“The syringe you found?” Gianakous asked.
I nodded.
“Once upon a time, with many years of medical training behind me, I’d have said magic and monsters and vampires were nonsense. And now I have fangs and a sunlight allergy. Far be it from me to say anything is truly impossible.”
“Jonah?”
We all looked up. Brooklyn’s eyes fluttered open; Jonah rushed to her side.
“Brooklyn? Are you all right?”
“I’m really sorry,” she quietly said. Her lips were dry, and her words were rough.
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. You’re in the hospital because you’re sick. Do you know what’s happened to you? How we can fix it?”
I didn’t expect she’d be able to identify the reason she was sick, or who might have caused it . . . but nor did I expect the guilty expression on her face.
“Brooklyn?” There was an edge of sadness in Jonah’s voice that scoured my heart.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to go back.”
“To go back?” Jonah asked, obviously flustered. “Go back to what?”
“To being—to being human.”
The room went silent.
“What do you mean, ‘to being human’? You aren’t human, Brooklyn. You’re a vampire.”
“My father died,” she said, looking back at Jonah again. “Three days ago. My father died, and my mother is gone. I don’t want to be here alone forever. I’m not strong enough for that.” She swallowed thickly. “I don’t want to be a vampire anymore. I don’t want to be an orphan, here when my entire family is gone. I made a mistake. And I thought I could fix it.”
If the magic in the room was any indication, we all goggled at her confession. But Jonah was the only one who moved. He took a step back from the bed, eyes wide like he couldn’t believe what she’d said, like it hurt him to his core.
As a vampire—and a vampire who’d been interested in dating her—maybe it did.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said again.
Jonah didn’t respond, but Ethan did. He stepped closer to the bed.
“Brooklyn, how did you mean to become human again?”
She shook her head.
“Was it the syringe, Brooklyn?” he asked. “Was there something in the syringe?”
For a moment, she didn’t answer.
“Yes,” she finally said, the word so soft it was barely more than an exhalation.
I looked at Dr. Gianakous, who was blinking back surprise. “Is that possible? And wouldn’t you already know?”
He shook his head. “We didn’t look at anything genetic, or even do a blood type. We just assumed she was a vampire. I’ll have blood drawn. And tested. But as to your larger question—why wouldn’t it be possible? If you can turn a human into a vampire, why couldn’t you turn a vampire into a human?”
Why indeed? I thought. And while you were at it, perhaps you could invent an injectable serum that changed vampires into humans regardless of whether they consented to it. You could, quite literally, rid yourself of every vampire in the world.
I guessed that explained why Brooklyn hadn’t wanted to drink blood.
“Where did you get it?” Ethan asked. “Where did you get the syringe to make you human again?”
“I don’t know,” she said, and began to cough violently. Dr. Gianakous moved to her, helping her sit up to ease the spell.
“Brooklyn, it’s important we know where you got it,” Jonah said. “It’s made you sick.”
She looked up at us, her eyes watery, but gleaming. “No. It’s made me real again.”
—
We walked back to the car in silence, through elevators and hallways and across parking garages. Ethan and I shared looks, but neither of us interrupted the considerable internal dialogue Jonah was obviously engaged in.
We climbed into the car, Jonah slamming the door shut as he got into the driver’s seat and started the car.
Anger and grief and driving weren’t going to mix well, so I interjected.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He shook his head. “It just came out of left field. I hardly knew her—but it stung. I’m not sure how not to feel like it’s a betrayal.”
“I hear how it could feel that way,” I said. “But it sounds like she had lots of issues to work out, and none of them were related to you.”
“I’m not sure that helps,” he said. “But I’ll deal regardless. In the meantime,” he said, glancing up at the mirror to meet Ethan’s eyes, “I assume we’re thinking this serum was McKetrick’s idea?”