Chapter 28: The Cure

Ivy's POV

The Alpha did not argue with my no.

He only raised one gray eyebrow and said, "Then tell me what you will take."

"A seat on the review board, with no vote over my own blood," I said.

"A certificate with my name on it, and a chance to finish school."

"That is a short list."

"I'm nineteen. I'd like to be bad at something first."

Somebody in the front row laughed, and the bowl let go of its tension all at once.

My mother left the stage between two deputies without looking back.

I watched her go until the dark took her.

Dr. Lowry's synthetic was ready at sunrise.

She had worked on it for weeks in the lab at Northmere, with my blood in one tray and a hundred failures in the rest.

She drove down overnight with a cooler on the seat of her car and her reading glasses pushed up into her grey hair.

I met her in the hospital ward at six, still in the sweater I had worn on the stage.

The old woman with the fox bite lay in the first bed, with an IV in the back of her hand.

She had not slept either.

"This is my last tray of real serum, so I'm giving it a rest," Dr. Lowry said. "If this works, we won't need another."

"And if it doesn't?"

"Then you will give another vial, I will apologize, and we'll try again."

"That's a terrible bedside manner," said the old woman.

"I'm a researcher."

She hung the bag herself.

It was pale gold and ordinary, and it dripped into the line one drop at a time.

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