The night progressed. The lights were out. And Dart still had yet to wake from his happy dream. "C'mon..." Victoria mumbled, clenching the boy's hand tight. "You're gonna bounce back from this... Just another minute now..."
The pacing and chatter of doctors not too far behind Victoria were suddenly silenced after a gasp, and she almost didn't need to question what was happening—or rather, who was there. The chill that entered the room was telling enough.
"M-Medusa!" Victoria snapped around, charging her fists with Soul Force despite still walking on crutches. Usually she wouldn't feel so emboldened in the witch's presence, but when Medusa was in the direct presence of her pupils, she felt more than an obligation to protect them from her boundless malice.
As expected, the threat didn't faze Medusa, not so much as raising an eyebrow. "You'd do well to keep your voice down. Assuming you don't want to be seen like this in front of your students, that is." She glanced once over her shoulder. "And don't worry about the doctors. The tranquilizer I hit them with will have them none the wiser when they wake."
"And the security cameras? You had to have known this entire conversation could be monitored!"
Medusa's lips twisted into a hooked smile. "Taken care of."
Victoria looked in the room's corner in confusion: the camera was prone, pointed straight up at the ceiling, its red light offline. How much did Medusa account for in arranging one meeting?
She walked with a nonchalant air towards Victoria. "How was it in the Book, by the by? I knew that thing had its secrets, but to think, a pocket dimension within its pages..."
"I got out hours ago. How'd you find out already?"
"Simple deductive work," Medusa said. "My snakes track your life force, and today you dropped off all at once. If you died, I would've at least felt you fade beforehand, but it seemed you vanished off the face of the planet. Lo and behold, you return barely alive hours later, and given your recent prodding with that Noah, I can make a guess. It's amusing how that Fleurah business turned out for you, isn't it?"
Victoria was impressed. She would never admit it aloud, but Medusa's intellect was a sight to behold. "Fine, I'll buy it." She huffed through her nose. "Still haven't told me why you're here."
Medusa stopped at the bed, overlooking Dart beside Victoria. "He's dying, isn't he?"
The casual, haphazard delivery with which she asked made agitated Victoria's heartbeat. No. She wouldn't have it; she wouldn't entertain any of the witch's schemes for a moment.
"...And if he is?"
"He can be saved." Medusa opened her palm to Victoria, revealing a handheld container of Black Blood. "You need only put your hopes on this syringe to procure the boy's life."
She had seen seen the Black Blood before in her time with the mad witch, and knew of its powerful animating properties, but not of what it could to do a human.
"No," Victoria's nose furled in disgust, immediately rejecting the plot. "I don't trust you. You wouldn't go into this without an ulterior motive."
"Of course I have an ulterior motive. Don't we all?" Her eyes widened, hitting Victoria with a scrutinizing gaze. "Think of the possibilities, Victoria. This stands to benefit both of us: your prized student is spared from death, and a scientific breakthrough is made. Cast aside your petty ethics for a moment and look at what's important! Quickly now, your window of opportunity is fading."
The syringe was placed squarely in Victoria's palm, and she was left wondering if she'd opened up subconsciously to the idea. A trail of sweat bled down the bridge of her nose. Her grip on the crutches shook.
"No one's going to hold you responsible if you don't go through with this," Medusa spoke with a hair-raising calm, "The only one holding you responsible for this would be your own guilty conscience. You'd have to go on knowing that you let a fifteen year-old perish when you had the means to stop such a tragedy. But it's no one's fault, isn't it?"
"...Will he be the same? Is Dart gonna be the same, if I do this?" More than anything, she feared the loss of innocence in his eyes the moment he would awaken. Death seemed almost preferable than the risk of turning him into a monster.
"What does it matter?" Losing her patience, she hissed at Victoria, fixated on the syringe. "Make your choice, Victoria! Dekei lives or he dies!"
"God damn it!" Victoria turned her head and shut her eyes. The pressure was mounting. The beats of his heart had long in-betweens and only faintly registered on the ECG.
She came to a decision, and clenched her fist. "I'm sorry, Dart...!"
Not wasting another second torn up by doubt, Victoria jabbed the needle into his spinal cord after quickly turning him over. The two of them watched, their reactions and expectations practically opposite to each other as they beheld the Black Blood's effects on the live subject of Dart.
The results were fast-acting. His heartbeat monitored on the ECG worked back up to a normal pace, and quickened beyond that, creating an electronic racket that she could only hope wouldn't wake Cassiel and Julian.
"What's happening?" She tried to gauge Medusa's reaction, to no avail. On the bed, Dart broke out into mild spasms, reflexively reaching to where he'd been injected. His breaths became audible, seemingly a strained, conscious effort in an agony that Victoria didn't want to imagine.
His eyelids opened up wide.
AN: Reflection next chapter.
