Page 84 of This Vicious Hunger
The doctor doesn’t bother with pleasantries. And it’s clear she’s not here to bring supplies. She marches in with the air of somebody who has much more important places to be, barely glancing at us as she starts to unload a leather valise onto a side table. The candles gutter, casting long shadows.
“I want blood samples. Body measurements. Olea, you go first, strip and stand over there so Thora can measure you.” She barks instructions as the two of us sit, unmoving.
When she throws a tape measure at me, I let it bounce off my shoulder and roll to the floor.
“For god’s sake. What’s the matter with you two?” Finally, for the first time, she looks at us. “Is this about your little visitor?”
“You know about that?”
Petaccia rolls her eyes. Of course she knows. She knows everything, though I still don’t know how. I grip Olea’s hand tightly in mine, one last squeeze, before standing abruptly. I’m weak, the muscles in my arms and legs complaining from their earlier exercise, and I sway a little.
“Why didn’t you come to make sure we were all right?” I demand. “If you knew there was somebody snooping around?”
“Oh, he’s hardly just a somebody.” Petaccia shrugs. “I know he’s your friend. Besides, you girls—and the garden—can look after yourselves.”
Anger whips through me. “Not that you care.”
“I’ve been busy in the lab,” Petaccia says airily. “You’re not the only ones who need my attention.”
“You haven’t.” Olea is horrified. “You’ve made more of the antidote?”
“You’veusedit?”
“Not on myself I haven’t.” Petaccia closes her valise with a snap. “But every experiment needs a control group. I’ve made variants with animal blood—matching type to type.”
“You can’t!” Olea shrieks. “You haven’t got the faintest idea what this could do. Look at us. We’re…” She lifts her hands helplessly.
“I think the compound must be breaking down,” I provide mechanically.
Petaccia glances between the two of us, taking us in with a clinical eye, and then all she says is “Mm-hmm.”
“What?” I demand. If only I had more strength. I’d love to rip her apart. Briefly, for one mad second, I wonder if Petaccia has timed her visits like this on purpose, visiting early on, when we were confused and high with discovery, and now. The thought is too terrifying to probe deeply.
“What are your symptoms?” Petaccia says instead of answering. “Dizziness? Fatigue? Any shortness of breath, photosensitivity? Hunger and thirst all normal? Any cravings for steak, venison, or otherwise raw meat?”
Olea and I both stare, slack-jawed. Petaccia, with her hands on her hips, her skin covered nearly head to toe in thick black cloth, is the bringer of death. She knew, I realise. She knew all along this would happen. And I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’m just like Olea, it turns out: ready to believe whatever lie the good doctor tells me.
“How could you keep something like this from us?” I attempt to throw myself at her, arms—clawed nails—outstretched, but Petaccia is light on her feet, sidestepping my movement easily so I stumble against the side table, knocking the valise. I grip it for support. “Don’t we deserve to know what’s happening? What else do you know that we don’t?”
“Are we dying?” Olea asks quietly.
“I didn’t keep anything from either of you that you wouldn’t have discovered yourselves,” Petaccia says calmly. “A good scientist should never be in the habit of sharing her suspicions with the subjects of any experiment of this type. It could colour the results.”
“Is that all we are to you?” I slam my fist against the wall. Days ago, I’m sure, that would have left a mark—in the wall, and in me. Now the only evidence is an ache deep in my bones.
“Anyway, it’s quite clear there’s no need to keep the information from you. Even if you are both horribly hard work where gathering results goes. As far as your current symptoms: I suspected that given the unstable nature of the antidote you concocted”—she looks at me—“there’s little support for a consistent outcome. The dose between the two of you was variable, which only extended the support for my hypotheses since you both had very similar reactions. Death, and undeath, shall we say. The healing of exterior wounds is, of course, a bonus—”
“What are you trying to say?” I spit. “Speak in the plain fucking common tongue, won’t you?”
Petaccia looks a little put out but shrugs it off. “Well, to put it simply, the antidote doesn’t come without risk. It seems to me, given that red blood cells take around four to six weeks to be fully replaced by the body, there may be some extra instability aroundthat time as the body replenishes. Consuming another dose, made to the same strength using—well, to put it bluntly—humanblood, would likely avert the more serious of the potential issues. Though of course of that part I cannot be certain.”
“You suspected this. The whole time. And you’ve been keeping us in here, knowing that this might kill us both? Why are you doing this?”
“Please, Thora dear, stop with the righteous act. I warned you. Science is not always clean and easy. We’ve had to rob graves, use slaves, cut cadavers without permission to get where we are. How do you think your father learned the art of autopsy? Yes, I know we’re not supposed to talk of all that, but it’s integral to the craft. How do you think medicine has progressed as it has? This is depth of discovery we’re talking about. How can you be offended when science, experiments like these, are the reason smallpox no longer kills thousands of people a year?”
“That’s different!” I exclaim.
“How?” Petaccia raises an eyebrow, as though she’s genuinely baffled. “What we’re doing will change the world. When my own father died I would have done anything to bring him back—wouldn’t you want the same? I know you idolised yours. And think of the accolades! Oh, I know you think that’s silly now, but not long ago I know you’d have scratched my eyes out for the chance at this kind of fame. Whyshoulddeath be the end?”
