Page 61 of Born Chaos

I don’t hesitate. I rip open the tubing and set to intubating her. I hook up the machine, handing the plug to Mason. And just a minute later, the soft hiss of the ventilator pushes oxygen into her system.

“We’ve run blood tests, we’ve done MRIs,” I say. But anxiety and self-hatred are climbing up my throat. “We’ve scanned, and we’ve tested. There has to be answers somewhere. But we haven’t found them yet.”

“This can’t be it,” Mason says, shaking his head. “There has to be something you missed. Something you haven’t thought of. There has to be something in the data, Juliet.”

There has to be something.

I climb off the bed, standing straight, looking down at my best friend. “There isn’t anything you can do for her right now. She should keep breathing on her own. Just, keep her comfortable.”

“Where are you going?” Mason demands as I stride for the door.

“To get answers,” I say. I walk out Elena’s front door and go straight for the elevator. I turn when I press the button to go down, catching Mason’s terrified eyes. “I’ll figure this out. I swear.”

But I know I’m making promises I shouldn’t as the door closes, cutting off my view of him.

The elevator plunges down through the belly of Godfrey Tower. When it reaches ground level, I walk straight out without a word to Poe. My attention is laser-focused as I point my feet in the direction of the hospital.

This is a huge risk. Sebastian very well might be there working. But for Elena, I’ll risk an uncomfortable confrontation. I’ll yell and fight and scream after, but right now, I have to see the test results for myself.

I don’t slow down when I see the front doors of the hospital. My gaze stays focused, and without an ounce of hesitation, I walk right through the doors.

It’s quiet in here. Being the weekend, it’s essential crew only, and they’re all in the swing of things on the morning shift. So I breeze past the doors that lead to the ER. I go straight past the locker room. I don’t even stop at Sebastian’s office. I go right for the stairs and climb all the way to the eighth floor on the top level.

All the lights are off up here. Every door is closed, all the equipment is quiet. Everyone that works on this floor only works weekdays. So, down the silent hall, I pad toward the lab.

I step inside and close the door behind me. It’s a good thing I see perfectly in the dark. It might alert someone that I’m in here if I had to turn the lights on. But I cross to a filing cabinet and start digging until I find what I’m looking for.

I pull out Tabitha’s file and that of the first man who came in sick, patient zero.

There’s a huge steel-topped table in the center of the room. I lay the files there, spreading out all the paperwork.

They both have high levels of carbon dioxide. Both have slightly elevated levels of vitamin D, but not enough to cause a problem. It’s not the actual sun that causes a problem for vampires. It’s the fact that our eyes remain fully dilated all the time. It allows us to see in the dark, but it also means bright light is wicked painful.

But the carbon dioxide… It’s almost like they all have pneumonia. Like due to the lack of oxygen, their carbon dioxide levels are high, which leads to the seizures.

Their brain scans seem normal to me. Their blood cell counts seem regular.

I sink into a chair and stare at the ceiling.

Even if they have some weird vampiric type of pneumonia, what the hell could cause that?

What more could we test? We’ve run every lab screen in the book. We’ve looked at their nervous systems. We’ve combed through their brains.

I climb to my feet again and search the lab equipment. I don’t know what I’m looking for. There are microscopes and processors. I’ve never worked on this end of things, so I don’t know what it all is. But I just pray that looking through everything will jar some idea in my brain.

I walk around the perimeter of the lab. My eyes scan through it all.

In the corner of the lab, I find a note on the table. What it says is insignificant:P1-test, 945. It’s the handwriting that catches my eye.

We were together long enough that I know it’s Sebastian’s handwriting. The letters are loopy and dramatic, a sign that he’s from a different time.

My eyes slide down to the filing cabinet below the table there. I go to pull it open, finding it locked. And something sparks in the back of my brain.

I break the lock in one second, barely exerting any effort. I pull the drawers open. Inside, there are dozens of files, neatly organized, each labeled. Another sign of Sebastian’s work. He’s a complete neat freak.

I pull out the first file. It’s documentation from a patient I remember from last summer. I set it aside and pull out the next. This one is bloodwork from Doctor Holmes. I had no idea he had colon cancer. The dates from the reports are from only two weeks ago. No wonder he’s retiring. He needs to start treatment ASAP.

Patient after patient. I’m not sure what makes these patients so special that he keeps their records in his own personal locked cabinet. As far as I can see, there are no connections between them, and nothing looks particularly unique.

---