of the man across the table from me.

He was right.  I knew he was right.  I would have begged him—begged him for everything.  But I didn’t know why.  What was wrong with me?  Had I lost my mind?

I had to say something, to fill up the space between us with words, because what hung there now was too much for me to handle.

“Do you spend this much time with every patient?” I asked, pretending to busy myself with turning my wineglass and examining the glint of the wine in the candlelight.

“It depends on how far they make it through the process,” he said evenly.  “You must understand that nine out of ten are eliminated at screening.  And of those who pass, a considerable number still decline the procedure.”

I frowned at that, looking at my short fingernails rather than meeting that disconcerting gaze.  “Are they all terminal?  Like me?”

“Yes,” he said.  “Given the risks of the procedure, imminent death is a prerequisite.”

I couldn’t help myself then.  I looked up to find him regarding me steadily.  “Then why refuse it?”

“It is a choice of the last resort, Ms. Shaw,” he said.  “It comes with a ninety-nine percent chance of failure and death, as you noted so aptly last time we met.  For many people, a certain death tomorrow is better than a near-certain death today.”

“I don’t think I’m going to die,” I said.  I didn’t know where my conviction came from, but I was very sure.

“No one who makes this choice wants to die, Ms. Shaw.  Yet most still do.  I want you to understand the gravity of your decision.  Once the procedure is begun, there is no stopping it.  No turning back.”  His voice was gentle, the warm honey of his tone making it almost soothing, even though the words he was delivering were blunt.

I shook my head.  “Any chance is better than none.”  I stopped.  “The procedure itself—is it so terrible?  Is it an operation?  Radiation?  Chemotherapy?”

Another plate was delivered, the old ones whisked away.  I barely noticed the server’s explanation of the spanakopita.

“It is over in a matter of minutes,” Mr. Thorne said.  He twirled a fork in his fingers, and it glinted in the flame of the candle.  “Blood is collected, and simultaneously, you are given an injection.  The substance consists of a blend of long-chain molecules which function in some ways like a hemotoxin.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I said.  Toxin?  That was probably the understatement of the year.

He set the fork down.  “The hemotoxic effect is necessary to prepare the cells for a fundamental and irrevocable reordering the metabolism of every cell in the body.  If your metabolism can change quickly enough in the wake of the hemotoxin, they are converted to a new state, and you live.  If not, you die.”

I set the spanakopita down untasted.  “Haven’t you tried to separate the components?  So that the reordering happens without the hemotoxin?”

“Tried and failed,” he said curtly.  “For longer than you have been alive.  The hemotoxic effect is a necessary precursor to the metabolic changes, and nothing we have tried has been able to speed up the metabolic reordering.  This current variation of our screening is the most successful breakthrough thus far.”

“But one in a hundred,” I objected.

His expression was severe.  “One in one hundred who would otherwise die.”

“So these metabolic changes....” I trailed off.

He raised an eyebrow.  “They will revert your cancerous cells, all of them, swiftly and permanently.  The extraneous cells should undergo an accelerated senescence and healthy function should return to the remaining ones immediately.”

I thought about that for a moment, turning it over in my mind.  “It is a cure, then,” I said slowly.  “A real cure.  Not a remission.  Like you said before, the cancer can’t come back.”

As I was trying to absorb that, another server appeared, bearing two platters, one with steaming meat, the other with various artful embellishments.  “The entrée,” she said, setting it between us.  “Spit-roasted young goat.  Use your fingers to pull off pieces to eat on the oil-drizzled pita, and scoop on the additions of your choice.”

Mr. Thorne gave her a wave of thanks as she discreetly retired.  I ignored the entrée.