Ch.19: The Rejection

I am back in the bed.

Aris dragged me back down after he threw Greta into the isolation cell. He didn't speak. He just hooked me back up to the machine, tightened the straps until my wrists bled, and maxed out the Rocuronium.

But something is wrong.

Not with me. With *her*.

The monitor on the wall is still active. Aris left it on, perhaps to taunt me, perhaps because he forgot in his rage.

I see Isabella.

She is pacing the master bedroom. She is clawing at her face.

"It burns, Aris!" she screams. "It feels like acid!"

Aris is trying to hold her hands. "Don't scratch! You'll tear the sutures!"

"It's dying!" she shrieks. "Look at it! It's turning grey!"

She rushes to the mirror.

I see her reflection.

The skin—*my* skin—is no longer pink and healthy. It has taken on a dull, slate-grey pallor. The edges near the hairline are turning black. Necrosis.

But it’s not just the color. It’s the texture. The skin looks dry, papery. It looks like a leaf that has fallen from a tree.

Aris grabs her shoulders and spins her around. He shines a light on her face.

His expression goes from concerned to terrified.

"Ischemia," he whispers. "The blood supply is failing."

"Why?" Isabella demands. "You said the vessels connected! You said it was perfect!"

"They did connect," Aris says, his voice rising in panic. "The pulse was strong yesterday. Something has changed."

He grabs his medical bag. He pulls out a Doppler ultrasound probe. He presses it against her cheek.

*Whoosh... whoosh... silence.*

The blood flow is intermittent. Weak.

"The capillaries are constricting," Aris mutters. "Why are they constricting?"

I know why.

I lie in the dark, a cold smile spreading through my mind.

Greta diluted the paralytic with saline. But she didn't just use saline.

I remember the vial she pulled from her pocket. It wasn't standard sodium chloride. The cap was red.

Red cap means *Epinephrine*.

Adrenaline.

She spiked my IV bag with adrenaline.

It wasn't enough to kill me—my heart is strong—but it was enough to change my blood chemistry.

And because Aris harvested my face, because he connected my blood vessels to hers, Isabella is essentially a parasite feeding off my system. The graft relies on the biological markers of the donor to accept the host.

But my blood is now flooded with cortisol and epinephrine. It’s toxic stress blood.

And stress hormones cause vasoconstriction.

My body is fighting back. My blood is sending a signal to the skin that used to cover my face: *Die.*

"I need a vasodilator!" Aris shouts. He fumbles through his bag. "Nitroglycerin paste! Now!"

He smears the paste onto Isabella's face. She screams as he rubs it into the raw, dying tissue.

"It hurts!" she wails. "Get it off me! Get this dead thing off me!"

"Stop it!" Aris slaps her hand away. "If you peel it off, you'll have nothing underneath but bone and burn scar! Do you want to be a monster forever?"

Isabella freezes. She stares at him, her chest heaving.

"You did this," she hisses. "You promised me beauty. You gave me rot."

"It's Elena," Aris snarls. He looks at the floor, as if he can see through the layers of concrete to where I am lying. "Her body is releasing toxins. She's poisoning the graft from the grave."

He grabs a syringe.

"I have to flush her system," he says. "I have to dialyze her blood."

He runs for the door.

"Where are you going?" Isabella screams.

"To the basement!"

He slams the door.

I watch the monitor. Isabella is alone.

She looks in the mirror again.

She touches her cheek. A flake of grey skin peels off under her fingernail.

She stares at it.

Then she looks at the camera.

She knows I'm watching.

"You bitch," she whispers.

She grabs a heavy crystal vase from the mantel. She throws it at the mirror.

*CRASH.*

The glass shatters. Her reflection—my face—splinters into a thousand jagged pieces.

I hear Aris’s footsteps on the stairs. He is coming to drain me. He is coming to filter my blood until it is pure enough to feed his mistress.

But it's too late.

The tissue has been hypoxic for too long. The necrosis has set in.

He can scrub my blood all he wants. He can replace every drop.

But the skin remembers.

It remembers who it belongs to. And it would rather die than live on her.

My blood is poisoning her. Good.