Life Blood: Cora's Choice #1 (5 page)

I
t was Tuesday of the next week when a call across McKeldin Mall stopped me in my tracks.

“Hey, Shaw!”

I turned around to see Geoff grinning at me in the slightly worried way I’d come to dread.

Oh, damn.  Someone had told him that I was sick.  Now I was going to find out just how much he knew.

“Hi, Geoff,” I said, pausing so that he could catch up more quickly.  Last month, I had reached such a level of exhaustion that I’d started taking the bus to travel between my south campus apartment and my classes.  But I was still feeling better off the alemtuzumab and wasn’t walking far enough to bother with waiting for the bus today.

“Headed to lunch?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.  “I’ve got some extra Terp Bucks to burn before finals are over, so I was going to The Dairy.”  The Dairy had a decent selection of sandwiches, pizza, and, of course, ice cream made on site, and with my dining money expiring at the end of the term, it was time to use it or lose it.

“Me, too,” he said.  “Join you?”

“Sure,” I said.

We walked along in an awkward silence for a couple of minutes.  I watched Geoff out of the corner of my eye.  He was visibly struggling, trying to come up with a polite way to ask me about being sick.

I sigh and stopped, turning toward him.  He took one more step forward before he realized that I was not beside him anymore.

“So, what have you heard?” I ask.  “And who did you hear it from, because I want to know who I should kill?”

Geoff looked uncomfortable.  “Cancer?” he said.  “For real?”

I let out a puff of air and started walking again.  “Yeah.  For real,” I said.

“I thought you’d gotten some kind of eating disorder or something,” he said.  “I mean, your hair—”

“Yeah, thanks, you and half the world,” I said.  “It’s the wrong kind of cancer to be treated with chemo that causes all your hair to fall out.”

“So, you mean like...”  He made a vague cupping motion at chest level.

I punched him in the arm.  “Seriously, what is wrong with guys?  You find out I have cancer, and the first thing you think about are my tits?  Really?”

“Well, what other kind of cancer do girls get?” he said, but he was grinning now.

“That had better be a joke,” I said.  I knew it was.  And if Geoff could crack a joke, I might survive this conversation.  “And no, my boobs are fine.  It’s leukemia.  And the first treatment option didn’t work, so my doctor’s going to have me on something new soon.”

“But you are going to be okay, right?”  Geoff’s face went serious.  “We were getting along so well at the end of last year, and then when this semester started, I thought we’d be able to pick up where we’d left off....”

I felt a pang of guilt.  I’d gone on my first date with Geoff four days before I got my diagnosis.  “Yeah.  Sorry about that.  I guess I kinda shut down for a while.”

“I thought our date went well, myself,” Geoff said.

“Oh, it did,” I assured him.  “I’m still a terrible bowler.  But it was fun.  It’s just...with everything I had to deal with....”

We had reached The Dairy.  Geoff grabbed the door and held it open for me as I went inside.

“Look, it wasn’t you.  It was just crappy timing.  We weren’t really dating yet, and I couldn’t dump all this in your lap, and I felt like, if we kept going out, I’d be lying to you if I hid it.”  We joined the back of the line.

“So you thought it’d be better to ignore me,” he said.  “Instead of letting me decide what I could handle.  It wasn’t like we’d just met.  I’d known you for three years.  I considered you a friend.  I still consider you a friend.”

He had a point.  “I consider you a friend, too.  I didn’t want you to think that I was trying to make you be something more, throwing it all on you after one date.”

“It still wasn’t your decision,” he said.  “At least, it wasn’t only your decision.”

By then, we’d made it to the register.  I made my order, and so did Geoff.  He added my food to his tray and led the way to a table in the corner of the dining area, and I took the chair across from him, dropping my bag under my chair.  He set my sandwich and drink in front of me.

“Thanks,” I said.

Geoff leaned forward.  “You know, I was beginning to wonder if I really was that bad of a kisser.”

I felt the heat rise in my face, and I fiddled with my sandwich to cover it.  “Not at all,” I said.  It was my turn to feel awkward.  “It was nice.” 

He had dropped me off at my apartment door.  The hall lights had been turned to their nighttime setting, only half the fluorescent tubes on so as not to glare into the apartments when someone opened a door.  I was leaning against the door.  The corridor emptied for a moment as we talked, and he stepped up, so quickly that it caught my breath, and he had cupped the back of my head in his hand.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” he had said, and then his mouth came down over mine, and I had tipped my face up to meet him.  His mouth was hot, hard and soft at once, and a warm deliciousness had unspiraled inside me.  Clutching his shirt, I had opened my lips under his.

When the kiss finally ended and he stepped back, I had looked away, breathless and blushing furiously. 

“Um,” I had said.  “Whoa.  Sorry.  I didn’t mean to eat your face off.  I hope I didn’t scare you.”

He chuckled, and I shivered slightly.  My heart was still beating too hard.  “Trust me, Cora.  I’m not scared.”  He took a lock of hair and pushed it back over my shoulder.  “See you?” he asked, and I knew he didn’t mean in class.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Absolutely.”

Then he had left me to fumble into my apartment and collapse on the couch, hoping we hadn’t just ruined a friendship trying for something more.

“Nice?”  Geoff said now, settling back with an exaggerated air of disgust.  “That’s all I get?  Nice?”

“Okay, better than nice,” I admitted.  “I was looking forward to going out again.”  I took a bite.

“Well, good.  Because so was I,” he said, shifting with his usual swiftness back to seriousness again. 

“I’m sorry,” I repeated.  “It just wasn’t a good time for me to get into anything new.”

“And now?” he asked.  He raised his eyebrows over his slice of pizza.

It was striking how different he was from Mr. Thorne, I thought inanely.  Geoff was boyish and golden, with light honey-brown hair and a perpetual tan that he got from hours on the lacrosse field.  He was sporty without being a jock, with a self-effacing humor that never failed to make me smile.  Mr. Thorne was cold and remote, arrogant and God-only-knows how much older.  I couldn’t even picture him where Geoff was, sitting in the humming Dairy, legs outstretched and negligent half-grin on his face.

I shook my head.  Mr. Thorne, I told myself, was not a possible...boyfriend.  I didn’t know what he was—I still couldn’t wrap my head around it—but he was a creature of another world entirely.

“After Winter Break,” I said, answer Geoff’s question.  “I’ll know by then if the new treatment is working.”

“And if it isn’t?” Geoff said, his forehead creasing with concern.  He set the pizza down.

“If it isn’t, I won’t be around long enough to make a relationship worth it,” I said bluntly.

He looked stricken.  “Shaw—”

“Please, don’t.  I can’t deal with that right now.  After the break.  I’m sure I’ll be doing better then,” I said, making promises I had no power to keep.  I finished half of my sandwich.

“But we’re still on for studying for finals together, right?” he asked.

“As long as Lisette’s along to chaperone, sure.”  I grinned at him, picking up the second half of my sandwich. 

“Like she’ll let you study without her,” he said.

“She’s the one I have to kill, isn’t she?” I asked.  “She told you I was sick.”

He looked uncomfortable.  “I asked.  She didn’t want to tell me at first.”

“But she did,” I said.  “Oh, well.  I’m sure she thought it was for the best.  She always does.”

“She’s a good friend, Shaw,” he said.

“I know she is,” I said.  I finished my sandwich.  “And since she’s the one who told you about my cancer, she should be the one to have to put up with all the
tension
between us.”  I said the word with deliberately exaggerated drama.

“You don’t trust me?” he demanded.

“Maybe,” I said, standing up and gathering up my trash and my bag, “I don’t trust me.”

With another grin over my shoulder, I threw away the trash and ducked out of The Dairy, feeling lighter than I had in days and leaving Geoff gaping at the table behind me.

A
week later, I wasn’t feeling so optimistic.  I had come down with a cold that had turned into a raging ear and sinus infection, and I was trying to gut it out and push through the last week of school before finals.  I had been feeling so much better without the side effects of the alemtuzumab that I had almost managed to put out of my mind how sick I really was.  But feeling better or not, I wasn’t healing. I was, slowly, inevitably, getting worse.

Dr. Robeson had hammered the seriousness of this kind of illness into me the first time I’d seen her.  Opportunistic infections were a leading cause of death for victims of leukemia, she’s said—it was my white blood cells that were broken, so even as they multiplied out of control, they stopped doing their job of fighting invasions, large and small.  If an infection didn’t kill me, then I could look forward to hemorrhage, catastrophic gastric ulceration, or drowning in my own fluids with pulmonary edema.

Good times.

I called Dr. Robeson as soon as I recognized the signs of another infection.  She prescribed me a round of Ciprofloxacin over the phone.  The infection could be viral, she explained, but waiting for a culture could lower the chances of the antibiotics being effective if is bacterial, given my compromised immune system.  It was my third infection since I had been diagnosed with leukemia—and the second time I’d heard that spiel.

“Have you called to hospice?” she asked.  “You don’t have to choose that path, but I do wish you’d at least talk to them.”

“No,” I said.  “And I’m not going to.  I called the other number that you gave me.  The card.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment.  “And how did that go?”

“It went well,” I said.  “I think.  I passed the screening.  I’m supposed to call in two days and give my consent for the procedure.”  I had tried to look up anything I could online, but the name Thorne and a phone number were not enough to give me any relevant hits.  “Can you tell me about this company?  Its name?  The CEO’s background?”

“I’m afraid I really can’t,” Dr. Robeson said.  “But I trust Mr. Thorne implicitly.”

“The treatment is very dangerous,” I said.  “It probably won’t work.”

“I know,” said Dr. Robeson.

“But if it’s the only chance I have....” I let that trail off.

“Cora, there’s nothing more I or any other oncologist can do.  Mr. Thorne’s procedure, however risky and unorthodox, is your only possibility of a cure.”  Her voice was not unkind, but she was firm.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I had been holding.  “Thanks for being blunt.  I needed the reassurance.  My judgment…”  I trailed off, then changed the subject.  “
I guess I’ll go for it, then.  Anyway, I’ll be picking up the antibiotics at the Health Center, as usual.”

“I’ll call it in.  Goodbye, Cora,” she said.  “And good luck.”

“Bye,” I said, and I hung up.

And that was that.

I grabbed the picture that sat on my bedside table and turned it so I could see it from the bed.  In the photo, I was grinning and holding up my high school diploma with my Gramma’s arm wrapped around my shoulders in a fierce hug.  She looked so happy.  Triumphant, even.  She’d done it, singlehandedly raising me, giving me a normal childhood despite the tragedy that had killed my parents so soon after I was born.  She’d put off her retirement for ten years, I found out later, to support me.  I could never pay her back, but I’d wanted to succeed to show her that all her sacrifice had meant something.  But if Mr. Thorne’s experimental procedure didn’t work, I’d be dead in less than a semester.

Logically, I knew my chances were slim, but I was convinced that this time, I would be the one in one hundred lucky ones.  I must be.  I didn’t think that it was just that I couldn’t accept my own death.  It went far deeper than that.  I was absolutely certain that I would be cured.  I don’t know where that conviction came from, but no amount of rational thought could shake it.

I levered myself out of bed and dragged on some clothes.  My head felt like it was stuffed with a wad of cotton, my sinuses were slowly burning through my skull, and my ear throbbed dully.  Shoving my feet into my UGG knockoffs, I went into the kitchen and poured myself a bowl of cereal.

“Hey, Cora,” Lisette said from the living room.  “I thought you’d left for class.”

“No,” I said, splashing milk over my raisin bran.  I flopped in a chair and dug in.  I hadn’t gained any weight back since stopping the alemtuzumab, but I hadn’t lost any more, either, for a change.  “I had to call Dr. Robeson and get another script for Cipro.  I can’t shake this ear infection.”

“I’m sorry.  Have you seen Geoff after our last study session?” she asked with exaggerated casualness.

I aimed my spoon at her.  “I know it was you who told him I’m sick, so don’t play innocent with me.  He admitted it.”

“Wait, he talked to you?  And you didn’t tell me?”  She looked betrayed.

“Last week.  And I didn’t tell you because you opened your big mouth and told him about my cancer.”

“Oh, come on, Cora.  He’s been mooning after you all semester,” Lisette said.  “And you weren’t going to do anything about it.  Somebody had to.”

“It’s my life,” I grumbled.

“And it’s his, too,” she pointed out.  “Anyhow, you’ve been weird ever since you came back from your last appointment Dr. Robeson.  It’s not healthy.”

“I’m not healthy,” I returned.

“So, what did Geoff say?”  Lisette was not to be distracted.  “Dish!  I can’t believe you guys have been studying with me for three days now, and I had no idea.”

I sighed.  “He’s still interested, okay?  And believe it or not, so am I.”

Lisette made an absurd squealing noise, and I treated her to a glare.

“After Christmas,” I said.  “If the treatment’s worked.”

“So you’re going to go for the treatment?  For sure?”  Lisette asked.

“Yeah,” I said.  “I can call and make my appointment in two days.  As soon as finals are over, I’m doing it.”

“I know you’ll pull through,” Lisette said staunchly.  “It’s going to work.  It’s got to.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “Then Geoff and I try to pick up where we left off.  More or less.”

She rolled her eyes.  “Where you left off was making moony faces at each other over your textbooks and lunch trays.  You’ve got to do better than that.”

“You’re one to talk, little miss no-love-life,” I returned.

“At least I’m not making all my friends sit through my ridiculously protracted mating ritual,” she said.  “Seriously, you’re like middle schoolers.”

I finished my bowl of cereal, dumped out the milk, and set the bowl in the sink to wash after lunch.  “We’re not really the rushing type,” I said.  I pulled on my jacket and swung my backpack over my shoulder.

“It’s been three years, Cora.  I don’t think anybody’s going to accuse you of rushing,” said Lisette.

“I’ll see you tonight,” I said pointedly, my hand on the door.

She smiled.  “Yeah, see you.”

***

I was alone in the room, some kind of stone chamber with supporting arches every few feet that made it impossible to see very far.

“Hello?” I called out.

There was no answer.

The room was cold.  I rubbed my palms against my upper arms, the muscles of my stomach and nipples tightening beneath the thigh-length tee shirt that was my only clothing.  I began walking, peering through the murky dimness, moving through the maze of pillar and arch aimlessly.  I had to reach a wall eventually, I decided.  Somewhere, there had to be an end to this.

Then I saw the light.  It was red, low, and fitful, but it gave me a destination, and I sped up, my bare feet soft on the bare dirt floor.  I came around a final pillar, and I saw in then, a kind of metal bowl or fire pit full of coals so hot that they were nearly smokeless, bending the air above them with their heat.

I approached, drawn by the warmth in the dank chill of the endless chamber.

And then I saw him.  And my heart seemed to stop.

Mr. Thorne stood in the shadows on the other side of the fire.  He was nothing like the urbane, contained man I had sat across from at the restaurant.  Dressed in a loose white shirt and dark pants, he seemed larger, freer, and not entirely human.

“Ms. Shaw.”  My name sounded like a prayer on his lips.  Those lips.  “You’ve come.”

I said nothing, mesmerized by his raw beauty.

He circled the fire pit in slow, stalking steps.  He was dragging something at his side, something long and narrow, but I could not take my eyes off his face to look at it properly.

He came right up to me and stopped, just as he had when I turned to face him in front of the restaurant.  Then he pulled me against him with one hand, so that I could feel the length of his body, and his mouth came down over mine.

And I lost myself.  The heat flared up in my midsection, twisting inside me, lancing down between my thighs and up, into my lungs and into my heart until I could only cling to him.

Then I felt him pressing something into my palm.  His other hand, the one that held the object.  And I saw that it was a long, thin rod of iron, and on the end of it was a letter:  T.  His letter.

His brand.

“Take it, Ms. Shaw.”  He breathed the words into my hair.

My hand closed around the rod.  I knew what he wanted, and I knew that I would do it.  My heart beat wildly out of control.

Mr. Thorne kissed me again, urgently, and I stuck the end into the coal.  I threw back my head as his kisses moved lower, across my neck, to the collar of the tee shirt.  His free hand skimmed over my body, up from my thigh, under the shirt, and then he was pulling it off over my head.  I was naked in front of him, but I was too hungry to be ashamed.

He said, “It is time.”

He stepped back, and I kept my eyes fixed on him, rejoicing as I reached for the end of the iron rod.  The brand was glowing red from the blistering coals.

I knew what he wanted. 
His eyes filled my world.  I grasped the rod of the brand as close to the heated end as I could bear.  I turned it toward me, toward my naked flesh, shivering in terror and desire.

And he didn’t even have to ask.

I pressed the brand against my skin, and the stench of the burning flesh filled my nostrils as the terrible, glorious agony of it swept over me—

And my own scream woke me.

I was sitting up in bed, the blankets kicked off onto the floor, the alarm of my phone blaring at full volume.  Still panting and shuddering with reaction, I scrabbled for the off button, and then I scrubbed my face with the heels of my hands.

Thursday.  It was the Thursday before finals—exactly two weeks after I had seen Mr. Thorne at Komi. 

No wonder I was having nightmares.

I took a breath and lurched into the bathroom.  A shower chased away the last of the dream, leaving me with a clearer head.

Decision time.

Dammit, I’d made my decision.  I’d made it two weeks ago—before that, even, back at Johns Hopkins, when I’d chosen the mysterious card over the hospice brochure.

I glared at my thin body in the mirror, glared at the ravages the cancer had done upon it.  I was going to take the leap of faith.  Even if I landed on crumbling ground, I already knew the bridge I stood on now was doomed.

I wrapped up in the towel, went back into my room, and grabbed the phone from the bedside table.  I searched for the number that I had stored under the contact LAST HOPE.  I hit send.

“Cora Shaw,” came the familiar voice.  “We have been expecting your call.”

“Yes,” I said.  My voice shook slightly, and I swallowed hard.  “I am ready to give my answer.”

“That is good to hear, Ms. Shaw.  What shall I tell Mr. Thorne?”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

“Ms. Shaw?”

I heard my voice answer as if from very far away.  “I want to go through the procedure.  Next Friday, after my finals.”

“A car can pick you up at six.  Will that be acceptable, Ms. Shaw?”

“Very,” I said.  “Thank you.”

“No, thank
you
, Ms. Shaw.”

The line went dead.

I’d done it.  I was committed. 

I put my hand to my chest, so I could feel the frantic rhythm of my heart, which circulated my poisoned blood with every beat.  In eight days, it would be purified, rid of the mutant cells that threatened to overwhelm my body even as they failed in its defense.

Or else I would die.

Either way, I would see Mr. Thorne again.  And I would know which of my fears were imagined and which were very, very real.