Chapter 84
My stomach pitches into my throat and I run to the sink.
I’ve had a protein bar and a bottle of water- I vomit them up violently.
Adam comes and holds back my hair.
I run the water and rinse my mo uth.
My mou th is salivating and the flood of adrenaline makes it hard to breathe. This is NOT the news I was expecting.
“I don’t understand. I’ve been trying to play it cool, but come on…I was tortured in that Grove and I felt the power of my lineage come into me. What good is being an Alpha if I’m just going to d ie, and now, what!? More quickly?”
push out of his arms and stalk around the lab. I have to keep moving. This anxious energy is burning through my system and I want to cry and scream.
It’s all so unfair.
For a few days, I dared to dream.
That I was cured.
That I wasn’t a pawn.
That I could wield power and control over my future and
family.
But that was all delusional it seems.
“I’m running tests, Leah. I’m trying. Believe me.”
He looks gutted.
drag my hair back and twist it into a messy bun. “I know, Adam. I appreciate everything you’re doing, truly.”
He crosses back to a computer and points to the screen. I see a series of DNA genes, the results of the electrophoresis he
ran earlier in the week. but I don’t know what the numbers
actually mean.
“I think the issue lies with your wolf genetics. You have all the markers, Leah. But there is something preventing your
true side from manifesting. And whatever that element is, it’s attacking your own body too. It’s almost like some sort of
autoimmune disease.”
He may as well be speaking ancient Greek.
I pace back and forth.
“So this is it!? I just get my affairs in order, huh?”
“You still have some time,” he says.
“How long?”
“It’s hard to say,” he says honestly.
My mind whirls.
My eyes pri ck with the burn of unshed tears. “I really thought….
Adam…”
“I know,” he says quietly. “Look, there are still treatments. We can fight this. We won’t give up.” He points to the refrigerator at the opposite side of the room. “The chemo treatments are here. You can begin them today.”
I put my hand to my head because I feel lightheaded.
All at once, Adam’s arm is around me.
He carries me to the nearest hospital bed and sets me on
the mattress, then he props up the bed so I’m sitting mostly upright. “Just take a minute, Leah. Breathe.”
He leans over me and I’m hit with the smell of his cologne or
maybe it’s his aftershave. The smell makes me gag and I wretch again.
He lunges to the side for a waste basket.
I gag and heave, but thankfully my stomach is empty.
“What happened?” he asks.
I wrinkle my nose. “I don’t know. Something about your cologne-no offense.”
He laughs. Then quickly sobers.
He runs back to the table and pulls a vial of my blood from a
centrifuge.
“Uh, Adam…what are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer and that makes my blood pressure spike.
“Have you been tired, Leah?”
“Yes. But it’s been a pretty dark time. I always tend to sleep
more when I’m depressed.”
“Hmm.”
“What about your appetite?”
I shrug. “I’m hungry sometimes. Not hungry at all at others.”
“Nausea? Like just now?”
“No. I mean, I’ll feel si ck sometimes when I wake up. But it passes. I’ve never pu ked before. Until today, that is.”
He’s pulling out a dropper and pouring another solution into a petri dish. Then he adds a drop of my blood and swirls before dipping in some kind of litmus paper.
I swing my legs off the bed and start back toward him. He looks genuinely anxious and there is actual sweat beading on his forehead. “Adam, please. What is it? Am I vomiting because I’m in the final stages?”
I don’t know much about this type of can cer and I’ve purposely stayed off Google and WebMD. I’m crazy enough lately, I don’t need to read symptoms and side effects or about statistics and life expectancies.
He holds up the paper and it’s turned a shade of pink.
“What does it mean, Adam?”
His eyes are big and wide. “You’re pregnant.”
