Chapter Eighteen

"She's very lucky to be alive, Mrs. Parker. She lost a tremendous amount of blood. It's amazing that she survived. Those claws barely missed her spine."

"Oh, thank God. But what about the poison? You said something about-"

"Yes. We've had five emergency cases since yesterday, from that attack in the Bronx. That monster's claws are venemous. The poison control people downstairs tried using a general antitoxin for spider venom, and that's what we gave May here."

"Then she'll be all right, Dr. Torres?"

"I hope so. There have been some other symptoms-"

"Symptoms?"

"Effects of that venom on other people."

"What effects?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. I remembered...I had tackled Hobgoblin, and a ripping pain across my back. But after that...nothing.

"Well, extreme weakness and fatigue. Anemia. Memory loss."

"Memory loss?"

There were voices...voices and a bright, bright light against my eyelids. I turned my face away, only to feel a thin pillowcase against my cheek. A jolt of pain slashed across my back, but it seemed dulled, far away.

"What...goin'...on?" I asked. My mouth was dry, and my tongue felt thick. The room slid slowly into focus. Bright, sterile...a hospital room. I was lying on my back in a hospital bed.

"Mayday!"

"M-M-Mom?" I croaked. Mom limped over from the door, leaning two crutches. The doctor was standing at the door, holding a clear plastic clipboard.

A wave of panic engulfed me. I was in a hospital. A hospital! I couldn't go to a doctor! It wouldn't be hard for them to spot something unusual, like the spinnerets in my wrists!

"M-Mom!" I gasped. "I can't...they know-" I grabbed my right wrist convulsively.

"Shh, shh, it's okay, it's okay," Mom whispered, glancing at the doctor. "Mayday, oh god, Mayday...you're all right. You're all right!" Mom hugged me tightly. I saw tears running down her face. I bit my lip, feeling the corners of my eyes prickle.

"I don't care how many degrees you have, you can't keep me from seeing my granddaughter! Get out of my way!"

"Ma'am! Ma'am, you can't just-"

"She's my sister! Let us in!"

"People, please! You have to wait outside in the lobby!"

"Doctor, hi, I'm Beth McKay. My nephew here brought Mayday in-"

"Where's Mayday? Is she okay? Black Widow-"

A babble of voices came from the door. Mom turned around, and I saw my entire family trying to force entry, along with Mrs. McKay, and...Harry!

I felt a chill. Was he cured? Or was it Hobgoblin standing in the doorway? Had I done it? I couldn't remember...

Dr. Torres might have been strict, but she was no match for my grandmother. A moment later she had pushed past the doctor and was standing beside my bed, grabbing my hand.

"May Parker, what on earth were you thinking, leaving like that? And...and..." Grandma's lower lip trembled.

Benny ran around the other side of my bed, wide-eyed. "We...we thought you were gonna die."

"Mayday, what happened? How did this-"

"Excuse me!" The doctor shouldered past Harry's aunt and started herding everyone out the door, including Mom. "This girl has just come out of surgery! She needs peace and quiet!"

"No, w-wait, I'm fine," I said feebly. "I'm...okay." I pushed myself into a sitting position, gritting my teeth against the pain. "See?"

Dr. Torres gave me a look of extreme skepticism. "You can talk to your family later, after you've had some rest. You're severely anemic, May. The last thing you need is stress. Er, no offense to you all," she amended, seeing the expressions of everyone. Mom looked upset, Benny looked stunned, and Grandma Watson looked ready to go on the warpath. Mrs. McKay crossed her arms and scowled, and Harry?

Harry, behind everyone else, was pointing to the inside of his wrist and shaking his head. I couldn't read the expression on his face. He was pale, with a look between fear and sadness and anger and shame...

"At least let me stay with her!" Mom protested, hobbling backwards on her crutches as Dr. Torres ushered them out. Grandma hurried over to support her.

"May needs sleep! Out! Out!"

Dr. Torres closed the door behind her, just as Harry shouted, "Mayday! I have to tell you-"

Click.

I must have fallen asleep, because the next time I opened my eyes the streetlamp was shining through the cracks in the venetian blinds. The clock read 9:46.

I sat up in bed. "Owww!"

I winced, feeling the back of my hospital gown scraping against my bandages. Those cuts must have been very deep. I had been attacked almost twelve hours ago, and they still weren't healed.

I kicked my blankets off and sat on the edge of my bed. The door was shut, and the floor was ice cold beneath my bare feet.

Had Mom and everyone else gone home? Mom was supposed to have been released today. Even though I didn't want them to sit out there all night, I wished that I could let them know that I was all right.

I blinked. I had heard Mrs. McKay say, "My nephew here brought Mayday in..." Harry? Harry had brought me in? How? How had he known? How had he found me? How...

I shook my head. After the pain, everything else was a jumbled mess of noise and images, like scattered fragments of a movie reel.

If Harry had brought me in, then the treatment must have worked! Hobgoblin was gone! But why had Harry been gesturing like that? And what had he tried to tell me?

I stood up unsteadily, taking a few tentative steps. What had Harry been doing, pointing at the inside of his wrist?

I looked at my wrist. Same as always, irregular star-shaped white areas, web-shooters. I marveled at how the doctors hadn't noticed. If they had, wouldn't police and reporters have put me under house arrest by now?

Harry had been shaking his head. What did that mean? Experimentally, I bent my middle and ring fingers inward.

Nothing.

I frowned, and tried again, expecting a line of web to shoot out of my wrist. Nothing happened.

Throat clenching, I tried my left wrist.

Nonthing. Nothing, nothing, nothing!

Frantically, I whirled around and rushed to the wall, slapping both palms against the paint. I had to be able to wallcrawl. I had to!

My hands slid down the bare wall.

"No..."

I stumbled for my bed, grabbing the metal posts underneath. This bed could only way a few hundred pounds at most, with all of the medical equipment. I heaved, sweat beading on my forehead, straining. The bed barely slid an inch.

I grabbed the sleeve of my hospital gown and wrenched it up to my shoulder. I saw muscles, just the same as this morning. My legs were the same. But I felt weak, exhausted.

I couldn't shoot web, I couldn't wallcrawl, I couldn't even pick up a hospital bed.

"No. No!" Panic gripped me. Icy sweat ran through my hair. This was a nightmare. This had to be a dream. I was still asleep. That had to be it! I leaned against the wall, sliding down to sit on the floor, ignoring the pain in my back.

Then, as if in that very dream, a fragment of memory drifted through my head.

"Run away, Spider-Girl, it doesn't matter! My venom works quickly! Within an hour you'll see for yourself! If you're still alive!"

Her venom.

Harry had tried to tell me a few hours ago. Hobgoblin must have known what Black Widow's venom would do to me. The same way I now knew.

Spider-Girl wasn't alive anymore. She hadn't survived. There was just me, Mayday, the girl under the costume.

Because my powers were gone.