47. From Bad to Worse
Chapter 47
From Bad to Worse
Fresno—Seven days later
T his makes no sense.
The thought ran on repeat in Cerissa’s head. After the first infusion treatment, once the anti-nausea drugs started working, Karen seemed better for most of the week. Then, wham , the abdominal pain returned with a vengeance. Palpating Karen’s abdomen, Cerissa felt a mass in the same spot as the original tumor.
At her request, Dr. Scott, Karen’s oncologist, ordered a powerful painkiller, along with an ultrasound and a CT scan. Antonio had introduced Karen to one of the best oncologists in the San Joaquin Valley, but it was a two-hour drive from the Hill to Fresno. Rolf hired a driver to take them there and wait to bring them home.
Cerissa sat in the back seat of the sedan next to Karen, who sipped on sparkling water. It seemed to keep her stomach settled—the new painkiller had brought back the nausea.
Karen put her phone down. “Do you think they might cancel the next infusion? Because if the drugs cause this kind of pain, I don’t know how I’m going to get through twenty weeks of this. Let alone more if they delay it further.”
Cerissa understood her trepidation. In theory, Karen had three weeks between each treatment to recover. Given how hard the chemo was on the body, she needed every day of that break. The anti-nausea medications, along with Rolf’s blood, had taken the edge off after the first day. Then the sudden return of the abdominal pain derailed her recovery. Neither the mass nor the pain should have returned.
“Let’s see what the doctor says first.”
Karen leaned back against the seat. “Okay.”
The wait at the radiology center wasn’t long. Cerissa accompanied Karen into the test area and stayed with the lab tech, watching over his shoulder as the CT scans downloaded. She stared at the eight images.
What. The. Fuck.
The tumors were back. Including the large one that had twisted Karen’s ovary.
But how? Cerissa had reviewed the scans taken before surgery and then afterward. The surgeons had excised the big tumor completely. How could it have regrown in two weeks? Sometimes tumors were drug resistant and grew back, but not this fast. From all the medical literature she’d read on ovarian cancer, there’d never been a case where the tumors regrew in such a short time. Never.
When the radiologist brought Karen out of the CT ring, Cerissa kept her lips tightly zipped. Maybe the oncologist would have an idea what had happened. Because she sure as hell didn’t.
The driver took them to the medical center where the oncologist had his office, and they waited for the doctor to access the uploaded scans and read the results for himself.
In the waiting room, Karen played on her phone while Cerissa stared at a bad watercolor of a sailboat. Maybe when Karen’s chemo was complete, they’d take a trip to go sailing to celebrate. Except with the tumors returned, Cerissa didn’t think they’d be celebrating anything soon.
When the appointment clerk called Karen’s name, she gripped Cerissa’s hand. “Come in with me. These drugs have yeeted my brain into the stratosphere. You’ll understand what the doctor says better than I will.”
Cerissa squeezed her hand. Between chemo and the painkillers, it was surprising Karen could walk straight. “Of course. Whatever you want.”
Once they were in the exam room, the doctor completed a manual exam of Karen’s abdomen, then he stared at the computer screen displaying the scans. He removed his glasses and turned to Karen. “I don’t know how to explain this. The tumors are back. Aggressively so. Instead of shrinking them, it’s like the chemo has fed them, increased their growth rate.”
Fed. That one word jump-started Cerissa’s mind, and she gasped.
The chemo hadn’t fed the tumors, but Rolf’s blood might have.
Chemotherapy was wounding Karen’s body, and Rolf’s vampire blood was curing the damage. But did the healing power of his blood distinguish between healthy and unhealthy tissue? Or did it regenerate everything, breathing life back into all cells—including cancer cells—to reanimate someone as a vampire? If a vampire turned someone with cancer, would the cancer continue to live in stasis in the new vampire?
She would have to find a vampire diagnosed with cancer before being turned and get a CT scan of them. That might give her a definitive answer.
Or maybe the medical database compiled by the treaty communities held the answer. She’d already read everything she could find on cancer but had focused on vampire mates. When they returned to the Hill, she’d double-check to see if she’d missed any data on people with cancer who were turned—that might provide clues on how vampire blood affected cancer cells.
Yet, even without that confirmation, the vampire blood theory explained a host of other things. Why Karen wasn’t losing her hair, why the chemotherapy nausea only lasted a day, why most of the other side effects had suddenly become extremely mild.
Dr. Scott cleared his throat. “I recommend another surgery to remove the tumors, and then a different drug regimen.” The oncologist patted Karen’s hand. “What we call a salvage drug—a different, stronger chemo.”
Karen looked at him with big, sad, doe-like eyes. “The tumors are back?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
Her voice was small. “How can that be?”
“I’m not sure—”
“Doctor,” Cerissa said. “Please give us a few minutes alone to talk. Then we’ll have questions.”
He nodded. “I’ll be in my office. Have the medical assistant get me when you’re ready.”
Once the door closed, Cerissa stepped over to face Karen, who sat on the exam table looking lost. “I think I understand why this happened. Let me conference in Antonio.” She tapped his number and put it on speaker. “Antonio, it’s Cerissa Patel-Vasquez and Karen Turner.”
“How is Karen doing?”
“That’s what I was calling about. The oncologist you referred us to is great. But there is a problem, and I don’t know how to approach a solution.”
“What’s happened?”
“Karen had her first round of chemotherapy. But to lessen the symptoms, she’s been ingesting Rolf’s blood. I think it’s acting as an antagonist—reversing the effects of the chemotherapy and regenerating the cancer cells. The tumors have completely regrown. We’re at the oncologist’s office now. He wants to do another surgery, and then use a stronger chemo.”
“And you think it’s vampire blood that’s causing the problem?”
“Either that, or she has the fastest-growing drug-resistant strain of cancer ever discovered. Unlikely, as the tumors regrew in the exact same spots as the previous ones. But we won’t know for sure until she stops combining the two. Her tumors may respond to first-line chemo drugs if we stop the vampire blood.”
“And you’re trying to figure out how to talk him into trying one more round of first line?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm. We could try the truth.”
“Antonio, are you serious? ‘Hi, doc, Karen’s engaged to a vampire. That’s why the chemo failed’? I don’t think that will work. The blood bond would stop us.” It wouldn’t stop Cerissa, but she had to maintain the pretense for Antonio.
“I didn’t say tell the whole truth.” Antonio paused. “Here’s what you do. Tell him that Karen has been taking some homeopathic remedies. You don’t know what was in them, but you want him to try first-line chemo for two more rounds just to make sure the homeopathic remedies weren’t at fault. It’s a real stretch, but it’s the best you have. But doing two more rounds is a reasonable, conservative approach. Not everyone responds immediately. And she has to stop taking blood from Rolf—cold turkey—which means she’s going to have more trouble with side effects from chemo.”
“How do we persuade him not to perform another debulking surgery first?”
Silence over the phone told her Antonio was considering the options. “He’s the expert. But if another couple of rounds shrink the tumors, then we’ll know we’re on the correct track, and he can then do the surgery. I’ll speak to him.”
“Thanks, Antonio. You’re right. That’s the best suggestion we have.” She looked over at her bestie, who seemed frozen in place at the end of the exam table. “Karen, do you have any questions?”
“No, none.”
“I’m sorry,” Antonino said. “Contact me if you need anything else.”
“Thanks, we will.” Cerissa ended the call.
Karen’s eyes flooded with tears the moment Cerissa lowered the phone. “I can’t do this again. Not another surgery. Not more of those drugs. I can’t.”
“Karen, I am so sorry you have to go through this. But please understand—I really believe this happened because of vampire blood. If you stop ingesting Rolf’s blood, we’ll see progress. It won’t be like this again. The regrowth at this rate—that’s not normal.”
“But without his blood, how will I bear it? The only thing that helped with the side effects was drinking from Rolf.”
Cerissa opened and closed her mouth. She wanted to promise better painkillers, better anti-nausea medications, but would they be as effective at allaying the side effects as vampire blood?
“We’ll figure this out.”
Karen nodded, looking lost.
Between Cerissa and Antonio, they convinced Dr. Scott to try another round of first-line chemo and delay surgery, to see if, without the homeopathic remedies, the tumors shrank. Dr. Scott looked at her like she was nuts, but finally agreed.
When they left the oncologist’s office, Karen slid into the limo, stretched out, and slept for most of the two-hour ride back to Sierra Escondida. When they reached Rolf’s house, Cerissa gently shook her shoulder. “You’re home.”
Karen yawned and removed the seatbelt. “Thanks, bestie, for going with me. For everything.”
“Hey, we haven’t finished yet.”
“Yeah. Listen: don’t tell Henry what’s happened yet. I want to talk to Rolf, and then have you guys come over after.”
Once the driver delivered Cerissa home, she flashed to her bedroom at the Enclave, changed into a sarong that wrapped under her wings, and morphed into her native form.
She’d been patient long enough. The time had come to confront Agathe and her irrational refusal to help Karen.
Cerissa found the Lux leader in her office, looking even more harried.
“Cerissa? Have you come to discuss a work plan for the breeding question?”
“I—” Cerissa paused. Ever since she felt the new mass in Karen’s abdomen, the Lux-vampire breeding program had been the farthest thing from her mind. “No, but I will. Right now, I’m here about Karen.”
Cerissa explained what had happened. “I want your permission to remove Karen’s tumors. I’ll do a better job than the human surgeons with less trauma and give her an improved starting point for chemo.”
“Cerissa, think.” The feathers on Agathe’s wings rose, signaling frustration. “If you debulk the tumors now, the lie becomes impossible to maintain. She still needs chemo treatment from mortal doctors. They’ll notice her tumors disappeared overnight.”
“Ari could hack the records, get rid of the recent scans. I could ask to rerun them and suggest a malfunc—”
“Ari can’t erase the minds of the radiologist and doctor who read the scans or the nurses at the infusion center where the reports are sent.” Agathe’s voice sharpened. “Too many mortals know the truth of her condition. If the tumors miraculously disappear, the scrutiny will be too great. Not all of them will believe they saw it wrong. You know this, even if you don’t want to admit it.”
Cerissa’s mind scrambled for an alternative. “So we take her somewhere else for chemo. Flash her to another country. Kill the paper trail between the current doctors and her new treatment center.”
Agathe shook her head. “You’re forgetting the fundamental rules. The one that caused the Assembly to scar you permanently for disobedience. No interference. And especially no interference at the unexplainable level you’re suggesting. We can’t use our technology to save every mortal.”
“But you’re talking about interfering with human development to save the Lux.”
“It may sound inconsistent, but in that case, we have no choice—not if we want to survive.”
Cerissa spread out her wings as despair sank into her gut. How to convince Agathe? How? “I’m not even asking to fully cure her. I just want to help make what’s already so hard a little easier.”
“Yes, I understand that, but you’ll have no reasonable way to explain how you miraculously excised the tumors. We cannot risk exposing ourselves now—we have too many other pieces in motion that depend on whatever stability currently exists in the human and vampire worlds. You want to save them all, yes? Then focus on saving them all. Don’t risk everything—don’t risk all of us and all of them—for this. Let the doctors treat her. Their medicine hasn’t failed. Vampire blood has counteracted it. Allow the chemo to do its work unimpeded.”
The old Lux proverb flashed through Cerissa’s mind: with time, truth is revealed . But Karen was running out of time. Tears clotted Cerissa’s eyes. She couldn’t wait. “And if their treatments aren’t enough to cure her? What then? Will you still deny her?”
Agathe sighed, her posture softening. “You chose a tough path, deciding to stay in a mixed community of mortals and vampires. You’ve opened your heart to people. But you can’t control everything. Hard as the truth is to hear, the only way to live with humans and not have their brief lives harden your heart or turn you bitter is to accept their mortality. You cannot rescue them from that—death ultimately wins. This is the lesson, no matter how painful, that you must learn. It’s a lesson I learned, and am still facing, on a much larger scale. Grieving is gut-wrenching, but you must be brave enough to let go and grieve. Lean into Henry when the weight of grief becomes too heavy. You chose well there. He’ll help you through losing the friends you love, whether it’s imminent or years from now.”