February 21, 2015

I had barely drifted off to sleep when I was shaken harshly. Cassandra stood over me with wide eyes. "We need you in the infirmary. It's bad. Really, really bad. April has been trying, but she can't fix it, and…"

"Calm down," I assured her, jerking my shoes on. "Let's go." My heart was racing as we ran to the infirmary. I checked my watch on the way. It was 3:15 AM.

April was standing near a bed at the back of the infirmary. She was running her hand frantically through her disheveled hair, chewing on her lip. "Tristan!" she exclaimed when I entered. "I don't know what to do! I haven't seen anything like this before!"

Dark blood soaked through the white sheets. I peeled them back to look at a deep cut on the girl's leg. I let out a low whistle. Something didn't seem right. Her blood was too dark. Little veins of black stood out on her skin.

"It happened during Capture the Flag. She passed out after she was cut. I treated for shock. I poured nectar on the wound, but it did essentially nothing."

"This doesn't look like just a cut. It looks like poison," I observed.

"That's gotta be some pretty heavy stuff to do something like that," Cassie piped up. "If even nectar did absolutely nothing…"

"You're probably right," I sighed. "We need a tourniquet. Second shelf on the right, Cassie."

"It won't work," April groaned. She lifted the girl's shirt just enough for me to see the same creepy black veins crossing over her abdomen. It had spread too far.

I rubbed my palms into my eyes, trying to clear the sleepy fog from my brain. "Do we have the patient's file?" I asked. Cassie ran to get it for me. She returned very quickly. "Uh, we don't have a file. She's new."

I muttered a curse in Spanish. "We'll need to do a blood transfusion, try to clear out the poison, but since we don't know her blood type get me O-."

Cassie ran to get the blood. April broke the preserving spell on the bag and we hooked it up to the patient. In a real hospital, or even New Rome, I could have done so much more.

The transfusion was long and arduous, but seemed to return a little color to her cheeks. The dark, oozing blood was collected in an empty bag. Some of it was congealed, which I have only seen once before caused by a nasty snake bite. Not good. April helped me switch out packages to keep the transfusion going. We sent Cassie back to the cabin to get some sleep. After several hours, no significant change had been made. The poison seemed to spread as quickly as we could get rid of it.

"We need to know what kind of poison we're dealing with. It's nothing I've ever seen before," I admitted to April. "But every poison can be cured. We just need to know what it is if we want to create an effective antidote. You won't like this, but we need…"

"Claire," April hissed. "I know. Resident poison expert and creep."

"What do you have against Claire anyway?" I asked. April sneered and left the infirmary. She didn't return for a long time. I was beginning to worry when she came back, out of breath.

"I can't find Claire. She wasn't in her cabin, or the mess hall, or the temple. No one has seen her."

"Okay, okay… it's fine. We can do this." I snatched up a bag of the patient's (who I just learned is named Cadence) dark blood. "Can you take over? Try to slow the poison. I'll analyze this and see if I can find anything." I ran to the backroom. I pulled down every book that mentioned poison, starting with snake venom, and tried to match the symptoms. Nothing I could find would have caused black, congealed blood. My research was hopeless, turning up nothing for an hour.

The next step was to look at the substance under a microscope and test it against other chemicals. Nothing seemed to do any good. Water made it sizzle slightly, but the effect faded too quickly and wasn't nearly a promising enough solution.

"It's been too long," April interrupted my studying. "The transfusion isn't doing nearly enough. We're running out of blood. There has to be some other way…"

"I don't know what else we could…" A sudden darkness drew my gaze to the door.

"Where have you been? We were looking everywhere for you!" I exclaimed with frustration.

"It's none of your business," she snapped.

I took a deep breath, keeping my emotions in check. I need sleep. "Fine, it doesn't matter. I need you to look at some poison for me." I gestured to Cadence in explanation. "I don't know what happened, but her blood is black and the infection is spreading quickly."

"Show me the poison," Claire agreed. I pulled out the dark, sludgy liquid. Claire opened the vial, sniffing at it. "Did you get this from Cadence's blood?" she asked. I shrugged. Where else could I have found it?

"My guess is monster venom," Claire stated as she smelled the poison. "Strong, unique, possibly hallucinogenic." She lifted the vial to her lips.

"Woah!" I stopped her. "Are you sure that wouldn't kill you?

"Well… If I know how it tastes I could give you more information."
"No. Don't risk your life drinking poison you aren't sure you're immune to." I hardly needed another patient with an unknown condition.

"How do you know so much about my poison immunity anyway?" Claire asked.

"Well, I read your medical file," I admitted. "The infirmary presidents are supposed to know about their patients. Interesting allergy by the way…"

Claire punched my arm. "Shut up."

"Hey. It's not that weird for the daughter of the god of death to be allergic to orange juice, the most cheerful drink I can think of," I teased. Claire groaned. "Okay. I'm sorry. Can you tell me anything else about the poison?"

"Not without tasting it."

I took the vial from her. "Thank you for helping. Are you sure there's nothing else I need to know? Can you tell how long she has left?"

Claire snatched the vial from my grasp and took another sniff, sitting down hard. "This is… potent. She should already by dead unless she found a way to lessen the effects. If you can't find out how she did that, I'd give her an hour tops. And it's definitely a hallucinogen." She made a weird face and held out the vial. I replaced it in my pocket.

"So, uh… I went into Cadence's dream last night." Claire started. "She dragged me into it. It could have been a hallucination caused by the poison, but it also could have been a memory. There was a creepy snakish monster lady in there. That could be how she was poisoned if it's a memory."

I frowned. If what Claire had described were actually some kind of memory, maybe Cadence knew more than she could tell us. But there was someone who could find out what she knew. "You just gave me an idea!" I told Claire.

"Yeah yeah. Just take care of Cadence doctor."

Tristan scrunched his eyebrows and pursed his lips in an unattractive way. He suddenly perked up and shot me a bright, sunny smile. "You just gave me a brilliant idea!"

"Yeah, yeah. Just take care of your patient, doctor."

. . .

Jayce entered the infirmary nervously, Amy close behind him. I quickly led him back to where Cadence lay.

Amy gasped. "Cadence! Is she going to be okay? Is there anything I can do for her?"

"No. But Jayce… I'm so sorry to ask. But we need to know more about her condition. I think she knows how she was poisoned, and there may have been some way she was treating it."
Jayce nodded in understanding, slipping off his gloves and stepping up to Cadence's bedside. He hesitated for a moment before pressing his fingertips against her forearm. His eyes widened and he jumped back.

"Holy Hera! She's… a daughter of Poseidon."

"What?" Amy asked. "We should tell Percy. He needs to know he has a sister. And she's… How bad is it?" Her blue eyes glistened with tears.

"Bad," Jayce answered. "But not hopeless. She knows how to cure the poison. It's complicated."

I nodded. "Let's get her stabilized. Jayce, please write down everything you think might be important. Amy, you're right. Percy needs to know. He may be able to help."

Amy jumped up from where she had been holding Cadence's hand and rushed out of the infirmary. "Jayce, did you happen to get her blood type?"

"A+," he answered snatching up a notepad. I nodded gratefully and began another transfusion.

**Thank you for reading! Please favorite/follow the story for future updates. And check out Monique's Journal and Claire's Camp Journal to read their sides of the story.**