Infected: Freefall (46 page)

The night air was cool and refreshing, and Holden took in lungfuls of it, ridding himself of the horrible shit smell of death. So he’d added murderer to his list of sins now. He honestly wished it bothered him more than it actually did.

Not that he had long to worry about it—he hadn’t been lying about the roofies. He had a client who was a war vet, an amputee with a leg missing below the knee and extensive scarring on his intact leg, and he liked to do roofies and Ecstasy because otherwise he couldn’t get it up. He felt so ugly sober, so mutilated, he couldn’t even take off his clothes. Nothing Holden told him helped. Only the drugs helped.

And now they were going to help him forget how violent he actually was. He wondered what he’d think happened to him tomorrow afternoon, and realized he didn’t actually care.

The case was closed.

21

Midnight in a Perfect World

W
HAT
was he expecting? Roan didn’t know. It didn’t help that he was still woozy from meds, and from some weird nightmare where he felt like he was suffocating and was sure he wasn’t ever getting out of this fucking hospital.

Doctor Singh noticed the tray shoved aside and asked, “You didn’t eat your breakfast? Are you nauseous?”

Roan poured himself another glass of water—he’d sweated a lot during his nightmare; he needed the water—and said, “No. I didn’t eat it because it’s hospital food. If it smells bad to you, imagine how it smells to me.” Dylan had already snuck in this morning, and after a discussion, had nipped out to go buy Roan some decent food. He kind of hoped Singh was gone by that time, but he had a feeling Singh liked Dylan, or at least liked looking at him. (Who could blame her?)

“It smells fine to me.”

“It’s not, trust me.” He took a gulp of water, then said, “Whatever it is, break it to me. I’d like to be out of here within the hour.”

Singh frowned, her brow furrowing, but it was the worried look in her eyes that bothered him. She seemed like a cool and rather aloof doctor, a veteran with a steady poker face, but it was now breaking. That was never a good sign. “I’m not sure that’s advisable.”

“Why not? Am I dying? If so, no offense, I’d rather do it elsewhere.”

“Your headaches got worse, didn’t they?” she asked, deciding to get to the point in a roundabout way. “You had an incident you didn’t report to us.”

“Incident?”

“Severe head pain? Blurry vision? Unconsciousness? Vomiting? Any of those ring a bell, Roan?” Now she was scowling at him like an upset mother.

He sighed and figured there was no point in denying it, as obviously she had some evidence of it. “I may have passed out for like a minute. It wasn’t a big deal. And the next day I got a pain in my head bad enough to make me stagger, which is why I took what turned out to be elephant tranqs.”

She shook her head. “Good lord. Now I really have no idea why you aren’t dead. You had an aneurysm, Roan.”

“No,” he replied reflexively. He had no idea why he was denying it.

“Yes, you did. The scans we did confirmed it.”

“Don’t people who have brain aneurysms usually drop dead?”

“Often, not always. But from what I’ve seen, you probably should have.” She looked at her clipboard aggressively, holding it like she was considering hitting him with it. “The problem is treatment. You’re an excellent candidate for another one—in fact, when your change cycle comes in, I advise you get yourself hospitalized in advance. Your boyfriend said it was due in about two weeks. Is that true?”

“Round about. You know how erratic the cycles are.” He didn’t mention he could basically shift at will, as, if she believed him, she might order him institutionalized now. “But are you gonna have a vet handy? ’Cause I really don’t see how you can treat me in lion form if something does go wrong.”

“Doctor Rosenberg’s volunteered to be on call for you.”

“She’s not a vet.”

Singh fixed him with a look that could have blown the back of his head off. “Knock it off now. This is very serious.”

“Infecteds are prone to this kind of shit. Kills a lot of us. I’m not dead yet, so can I go now?”

He thought she was going to lose her temper at him, but she reined it back at the last minute. “Surgery is an option.”

“Brain surgery? Look, I’m not still actively bleeding in the brain, am I?”

“You’d be dead if you were.” She scowled again, but her dark eyes seemed turned inward. “The bleeding stopped on its own.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” But even as Roan said it, he knew that didn’t sound quite right.

She held the clipboard up like she was brandishing a sword. “This doesn’t make sense, you know. An aneurysm ruptured in your brain and may have been bleeding for some time. This should have killed you, Roan. This should have at least laid you flat. There’s a theory that you actually overdosed on elephant tranquilizers at just the right time, as it lowered your blood pressure to an absurd degree, limiting damage and slowing bleeding until it stopped.”

It was the way she said it that gave it away. “But you don’t think that’s it.”

“It could be. For all I know, it was as good as inducing hypothermia. But it doesn’t make sense. In all my years on the job, I’ve never seen anything like this, and I don’t know what to make of it.” This seemed to really trouble her, as if it was a failing on her part.

“No one knows what to make of me,” he told her, trying to comfort her. He wasn’t sure why. “I’m a puzzle that can’t be solved. Kind of like the virus.”

She shook her head and slapped her clipboard against her other arm. “Everything can be solved. It might take decades, but there’s a solution to everything.”

“Spoken like a true scientist. Or maybe House. I don’t have decades, do I?”

She threw up her hands (and clipboard) helplessly. “I don’t know. You could die tomorrow, Roan. You could live another twenty years. But once you have one aneurysm—and this one was out of the blue—your blood pressure wasn’t high, which is the most common aneurysm trigger—you are likely to have another one. This is the gift that keeps on giving.”

“Like the virus. Look, I get it, and you’re absolved. Release me. I want to go, and there’s nothing you can do for me here. If I die, I die. Maybe I’ll get lucky and my whole head will explode, à la
Scanners
. I always wanted to die in a way that would leave people cleaning up after me for days, so I’m good with that.”

“Can you be serious for one second? We’re talking about your mortality here.”

“And I’ve lived with death all my life, and I’m kind of bored with it now. If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. About twenty years overdue, according to most estimates, so at least I beat the warranty. Not many people can say that.” It sounded comforting, it sounded true, but he didn’t honestly know what he was feeling at this point. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the fact that he’d been pronounced to be on death’s door a million times, or maybe it was the fact that the virus had somehow ended the bleeding. That was it, wasn’t it? No, it didn’t make sense. Viruses didn’t work like that, and they certainly didn’t have intelligence or direction, but viruses did have the innate drive to survive. If he was half virus or whatever the fuck, maybe that was enough.

It struck Roan then that that was what they meant when they called him a hybrid. Not a hybrid of man and lion, but man and virus, DNA strands locked mercilessly in a struggle that neither would ultimately win. In the meantime, that left him… what? A walking disease?

Probably. Was he surprised? He needed to wear that bell around his neck and randomly intone, “Unclean,” to warn people.

“I still think you’re taking this too lightly. We’d like to keep you for observation—”

“Trust me, there’s nothing to see. I’m amazingly boring.”

“Would you stop being an asshole for one fucking second?” she snapped. “We think we spotted another potential aneurysm in your CT scan. Do you even care?”

“I care, but what can you do about it? Is brain surgery actually the answer here?”

She grimaced, scowled, glared at him as if he’d caught her in a lie. In a way, he had. “It’s not in a part of the brain I’d advise operating on. There’s few who’d attempt it.”

“Okay, that answers that question. I’m gonna get dressed now.” Dylan had brought him some clothes, like he asked, even though he wasn’t sure he should leave the hospital if the doctors didn’t advise it. Roan appreciated his concern. It was always touching, but he was sure Dylan didn’t yet understand his abiding hatred of being cooped up in hospitals. He’d have preferred prison, and they felt roughly the same.

“God, you are really going to be this much of a dick, huh?”

“This is your bedside manner?” he asked, slipping the boxer shorts on under his paper gown. Only then did he happily take the damn thing off and put a proper T-shirt on.

“I’ve given up with you,” Singh replied.

He could only shrug. “Fair enough.” He wiggled into his jeans—made infinitely harder since he was lying down—but he didn’t want to stand just yet, because he was afraid the drugs would make him woozy, and his almost falling over would be all she needed to get him readmitted. He just wasn’t staying here, no matter how bad he was.

“There’s a new drug that might help. Will you at least try that?”

“Won’t make me a zombie, will it?”

“I doubt it.”

“Fine, I’ll give it a go. You know I’m not averse to pills.”

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped, like she was beyond tired. Or perhaps he simply drove her to the brink. She wouldn’t be the first. “This is your life, Roan. You shouldn’t be so cavalier about it.”

“Trust me, I’m not being that way. It’s just hard to work up energy about it when I’ve been told I’m about to die so often that I always felt they should just make a card of it and flash it at me every time I see a doctor.”

“Will you arrange to come here by your next cycle?”

“Maybe. Let’s see if I live that long, huh?” Maybe was actually a no, but since he was preparing for an argument with Dylan later, he didn’t feel like fighting with her any longer.

She must have felt the same way, because she shook her head in disgust and turned away, saying, “I’ll go get you the meds.”

As soon as she was gone, Roan collapsed on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. Shouldn’t he have been upset? Why wasn’t he upset? Did he really not care if he lived or died? He had no religion, believed in no gods and no afterlife, and yet maybe, somewhere in the back of his mind, he still held out some vain hope he’d see Paris again. Maybe. He could be an idiot as much as anyone else.

He was putting on his sneakers when Dylan came back, holding a fast-food bag and a paper cup. “You are so lucky I’m such a nice guy.”

He didn’t have to ask why. The smell hit his nose, and his stomach rumbled in anticipation. “Oh, you beautiful man. You got me a steak breakfast burrito.”

“I can’t believe you even eat breakfast burritos. They’re disgusting.”

“Many are disgusting, yes. But every now and then, you find one that’s pure ecstasy in a tortilla. And this one is, thanks to the chipotle sauce.” Roan got up, and found it easy with such impetus behind the movement. He went over to Dylan and kissed him before taking the bag and the cold cup from him.

Dylan shook his head, his lips thinning, but it was an affectionate sort of exasperation. “I’m glad I can’t have my vegetarian status revoked, because this would do it.”

“You’re doing it for love. People would understand. Well, maybe not PETA.” Even though he was eager to leave, he was ravenous, so Roan sat on the edge of the bed and opened the bag, pulling out the hot, paper-wrapped burrito, which he peeled open eagerly. It was probably still too hot to eat, but as soon as he sank his teeth into it, he didn’t care. Before the spicy sauce kicked in, he could taste all the hot fat and salty calories, the meat and the eggs and the crispy bit of hash-browned potatoes they threw in as well. Bliss. He might have had an orgasm if Dylan had gotten him a pumpkin-pie shake too, but he’d gotten him a Pepsi, which he had admittedly requested. (He needed the sugar and caffeine.)

He ate greedily, gulping half of it down in little over a minute, and Dylan sat down in the room’s only chair. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or do I have to pry it out of you?”

He finished chewing, washed it down with a gulp of soda so sweet and ice cold it made his teeth hurt, and said, “You’re gonna want me to stay here. But I want you to know I’m not going to. I’m doing this my own way, and I hope you’ll support me even if you think I’m the biggest idiot in the world.”

Dylan stared at him in a way that suggested he wasn’t sure what to do: punch him or laugh.

“You should get that printed on a card and hand it out to potential boyfriends. By the time most of us figure that part out, we’re in too deep.”

“I probably deserved that.”

“Look, I know you, okay? Something was wrong and you hid it from me, because you didn’t want to admit weakness. And you’re terrified of hospitals, so you want to get out of here as fast as possible, even if it hastens your death. How am I doing?”

Roan let a pause linger. “I wouldn’t say terrified.”

He rolled his eyes. “You also use humor to try and defuse situations and change the subject, or alternately you use it as a weapon. You do it a lot. You’re a closet comedian.”

“I make you laugh.”

“All the time. But that isn’t the point. The point is I just found you, you selfish bastard, and you can’t die on me now.” Dylan tried to blink away nascent tears, then gave up and just ran the back of his hand across his eyes.

A weight seemed to settle in Roan’s stomach, unrelated to the food, and it seemed to want to clog his throat. Roan didn’t let it. “I promise you, Dylan, I’m not gonna die. Not without a fight. You know how I love to fight. That hasn’t changed.”

“It better not.”

Roan sat there, wondering how far ahead Paris had planned. He’d discovered only after he met Dylan that Paris had actively singled Dylan out and all but groomed him to take his place. He had selected Roan’s next boyfriend for him, which was exactly like Par, so much so that he didn’t know why it shocked him that he had. Like he’d let him find someone that Par didn’t judge worthy? As if. But was this part of the reason why? Paris knew Roan would be eager to join him in the nothingness of death, sweet oblivion, so he made sure there was something that would pull him back, make him want to stay alive even if only by sheer guilt. Was that the entire intent?