Sanity comes in a Pill

CHAPTER FIVE: helpless

I am so dizzy that I can’t leave my room for a few hours. Bebe stops by once, but I tell her to go away cause I’m sick and that I don't want her to catch what I have. Not a total lie, but I still feel bad. She can't find out what I’ve done and I don't want to accidentally hurt her. The guilt is worse then the dizziness.

When night finally rolls around, I am feeling better. I take a quick shower to wash all the sweat from my body. I take my time. I'm dreading it, but I go back to Jared's room to make sure he is okay before I meet up with Liam. Jared is asleep on his mattress when I enter. My body feels heavy. I quickly change his wrist gauze. He doesn’t wake up the whole time I’m working on him. He’s probably going to be passed out for the rest of the night. On the one hand its good cause I won't have to do anymore care tonight, but on the other I really want to talk to him. I push his shaggy hair out of his face before I leave and my heart skips a beat. What am I going to do?

Liam is waiting for me at the far end of the common room (this is where the doors to the offices and labs are). I must still look a bit off because Liam gives me a weird look. "Are you okay?" "I’m just a little nervous about tonight," I say. "Are you sure? You looked shook up after todays ‘accident’," he says to me. "I’m a bit shook," I reply honestly, " i just don't know how he could do this to himself. I thought he was getting better." " i don't think he will," Liam says sadly. "What do you mean?" I ask suddenly concerned. Liam holds up a hand. "We will talk about it tonight," he says. Liam heads up the stairs and I follow behind like a lost child. Is everything going to fall apart?

********

The main office is bigger then I expected and much more military boardroom like. The walls are mostly glass and contains the largest white washed table I have ever seen. It can easily sit 50 people. I notice indents in the celling where screens drop down. Liam and I got here early, but the room is full already. When we walk in everyone stares at me. I wave awkwardly. I’m so nervous I can’t wait for this to be over. Liam guides me over to a seat right of the door way.

Eyes follow me to my seat.

To my left is a slim tanned woman with brown hair. As soon as I sit down she moves her chair away, charming. I’m not sure why these people are scared of me. They have been watching me for five years so far and I do not think I have done anything to make them be afraid…well I did bite Liam once, but there was a good reason for that and it was his fault. Not to mention it was only my first year being a vampire! As I’m puzzling over my odd treatment Dalas Kay walks into the room. Looking business like, as always.

“Try not to start any arguments,” Liam whispers in my ear. I shoot him a ‘who me’ face. Liam rolls his eyes. Dalas clears his throat and the room goes silent. “Let’s get down to business,” he says, “Dr. Linda Calla you’re up.” The unfriendly woman beside me gets up, walks over to the screen near the front of the table and pulls it down. Instantly a whole bunch of glowing diagrams and words appear on the screen. The woman I now know as Linda starts talking. “A you all know our recent client Jared Maxwell, has been showing extreme behavioral change lately. Including, but not limited to; aggression, depression and memory loss. As well as visible depletion in health. Originally these issues had been fixed by the introduction of blood tablets in to his diet, but as you see here…,” she points to a neon chart that has appeared on the screen, “in the past few weeks it has accelerated and is now worse than it was at the start.” I squint at the bright chart. I do not understand any of the text, but I can tell by the sharp downward slope in the graph that it is pretty bad.

Linda taps the screen and the chart is replaced by a diagram of Jared’s body. Luckily, for my already weak resolve it has little detail. My leg fidgets a bit. Resulting in Liam being kicked in the ankle. “Ow, what was that for?” He hisses. “Sorry,” I reply quickly (and not at all sincerely) trying to stay focused on the screen. I hear Liam sigh and risk looking back at him. When we make eye contact, he smirks at me, having figured out why he was kicked. My face flushes and I hurriedly turn my focus back on Linda. “…by studying the blood samples collected by Caleb, we’ve figured out that Jared’s body is not accepting the vampire ‘bacteria’. It is now distributed in his blood in pockets instead of consistently throughout. Jared is still human, but when the pockets pass through his heart, it tears apart his immune system and takes over for a short amount of time. As the bacteria multiples the damage each time becomes worse. Also as the bacteria increases Jared’s so called ‘need’ for blood gets worse with it.”

Dalas is the one to ask the question that’s currently raging through my mind. “Is there a solution?” Linda slowly shakes her head. “So far we cannot find anything that affects the bacteria at all, positively or negatively.” I don’t hear what she says next because the world is falling apart around me. My ears start ringing, making me dizzy again. How can the miracle that saved my life be taking Jared’s away?! I can barely feel the comforting hand Liam has placed on my thigh.

"Caleb you haven't had a blood test in a while," one of the staff points out," maybe we should take a sample now to make sure this isn’t happening to you on a slower time line." I can feel my resolve finally snapping as their comment jars me back into the room. "No," I say a bit too forcefully. I do not want them to find Jared's blood in my system. Everyone goes quiet. "Caleb..." Liam starts. He moves his hand to my arm and pulls me back into my seat. I did not even realize I had stood up. "Sorry, this is all a bit overwhelming," I explain. Everyone is still staring at me. I guess I'm kind of wrecking the sain vampire image by freaking out about the blood test. I've got to fix this! "Umm... how about we do a test next week?" I prompt. The tension in the room seems to drop a bit. Phew. "Sounds Good," Dalas says nodding his head, "Linda, you will be in charge of collecting the blood sample." Dr. Calla nods back. I look over at Liam to see if he's actually okay with someone else taking care of medical things for me. As I expected Liam is fuming. His face is tight and his cheeks are a bit red. I've rarely seen him this angry before, but he doesn’t say anything. I did not know he cared that much.

"Alright everyone is a bit tired I think that's it for tonight. Goodnight everyone." Dalas stands up and leaves. Everyone else slowly files out behind him. As me and Liam stand up to leave Linda stops us. "I hope this night doesn't put me on your bad list," she says seriously (And also kind of weary), " But I don’t think you should tell Jared about this or not yet at least. It might make his efforts to fight it weaker." I stare at her and she walks away. Her light brown hair swishing from side to side. I know she's right, but I can't help but direct some feelings of distrust towards her. Liam I trek down the stairs. I can almost feel the anger radiating off him. I know better than to say anything. When the dark room comes into to view, he turns to me. "Why the heck am I not in charge of your blood test?!" He asks me, like I should know, “I’m the most qualified to do it! I’ve been your doctor for 5 years.” “Maybe they are worried you will hide the results if they are bad,” I suggest. Liam pauses. "Just ugh!!!! Never mind I'll see you later Caleb," Liam says and starts to walk away. He only makes it a few steps before he turns around and walks back over to me. “Are you going to be okay?” He asks, “I can grab you someone tablets if you think you need them.” I consider the offer. I am still somewhat hungry. Then I remember the incident with Jared earlier and I reconsider. I shake my head. “I will be okay.” Liam looks unsure. “Well call me if you change your mind. You cannot just isolate yourself when you need to now. Jared depends on you.” I nod, but don’t say anything about the close call I already had today. Liam pats me on the shoulder and once again starts to walk. I wait till he’s out of site before I go through the door leading to the dark room.

I’m feeling dizzy again now that the meeting is done and this time I know it is not because of the blood I wrongly consumed. To think that Jared’s body is not excepting the vampire bacteria, resulting in him being poisoned and to be both vampire and human. I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be trapped in two worlds, human and vampire, at the same time. I feel helpless, but one thing I know for sure is that I can’t let Jared die a slow painful death similar to the one I almost experienced five years ago. I just don’t know how.

The dark room is silent and dark when I enter, as how I left it. That does not mean everything is all good of course. I tip toe to Jared’s room and slowly open the door. He is on his bed still sound asleep, thank goodness. I close the door and head back to my room. My controller is still where I left it this morning on my desk that was recently shipped to me by my parents (plus a chair). Might as well finish fixing it I decide. I am not going to be getting any sleep tonight anyways.

I piddle around with it a bit more than pop the casing back on. That was not time consuming at all. Ugh this is terrible. I put my head on the desk in frustration. Wait a second. A question just popped into my mind; how does the vampire bacteria get into a mosquito? Wouldn’t it need to bite a vampire in order to get it?? If so that would indicate that there is more people like Jared and me out there! I remember that Jared’s file had a document about supposed vampire findings! I think it is still under my bed where I tossed it weeks ago. I slide under my bed as fast as I can to try to find the file. I cannot find it right away, which sends a jolt of panic through me, but eventually I come into contact with it. It was jammed between a bed leg and the wall. That is a relief. I flip to the page I want. I read it over this time more carefully then the first. I’m looking for something specific…there! Near the bottom of the page is a list of the places with the most vampire sightings. Transylvania, North Yorkshire and Los Angeles. Well I don’t really have the means to travel to England or Romania, but Los Angeles could be doable. Maybe someone there will be able to cure Jared! Now I have to figure out how to get there. I hop on my bed and power up the Game Box and look up a map of the USA. Los Angeles is atleast a 4 day drive from where I am right now. Gosh, that’s pretty far. This is going to be trickier than I originally thought. I do not have the money to get a taxi or take a train there and I don’t know anyone that could take me. Not to mention would they even let me leave with Jared? I will have to worry about that later. First I need to plot a route. I take out a bunch of coloured pencil crayons and begin working.