Chapter 87

Chapter 87: Chapter 87

She hurried towards Ingrid, her expression caught between disbelief and alarm. "The poison is Black Vein. I just told you that there’s no cure for it! How can you claim that a single pill will remove it from his system? What exactly is that substance, and where did you get it?"

Ingrid glanced at her, looking too exhausted to entertain the interrogation. "Does it matter where I got it?"

"Of course it matters!" Maya snapped. "You’re asking us to give an unconscious patient a substance that hasn’t been tested. We don’t know what’s in it, how it will react with his current condition, or whether it could make things worse. I can’t allow you to feed him something simply because you claim it will work!"

Ingrid’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Then what do you suggest we do instead? Wait until his heart stops beating?"

Maya’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t answer immediately. Ingrid shifted in Lysander’s hold, wincing when the movement pulled at her injured neck, and he immediately steadied her again. She was exhausted, and every second she spent standing seemed to drain what little strength she had managed to recover, yet she kept her attention on Freya.

"Listen to me," Ingrid said. "From what the nurse just told you, Hunter G is already in a situation where there’s no known treatment. Even if you do everything you can, you don’t know if he’ll survive. So why not give him a chance? If you have another option that can save his life, use it. But if you don’t, why are you hesitating over the only thing that might help him?"

"Because it could kill him!" Maya shot back.

"And doing nothing will save him?"

Maya fell silent at those words. She knew Ingrid was right. If they didn’t do anything, he would die, and there was no other cure.

Freya looked down at the pill again. Her hands were still shaking, and she could hear Maya’s warning echoing in her head, but every time she looked towards Zeke, she remembered the blue veins spreading across his body and the terrible stillness of his face.

There was no guarantee that Ingrid’s pill would work, but there was no guarantee that Zeke would survive without it either.

She reached out and took the pill from Ingrid’s palm. "Ingrid," she asked, looking straight into her eyes, "will this really save him?"

Ingrid held her gaze. "It can remove the poison from his body. I can’t promise you what condition he’ll be in afterward, especially after everything the poison has already done, but it will give him a chance."

That was all Freya needed to hear. She stared at the small pill resting in her palm, then turned towards Zeke. Maya opened her mouth to stop her, but Freya was already moving, unwilling to spend another second watching the man she loved die while everyone argued about whether they should take a risk.

"Wait!" Maya called. "You can’t just give it to him! We need to test it first!"

"Then test it after he’s alive!" Freya shouted back.

She hurried to Zeke’s bedside and looked down at him, her heart pounding so violently that she could barely think. His lips were slightly parted, but he was too far gone to swallow anything on his own. Freya looked at Ingrid, desperate for instructions, and Ingrid drew a slow breath before answering.

"He won’t be able to swallow it in his current state," Ingrid explained. "You need to dissolve the pill in a little water and carefully feed it to him. Make sure he swallows it, or you can administer it mouth to mouth if there’s no other way."

She paused, glancing at Zeke’s unconscious face before looking back at Freya.

"But there’s no need to do that if you dissolve it properly. Just make sure he..."

Ingrid didn’t get to finish as Freya placed the pill in her mouth. Before anyone could stop her, she leaned over Zeke, cupped his face in her hands, and pressed her lips against his. She carefully transferred the pill into his mouth, then tilted his head slightly and used her fingers to guide his jaw, coaxing him to swallow. When he didn’t respond at first, she pressed closer, refusing to pull away until she felt his throat move faintly.

"Freya!" Maya cried, rushing towards the bed.

But Freya had already lifted her head. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, tears still clinging to her eyelashes, and looked anxiously at Ingrid.

"What now? What do I do next?"

For a moment, Ingrid simply stared at her. She assumed that Freya had feelings for Jowe, given the way the two interacted, but she had clearly been wrong. The desperation in Freya’s eyes, the way she had put her own safety aside without hesitation, and the kiss she had just given Hunter G made the truth painfully obvious. Whatever Freya and Jowe had between them, if anything at all, it was nothing compared to what she felt for the man lying in that bed.

Ingrid shook off the thought and focused on the immediate problem. "Now we wait," she said. "The pill needs time to work."

"Wait?" Freya repeated, her voice rising. "How long? A minute? Ten minutes? How am I supposed to know if it’s working?"

"You’ll have to watch him closely. The poison has been in his body for hours, so don’t expect him to recover the moment he swallows it." Ingrid turned towards Maya. "Keep checking his heartbeat and breathing. If anything changes, tell me immediately."

Maya looked as though she still wanted to argue, but Zeke’s worsening condition left her with no time to waste. She returned to his bedside, reaching for the medical equipment while Freya stood beside him, gripping his hand so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Ingrid’s legs began to shake. The adrenaline that had carried her out of bed was wearing off. Lysander felt her weight shift against him and immediately tightened his arm around her waist.

"You need to sit down," he said firmly.

"Help me, then," Ingrid murmured. "I don’t think I can stand much longer."

Lysander moved carefully, guiding her towards the bed but before she could lower herself onto the seat, a violent cough erupted from Zeke’s bed.

Freya spun around. Zeke’s body jerked, and a thick stream of blood spilled from his mouth.

"ZEKE!"

The sound that tore from Freya’s throat was almost a scream. She lunged towards him, but another convulsion seized his body before she could reach him, forcing his shoulders against the mattress. More blood poured from his mouth, far more than he had coughed up before. His arms twitched violently, and the blue veins across his neck stood out so sharply that they looked ready to burst through his skin.

"What the hell is happening?" Maya shouted, rushing to his side. She grabbed a cloth and tried to clear the blood from his mouth, but another surge followed almost immediately. "His body is rejecting something! Freya, step back and give me room!"