Chapter 29
“Casey! Casey!” A loud whisper finds its way into my ear canal, crawling up into my brain and behind my eyes.
The pale-yellow light of the basement creeps its way in, waking me.
I find myself lying on a thin mattress that provided little to no support during the night, and my back is making that evident as I sit up, using my elbows to shift my hips backward.
I stretch my arms into the air, working the stiffness out of my body before placing my hands on the floor.
The cold concrete bites at my soft palms, zapping me into a state of alertness.
“Did you sleep down here?” Blake’s voice pulls me up even further as I acclimate to my environment, remembering that I fell asleep on the basement floor, instead of in my room. I stand and stretch even more, hoping the pain I’m feeling will go away, but it holds fast, throbbing in dull waves.
“Yeah.” My voice cracks as I reach my arms up toward the ceiling yet again, spreading my fingers as wide as they’ll go.
“Why?” Blake’s tone is a mixture of confusion and anticipation, as if he’s hoping for a certain response but expecting another.
I take a second to respond, not sure of the answer myself. “I just figured . . . you wouldn’t wanna be alone.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” he says out loud, but I can hear through his words the true sentiment, which is that he’s glad I did.
“I know.”
“You could’ve had our room all to yourself. Hell, you could’ve even pushed our beds together and made one big mega bed. Slept like a queen.” Blake is staring off as though he is daydreaming about the idea of getting a good night’s rest in a massive bed himself.
“Came up with that idea pretty quickly. Is that what you used to do before I showed up?” I cross my arms, waiting for his response.
He shakes his head, laughing a bit before answering. “No, I got used to a tiny single bed in the military. Anything bigger is just wasted on me.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been the same without you in it, and by that, I mean miserable and . . .” I force a laugh as my voice trails off and silence replaces my tired banter. We both know we’re putting off talking about the elephant in the room, the inevitable deadline fast approaching.
“How’re you feeling?” The doctor side of me kicks in, wanting to assess his health changes from yesterday to gauge the direction he’s heading in.
I’m not sure if there are any actual indicators as to whether a person is going to change into a biter, but it’s worth trying to find out.
I mean, we really don’t know anything, minus my theory on Nomes auto changing into biters when bitten.
Even that, I want to keep to us because I don’t know for sure, and there’s no sense in scaring everyone else.
It could be something we deal with a long way down the road, but right now, I’m only focused on today and Blake.
“Fine. I mean, I feel off. I’m sweating bullets, as if I were sitting in a sauna rather than in a cold basement.” He tugs on his T-shirt to air it out. “And I’ve got a splitting headache, but other than that, I feel great. Plus, I’m not a biter, so I can’t really complain now, can I?”
I pull my lips into a tight smile and nod, trying to remain positive and encouraging of the current situation.
But I can see how red his face is, the sweat beads forming on his forehead and throughout his buzzed hair, like drops of dew on the morning grass.
The veins near his temples are even more prominent than before.
They’re pulsating, his body trying to feed blood to his brain, quelling the headache that won’t subside.
He gets to his feet and stretches his arms over his head before bringing them back down to his sides.
“It’s not long now, is it?” he asks, looking to me with a solemn face.
Blake surrendered his watch to me last night, unable to deal with the torture of constantly checking the time ticking away, creeping in on his binary fate.
I glance down at his watch hanging loosely around my wrist, a couple of sizes too big. The numbers tell me there’re less than ten minutes before the story of Blake’s life either adds a new, harrowing chapter or comes to an abrupt halt.
“No . . . not long,” I say, keeping my voice calm.
He nods in response, biting down on his lip as he closes his eyes and lets out a heavy sigh.
“By the way . . .” I add.
He snaps his eyes open in response.
“If you pretend to turn into a biter, I’m just gonna shoot you in the face. No hesitation whatsoever.” I lift my shirt, showing off the pistol tucked in the waistband of my pants. “So no jokes this time.”
“Oh, really?” Blake walks to his cell door, slipping his arms through the metal bars and letting them rest there. He never takes his eyes off me. “You think you could do that? You think you have the stones to just shoot me.” He snaps his fingers, loud and quick. “Just like that.”
“How do you think I got so good with my throwing stars?”
Blake cocks his head to the side, waiting for my answer.
“I pictured your face on the target. That’s why I never miss.”
He can’t help but smile. “Wow. All those years of practice, and you were thinking of me the whole time.” He cups his hands together, tucking them under his chin, batting his eyelashes.
“Thinking of killing you, yes.” My voice is stern, not letting his charm get the upper hand.
“Still counts.” He shrugs slightly. “I was in your thoughts.”
I walk to the cell, ready to swat at one of his arms or give it a slight tug, just to mess with him, but the closer I get, the more I can see how badly he’s holding up.
“Blake, are you sure you’re all right?” Sweat drips down his skin, collecting on the tip of his nose and his chin before falling to the floor in large droplets.
“Yeah.” He coughs out his answer and uses the sleeve of his shirt to wipe his brow.
It’s only dry for a second before sweat seeps from his pores again, making his forehead look like a clear night sky speckled with countless glistening lights dazzling their brilliance against one another.
He focuses on me, ignoring the effects of whatever’s going on inside him.
It’s clear from the look he’s giving me that my face is revealing words I’ve left unspoken.
“You look worried,” Blake says.
He’s not wrong. I am worried, and as much as I want to remain optimistic that he’ll be fine, assure myself that the worst thing that could happen isn’t the thing that’s going to happen, I know there are no guarantees.
I don’t know what his odds are, so I have to assume he has just as good of odds to turn as he does to stay who he is.
It’s out of my hands, though, and that’s the hardest thing to accept, especially as a doctor.
I can recall many times staring at the face of a dying patient, knowing their time was coming to an end and having to answer the question every dying patient asks.
Am I going to be okay? Almost always, we both know the true answer, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right one.
The right answer is to smile, take their hand, and tell them that they’re going to be fine.
I swallow hard and blink several times to keep myself from tearing up. “I’m not worried, Blake, because you’re going to be fine,” I say, forcing the corners of my mouth up just enough to hopefully convince him that I truly believe it.
He smiles, but I know he’s not buying it. I’m sure, as a Seal, he had to watch people die and deliver the same spiel that I gave my patients. Blake clears his throat before he speaks. “In case I turn—”
“You won’t,” I cut him off.
“In case I do,” he powers through, ignoring my objection, “I really want you to know how sorry I am . . . for everything.” Blake lowers his head, shaking it for a second before meeting my gaze.
I know what he’s doing. I’ve seen it before.
It’s akin to a deathbed confession. Asking for forgiveness or apologizing for all the wrongs one has accumulated over their lifetime.
A final catharsis that’s often more for their own sake than that of those around them.
Still, I appreciate him saying it with such conviction.
“I know you are.” I step toward him, taking his hands in mine and squeezing gently to doubly confirm I believe him. “It’s fine, Blake. Really.”
He pulls away again. “No, it’s not. I need you to know that I never wanted to be your monster.
I was just so angry at the world, and I took it out on you.
After my mom passed . . .” He pauses, glancing up at the ceiling, like he’s trying to see her up there.
“After my mom passed, my dad turned to alcohol, and the alcohol made him turn to me. But not in a loving way. There was nothing loving about him when he was drinking. It made him cruel and violent and angry. He was my monster, and then, like these goddamn biters, he turned me into one too.” Tears trickle down his cheeks, and he hangs his head, wiping them away with his T-shirt.
“At one point, the summer after junior year, he turned back into my dad, the man I knew before my mom passed. He got sober and so did I, in a way. I didn’t have that anger and resentment inside of my body poisoning me anymore.
When I started senior year, I was happy, so there was nothing to take out on anyone.
I put down my swords, and I got to know you.
The more I got to know you, the more I realized I didn’t hate you at all. ”
“Yes, you did, Blake,” I say matter-of-factly. “I get you want to apologize, but let’s not rewrite history.”
“I’m not rewriting it, Casey. I’m telling you the side you never knew about.”
I give him a crooked look. “What didn’t I know?”