Symptom
"Didn't I tell you to stop calling them?" he asked sternly, but the underlying boredom in his voice was all too apparent. He'd gotten so used to the hours he spent in this incredible monotony, interspersed with brief breaks of hastened, lascivious activity which more often than naught resulted in a transaction of the patient's fix of choice. Not every aspect of Tyler's unorthodox and seemingly innocuous occupation entertained him, certainly not moments like this when the little blonde girl was being especially clingy, but it all seemed to balance out for him. After all, he didn't need a college degree to pretend to help young women recover from drug addictions only to indulge them in the very same things he'd told them to let go of. He didn't need a college degree to fuck them in the darkness of the debris-strewn basement, or, when he was feeling reckless, in their institutionalized beds with the sheets that scratched and metal legs that creaked. He was giving them what they wanted, what they craved, what Alice denied them – it was a twisted sort of kindness. He had to suppress a snide, satisfied smile at his own ingenuity, or Ghost would undoubtedly notice. Sometimes her uncanny observational skills creeped him out, and he felt like he was dealing with something more than just a fourteen-year-old girl.
But right now, he had his migraine to remind him that he was, in fact, dealing with a fourteen-year-old girl.
"They yelled at me," said Ghost incredulously, holding the standardized black hospital phone and staring into the mouthpiece as if it would offer some explanation. But neither the telephone nor Tyler was about to console her.
"Figures. You have been bothering them for two weeks straight," he said with softened sarcasm, rubbing at his temples.
"The man to whom she made her meager requests had never spoken a word against her! She was rightfully appalled!"
"Stop with the narration thing; it's really getting on my nerves." Tyler ran his hands through his hair. "You know, you're lucky I even allow you to stay up this late, never mind these monthly excursions to town to see the comics store and the library."
"I'm not lucky that you do this; you are."
Tyler looked at her thoughtfully. She did know about his drug dealing and other habits, after all, and she certainly was enough of a blabbermouth to tell Alice on him, or let it slip to Luke or Michael and allow the news to trickle up, so to speak. Whether she'd actually do it was another matter entirely. Who was to say Stockholm Syndrome hadn't begun to kick in during the year that had passed since Ghost, then known to the faculty by her real name, Miranda, arrived here with her burned-to-a-crisp grandmother? Still, he didn't want to risk it, so they kept up these flimsy agreements, which had somehow formed within the gaps of their botched, unlikely friendship. Or was it more of an alliance? Tyler couldn't say. All he wanted right now was to get rid of this girl for a while, so he could go satisfy himself with some other ones. Was it natural to have a libido like his, which got kick-started primarily by intense boredom? He supposed that he should be the last one to ask about "natural" or "normal," considering his bizarre and predatory lifestyle, which seemed almost to melt from his role as the caretaker to his role as the gratifier just as day melted into night. It itched, he scratched, and that was it.
"I think it's time for you to go to bed."
The towhead, after a moment of indignation, acquiesced and jumped out of the stool Tyler kept for her behind the front desk. She took a few steps, shuffling her feet, and then turned around to give her guardian the hint of a faintly threatening smile.
"Goodnight, Tyler. And don't forget."
-----
Jeremy clicked through Brigitte's file, as if trying to decipher the green text. The similarities in the various titles and subjects were obvious enough -- the girl had never ventured out of the "Mediaeval and Occult" section, at least not that he recalled. He tapped absently at the keyboard and leaned back in his chair, sweeping his gaze over the monitor and across the library. It was vacant, with the exception of some guy who looked as though he was cramming for a test at the college the library was joined with and had no other silent refuge in which to do it.
Jeremy still didn't have the funds necessary to attend the one university he wanted to go to, although he'd already been accepted. Thanks to his family situation, he'd had to delay his life two years, and who knew how much longer it would take. He'd watched the few friends he had move on and move out, and he was stuck here, working two low-paying jobs so he could one day do the same. It was tedium, the proverbial daily grind, but he at least knew how to amuse himself. Reading was how he spent a large portion of his time, especially on the job. It was a library, so it wasn't like his boss would mind too much.
If she knew. He had to smile a little to himself. He'd seen the woman who was supposed to be his boss maybe twice since he'd taken this job last year. Apparently, she had taken a permanent vacation to Hawaii. The college's superintendent did check on him once in a blue moon, but he always shifted in his seat and tapped away when he arrived, feigning productivity, or pretended like he'd been sorting books for hours when, in reality, he'd simply shot out of his chair when he knew the boss of bosses was coming up the stairs. The superintendent had no real reason to keep his eye on Jeremy. The young man with his diminutive stature, rectangular glasses, collared shirts, and flyaway hair hardly posed a threat the productivity of the library. He just didn't seem like the type to purposefully avoid work.
Oh, of course not. Never.
The books were all related to diseases that had died out centuries ago, or else mythology. The discrepancy between the two subjects Brigitte had been researching confused him. Of course, Bloodletting had an immediate tie to reality, if Brigitte's timed healing was any indication. The intentional release of blood, usually by administering leeches to the patient's skin, was done in the assumption that the disease was carried in the "bad blood," and that the leeches could differentiate. This branch of medical science was so outdated it was almost laughable. Not all diseases were of the blood, and even if they were, there was no such thing as partial infection. But Brigitte had obviously not been using leeches, seeing as how access to them would be difficult in the dead of Canadian winter, and her scars, by the looks of them, had been made with a smooth, sharp edge, most likely a knife. Removing leeches from the equation changed everything, though, didn't it? And he was sure that the doctors of the Dark Ages hadn't been concerned with acceleration in healing time. So why was Brigitte taking note of how long it took? The fact that she'd done it over and over again also disconcerted him. Shouldn't that be a consistent, unchanging factor? But she had said that she was healing faster with the passage of time. So this change had to be a symptom. At this point, he encountered a concrete wall at the end of his logical thinking. It was no great mystery that contracting a debilitating illness would prolong healing time, but if Brigitte's cuts were healing faster, she must have the opposite of a debilitating illness. Her cells were multiplying faster because of it to form the new tissue of the scars. But he'd never heard of an illness that would cause bodily processes to speed up. It was counterintuitive and strange.
But Brigitte must have some disease, or at least believe that she did, because otherwise she would time her cuts without bothering to research bloodletting. He presumed that she had been simultaneously attempting to "bleed out" the disease, but releasing such an insubstantial amount of blood would hardly help, even assuming that phlebotomy was effective.
The drug also had to be taken into consideration. There was definitely a connection between the drugs and the cuts, and thus, the disease. She'd said she'd dosed twice because of the rapid healing, so maybe the drug was being used as an antidote. But she was still healing faster in spite of this antidote, so it must not be working, or at least taking less of an effect as time went on. Her body had gotten so used to the stuff that it no longer had any effect.
That confirmed the addiction hypothesis.
This was all a hypothesis, of course. Jeremy had merely extrapolated from what he knew about Brigitte's situation with basic medical knowledge and his own library research. He'd never know for sure unless Brigitte confirmed it.
This meant that it was reasonable to believe that he wouldn't.
-----
When all the eyes of the sidewalk seemed to snap around and fix on her, Brigitte couldn't help but draw a sickened parallel to the sudden attention Ginger garnered when her transformation had almost reached its peak. Except for the fact that, as always, Brigitte dreaded the very same things that her sister reveled in, and she shrunk away from the stares and into her dark coat. She thought she heard Ginger whisper some snide observation on this fact in her ear, but it was just the cold wind. The morning was no less frigid than the night that came before it – if warmed somewhat by the blinding sun. Whenever the clouds passed over it, she shivered, watching her breath in the still air. They were full of what Brigitte anticipated to be bitter, icy rain, so she hurried towards her destination on frozen joints, still unsure of exactly what and where it was. She was in no great hurry to see Jeremy again – he was working a Saturday shift through the morning, no doubt drifting through all the stages of boredom at his desk while the harsh sunlight filtered through the unclean windows. She sighed. Unclean windows, unclean world. She fingered her scars absently, thinking about Jeremy's home. That had been clean, at least.
They're all the same.
Ginger's biting accusation resonated oddly in her mind. Her newfound rebellion against her sister's opinions, which had until not that long ago continued to inform her own and govern her actions, still shocked her somewhat.
Ginger didn't know everything.
She barely caught the smile that formed at the thought which she had never finished in its entirety. She'd been so … blind. Both of them had been. And while the world was far from new – Brigitte had gotten tired of it in under a decade – at least it wasn't Bailey Downs anymore. Everything outside that dismal town was brutal, a place in which she struggled to survive, but at least it was separate.
Maybe Jeremy was different.
She stopped in front of an alleyway strongly reminiscent of the one she'd passed the night before. This time, no growl emanated from the dark depths and caused a relentless prickling of fear along her spine, but she wasted no less time in leaving it.
You've been going in circles for a while now. Where do you want to end up?
It's not like I can stop.
You have quite the list of things you can't stop doing, don't you, B?
Sometimes she didn't know if it was truly Ginger who finished her thoughts. The logical part of her screamed out that it was Brigitte herself on both ends of her internal conversations, and another part wanted to believe that something of her sister had survived, and that some fragment of this illusionary Ginger was real.
Her hands had gone numb with cold while she hadn't been paying attention, so she ducked into the nearest shop. Comics. Seemed as if life had decided upon a theme these days, and she couldn't escape the scruffy-haired man no matter where she went. She slipped towards the farthest shelves and hid herself there, studying the covers.
"They haven't got it in yet …" The voice was small, disappointed, and oddly familiar.
"Can't you find something else?" replied a slightly irritated male voice.
"But I need to know what fate befalls –"
"Ghost. There's nothing I can do about it, but there's tons of other stuff here, so why don't you just go … look at it, okay?" Brigitte poked her head above the shelf just far enough to see a blond man, presumably the one who had just spoken, gravitate towards the register. The little girl trotted away, and her sullen expression turned to a curious one as she turned around the back shelf and saw Brigitte, who gave her a blank look and became instantly interested in a horror comic. This didn't appear to have much of an impact on the strangely named Ghost.
"I've never seen you here before," she said with an overjoyed fascination which made Brigitte squirm internally. "You're into comics?"
Brigitte flicked her eyes down at the girl, made no attempt to hide her disgust, and continued to flip through the book she'd picked up.
"Oh, I forgot. My name's Ghost," she added, apparently unfazed by Brigitte's cold shoulder. "What's yours?"
She didn't see the harm in telling her.
" … Brigitte."
"I never see other girls here. Usually." Ghost gave the brunette an appraising look, then turned her attention to the shelves, and fidgeted while visually perusing them. She seemed to pass judgment on all but one, which she eagerly snatched. "It was nice to meet you, Brigitte." She held up a hand in farewell as she stepped backwards, then spun around and strode purposefully towards the blond man she'd walked in with. He was practically poured over the counter, making very deliberate eye contact and sporadic conversation with the cashier. The interruption more than slightly bothered him, but he stepped back all the same, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
"You found something else?"
"I follow thirty-two different series," she chirped, apparently very pleased with herself. He reached into his back pocket to pull out a wallet. When he looked up, he noticed Brigitte in the back corner. She saw some glint of predatory curiosity, and hid herself behind the shelves again. She had become bizarrely accustomed to that look in the months since she'd been infected, but it hadn't made it any more comfortable. She waited until the bell hanging atop the door emitted its telltale ding, and stayed for a few more minutes, to put distance between the strange pair and herself. She didn't like the way the girl's searching, dark eyes fixed on her, and she liked her presumed guardian's stare even less.
The walk back to Jeremy's apartment would have been uneventful had Ginger not decided to suddenly appear, causing Brigitte to momentarily second-guess the mechanics of the illusion. She'd previously been under the impression that Ginger could only appear when she was alone. But, she realized as she turned sharply around and looked up and down the street, nobody else was around. It was unsettling.
How long has it been since you could go a whole week without dosing? Ginger gave her that half-accusatory, half-warmly concerned expression from beneath the hood of that familiar black sweatshirt.
Brigitte found herself responding aloud. The initial surprise this caused her subsided almost instantly. Everyone assumed she was crazy, anyway. Why not prove them right? In any case, it wasn't like anyone was there to hear her, or take notice in any way.
"I can't help it, Ginger. If I go for longer than three days, I start to lose it. Even before then, it gets bad …"
You're beginning to feel it now, aren't you? That isn't a good sign. The monkshood's taking less and less effect, even though you need it more and more.
"I can go home and shoot some more of it, and cause it to become even more ineffective, or I can attempt to go without. It doesn't seem … as if either of those options are without consequences."
It's your call, B. I'd recommend taking more of it. If the change starts to show, it'll mean that he's getting closer again.
Ginger was right. While Brigitte was confident that if she willed herself, she could abstain from the stuff for a few days, it would only put her in danger. Jeremy, too.
Oh? Are you worried about him, now? Just a little while ago he was an obstacle in your grand plan. What was it, again? Oh yeah, you don't have one.
Imaginary or not, Ginger did always have a knack for getting under Brigitte's skin. She growled lowly in frustration, which only provoked Ginger's laughter.
Look at you! You're getting into it, already.
"At least I'm doing something about it. I don't remember you spending five hours every night in the library looking for a cure."
There isn't one, Brigitte. And you seem to be having a very hard time understanding that.
"So, what, I'm supposed to write this whole thing off as inevitable? Pretend like there's nothing I can do when I don't know about any other possibilities yet?"
When Ginger's voice responded, it was low and dissonant. You know all about the true nature of the curse. You saw it with your own two eyes that night, not so long ago. That's how it's going to be, Brigitte. That's exactly how it's going to be, and you know it.
"I don't care," said Brigitte in an equal tone. Despite the serious nature of this conversation, she was already getting bored with it. She knew that Ginger was adamant in all of her decisions until forcibly proven otherwise, and it was beyond pointless to argue with her.
You're still that scared little girl you were when I was alive.
"I'm not scared of this."
It's beginning.
-----
The apartment was silent, save for the faint whirring of cheap kitchen appliances. Still, she stepped cautiously through it, as if expecting to be confronted by the spectacled man at every turn. She heaved the chipped window upwards, feeling her not-entirely-human muscles flex under her sleeves, and grasped around blindly for the vials. Relief flooded through her as her hand came to rest against cold glass, and she peeled off the edge of the tape to bring the vial up to her face. Her body involuntarily reacted to the sight of the purple liquid, and she hastily shoved the window-frame back down, this time unconcerned with the thud it made as it hit the windowsill.
Syringe. Where was the syringe? Brigitte's mind leapt back without regard for chronological order through the last few days. One syringe was back at the motel, its needle buried in unwashed carpet. It had, in all likelihood, been discovered already, and dismissed as a common occurrence. Those places were practically offices for dealers, anyway. She had two syringes, didn't she? Think, Brigitte … the other syringe … was in her bag. Of course.
The realization galvanized her into a frantic run. She made her way to Jeremy's room, and then to the only bathroom, which was central to the apartment and just as neutrally furnished as the rest of it. She sat down on the edge of the off-white bathtub and poked the needle, after missing several times in panic, into the top of the vial and pressed down. She released it, watching the body of the syringe filling in a way which made her insides stir with sick uneasiness and violent need. She tied the makeshift tourniquet around her upper right arm this time, opting to give the other vein a rest, and clumsily but purposefully steadied the needle at the crook on the inside of her elbow. The needle sunk painlessly through layers of skin, releasing the poison into her bloodstream.
The relief dosing always infused in her evaporated when she heard the ascending footsteps. Without thinking, and perhaps as a result of acquired survival instincts, she twisted on the faucet. The stream of cold water masked the hurried activity of screwing the cap back on the vial and shoving it, along with syringe and tourniquet, back into her bag. She was deeply thankful that her other clothes were still in there, too. Glancing up from the bathtub to the space between the door and the floor, she ran her hand under the faucet to feel the gradual change in temperature.
"Brigitte?"
"I'm taking a bath," she called, equally thankful that she'd had the sense to lock the door.
"Okay. I'm going to go get some lunch for us. Do you like Chinese?"
He's such a … dork.
Not now, Ginger.
Brigitte tried to answer without betraying the fact that the usual reaction to dosing monkshood was beginning to take effect. "Sure."
The narrow space which had been shadowed by Jeremy's feet cleared, and as the footsteps faded in volume, Brigitte sighed and looked down at the slowly rising water. She wanted to avoid looking suspicious if she could help it, and besides, she hadn't bathed in more days than she was comfortable with. She absently removed her clothes, starting, as she always did, with her socks, and slipped into the lukewarm water. She'd taken showers in Bailey Downs ever since Pamela had instigated the new order of personal hygiene ("Girls, I think its time for both of you to take a step towards adulthood …") which included a strict policy of showers-only since Ginger had turned thirteen. Brigitte hadn't minded what she saw as an insignificant transition, but her sister had rebelled against Pamela for the sake of rebellion and continued to take baths instead of showers for quite a while. Feeling the now-steaming water collect around her was oddly nostalgic, but not in a way that was of very great consequence.
Trip down memory lane, huh, B?
Ginger was sitting on the toilet lid, fixing Brigitte with a bored stare.
"Back already?" was all Brigitte could say, and she muttered it, pulling up her knees to hide her nakedness.
So they aren't just on your arms, Ginger noted coolly, resting her head on her hands. God, if you don't watch out, you might end up just being one big scar someday.
"Very funny," Brigitte said in a prickly tone, but she couldn't help looking down at the tangled mess of scabs and scars herself. The sight made her grimace, despite her hard-earned stoicism in the face of such things. She added in a low voice, "At least I'm doing something about it." The comment appeared to have a harsh effect on Ginger, who eyed her angrily, but responded in an even voice.
You won't want to stop it, Brigitte. Not after you see what you it can do.
"I'm not in the mood for this." Brigitte held onto her knees in the water, as if fearing that they'd drift away. She clenched her eyes shut and waited for the drug's effect to pass. When it did, she found herself exhausted, uncurling to lie motionless in the hot water. The combination of the fatigue of the dosage and the heat of the bathroom coerced her into a strange torpor, which transitioned lazily into sleep.
She couldn't have been lying there for very long before she felt the water level rise to her mouth. As if receiving a shock of electric current, she sat up immediately, lunged forward, and twisted off the faucet right as the water was lapping at the very top of the tub. Overflow averted. She sighed, and sat back again, wondering for a moment what to do about this situation. She grabbed for a bottle of rather bland looking shampoo, and without much conscious thought began lathering some of it up in her palms. Absolutely nothing had formulated in her mind as the bubbles began to rise and she reached up to scrub the stuff into her greasy hair. She attempted to lay everything out in front of her.
The facts:
Ginger Fitzgerald contracted the curse from an unidentified lycanthrope approximately one year ago.
Brigitte Fitzgerald contracted the lycanthrope virus from Ginger Fitzgerald when attempting to lure her to what, at the time, was thought to have been a permanent cure.
Brigitte Fitzgerald killed Ginger Fitzgerald (a knife between the ribs, to be precise), when Ginger Fitzgerald had been completely consumed by the wolf she'd become.
Brigitte Fitzgerald ran away from Bailey Downs.
Brigitte Fitzgerald discovered that monkshood was not an actual cure, but merely a retardant of the symptoms and eventual change.
Brigitte Fitzgerald attempted to understand the virus, testing the effects it was having on her body.
Brigitte Fitzgerald met Jeremy, a shy librarian, in a town she was staying in briefly in her relentless escape from another unidentified lycanthrope.
Another lycanthrope which had, in all likelihood, previously been Jason, the boy Ginger had infected through sexual transmission of the curse.
Brigitte Fitzgerald had overdosed on monkshood the same night when she knew the second unidentified lycanthrope was in the immediate vicinity.
Jeremy had discovered her overdosing.
Jeremy had attempted to "get her help."
Jeremy had not truly gotten her help because she'd successfully intimidated him into not doing so.
Running over the same ground over and over again hardly provided any sort of clarification, or opened up any unexplored ideas or possibilities. It was more akin to rumination that anything else, and to her, rumination was the opposite of progress. She frowned to herself, even as she re-traced her mental steps.
Jeremy did not know the true nature of Brigitte's affliction.
There were three possible courses of action which could result from this. The first, and most likely, was that Jeremy would eventually take her to some sort of hospital. The doctors would obviously have no idea what was wrong with her, and she knew it couldn't go well from there. Euthanasia or endless scientific testing. Not pleasant options. The second and considerably less likely path, was that Jeremy would in time, and entirely on his own, discover what was wrong with her. He would either continue to let her stay, or he would make her leave. She was much more comfortable with this series of events, given that she remained completely unattached to him, emotionally. She almost scoffed at the very idea of it. When the time came, it would be easy to leave him behind. The simplest thing she'd ever do. She was sure of it.
But there was another path, one so ridiculous and unlikely that it almost made her doubt her own intelligence to contemplate it, and that was one aspect of her identity that usually went unchallenged.
Jeremy discovers, or Brigitte informs him, of Brigitte's affliction, and they both attempt to find a cure. A real, definite, final cure.
She'd expected that thought to spur a snide, fatalistic comment from Ginger, but, as she suddenly realized, the apparition was nowhere to be seen. She slunk back down into the water, which had lost some of its heat by that time, and guarded the thoughts than spun off from that concept. Ginger was always watching and listening, even if she didn't make her presence readily obvious. It made for some judgmental encounters at the end of the day, after everyone else in Brigitte's makeshift life had faded away. Ginger was always after blood, and Brigitte supposed that Jeremy and her strange relationship with him made for an easy target. He was the sort of person that Ginger might have formed a precarious friendship with before her transformation, and ignore or carelessly toy with during it. He didn't hold a candle to all the obnoxious, selfish men that she'd been attracted to, and Brigitte couldn't help but see that as a good thing. Ginger's bizarre harem had consisted entirely of the sort that both Brigitte and her sister had despised for fifteen years, and Brigitte, for the first time, contemplated that perhaps this was because Ginger found it easier to manipulate people that she didn't respect. Ginger obviously regarded Jeremy as a pushover, and Brigitte would just as easily share this opinion, but she couldn't be sure. For the moment, he was all that was keeping her from a considerably worse situation. Whether he was doing this out of naivety or genuine compassion, she couldn't be sure.
However, at the moment, that didn't really seem to matter.