Page 28 of Serenity

He proceeded to rattle off a bunch of medical jargon that I could barely follow and didn’t really understand. But I did recognize what Faith’s grin meant. “So thekidney’sokay?”

“It’s not in acute rejection, but I’m still going to keep her overnight while we help get her back to one-hundred percent. She’s also going to need to follow-up with me in my office next week, and we’re going back to at least monthly blood draws for the nearfuture.”

“See? Vampires,” Faithgroaned.

“I wouldn’t have to pull the vampire act if you’d taken better care of yourself and that kidney,” Dr. Stewart chastised her. “And remembered that only a moderate amount of alcohol is okay. No overdoing it like thisagain.”

“I know. It won’t happen again. I’ll take my pills on time and follow my diet to the letter. Whatever ittakes.”

“It better not,” hegrumbled.

“I’ll be there to make sure it doesn’t,” I promised. “But if the worst ever does come to pass, at least we know that I can donate one of my kidneystoher.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Dr. Stewartdrawled.

“What do you mean? I should be a perfect match since Declan was my identical twin and he was herdonor.”

“True.” He nodded. “I haven’t gotten the results from your screenings back yet, but I don’t anticipate their being a matchingissue.”

I had two kidneys, should be a match, and was willing to donate to Faith. I didn’t understand what could possibly be complicated about that. “Then what’s theproblem?”

“It’s your medical history. More specifically, your hearttransplant.”

My hand pressed against my chest, right over the scar that’d been there when I woke up from my coma. The one my parents had explained was because of the surgery I’d needed due to some damage caused during the accident. But nobody had ever said a word about a transplant. I stared blindly at the doctor, not really seeing him as my brain put the pieces of the puzzletogether.

Declan had died the day before Iwokeup.

My parents had agreed to donate hisorgans.

I’d had a hearttransplant.

But I hadn’t needed to take any of the anti-rejection medications that were vital to Faith’s health after her kidneytransplant.

Declan had beenmytwin.

WithidenticalDNA.

“Holyfuck.”

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