The Blood Catalyst

Chapter 20

Ivanna had been scrolling through channels with one hand and eating dry cereal straight from the box with the other when she paused on the sports news.

A bold headline flashed on the screen: ETHAN MOREAU: THE FASTEST TEEN ALIVE? Below it was a smaller caption: Drug Test Negative. Does that mean the vampire rumours might me true?

She raised a brow and leaned forward, squinting at the TV. The screen played a clip of him running. Not just running, actually. More like... flying, gliding, something weird that didn’t feel quite real.

She blinked and sat up straighter.

It gave her a weird feeling in her chest. Like the kind of feeling you get when you walk into a room and forget why you’re there, or when someone says something that sounds exactly like something from a dream you don’t remember having. It felt like something she'd seen before.

But that didn’t make sense.

She had never met this boy in her life and she was very sure of it.

How did she at her age even want to meet and get to know a teen?

Her eyes stayed glued to the screen.

The news anchor kept talking. Something about the school denying knowledge of anything shady, and how other schools were trying to fuel the problem. They even played a clip from a parent-teacher meeting of another school. It was a parent of one of the runners who was angry her son was always third place and can't move up because Ethan was either a vampire or on drugs.

Ivanna snorted.

Then her phone buzzed loudly on the coffee table, making her jump a little. She glanced over and saw the notification.

Appointment Reminder: Dr. Sayid – Neurology, 3:30 p.m.

"Ugh," she muttered, dropping the cereal box on the couch.

She stood, stretched, and grabbed her coat from the arm of the chair. As she slipped her phone into her pocket, she mumbled, "Even hell gives you a day off, but not my brain."

Her apartment was warm but smelled faintly of burnt toast because she still hadn’t learned how to work her toaster properly. She shoved her keys in her bag, stuffed in a notebook she always carried, and left.

By the time she got in the cab, she was already pulling out her phone.

IVANNA: on my way to the neurologist. yay.

DYLAN: fun stuff. tell your brain i said good luck.

IVANNA: my brain doesn’t listen to anyone. especially not me.

DYLAN: don’t let them poke around too hard. you might lose your sparkling personality.

IVANNA: tragic.

DYLAN: you okay though?

IVANNA: yeah. just routine. my editor’s being an ass as usual, so i’m enjoying the quiet. feels weird not being buried in deadlines.

DYLAN: even chaos needs a nap.

IVANNA: a nap and a lobotomy.

The cab rolled to a stop in front of the hospital.

She shoved her phone in her jacket pocket, paid the driver, and stepped out. The wind caught her curls immediately, blowing them into her face as she tried to fix her scarf.

She glanced up at the sign.

WESTRIDGE NEUROLOGY CENTER

She sighed. Then she walked toward the entrance, still thinking about the boy on the screen and the way he ran. Like something out of a half-remembered dream.

She went into the lobby, spoke with the secretary and was directed to a seat.

Ivanna crossed her legs once she had lowered herself on the bench and stared at the clock on the wall. The second hand ticked way too slow for her liking. She’d already scrolled through i********:, replied to emails she didn’t care about, and deleted screenshots from 2019 she had no business still keeping. Yet the doctor still hadn’t called her in.

She tapped her foot and adjusted her purse on her lap, glancing around the waiting room. It smelled like disinfectant and stale coffee.

Finally, her name was called.

She stood, gave the nurse a polite nod, and followed her down a hallway that felt longer than it probably was. The nurse opened a door and gestured for her to step in. The room was small, clinical, and cold.

The doctor came in a few minutes later, flipping through her file like he hadn’t had it for hours.

“Miss Ivanna,” he said, sitting across from her. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“It’s fine,” she said, clasping her hands in her lap. “I just want to know what’s going on.”

“Well, I looked through your scans,” he said, turning the screen toward her. “There’s no mass. No signs of any tumors, no bleeding, no swelling. Nothing abnormal that I can see.”

Ivanna blinked. “So then... what explains the blackouts? The weird dreams? The gaps in my memory that don’t make any kind of sense?”

The doctor leaned back and adjusted his glasses. “Have you ever been drugged before? Sometimes, temporary amnesia is caused by substances—especially if it was a strong sedative.”

“No,” she said quickly, then frowned. “At least... I don’t think so. I mean, I’d know if someone drugged me, right?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said. “It happens more often than people think.”

Ivanna didn’t answer. Her mind flashed to the footage of the boy on TV—the one they said had superhuman speed. Ethan Moreau. She didn’t know why it came up now, but something about it tugged at her.

She shook her head. “I don’t think it was that.”

The doctor gave her a long look. “Then I’ll refer you to a psychiatrist. I think it may be worth exploring the possibility of a dissociative condition, or memory-related trauma. It’s possible this is psychological, not neurological.”

Ivanna stared down at her fingers, then slowly nodded. “Okay.”

He scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to her.

“Get some rest,” he said. “And try not to overthink it. Sometimes the mind buries things it doesn’t want to deal with.”

Ivanna stood, folded the referral, and slipped it into her purse. “Yeah. Sure.”

But even as she walked out of the office and back into the hallway, her thoughts weren’t on the paper in her bag.

They were on the boy in the news.

And that strange feeling in her chest that told her she’d seen him, or someone like him before.

But where?

She continued down the hallway and then waving the secretary a goodbye, she stepped out into the hot afternoon breeze.

Ivanna was halfway through the hospital parking lot when her phone rang. She checked the caller ID, sighed, and picked up.

“Hello,” she said flatly. It was none other than her very wonderful editor.

“Where are you?” he asked, skipping the greeting like usual.

“Just leaving the hospital.”

“Turn around. You need to come in. Right now.”

She stopped walking and shut her eyes. “It’s supposed to be my day off.”

“And yet the world doesn’t care,” he said. “You want to keep your job, right?”

She didn’t answer him because the words that were going to come out of her mouth was going to be very colourful.

“Then get here,” he added. “It’s a shitstorm, and you’re the only one I trust to shovel through it.”

He hung up without even waiting for s response.

Ivanna stared at her phone for a few seconds, then shoved it into her back pocket and waved down a cab.

She got to the office a little over twenty minutes later, and she didn’t even get the chance to drop her bag before she was called into her boss’s office.

“Take a seat,” he said, gesturing to the chair.

Ivanna sat and crossed her legs. “What am I cleaning up now?”

He tossed a file on the desk. “Ethan Moreau.”

She blinked. “The runner?”

“Yes, the very fast, very suspicious teenage runner. Beating an Olympic gold medalist? Yeah, it's crazy suspicious."

She opened the file and saw screenshots from news blogs, press conferences, and a couple slow-mo race replays.

"Didn’t he just like... Take a drug test?"

“Yeah,” her boss said. “And he passed it, which makes him even more interesting. No steroids. No enhancements. Just blurring through the finish line like a Marvel character.”

Ivanna flipped through a few more pages.

“You think he’s cheating?”

“I think something’s off. And I think if there’s anyone who can find out what it is, it’s you.”

She leaned back in her chair. “You’re giving me a teenager?”

“I’m giving you a potential goldmine,” he said. “Think about it. If he’s clean, he’s the youngest natural phenomenon we’ve seen in years. And if he’s not…” he smiled a little. “You get your own podcast.”

"But he passed the test."

"Did he?"

"You think it's forged?" Ivanna rolled her eyes but stood up. “Fine. I’ll look into it.”

She went straight to her desk and opened her laptop. It didn’t take long before she was knee-deep in video clips and articles. She watched race after race, paying attention to every frame. There was something strange about the footage that didn’t sit right. His body didn’t just move fast. It blurred sometimes.

She paused and rewound. Watched it again. And again.

It wasn’t just motion blur. His arms and legs almost… faded for a split second.

“Okay,” she muttered, grabbing a pen and jotting that down.

Then she opened i********:, t****k, Twitter, and Reddit—every hole she could dig through, she did. She read threads on speed training, conspiracy comments under YouTube videos, and gossip tweets from people who claimed they “knew someone who saw Ethan at a blood bank once.”

One Reddit thread caught her eye. It was posted by someone with the username xBleeder69x, which was already enough to make her doubt their mental stability. But what they wrote made her stop scrolling.

“I swear I heard someone say one of the athletes at our school is a vampire. Not even kidding. Apparently he’s super strong, never gets tired, and there was this one time he got in a fight and healed like… right away. Idk if it’s Ethan or not but he’s too chill in the sun for it to be true. Still… makes you think.”

Ivanna sat up straight.

She read it again and again.

Then she clicked on the user’s profile. Nothing useful. Just weird posts about garlic bread, conspiracy podcasts, and one questionable meme about lizard people in politics.

Still, she copied the thread and pasted it into her notes. Then she leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling.

Her boss was looking for a story on a forged drug test, but what if it was crazier than that?

What if the other rumours were true?

A/N

Well, well, well... **Sips from a goblet filled with blood**...

You made it this far. Chapter freaking 20? Yeah, admit it, you're obsessed.

I'll be your idol!

Keeping you in check, keeping you obsessed...

(Insert Korean), in your head.

Anytime it hurts, play another verse (read another chapter)

(Y'all watched KPOP DEMON HUNTERS, RIGHT?! If you didn’t, go fix your life. I’ll wait. Actually, I won’t.)

Anyhooooo.

Let me be serious for 0.02 seconds.

I know you all want to kill me for the one chapter per day update, but calm your non existent boobs.

This isn’t The Mafia’s Angel where I was dropping two chapters daily.

Those chapters were like 1k words.

These ones? 1.8k to 2.4k of pure chaos, drama, and emotional damage.

Also??

MY EXAMS ARE IN 14 DAYS.

You think this book wrote itself?? I should be studying GEY 210 but instead I’m out here bleeding into my keyboard for your entertainment (mostly mine, hehehehehe)

Honestly, TBC is traditional publishing material.

That’s why I’m taking my time bc this baby girl deserves pacing, structure and literary finesse.

After my exams, I solemnly swear to write like my GPA depends on it (it doesn't, but vibes do). 4k daily, 2 chapters. Pinky swear.

Love y'all.

Now who's going to volunteer to give me their blood, I'm running out. **Swirls goblet**

Don't be a dummy, give blood to mummy

Mothaaaaaaaaarrrrrr

No?

Oh?

I see how it is....

(immediately compels you to give me blood. Oh... You're like Zara? You can't be compelled? **Forcefully drinks from your neck**).