Chapter 10 · Blood Resonance

The monitor over Leo's bed screamed past 210.

Still climbing.

I tore the crash cart open before the door finished hissing. Epi. Anticonvulsant. The silver-nulled vial I spent three winters brewing in a damp basement, praying I'd never have to crack the seal.

"Pressure's bottoming out!" Theron's voice crackled through the intercom, thin and panicked. "Nora. His lips are blue."

"I see it!"

I didn't see anything except that digital red readout. And the gold draining right out of my six-year-old’s eyes.

The vein in his neck swelled black, pulsing like a live wire under paper skin.

Second wave.

The bloodline fever came in two hits. The first one broke the kid open. The second one burned out his marrow.

I jammed the IV line into his forearm. His arm was so tiny the paper tape covered half of it. He didn't even twitch.

God, that gutted me. Six years old, and he’d already learned not to flinch.

"Talk to me, baby," I begged, checking the flow. "Leo. What do you smell?"

"...Pine." His voice was pure sandpaper. "And ash."

"That's right. That's the big ugly wolf out in the hallway. You hate him, remember? Stay mad.