“Mom!” I shouted. “We’re out of milk!”
She looked up from her computer at the kitchen table. Her face said: not my problem. “Put it on the shopping list.”
“But I’m eating cereal now.”
She went back to looking at her computer. I was being ignored.
I sighed.
I plopped down at the table and crunched on dry cereal. I stared at my mother. She continued to ignore me.
A dark shape loomed in our front picture window. I whipped around, a line of goosebumps spiking up my arms.
Buck glared in. He banged on the pane.
I wandered over to the window, cereal in hand. “What’s up?” I called through the glass.
“You owe me three dollars and thirty six cents.”
“Hunh?” I scooped some Cheerios into my mouth. It was rather dry. “Since when?”
“Since yesterday. Since you had no wallet. Since you made me pay for your ice cream.”
“Oh…” I crunched some more cereal. “Come on in. I’ll get it for you.”
Buck slid through the front door and peered into the kitchen. “G'morning, Dr. Matthews.”
“Hey there, Buck.”
“Are the people here treating you right?”
“My son expects me to summon milk out of thin air.”
“Ouch. Sorry, doctor.”
I gave my cereal to Buck. He looked down in distaste. “There was no milk,” I explained.
My wallet was upstairs in my room. I left Buck and my mom to their conversation and dug through the pile of stuff on my desk. The wallet was wedged between two textbooks.
I counted out four dollars. I had no spare change, anyway.
Wow, that cereal was dusty. My throat felt thick with it. Was something ringing? Why did the door seem so far away?
“Willam!” Buck roared. I heard him fly up the stairs.
I was on the ground—
Waking up once to the sight of an ICU ceiling was one time too many.
I’ve done it four times.
“Dang,” I mumbled. A heart rate monitor beeped in response.
Fire-red glimmered in the corner of my eye. I turned to find Buck perched on the edge of a green cushioned chair, grey eyes fixed on me. “Good morning,” I told him.
“It’s nine at night,” he said. “You were out the whole day.” Buck slumped backward. “Your mom went home to get some clothes for you. You’ll be staying here a while.”
I groaned. “Dammit.”
“You’re dad’s coming back to town tomorrow,” Buck said. “He says: ‘see you soon, and don’t do anything stupid until I get there.’”
I whipped my head around. “He’s coming back? That was an important business trip!”
“Guess he’s worried about you.”
It wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t control my episodes, or else I’d never let them happen. But I still felt guilty. I made my parents’ lives very hard.
“Did you get my homework?” I asked.
Buck shook his head. “Didn’t go to school.”
I let out a huff of angry air. “Buck. You can’t just not go to school.”
“I also couldn’t just leave you.”
“My mom was there.”
He folded his arms, frowning. “Still.”
I sighed. He was stubborn sometimes. He was stubborn all the time. “Well, thanks. You didn’t have to.”
He grunted in response.
I laughed suddenly. Buck jumped in surprise. “Y’know, they’re all going to think you ate me after school yesterday.” Buck stared at me. “My mom will probably have to sort it out. Ugh, I feel bad for her sometimes. It can’t be easy having me as a kid.” I lifted my arm. An IV trailed from the inside of my elbow. The needles used to scare me, but I was used to them now. “Maybe I could sign a piece of paper saying: I'm still alive; just having technical difficulties, and you could show it to people if they get funny… uh, Buck?”
He was still staring at me. He did not look amused. He didn’t look anything. “How do you… how are you so…”
“What?”
“How are you making jokes about this?”
I frowned. “You’d rather I wallowed in despair?”
“No! Just— stop pretending everything’s fine! Everything is not fine!”
“I never said—”
“You always make it seem like you’ll be running races in a few weeks. This? This is nothing! I’ll be fine tomorrow. Just give me a few days. Taking a breather! Technical difficulties— You. Are. Dying.”
I stared at him. “I know. I’m lying in the hospital, attached to more machines than I can count on both hands. You don’t need to spell it out.”
“Do you know? Because sometimes it seems like—”
“I’m just dealing with it, alright?!”
Buck pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his arms. “Jeez, Buck,” I said. “What’s up with you?”
“I had to resuscitate you,” his voice mumbled.
“...What?”
“When I found you, you didn’t have a heartbeat. I had to do the whole thing: just like in those health class videos. It took twelve cycles before you started breathing again.” He looked up. His face wasn’t angry anymore. Instead, he looked like he’d been punched. “You were dead. For two whole minutes. And you—” He turned to stare at the wall. “You can’t Turn someone without a heartbeat.”
I sat up straight. “You were going to—”
“Yes. If that’s what it took to keep you alive.”
“Buck. Don’t.”
“But if you—”
“I want to be human.”
He hesitated, then said, “What if it was the only way to save you?”
I hesitated, too. “Then… I don’t know.”
“Well… there’s… something else…” he mumbled.
“What?”
“You know about the Salvage, right?”
“Sure. That’s when a vampire uses their venom to heal someone.”
He watched me. “What if you tried it?”
I frowned. “It’s for physical wounds. Doesn’t it fail for preexisting conditions?”
“It makes someone stronger. I don’t know if it could cure you, but it should be able to treat you. And that’s more than your human doctors can do.”
“I— don’t know,” I admitted. “I think my parents actually talked about this, once. But my mother… she doesn’t want me near the manor.”
“What? Why?”
“Dunno. She has no problem with you. It doesn’t make much sense.”
“Will. I think it’s your best option.” He paused. “Probably your only one. Just— promise me you’ll think about it, okay?”
“Well… okay… but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.”
“Right.”
I flopped back onto the bed. I felt much weaker this time. Perhaps it was because my heart had stopped.
Scratch forties, with the way this was going, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to my twenties.
“You should probably sleep,” Buck said, quietly.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That sounds good.”
I shut my eyes. I was very tired.
“It’s a good idea, Buck, it’s just not a good idea for Will.”
“But it could save his life.”
“It could also put him in danger.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not accusing you or your family of anything. I’m keeping him safe.”
“By watching him die?”
“...That’s not what I meant.”
“But he’s— s-sorry, Dr. Matthews, I didn’t mean—”
“I know. It’s not your fault. It’s just… hard…”
“Please, at least try. It really could save him.”
“...I’ll— I’ll think about it…”
“Woah. Hospital food looks gross.”
I crunched on some dry toast. “I’ve had better.”
“The fact that you’ve had better hospital food is really pathetic,” Buck said. “How many times have you been hospitalized, anyway?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
I’d been transferred to the pediatric ward in the morning. I’d stabilized in the night and showed a trend towards recovery, so, though I was still in the hospital, at least I wasn’t surrounded by beeping life-machines. After several tests, the nurse had removed my IV, too. It was nice not to be leashed to a metal post.
“Man!” I sighed. “That space movie was premiering today!”
“They’ll be showing it next week.”
“Yeah, but the theater serves hot dogs on premier days,” I grumbled.
“Hot dogs do sound better than whatever it is you’re eating,” Buck admitted. He rifled through his backpack. “I brought my console. You wanna play Call of Duty?”
I swallowed the last of my slightly floppy salad. “Yeah.”
Video and board games were the only activities I could beat Buck at. He dominated when it came to sports, but since video games were my main pastime aside from reading, I often had the upper hand.
“Thirty-five kills?” Buck wailed. “Someone, stop this man!”
“That’s thirty-six.” I sniped another member of Buck’s team. “Thirty-seven.”
“Argh, it’s a bloodbath!” he groaned. “Hah! Take this!”
“Ouch. I am damaged.”
“Take more damage! Eat lead, you murdering—”
“--and three, two, one. Game over. I win.”
“I’m dead.” Buck flopped backward so he lay sprawled in his chair. “Congratulations, Willam Matthews. You’ve slain one of the immortals.”
“Wow. What do I get?”
“Bragging rights?”
I flicked the left joystick around with my thumb. “You wanna play another round?”
His head whipped up. “I will win.”
“Current statistics imply otherwise.”
“Prove me wrong.”
“Gladly—”
The door to my room opened, and both my parents walked in. They’d said they were going to talk to the doctor before they left, but it had been a while. My mom smiled at my friend. “I’m sorry, Buck,” she said. “Would you mind stepping outside for a minute?”
“Sure thing.” Buck leapt from his chair and put his controller on the cushion.
“Descend a floor,” I told him. The barrier was necessary; his ears were awfully good. Buck gave me a sharp grin and left, the door shutting quietly behind him.
“Will,” my dad said. His tone of voice scared me. It heralded bad news.
I gripped the controller. “H-how long now?” I asked every time I collapsed. It meant: how long do I have left to live?
He rubbed his face with his palm. I could tell he was really upset. “A few years.”
Ice rippled down my spine. “What does ‘few’ mean?”
He blew out a shaky breath. My mother covered her face. “Two to four.”
I leaned over, drawing my knees up and pressing my stomach to my legs. I felt like throwing up. Last time I’d checked, the doctors figured I’d have at least thirty years left, and likely more at that. It had changed so fast…
“It happened again.” My father was just rambling now, as if by explaining it, my messed life would somehow make sense. Like it would have a point. “The rapid degeneration. It seems that the instant you collapsed, your organs weakened at an unbelievable rate. Like an extreme viral infection.”
Rapid degeneration. It had happened once before: in seventh grade, when my heart decided to mutiny. My cells just… died. Instantly.
“But it’s not a virus,” I spat. “And I’m not some freaking isotope going through radioactive decay!” My breath hitched. Four, seven, eight… all I wanted to do was scream.
My mother’s hand reached out unsteadily, like she wasn’t sure if she could touch me. After a second, she made up her mind and petted my hair. “I know, sugar,” she whispered. “It’s— I know.” Her fingers pressed into my scalp slightly as her hand tensed. “But… we have an idea.”
I jerked my head around. “Of what’s wrong with me?”
“Of how to help you.”
I sat up. Save from murder, I’d do almost anything. “What?”
Her face looked awfully reluctant. She didn’t like the idea much. “We could take you to the vampires.”
“The… vampires,” I repeated. “The manor. The one place you absolutely, positively, completely did not want me to go for the first sixteen years of my life.”
“It was an old warning,” my mother said. “Your life is more important.”
“You… you really think this will help.”
“I know it will help,” she replied. “My mother received the Salvage. It saved her life.”
The controller dropped from my hands. “She did? It did?”
“Yes.”
I know it will help. Nothing had ever helped. “Yes. Let’s go. When can we go?”
“Well, today, I suppose,” she said. “But—”
“Now?”
“No. We have to contact them first. We can’t just walk in. The manor is their home. And, Will, you should probably think about this—”
“I have thought about it. I don’t want to die in two years. I want to go.” I moved the controller out of the way and swung my legs out of bed.
My dad moved forward. “Will, take it easy—”
“I need to talk to Buck.”
I stood. My legs felt shaky, but they held. I headed for the door. “S’cuse me,” I said, sliding around my dad. “I’ll be right back.”
Neither of them said anything, but I felt them glance at each other. I shut the door behind myself.
I found Buck a floor below in a blue-painted waiting room. He was reading a brochure on pancreatic cancer.
Vampires couldn’t get cancer.
He blinked up at me as I rounded the corner. “I thought it was you. But should you be out of bed yet?”
“Probably not. How do I talk to the vampires at Mythem?”
He put the brochure back. “Phone call, I guess? It’s kind of a weird question. What for?”
I fiddled with the hem of my oversized green T-shirt. (Every size was oversized on me.) “The Salvage. I want to do it.”
His eyes widened. “Oh. I should talk to Lyre for you, then.”
“Who’s that?”
“You know, our lord. He’s the strongest in our Shire. He performs the Salvage when people come to us.”
Buck had complained about the lord of Mythem a few times, but I couldn’t remember what he’d said. Most people tended to annoy Buck. I hoped that had been the case, rather than the lord being someone I did not want to meet. “People go to you often?”
“Not really. Maybe once every seven decades or so.”
It was something I often forgot, but Buck was very old. He acted like a seventeen year-old kid, but he’d been born in the seventeenth century, about four hundred years ago. I wondered how many times he’d seen the Salvage performed. Maybe he’d done it himself.
“So it’s an actual thing the lord does? It’s not an inconvenience? You’re sure someone less… important shouldn’t do it?”
“Naw. It takes about two seconds. And, well…” He looked a little embarrassed. “He’s already expecting you.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Well— I mean— I’ve known you for three years, and so I’ve kind of asked Lyre if he’d be able to help you a few times— not that I said you’d be coming for sure or anything— but, like, if you ever asked me about it…”
Well, I wasn’t like I’d never described Buck to my own family. I supposed it made sense that his family would know about me, but still…
I guess I’d always assumed the lord of a nation and his court wouldn’t really care about some random human. It was a weird feeling.
“Anyway— what brought this on? You didn’t seem that enthusiastic earlier— oh…” Buck’s face twisted in sudden realization. “You got bad news.”
I watched my feet. They were bare. I’d been in too much of a rush for shoes. “Yeah.”
“How long now?”
I looked up. This must’ve been how my parents felt when I’d asked that same question. Like maybe I could just not tell him and let him go on a little happier, at least for a while.
He seemed to sense my indecision.“Please tell me.”.
“Two to four years, apparently.”
“What?” He leaned in like he hadn’t heard me right, which was impossible. His ears were too good. “It was thirty years last week! At least!”
“Yeah, it was.”
It hit me— really hit me— right then. That unless a miracle happened, I’d be lucky to make it to my first year of college. I sank to the ground and crouched there in a tiny ball.
“Willam!” Buck knelt with me and grabbed my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
I just shook my head. I didn’t want to open my mouth; I was trying my best not to throw up on him. He had a very good sense of smell, and the stench of sick at close range might’ve just about killed him.
I gripped his upper arms and tried to remember my breathing patterns. Four, seven—
I’m scared.
—eight, four--
It hurts.
—seven, eight, four—
I don’t want to die.
—seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight.
I exhaled through my nose one final time and rocked back, letting go of his sleeves. “Sorry. And thank you.”
Buck’s grey eyes watched me carefully. He shrugged. “Sure.”
I stood up, walked to a squishy waiting-room chair, and flopped down. “So, you’ll help me? With the Salvage?”
“Of course. I’ll talk to Lyre as soon as I get home.” He glanced out the window. It was a pretty day: the late-morning sun was shining pleasantly and the clouds were fluffy as sheep. “I’ll go now. I just have to go get my stuff.”
I shook my head. “Wait. My parents— I think they still want to talk about this.”
He grumbled. “What’s there to talk about? It’s your best option. It’s your only option.”
“Yeah, well…” I sighed. “It’s— you know.”
“No, I don’t.”
I shut my eyes and leaned my head on the backrest of my chair. “Well, whatever. We still have to talk about it.”
He was silent. Eventually, I cracked an eye to find him glaring at the floor. “What?”
“Do your parents dislike me?”
I opened both eyes and stared. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Your mom. She’s super touchy about the whole vampire thing. She doesn’t want you near vampires. She doesn’t want you near the manor. She doesn’t want to talk about the manor. She—”
“It’s not vampires,” I cut in. “It’s the manor. The politics of vampires. That’s what she’s nervous about.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know.”
“But— she— she doesn’t, like—”
“Dislike you? No. She thinks you’re great.”
“Well that’s—” He huffed and poked at the carpet with the toe of his sneaker. “—that’s good and all. But she doesn’t make any sense.”
I closed my eyes again. “Yeah, well, she’s putting whatever stupid thing she has aside.” I patted the chair next to me and felt him sit down. “Sorry, dude. I swear my parents like you. And they’ve got nothing against vampires. I just think— I think something happened to my mom at one of the manors. Or maybe it happened to my grandmother. She’s scared of something.”
“Nothing will happen to you at Mythem,” Buck said quickly. “Nothing.”
“I know.” I opened my eyes and turned my head to stare into his grey ones. “I trust you.”
He nodded, then looked away. “...Good.” After a moment, his hand snaked over the armrests and smacked my arm. “And don’t stare at me like that. You’re freaking me out.”
I slapped his hand away. “You’re one to talk! Your eyes get freaky when you’re hungry. Your pupils actually change shape. They get all slitted and cattish—”
“Oh, shut up.”
Buck suddenly sat up straight, turning to the hallway. I turned, too, and watched my parents come into the waiting room. First my dad, then my mom. My mother still looked on edge. I wondered if my dad had had to convince her that I needed the Salvage.
“Will? Oh, good— Buck. We’d like to talk to—”
“I’m already on it, Mr. Matthews,” Buck said. “I’ll talk to Lyre about the Salvage as soon as I get home.”
My dad smiled, but it was drooping around the edges. My mom was drooping, too. I’m sure I was the droopiest of us all. “Thank you. Is there a phone number we could have?”
“Ah— yeah. Uh—” Buck stole a pen from an unmanned reception desk and scribbled two series of digits on the pancreatic cancer brochure. “That’s the secretary desk’s number. And that’s—”
“Hold up. You have a secretary?”
“Shut up, Will! We’re a government building! And that’s Tuesday’s work phone. She handles… things.” He handed the marked-up paper to my dad. “This is pretty rare, so there’s not really any protocol for it. I think what’ll happen is someone will end up calling you, or I’ll just be pressed into service as a messenger pigeon.”
“Great. Well, we still need to—” my dad glanced at my mother “—figure out a few things. But, yes, please, if you could…”
“Not a problem.” He turned to go. “I’ll pack up my stuff.”
My dad put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be staying here until we can figure this out,” he said. “We think it’s best for you to be around doctors at the moment.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll go to my room and help Buck with his backpack.”
“Don’t exert yourself too much, alright?” my mother called after me.
“I won’t!”
Back in my hospital room, I handed Buck the controller I’d left on my bed and watched him zip up the backpack pocket. He swung the bag over one shoulder, the black canvas strap cutting across his ever-present dark grey Queen hoodie. His hair was just long enough to brush the top of the hood where the strands had fallen out of his short ponytail. A waterfall of fire.
“If you die while I’m gone,” he said, “I’ll murder you."
She looked up from her computer at the kitchen table. Her face said: not my problem. “Put it on the shopping list.”
“But I’m eating cereal now.”
She went back to looking at her computer. I was being ignored.
I sighed.
I plopped down at the table and crunched on dry cereal. I stared at my mother. She continued to ignore me.
A dark shape loomed in our front picture window. I whipped around, a line of goosebumps spiking up my arms.
Buck glared in. He banged on the pane.
I wandered over to the window, cereal in hand. “What’s up?” I called through the glass.
“You owe me three dollars and thirty six cents.”
“Hunh?” I scooped some Cheerios into my mouth. It was rather dry. “Since when?”
“Since yesterday. Since you had no wallet. Since you made me pay for your ice cream.”
“Oh…” I crunched some more cereal. “Come on in. I’ll get it for you.”
Buck slid through the front door and peered into the kitchen. “G'morning, Dr. Matthews.”
“Hey there, Buck.”
“Are the people here treating you right?”
“My son expects me to summon milk out of thin air.”
“Ouch. Sorry, doctor.”
I gave my cereal to Buck. He looked down in distaste. “There was no milk,” I explained.
My wallet was upstairs in my room. I left Buck and my mom to their conversation and dug through the pile of stuff on my desk. The wallet was wedged between two textbooks.
I counted out four dollars. I had no spare change, anyway.
Wow, that cereal was dusty. My throat felt thick with it. Was something ringing? Why did the door seem so far away?
“Willam!” Buck roared. I heard him fly up the stairs.
I was on the ground—
Waking up once to the sight of an ICU ceiling was one time too many.
I’ve done it four times.
“Dang,” I mumbled. A heart rate monitor beeped in response.
Fire-red glimmered in the corner of my eye. I turned to find Buck perched on the edge of a green cushioned chair, grey eyes fixed on me. “Good morning,” I told him.
“It’s nine at night,” he said. “You were out the whole day.” Buck slumped backward. “Your mom went home to get some clothes for you. You’ll be staying here a while.”
I groaned. “Dammit.”
“You’re dad’s coming back to town tomorrow,” Buck said. “He says: ‘see you soon, and don’t do anything stupid until I get there.’”
I whipped my head around. “He’s coming back? That was an important business trip!”
“Guess he’s worried about you.”
It wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t control my episodes, or else I’d never let them happen. But I still felt guilty. I made my parents’ lives very hard.
“Did you get my homework?” I asked.
Buck shook his head. “Didn’t go to school.”
I let out a huff of angry air. “Buck. You can’t just not go to school.”
“I also couldn’t just leave you.”
“My mom was there.”
He folded his arms, frowning. “Still.”
I sighed. He was stubborn sometimes. He was stubborn all the time. “Well, thanks. You didn’t have to.”
He grunted in response.
I laughed suddenly. Buck jumped in surprise. “Y’know, they’re all going to think you ate me after school yesterday.” Buck stared at me. “My mom will probably have to sort it out. Ugh, I feel bad for her sometimes. It can’t be easy having me as a kid.” I lifted my arm. An IV trailed from the inside of my elbow. The needles used to scare me, but I was used to them now. “Maybe I could sign a piece of paper saying: I'm still alive; just having technical difficulties, and you could show it to people if they get funny… uh, Buck?”
He was still staring at me. He did not look amused. He didn’t look anything. “How do you… how are you so…”
“What?”
“How are you making jokes about this?”
I frowned. “You’d rather I wallowed in despair?”
“No! Just— stop pretending everything’s fine! Everything is not fine!”
“I never said—”
“You always make it seem like you’ll be running races in a few weeks. This? This is nothing! I’ll be fine tomorrow. Just give me a few days. Taking a breather! Technical difficulties— You. Are. Dying.”
I stared at him. “I know. I’m lying in the hospital, attached to more machines than I can count on both hands. You don’t need to spell it out.”
“Do you know? Because sometimes it seems like—”
“I’m just dealing with it, alright?!”
Buck pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in his arms. “Jeez, Buck,” I said. “What’s up with you?”
“I had to resuscitate you,” his voice mumbled.
“...What?”
“When I found you, you didn’t have a heartbeat. I had to do the whole thing: just like in those health class videos. It took twelve cycles before you started breathing again.” He looked up. His face wasn’t angry anymore. Instead, he looked like he’d been punched. “You were dead. For two whole minutes. And you—” He turned to stare at the wall. “You can’t Turn someone without a heartbeat.”
I sat up straight. “You were going to—”
“Yes. If that’s what it took to keep you alive.”
“Buck. Don’t.”
“But if you—”
“I want to be human.”
He hesitated, then said, “What if it was the only way to save you?”
I hesitated, too. “Then… I don’t know.”
“Well… there’s… something else…” he mumbled.
“What?”
“You know about the Salvage, right?”
“Sure. That’s when a vampire uses their venom to heal someone.”
He watched me. “What if you tried it?”
I frowned. “It’s for physical wounds. Doesn’t it fail for preexisting conditions?”
“It makes someone stronger. I don’t know if it could cure you, but it should be able to treat you. And that’s more than your human doctors can do.”
“I— don’t know,” I admitted. “I think my parents actually talked about this, once. But my mother… she doesn’t want me near the manor.”
“What? Why?”
“Dunno. She has no problem with you. It doesn’t make much sense.”
“Will. I think it’s your best option.” He paused. “Probably your only one. Just— promise me you’ll think about it, okay?”
“Well… okay… but that doesn’t mean I’ll do it.”
“Right.”
I flopped back onto the bed. I felt much weaker this time. Perhaps it was because my heart had stopped.
Scratch forties, with the way this was going, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to my twenties.
“You should probably sleep,” Buck said, quietly.
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “That sounds good.”
I shut my eyes. I was very tired.
“It’s a good idea, Buck, it’s just not a good idea for Will.”
“But it could save his life.”
“It could also put him in danger.”
“That’s not—”
“I’m not accusing you or your family of anything. I’m keeping him safe.”
“By watching him die?”
“...That’s not what I meant.”
“But he’s— s-sorry, Dr. Matthews, I didn’t mean—”
“I know. It’s not your fault. It’s just… hard…”
“Please, at least try. It really could save him.”
“...I’ll— I’ll think about it…”
“Woah. Hospital food looks gross.”
I crunched on some dry toast. “I’ve had better.”
“The fact that you’ve had better hospital food is really pathetic,” Buck said. “How many times have you been hospitalized, anyway?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
I’d been transferred to the pediatric ward in the morning. I’d stabilized in the night and showed a trend towards recovery, so, though I was still in the hospital, at least I wasn’t surrounded by beeping life-machines. After several tests, the nurse had removed my IV, too. It was nice not to be leashed to a metal post.
“Man!” I sighed. “That space movie was premiering today!”
“They’ll be showing it next week.”
“Yeah, but the theater serves hot dogs on premier days,” I grumbled.
“Hot dogs do sound better than whatever it is you’re eating,” Buck admitted. He rifled through his backpack. “I brought my console. You wanna play Call of Duty?”
I swallowed the last of my slightly floppy salad. “Yeah.”
Video and board games were the only activities I could beat Buck at. He dominated when it came to sports, but since video games were my main pastime aside from reading, I often had the upper hand.
“Thirty-five kills?” Buck wailed. “Someone, stop this man!”
“That’s thirty-six.” I sniped another member of Buck’s team. “Thirty-seven.”
“Argh, it’s a bloodbath!” he groaned. “Hah! Take this!”
“Ouch. I am damaged.”
“Take more damage! Eat lead, you murdering—”
“--and three, two, one. Game over. I win.”
“I’m dead.” Buck flopped backward so he lay sprawled in his chair. “Congratulations, Willam Matthews. You’ve slain one of the immortals.”
“Wow. What do I get?”
“Bragging rights?”
I flicked the left joystick around with my thumb. “You wanna play another round?”
His head whipped up. “I will win.”
“Current statistics imply otherwise.”
“Prove me wrong.”
“Gladly—”
The door to my room opened, and both my parents walked in. They’d said they were going to talk to the doctor before they left, but it had been a while. My mom smiled at my friend. “I’m sorry, Buck,” she said. “Would you mind stepping outside for a minute?”
“Sure thing.” Buck leapt from his chair and put his controller on the cushion.
“Descend a floor,” I told him. The barrier was necessary; his ears were awfully good. Buck gave me a sharp grin and left, the door shutting quietly behind him.
“Will,” my dad said. His tone of voice scared me. It heralded bad news.
I gripped the controller. “H-how long now?” I asked every time I collapsed. It meant: how long do I have left to live?
He rubbed his face with his palm. I could tell he was really upset. “A few years.”
Ice rippled down my spine. “What does ‘few’ mean?”
He blew out a shaky breath. My mother covered her face. “Two to four.”
I leaned over, drawing my knees up and pressing my stomach to my legs. I felt like throwing up. Last time I’d checked, the doctors figured I’d have at least thirty years left, and likely more at that. It had changed so fast…
“It happened again.” My father was just rambling now, as if by explaining it, my messed life would somehow make sense. Like it would have a point. “The rapid degeneration. It seems that the instant you collapsed, your organs weakened at an unbelievable rate. Like an extreme viral infection.”
Rapid degeneration. It had happened once before: in seventh grade, when my heart decided to mutiny. My cells just… died. Instantly.
“But it’s not a virus,” I spat. “And I’m not some freaking isotope going through radioactive decay!” My breath hitched. Four, seven, eight… all I wanted to do was scream.
My mother’s hand reached out unsteadily, like she wasn’t sure if she could touch me. After a second, she made up her mind and petted my hair. “I know, sugar,” she whispered. “It’s— I know.” Her fingers pressed into my scalp slightly as her hand tensed. “But… we have an idea.”
I jerked my head around. “Of what’s wrong with me?”
“Of how to help you.”
I sat up. Save from murder, I’d do almost anything. “What?”
Her face looked awfully reluctant. She didn’t like the idea much. “We could take you to the vampires.”
“The… vampires,” I repeated. “The manor. The one place you absolutely, positively, completely did not want me to go for the first sixteen years of my life.”
“It was an old warning,” my mother said. “Your life is more important.”
“You… you really think this will help.”
“I know it will help,” she replied. “My mother received the Salvage. It saved her life.”
The controller dropped from my hands. “She did? It did?”
“Yes.”
I know it will help. Nothing had ever helped. “Yes. Let’s go. When can we go?”
“Well, today, I suppose,” she said. “But—”
“Now?”
“No. We have to contact them first. We can’t just walk in. The manor is their home. And, Will, you should probably think about this—”
“I have thought about it. I don’t want to die in two years. I want to go.” I moved the controller out of the way and swung my legs out of bed.
My dad moved forward. “Will, take it easy—”
“I need to talk to Buck.”
I stood. My legs felt shaky, but they held. I headed for the door. “S’cuse me,” I said, sliding around my dad. “I’ll be right back.”
Neither of them said anything, but I felt them glance at each other. I shut the door behind myself.
I found Buck a floor below in a blue-painted waiting room. He was reading a brochure on pancreatic cancer.
Vampires couldn’t get cancer.
He blinked up at me as I rounded the corner. “I thought it was you. But should you be out of bed yet?”
“Probably not. How do I talk to the vampires at Mythem?”
He put the brochure back. “Phone call, I guess? It’s kind of a weird question. What for?”
I fiddled with the hem of my oversized green T-shirt. (Every size was oversized on me.) “The Salvage. I want to do it.”
His eyes widened. “Oh. I should talk to Lyre for you, then.”
“Who’s that?”
“You know, our lord. He’s the strongest in our Shire. He performs the Salvage when people come to us.”
Buck had complained about the lord of Mythem a few times, but I couldn’t remember what he’d said. Most people tended to annoy Buck. I hoped that had been the case, rather than the lord being someone I did not want to meet. “People go to you often?”
“Not really. Maybe once every seven decades or so.”
It was something I often forgot, but Buck was very old. He acted like a seventeen year-old kid, but he’d been born in the seventeenth century, about four hundred years ago. I wondered how many times he’d seen the Salvage performed. Maybe he’d done it himself.
“So it’s an actual thing the lord does? It’s not an inconvenience? You’re sure someone less… important shouldn’t do it?”
“Naw. It takes about two seconds. And, well…” He looked a little embarrassed. “He’s already expecting you.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Well— I mean— I’ve known you for three years, and so I’ve kind of asked Lyre if he’d be able to help you a few times— not that I said you’d be coming for sure or anything— but, like, if you ever asked me about it…”
Well, I wasn’t like I’d never described Buck to my own family. I supposed it made sense that his family would know about me, but still…
I guess I’d always assumed the lord of a nation and his court wouldn’t really care about some random human. It was a weird feeling.
“Anyway— what brought this on? You didn’t seem that enthusiastic earlier— oh…” Buck’s face twisted in sudden realization. “You got bad news.”
I watched my feet. They were bare. I’d been in too much of a rush for shoes. “Yeah.”
“How long now?”
I looked up. This must’ve been how my parents felt when I’d asked that same question. Like maybe I could just not tell him and let him go on a little happier, at least for a while.
He seemed to sense my indecision.“Please tell me.”.
“Two to four years, apparently.”
“What?” He leaned in like he hadn’t heard me right, which was impossible. His ears were too good. “It was thirty years last week! At least!”
“Yeah, it was.”
It hit me— really hit me— right then. That unless a miracle happened, I’d be lucky to make it to my first year of college. I sank to the ground and crouched there in a tiny ball.
“Willam!” Buck knelt with me and grabbed my shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
I just shook my head. I didn’t want to open my mouth; I was trying my best not to throw up on him. He had a very good sense of smell, and the stench of sick at close range might’ve just about killed him.
I gripped his upper arms and tried to remember my breathing patterns. Four, seven—
I’m scared.
—eight, four--
It hurts.
—seven, eight, four—
I don’t want to die.
—seven, eight, four, seven, eight, four, seven, eight.
I exhaled through my nose one final time and rocked back, letting go of his sleeves. “Sorry. And thank you.”
Buck’s grey eyes watched me carefully. He shrugged. “Sure.”
I stood up, walked to a squishy waiting-room chair, and flopped down. “So, you’ll help me? With the Salvage?”
“Of course. I’ll talk to Lyre as soon as I get home.” He glanced out the window. It was a pretty day: the late-morning sun was shining pleasantly and the clouds were fluffy as sheep. “I’ll go now. I just have to go get my stuff.”
I shook my head. “Wait. My parents— I think they still want to talk about this.”
He grumbled. “What’s there to talk about? It’s your best option. It’s your only option.”
“Yeah, well…” I sighed. “It’s— you know.”
“No, I don’t.”
I shut my eyes and leaned my head on the backrest of my chair. “Well, whatever. We still have to talk about it.”
He was silent. Eventually, I cracked an eye to find him glaring at the floor. “What?”
“Do your parents dislike me?”
I opened both eyes and stared. “Where’d you get that idea?”
“Your mom. She’s super touchy about the whole vampire thing. She doesn’t want you near vampires. She doesn’t want you near the manor. She doesn’t want to talk about the manor. She—”
“It’s not vampires,” I cut in. “It’s the manor. The politics of vampires. That’s what she’s nervous about.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know.”
“But— she— she doesn’t, like—”
“Dislike you? No. She thinks you’re great.”
“Well that’s—” He huffed and poked at the carpet with the toe of his sneaker. “—that’s good and all. But she doesn’t make any sense.”
I closed my eyes again. “Yeah, well, she’s putting whatever stupid thing she has aside.” I patted the chair next to me and felt him sit down. “Sorry, dude. I swear my parents like you. And they’ve got nothing against vampires. I just think— I think something happened to my mom at one of the manors. Or maybe it happened to my grandmother. She’s scared of something.”
“Nothing will happen to you at Mythem,” Buck said quickly. “Nothing.”
“I know.” I opened my eyes and turned my head to stare into his grey ones. “I trust you.”
He nodded, then looked away. “...Good.” After a moment, his hand snaked over the armrests and smacked my arm. “And don’t stare at me like that. You’re freaking me out.”
I slapped his hand away. “You’re one to talk! Your eyes get freaky when you’re hungry. Your pupils actually change shape. They get all slitted and cattish—”
“Oh, shut up.”
Buck suddenly sat up straight, turning to the hallway. I turned, too, and watched my parents come into the waiting room. First my dad, then my mom. My mother still looked on edge. I wondered if my dad had had to convince her that I needed the Salvage.
“Will? Oh, good— Buck. We’d like to talk to—”
“I’m already on it, Mr. Matthews,” Buck said. “I’ll talk to Lyre about the Salvage as soon as I get home.”
My dad smiled, but it was drooping around the edges. My mom was drooping, too. I’m sure I was the droopiest of us all. “Thank you. Is there a phone number we could have?”
“Ah— yeah. Uh—” Buck stole a pen from an unmanned reception desk and scribbled two series of digits on the pancreatic cancer brochure. “That’s the secretary desk’s number. And that’s—”
“Hold up. You have a secretary?”
“Shut up, Will! We’re a government building! And that’s Tuesday’s work phone. She handles… things.” He handed the marked-up paper to my dad. “This is pretty rare, so there’s not really any protocol for it. I think what’ll happen is someone will end up calling you, or I’ll just be pressed into service as a messenger pigeon.”
“Great. Well, we still need to—” my dad glanced at my mother “—figure out a few things. But, yes, please, if you could…”
“Not a problem.” He turned to go. “I’ll pack up my stuff.”
My dad put his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be staying here until we can figure this out,” he said. “We think it’s best for you to be around doctors at the moment.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll go to my room and help Buck with his backpack.”
“Don’t exert yourself too much, alright?” my mother called after me.
“I won’t!”
Back in my hospital room, I handed Buck the controller I’d left on my bed and watched him zip up the backpack pocket. He swung the bag over one shoulder, the black canvas strap cutting across his ever-present dark grey Queen hoodie. His hair was just long enough to brush the top of the hood where the strands had fallen out of his short ponytail. A waterfall of fire.
“If you die while I’m gone,” he said, “I’ll murder you."
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