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“In the morning.”
“No, at night.”
“Oh. How long’s it been since the attack?”
“A couple of days.”
“Oh,” he repeated.
Glancing down at himself, he discovered that there was an IV in his other arm and beeping fromsomewhere behind him, all common things to him. He also had the joy of a catheter. But something was different.
Lydia… was different. She was glowing in a new way, an aura of some kind of emotion he couldn’t remember her having before turning her face and her hazel eyes into something that seemed almost dreamlike.
“What day is it?” he asked.
“Thursday, December first.”
All at once, he went to sit up. “What? That’s more than a couple of—how long have I been out of it?”
She didn’t stop him from going vertical. She didn’t warn him to calm down. She didn’t call out for Gus or a nurse or another doctor.
She just stared at him with those glowing eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he said slowly.
With a little laugh, she brushed away another round of tears. “Knock knock.”
“Okay, now’s not the time for jokes, Lydia. I don’t get what the hell is going on—”
“Knock knock.”
“Who’s there,” he snapped, aware he was being an impatient ass, but come on. After all the shit that had happened—like, fifteen fucking days ago—he was not in the mood for games.
“Cancer free,” she said.
“What?”
Lydia took his hand again. “No, the proper response is ‘who.’?”
Daniel blinked. A couple of times. “Who… is cancer free.”
“You.”
In the quiet that followed, he tilted his head. “I’m sorry, what did you say…?”
“Blade was right. Whatever is in that scorpion’s venom? It’s a cure. Gus is over the moon, and I guess he and Cathy are going to partner with some big pharmaceutical company down in Houston to develop the compound and figure out how to make it in a lab. That scorpion sting has a revolutionary, tumor-targeting chemical in it that starves cancer cells. They can’t access any energy, and anything that doesn’t have energy dies.”
He took another deep breath. And another. Then put a hand over his chest.
“It takes time,” she said gently. “But everything inside of you is reducing. They’ve been doing regular imaging up here—and the results are irrefutable. And guess what, Cathy took the venom five days ago. She’s having the same experience. They don’t know if it will work for all cancers, but for you two, it’s a miracle, and that means for other people, it will help as well.”
“Cancer… free? Have you told me this before?”
Lydia shook her head. And then laughed a little. “They told me to wait until you were furtherrecovered, but I just can’t hold it in anymore. And I get the shock. It took me some time to get used to it, too. I can assure you, though, you’re cured.”
“I don’t… understand. Am I dreaming?”
Lydia shook her head again. “No. This is real—”
