Page 171 of Blue Arrow Island
“We’ll revisit that later.” I sigh heavily, struggling to keep my eyelids open.
“Get some rest. You need to eat when you wake up next.”
My mind is a pretty fucked place to be at the moment, so it’s a relief to slip into the peaceful oblivion of sleep.
The next time I wake up, McClain is sitting in the chair next to me, a book in his hands.
“Good to see you awake,” he says, closing the book and setting it on the small table.
He stands, removing the stethoscope from around his neck, and says, “May I?”
I shrug, because who gives a fuck. He listens to my heart and lungs, seeming satisfied as he wraps the stethoscope around his neck again.
“You’re doing much better. The swelling seems to have subsided. Ellison told me about her conversation with you.”
“I’m not doing this.” I’m less groggy than I was the first time I woke up, and I get into a sitting position. “You fucked me over,and I’m not acting like you never left and everything’s like it was before.”
He looks about twenty-five years older than he did when I was first introduced to him by one of my college professors eight years ago. He was a guest lecturer in my premed program, and my professor wanted to get me on the radar of one of the leading research physicians in the world.
I was starstruck. He was maybe five feet, nine inches and a hundred and sixty pounds, with thick glasses and salt-and-pepper hair that always looked like it needed a trim. Soft spoken. But to me, he was a giant. A pioneer in his field. Any university in the world would have hired him in a heartbeat, but he was too passionate about his research to teach full-time.
“I know things are different now.”
He sits back down and I study him, his body still almost as emaciated as those of the Tiders I saw at the circle. The skin on his face doesn’t hang quite as much as when we first found him, which must mean he’s put on a little weight.
“What do you think of the flower?” I ask him.
He pushes his glasses up on his nose, his intent expression matching the one he used to have when we were working on the aromium project. After I interned with him the summer after my junior year, he helped secure my place in my top choice of medical schools.
I fell hook, line, and sinker for his bullshit. Basked in his compliments about my intelligence and strong work ethic. When he told me my genetic makeup, including my physical size, made me an ideal candidate to be part of the most exciting project he’d ever worked on, I jumped at the chance.
It landed me here. If I could go back, I’d do things very differently.
“There are a lot of promising components in the specimen plants and flowers. Briar has been a tremendous help studying them.”
The sound of her name is like a knife twisting in my chest. “Can you make a stabilizer?”
“I’m going to do my best. Testing it will be a challenge, but we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it.”
I loathe him, but part of me is relieved he’s here. I’m not carrying all the weight of finding a way out of the disaster we created. Not that I was ever qualified to figure out the things he can.
Deep down, I thought he was dead. Hoped so, even. I didn’t want to think he was a big enough asshole to leave our camp and never look back. I figured his guilt became too overwhelming and he threw himself off a cliff or something.
It would’ve been a cowardly way out. The worst punishment, which we both have to endure for the rest of our lives, is seeing the destruction we caused.
Not that it’s even over. Aromium is far from contained. The compound was created on this island, and since it only takes a very small part of the flower that’s key to its makeup, we made a lot of it with the flowers we had and sent it to the mainland so Whitman’s people could inject test subjects. We don’t know if it was used on people in other places.
“I’m pretty sure I made the volcano start to erupt,” I say flatly.
He crosses his arms and sits back in his chair, studying me silently for a couple of seconds. “We saw it happen. I thought we were on the verge of a full eruption. But then it stopped.”
I nod. “The ground shook before it started erupting. Niran saw me and figured out that I was the one making it all happen. It wasn’t on purpose. Virginia’s ravens were taking Briar away and ...” I run a hand over the stubble on my jaw. “I’ve never feltso ... I mean, there was fury, but also helplessness. Agony. I was sure she was about to die and there was no way for me to help her.”
There’s warmth in his gaze. “It’s nice to know you finally care about someone enough?—”
I cut him off with a sharp glare. “Don’t. I’m only talking to you because you’re the only one who might know. We’re not having a tender moment—just tell me how the aromium made me do it.”
He pinches his brows together, considering. “Are you familiar with endoliths?”
