Page 99 of Installment Immortality

Malena bounced up from the couch with an ease I envied, after giving the mice a moment to get down from her arm and off her knees. “You really need to go shopping,” she informed me, as she waved me toward the apartment’s small dining area. It was really just a part of the living room separated by a tiny half-wall, and there was no table there normally, but she had managed to find a folding card table somewhere while I was asleep, and had it set up and waiting for us, along with two collapsible chairs that looked, frankly, like they’d been snatched out of one of the neighborhood dumpsters.

Two plates were already waiting there, each with a small portion of the three parts of what would be our dinner. “If you want to sit and start, I’ll go get to blending,” she said.

“You don’t have a lot of faith in my ability to chew, huh?”

“I have absolutely zero faith inmyability to chew. Yours is irrelevant.” Malena grinned. “Besides, I want to show off my mastery of the blender. You wouldn’t rob a poor sweet chupacabra of her signature joy when she’s just come all this way to see you, would you?”

“No,” I said, waving a hand for her to get on with it as I sat down at the table and pulled the small plate toward myself. “I’m not waiting for you, though.”

“Wasn’t expecting you to,” she said cheerfully, and returned to the kitchen.

Everything was perfectly cooked, hot and ready and delicious, and I managed three bites of the risotto before I had to admit defeat. Solids and I were still not on speaking terms. “I don’t know what you have against chewed food,” I informed the dome of my belly, “but you are not going to spend your entire childhood living off of smoothies, so you better get over it now.”

“Trying to reason with an unhatched pup is a recipe for insanity,” said Malena, walking back into the room with a tumbler in either hand. There was a colorful straw in each glass. She looked at them as she set the glasses down, careful to put the one with the blue straw in front of me.

“What are the straw colors for?” I asked, reaching for my blended dinner.

“Your steak was cooked,” she said. “Human fetuses don’t react well to raw meat.”

“Neither do human digestive systems, under most circumstances,” I said.

“I know. You’re all vulnerable to parasites and stuff. What is up with that?” She sat down and picked up her own tumbler. “Bottoms up.”

“Evolution said we had too much going for us already and didn’t need a generalized immunity to roundworm,” I said, before taking a cautious sip. Then I stopped, and just blinked at the brownish sludge she’d served me.

“What? What’s wrong?” Malena sat up straighter. “I only used things I knew it was safe for pregnant humans to eat, and I got a list of your allergies from Brenna, there shouldn’t be any issues—”

“Are you secretly a fuckingWonka?” I asked. “I know—Iknow—this is just a slurry of all the things I couldn’t bring myself to swallow on their own. But it tastes amazing, and I find that upsetting on a genuinely visceral level. This shouldn’t be possible. You know it shouldn’t be possible, and I know it shouldn’t be possible, and can you stay forever?”

“I was already planning to stay for the rest of your pregnancy,” said Malena, easily. “Humans have a gestation period of roughly nine months, and I could use the break.”

“What have you been up to?”

“Teaching, mostly. One of my cousins has a dance studio, and he was delighted to hire a reality television star to help guidethe kiddos through their first forays into the wonderful world of ballroom dance.” She took a sip of her own steak smoothie, and smiled smugly. “Yeah, that did come out good, didn’t it? Could use a little bit more rosemary, but I didn’t want to get too aggressive with you before I knew where your limits were right now.”

“I really do mean it when I say you can stay, but you should be aware that means sleeping on the couch,” I said. “I can’t offer you my bed—I’m too pregnant for that, no matter how polite it would be. And the second room is going to be the baby’s, once he gets here and I finish putting the crib together.”

“I thought you humans liked to keep your infants in the room with you immediately after birth.”

“Don’t chupacabra do that?”

“Fuck, no. The little bastards hatch with a full set of teeth ready to go, and they’re fast. No one who enjoys having skin sleeps in a room with a bunch of baby chupacabra.”

“I see. Yeah, we like to keep the babies near us when they first come out, and I have a special bassinet for that. But he’ll only be small enough to sleep in it for a few months, and then he’ll need his own space.” Privately, I was glad there was a physical limiter on keeping him in the room with me. I knew myself well enough to know that I’d get way too attached way too quickly if I let myself. For everyone’s sanity, I needed him to have his own space.

Malena frowned, cocking her head. “Two bedrooms, and I get the couch while I’m visiting. Where are you planning to put Olivia? WhereisOlivia?” Her eyes widened slightly, and I could almost see her putting the pieces she had together in the wrong order, leading her toward a devastating conclusion.

We didn’t need any misunderstandings. The truth was bad enough.

“She’s in Portland, with my parents,” I said. “We got her out of the city before Dominic… before. They’re taking good care of her.”

“Don’t you think she should be here with you?”

“I don’t thinkIshould be here with me right now,” I said. “If I had a way to birth this baby and hand him to my parents immediately, I’d do it. But I can’t. Infants need their mothers, and my boobs hurt, and I’m damn well going to give him everything I can to make sure he has the best start possible.”

“Val…”

“My name’s Verity, not Valerie,” I snapped. “My husband died, I’m very tired and very sad, and I don’t think I can take care of a baby right now, much less a baby and a small child. If I could, I wouldn’t have dragons sending people to make sure I could keep us both alive.”

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