44. A Rough Road
Chapter 44
A Rough Road
Infusion Center—Five days later
C erissa settled Karen onto the infusion chair, a big, overstuffed recliner. She could lie back and snooze, sit up and read a book, or play games or videos on her phone. When the surgeons removed the tumors—debulking, they called the surgery—they’d also embedded a central line in her chest below her right collarbone. The nurse inserted a needle into the catheter.
Cerissa waited until the technician left them alone. “Are you comfortable?”
“I’m okay, honestly. Now go back to your office. You don’t need to stay here the whole time.”
The infusion center was in Mordida, which made it a short drive to the Biologics Research Lab, but Cerissa had no intention of leaving. She read the IV medication label, checking to make sure Karen received the correct drug. “I’m happy to be here with you. Can I get you anything?”
“A warm blanket would be nice. I think they put the IV bag in the freezer right before I arrived, just to torture me.”
If the cancer hadn’t spread to the lymph nodes, they might have used a chemo that was heated and fed directly into the abdomen cavity. But Karen’s was too advanced to be eligible for that treatment.
“I’ll find a blanket.” Cerissa searched the halls until she ran into a technician. A few minutes later, she returned and tucked the blanket around Karen’s legs. “Fresh out of the dryer.”
“Thanks.”
As Karen pulled the blanket up to her chin, light glinted off a large diamond engagement ring, the stone set in an intricate scrolled setting. Cerissa couldn’t imagine how Rolf had acquired the custom-made setting so quickly. “The ring really is beautiful.”
Karen splayed her fingers. “I know.”
Cerissa frowned. “You haven’t displayed an ounce of excitement—not when you told me that Rolf proposed or since. Are you—don’t you want to be engaged?”
“Hey, easy there with the accusations.”
“Sorry, I’m just confused.”
Karen sighed. “I’m not excited because I’m not sure he means it.”
“Of course he does. Rolf loves you.”
“I know he does.” Karen paused, her gaze fixed on the ceiling. “You’ve heard of a mercy fuck, yeah? This feels like that. A mercy engagement. A consolation prize for having cancer.”
Empathy squeezed Cerissa’s lungs with tight pain. “Rolf wouldn’t have asked unless he wanted—”
“Shush. That’s how it feels to me. But I said yes anyway, because I’ve always wished for this with Rolf. And maybe I’m just in the wrong frame of mind right now. I don’t know.”
“Karen—”
“Let’s not, bestie. Look. This”—Karen gestured at the hanging infusion bag—“will take at least four hours. Why don’t you go to the lab, or go shopping, or anything but sitting here with me?”
Cerissa sighed. “But what if you need something? I don’t mind staying.”
Karen reached out and took her hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I appreciate everything you’re doing. But you’re going to drive your children crazy—when you have them—if you helicopter like this.”
Cerissa had warned Rolf of the same thing when they first arrived home: be patient and don’t hover. She needed to take her own advice. “I’m sorry. Henry had the same complaint when I first got Bear. He thinks I’ll be a terrible mother.”
“No, he doesn’t. You’re going to do just fine when the time comes. I shouldn’t have put it that way. I’m just feeling irritable. Afraid I’ll feel miserable after the chemo, and I’d rather be alone when I’m miserable than inflict it on you.”
They’d read the warnings together, and nausea and diarrhea were just two of the side effects reported.
Cerissa squeezed Karen’s hand, which she still held. “How does this sound? I’ll leave now and go to the lab. But promise to call me if you need anything, and I’ll come right back. Okay? And if I don’t hear from you before then, I’ll come back in four hours to pick you up.”
Karen nodded. “Works for me, thanks. I’ll see you then.”
Cerissa leaned over and kissed her friend on the cheek. “Love you.”
“Love you too. And thanks for understanding.”
Cerissa spent the time at her lab checking on the clones. While she was gone, her assistants had moved in a new batch, increasing their overall output, and production was going well. Once she finished her inspection, she retired to her office to read the latest research trials for management of stage three ovarian cancer. The literature wasn’t promising.
At the appointed time, she returned to the infusion center. The nurse stopped her before she went into the treatment room. “The nausea and vomiting were bad. It started right after you left.”
“I knew I should have stayed.”
“She wouldn’t let us call you. But we gave her a new medication that the doctor ordered, and it’ll give her relief for about twenty-four hours. She’ll be groggy for a while, so she shouldn’t drive or do anything strenuous. No food until the nausea stops, but keep up her fluid intake. Sports drinks, flat soda, plain water—here’s a list of things to try. The key is to keep her electrolytes in balance.”
“Thanks.” Cerissa slipped the paper into her purse. She already knew the routine from her research. “I understand. Can I see her now?”
“Go on in,” the nurse said.
Cerissa went to Karen’s infusion couch. The chemo bag and tubing were gone. Karen was curled up in the chair on her side, a small plastic basin in her hand. From the looks of the contents, the vomiting had stopped for the moment. Nothing was in it since the nurse had last cleaned it out.
Cerissa stroked Karen’s hair. “Hey there, bestie.”
“It was a bad one.” Karen’s breath came in pants. “I hate this.”
Cerissa knelt in front of her. “Take your time. When you’re ready, I’ll drive you home.”
“Let’s go now.” Karen tried to stand up and wobbled.
Cerissa caught her arm. “The new anti-nausea drug may make you a little dizzy.”
“They told me. It’s helping some.”
“That’s good.” She hoisted Karen’s travel bag onto her shoulder. The bag contained comforting things, like an e-reader, earbuds, warm, fuzzy socks, and a couple of stuffed animals, including her favorites, beaver and otter. “Lean on me. I can carry your stuff.”
Cerissa wrapped an arm around Karen’s waist, walked her to the car, and helped her in.
Karen sat there for a moment with her feet still flat on the ground. Then she leaned over between her legs and was suddenly sick. It hit the pavement. “This treatment better work,” she muttered as she fought to catch her breath, “because this sucks.”
C erissa spent the afternoon sitting at Karen’s bedside, alternating feeding her friend sips of an electrolyte blend and reading the latest cancer research on her tablet.
A knock at the interior door startled her, and she jumped to her feet.
What the hell?
The knock couldn’t be Rolf. The sun had yet to set, and there wasn’t an early moonrise scheduled.
Heart pounding, pulse threading rapidly, she did the only thing she could think of and grabbed the Lux E-beam weapon in her purse, then cracked open Karen’s bedroom door.
Agathe . The Lux leader was in her human form.
Cerissa stuffed the weapon back in her purse, scurried out, and quietly closed the door behind her. “What are you doing here?”
Had she changed her mind about helping Karen?
“Cerissa, we need you back in the lab.”
“The lab? You’re saying yes? You want me to heal Karen?”
“No.” Agathe took Cerissa’s hand and squeezed it. “My child, I’m sorry to drop this on you right now, but we need you to work on whether the Lux can breed with vampires.”
“ What? ” Shock spilled through Cerissa, followed quickly by confusion. No one had even whispered the idea at the Enclave. Vampires couldn’t breed, at least not the way mortals did, so no Lux scientist had ever suggested trying to use vampires in the reproductive process, unless… Cerissa shook her head to stop her train of thought. “What about my research on the blood problem—”
“You’ve resolved that wonderfully—”
“Actually—”
“—and now we need you to focus on breeding. And whether it’s possible with vampires.” Agathe’s hand wrapped gently around her forearm. “I’d like you to start now. Come with me and delegate preliminary assignments to your team.”
Wait. Why was this suddenly so urgent? “Agathe, I… I’m in the middle of caring for—”
From the other side of the door, Karen called out, “Cerissa?”
Dammit. Their voices had woken her. Cerissa opened the door and went to Karen’s bedside, taking her hand. “I’m sorry, bestie. We didn’t mean to wake you.”
Agathe followed. “I’m sorry you’re ill.”
“Not sorry enough to do anything to help me.”
Cerissa suppressed a grin. Leave it to Karen to have no fear of the Lux leader.
Agathe huffed out an exhale. “The situation is not that simple.”
“It is.” Karen panted, trying to catch her breath. “You’re just afraid to let Cerissa try.” Then she leaned over and vomited into the small plastic basin, hugging it close to her body. When she finished her dry heaves, Cerissa took the basin into the en suite bathroom and dumped the contents in the toilet. Nothing but bile. She rinsed it out and returned to the bedroom with a warm washcloth.
“Here, bestie.” She ran the cloth over Karen’s face.
“That feels good.” Karen closed her eyes. “Do we have any more of those sponge suckers? My mouth tastes worse than I feel.”
“Right here.” Cerissa unwrapped one of the peppermint-flavored swabs Karen liked. “Open up.”
“I can do that.” Karen swabbed it over her lips, then sucked on the sponge.
Agathe laid a hand on Karen’s leg. “Rest. Sleep.”
Karen’s eyes fluttered and closed.
Cerissa removed the stick from her mouth and dropped the used swab in the trash can. “What did you do?”
“Our aura will help her rest. Mine is stronger than yours. She should sleep for a while, perhaps long enough for her stomach to calm.”
“Thank you.” Then Cerissa cut Agathe a look. “I’d be back in the lab right now if you’d allow me to use Lux tech to heal her.”
Agathe headed back to the door. “Come, we’ll discuss this outside.”
Cerissa followed. “I can multitask my research—her cure and vampire breeding. But I also don’t understand the urgency around my new assignment.” She narrowed her eyes. “I’m in the dark about many things, at your insistence.”
“I really wish there was more I could let you do for her. But we can’t risk a premature release of information. The vampires and mortals can’t know in advance what’s coming. They’ll stockpile weapons, and millions more will die from an unnecessary war. But the only apocalypse is the one their own actions bring on themselves. They’ve misinterpreted metaphors, believing them to be real.”
“Agathe, what is coming? What are you refusing to tell me?”
Agathe remained silent for a moment, then sighed. “Given the impending climate catastrophe, a decision will have to be made soon on whether to save the vampires or the mortals.”
“No!” Cerissa couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Don’t choose. Save everyone.”
“It’s not possible. We don’t have enough raw materials. But if we can breed with vampires, we’ll save them, and let the mortals die out as a consequence of their actions. Vampires are longer lived, stronger, and more resilient. Breeding with them would spare us a great number of resources.”
Cerissa pressed her palms to her temples. “No. Save both. We have time to find a way—fifty years, at least.”
“We don’t.”
Cerissa looked at Agathe, alarm skittering through her. “What do you mean, we don’t?”
“We don’t have fifty years. We don’t even have forty.”
“How long?”
“Go back to your friend now. But as soon as you can, know we require your help. You’ve done more research on vampire genetics than anyone else. We need to know whether we can breed with vampires before the climate catastrophe forces our hand and makes the choice for us.”
“ How long? ”
“Soon enough.”
Cerissa wanted to scream in frustration. Soon meant nothing in Lux terms. Was it a year, five years, ten years, twenty years? How much time did she have to save everyone? And how could she focus on saving everyone but not save Karen? She’d have to convince Agathe to let her do both. But for now, she could at least stall any drastic decisions the Assembly was considering, even if she didn’t know what they were exactly.
“I’ll do it—I’ll do the research. Just give me more time. But it doesn’t matter what I discover. As I was trying to tell you earlier, even if we can breed with vampires, you still need both species in any scenario.”
“Why?”
“Vampires can’t solely survive on clone blood. I’ve discovered recently that they need the clotting factor in mortal blood. Clone blood alone makes them just as vulnerable as humans. Even if we find a way to have children with them, you still need mortals to feed them. And if you have limited means, you can’t focus on only mortals. You’ll never have the resources to sustain enough of them if you’re already concerned about the raw materials you have. Vampires are less of a drain on the environment. So it must be both. I might not know your plan, but I know that.”
“Do your research, and we will do ours.”
“Read me in. Read me in so I can help you find a way. I have every reason to want your plan to work. I won’t do anything to jeopardize it.”
Agathe tilted her head. “I’ll consider it.”