Immortal Healer (28 page)

“It’s time, Quentin. There’s no turning back. She’s dying. You know that. The most we can hope to do is keep her blood moving.” Rigley had snatched the syringe of morphine from his hand and was hastily pushing the narcotic.

It hit her almost instantly, and as he watched, her agonized and pained movements slowed, and she relaxed again. But she wasn’t asleep, and as he sat beside her, she raised a shaky and weak hand to his cheek. “Please.” He tried to smile, but his control faltered, and he let out a desperate sob as he crumbled down over her. His silent tears fell to her shoulder as she weakly stroked the hair behind his ear. He murmured that he loved her in her ear, and her choked up voice told him the same.

When his teeth sank into her neck, she cried out. It was garbled, and at the pain, her hand tried to push him away.

But it was too late.

He didn’t drink from her. She was loaded with enough poison to kill them both, and he could taste the strong acrid flavor of chemicals when he spit her blood from his mouth.

She watched him through the lazy slits in her eyes. She smelled off. So very off. Her body was becoming toxic, and they couldn’t do a damn thing about it except watch her suffer and then force her body to live when it was ready to give up. He sat by her side, holding her hand as she breathed slowly. When he heard the first subtle signs that her heart was starting to struggle, he and Rigley stood and moved to set up the bypass procedure. She was unconscious for the most part, though her eyes occasionally opened.

When they were ready, he administered the anesthesia, and they quickly draped her. There was little need for standard sterile procedures. She had to transition, or it was all over, and as a vampire there was no concern for contagions. They moved quickly, and he assisted Rigley rather than taking the lead. He was barely in any shape to watch this procedure being done to her let alone perform it.

He watched her vitals as Rigley threaded the lines into the vein and artery of her neck. It took little time thanks to his exceptional abilities and his blindingly fast movements, and soon the cannulas were in place, and the ECMO machine was circulating her blood. He watched, he didn’t breathe, and he prayed; vampire or not, he wasn’t above it in the least. He sat and watched as her blood left her body and was returned back to it. It forced her blood to circulate in a way her heart couldn’t any more.

Her heart would heal once she transitioned, but they had to keep her blood moving if the toxin had any chance of taking over her blood cells. They didn’t even know at that point if they’d killed enough leukemia cells for it to be possible, but he had to believe, because her heart was past the point of return. Her fever still raged due to her lack of kidney function and the toxins that had built up in her system, and while the ECMO was circulating her blood, it wasn’t filtering or cleaning her blood. They needed her blood composition to stay as it was, and so they had to let her kidneys fail, and they had to let her fever rage.

It would destroy her brain before too long, but that would simply have to heal once she was through transition as well. They were past the point of saving her in any other way. She was truly a carcass at this point, and all they could do was hope the vampire toxin would prevail over the cancer cells.

Chapter 28

“Can she hear us?”

“No, she’s in a coma.” He glanced at Ember and Brit before looking back at Abby. He couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. He just stared hour after hour, going on two days now. He didn’t know what else to do. Occasionally he’d run her blood work and see what her composition looked like. He was searching for vampire toxin, not blast cells. But what he saw were blast cells. He bit her constantly. He bit her carotid, he bit her femoral, her auxiliary. Any large vessel he could sink his teeth into, he did. But so far, he was seeing far more blast cells than toxin cells.

They’d have to push another overdose of chemo soon, and he was dreading it. Her kidneys were gone, her brain was fried too. They didn’t need to see an EKG to know she was brain dead. He’d made the mistake of pulling up her eyelid once already. Completely non-reactive. And he’d done it to her. Were she human or expected to recover as a human, she’d be long gone. The woman he knew, fell in love with, made love to, was gone. There was nothing left of her but a body. A body he was trying so desperately to revive, but a body just as apt to fail.

So he stared. He grieved. He wept silent tears when he was alone. And he cursed himself for doing this to her.

“Is she going to make it?” Ember’s hand was on his shoulder, and she felt the shrug, needing no other response.

“Her heart and lungs stopped a day and half ago. The ECMO is now circulating and oxygenating her blood.”

“But if she’s transitioning she shouldn’t need oxygen in her blood, should she?”

“She’s not transitioning, Em. But we can’t deprive her tissues of oxygenated blood and let her start rotting.” He sounded bitter as he snapped the last word out.

“It’s not working at all?”

“We’re pushing a different kind of chemo drug this afternoon to see if we get a different response. There’s just too high a concentration of cancer cells.”

“How long can she last without any sign of transitioning?”

“You mean how long until we give up?” He was being rude, but her hand was still gently gripping his shoulder. She knew he didn’t mean to be cruel. He didn’t wait for a response. “Maybe a few more days. We knew transition could take a while, but if we don’t see any sign the toxin is working within a few days, then there’s little hope. She at least has to start going through transition soon.”

She left him in silence, and he continued to stare. He listened as the ECMO continued to circulate and oxygenate her blood. He’d become so entranced by the sound of it at this point that it just sounded like any other sound in the world—simply a part of existence.

* * * *

He eventually stopped moving at all. He let Rigley push her chemo drugs, run her blood work, and the only thing Quentin did was hold her hand, stare at her, and wash her skin with the washcloth Rigley handed to him. He was ready to die. He had given up thinking he’d ever hear her voice again or see her eyes open and reactive again.

Every day Ember, Truman, Brit, Angus and Aaron would stop by to see her and visit him, but they stopped saying much. Their questions had been answered. Nothing was changing, and nothing was going to change. Ember always spoke quietly to her, reassured her when she’d visit. Quentin didn’t bother speaking. Her brain was fried. He’d done it to her, and now there was no brain left to hear Ember’s words of encouragement. Quentin couldn’t yet admit it out loud, but he’d given up on her body. He wanted to pull the plug and then find some way to pull his own as well. There was no chance he could go back to existing in a world without her, and he wasn’t going to do it.

“Quentin, you need to hunt. When she wakes up, she’s going to need to feed.”

He sneered at Ember, fighting hard not to be mean, but it was hopeless. “She’s not going to wake up, Ember! She’s dead!” Truman put a gentle hand on Ember’s arm, but she shook it off. When Ember approached him there was no anger or alarm in her eyes. She bent to kiss him on top of the head, and she squeezed his shoulder before walking from the room.

Truman approached Abigail and looked at her face. “She’s right. You need to hunt. If you want to decide Abigail isn’t going to wake up fine. Make the decision, and be done with it. The fact you’re still sitting here waiting, means you haven’t given up hope yet. So, go hunt, take care of yourself, and be ready for her when she wakes. You can always decide she’s dead later.” And then he walked from the room.

Quentin didn’t hunt. He drained a couple of blood bags and collapsed back into the chair by her side, and he didn’t move.

* * * *

“We have to make some decisions.” He may not actually have believed there was much hope at this point either, but he didn’t need Rigley throwing it in his face.

“No.”

“Quentin…”

“No.” Rigley walked from the room, and Quentin went back to staring.

* * * *

“It’s been a week.” Rigley said the words quietly.

“If you touch her, I will kill you.” He seethed the words, as his mouth pulled back in a snarl. Rigley left. Quentin sat frozen and unmoving.

* * * *

Thump.
It was quiet, but it was enough to startle Quentin out of his stupor. His eyes flashed around the room looking for the source of the sound. It was quiet. A mouse, something in the duct work? And then he heard it again,
thump
, and his eyes flashed toward Abigail. She laid as she had been for the past week and a half. The ECMO continued to do its job, and he panicked for a moment thinking perhaps the machine was malfunctioning. He started lifting the lines her blood was flowing through, checking the settings and connections, and then he heard it again,
thump
. His eyes flashed to her.

She looked no different than when she first fell into the coma, aside from her blonde hair being limp and dirty and her skin paling and looking more dead by the day. But the sound had come from her. It couldn’t possibly have … but it had. He was certain of it. It was faint, random, but it was her.

He leaned his ear to her chest, listening for anything other than the forced circulation of her blood. But her body was silent. He stayed there for many minutes, terrified to pull away and miss something, but eventually he did pull away. His nerves were sending anxiety riddled agony through him. He couldn’t handle this. He was losing his mind. He was hearing things now. Tears pricked his eyes as he looked to her peaceful face. “I’m sorry, sweetie.” He whispered it, knowing she didn’t have a brain to hear or understand anything anymore, and he dropped his head to stare at his lap.

It was time. At this point he was disrespecting her body, not honoring or saving it. He couldn’t do this anymore. He’d failed, just like he knew he would.
Thump
. His eyes flew to her again, and he dropped his ear to her chest, and he waited, and he watched the clock. He was going to listen until he heard it again. It may well not be coming from her, but there was no way he was going to stop listening until he knew for certain it wasn’t coming from…
Thump
. He yanked his head back startled. He’d nearly felt the thump of her heart through her chest.

“Rigley!” He yelled in a near panic. He grabbed a syringe and pulled blood, tossing the vial to Rigley the moment he walked through the door. “Her heart just beat a few times. Sporadic. Only once a minute at most, but it beat.” Rigley stared at him in disbelief for a moment before rushing to the counter and setting about staining a slide with her blood cells. Within five minutes, they’d both heard her heart beat three more times, and Rigley had the slide ready and under the microscope.

He bent over the apparatus, looking quickly up to Quentin. “I need to do further analysis, but I see a good concentration of the toxin.” He chuckled in disbelief for a moment.

Quentin snapped his phone up and called Em, and she and Truman walked in within the minute.

“Her heart is beating sporadically.”

“She’s going to survive?”

“We don’t know yet. But it’s a good sign. Stimulation for a vampire heartbeat comes from the brain stem, not the heart itself like humans. The fact it is beating means her brain stem is starting to heal. We’re seeing a good concentration of toxin in her blood. Her blood composition might be tipping.”

She hugged him, and he sank back to Abigail’s side again, leaning to her ear. “Come on, sweetie. I have to see you again.” He’d not bothered talking to her in the past. There was no point. He’d known her brain was dead, but now…

“But what about all the damage that’s happened to her body over the past week and a half?”

“If the concentration of toxin continues to increase, she’ll heal. We heal, that’s what we do better than any other creature on earth. She’ll heal. But there’s a lot of damage to be fixed. Her tissues are degraded, her brain is dead, and her heart has sat motionless for days. It will take time, but if she continues through transition, she
will
heal.” Quentin listened to Rigley’s words. He wasn’t saying anything Quentin didn’t already know, but he loved the sound of those words.

He held his forehead to her hand, and he waited for the next thump. It wasn’t a normal heart beat, not by a long shot, but after sitting quiet for a week, it was something. Her heart would heal too.

“Can you take her off the ECMO machine then?” Ember was one of the more curious beings he’d ever met, and she needed to hear answers. It was what gave her a sense of calm in the world. He knew that about her, and he didn’t mind it in the least at the moment.

He turned to her. “Not yet. It would be disastrous. Her heart’s not usable yet, and until it can take over fully and pump her blood, we will have to leave her on ECMO. When we’re positive she’s making strides forward, we’ll remove the oxygenation. It only slows the toxin and makes it work harder to take over the cells, but until we know her tissues are healing on their own, we can’t risk removing oxygenation and letting her tissues deteriorate further.” She nodded, but her eyes moved back to Abigail with a very small smile on her lips.

That night he did hunt.

Chapter 29

“Can you hear me, Abby?”
Shut up
.

* * * *

A touch along her forehead. She could feel it. It felt good. But she couldn’t see.

“Sweetie, try to open your eyes.”
No
. She didn’t want to.