Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) Read Free

no, that didn’t make sense. They knew who I was. They’d said, “It’s her.”   If they’d injected me with something infectious, I wouldn’t be here, in my room, with Zed not even wearing a mask. I would be quarantined. So maybe it had been some sort of poison?
    I groaned. I couldn’t think. Maybe Zed would be able to tell me what my diagnosis was. If the doctor had come, my brother would know the result, since he’d obviously been at my bedside since the day before.  
    I went back into my room, sat down on my bed, and gently shook Zed’s shoulder.  
    He jerked awake, eyes wide and bleary, and looked around. “I’m up, I’m up! What’s wrong?” His eyes focused on me, and then his lips parted in a relieved smile. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m so glad you finally woke up. I mean, the doctor did say we should expect you to sleep for a long time as your body fought off the virus, but when you didn’t wake up for three days, I started to wonder—”
    “Whoa, whoa,” I said, holding out my hand to stop him. “ Three days? I’ve been sleeping all this time?”
    “Well, yeah. I mean, mostly. I think so.” He looked uncomfortable, awkward, which was rare.  
    I frowned suspiciously. “What do you mean, ‘mostly?’ ”
    He grimaced. “You were having nightmares. Or hallucinations, maybe. The doctor said…”
    “Mom really did pay for a doctor?”
    “Well, yeah. Of course. I mean, she wanted to take you to the hospital, but you know we don’t have that kind of money. What do you remember?”
    I narrowed my eyes. “I got attacked on the street, and they injected me with something. People in masks. I was trying to get home, and I thought maybe they were watching, and there were doctors and machines in a small room. I was tied down…” I trailed off, frowning. “I guess I did get quarantined or something? I thought you said I didn’t go to the hospital.”  
    Zed bit his lip. “Umm, okay. So the doctor said this might be a side effect. All of that stuff didn’t happen. You were probably hallucinating, or maybe just dreaming. He said that in most cases, patients experience paranoid hallucinations during the fever, and possibly afterward, too, and that we should keep an eye on you, and he gave me some sedatives because he said sometimes they continue for a little while after the fever’s over and that if you get too worked up you should take one…” he rambled.  
    I let myself tune out his voice as he went on. Hallucinations. Is that what everything had been? Just my stressed out, overheated brain creating imaginary terrors? “But they seemed so real,” I murmured, cutting off his explanation of the sedatives. But maybe I was wrong. “What could cause something like that?”
    “He said it’s a new strand of virus. Usually not deadly, but there’s no treatment for it yet, so he said to just give you lots of fluids and rest and to try to make sure you stayed grounded in reality.” His fingers tapped nervously on his knees, full of nervous energy and the need to help.  
    They were testing out some sort of bioterrorism, then? “Zed, I could have gotten you sick!”
    “No. The doc said it’s not very contagious, and isn’t normally translated through anything except blood. Do you know what may have happened?”
    “I don’t remember anything like that. And I promise I haven’t stuck myself with any used needles lately.” I smirked, then met Zed’s concerned eyes and changed it to a softer smile. “Do you think you could get me something to eat? I’m feeling a bit empty.”  
    He grinned. “Not eating in three days will do that to you, I hear. I’ll go get something. Be right back.”  
    As soon as he was gone, I picked up my ID sheath link and looked up my most recent transaction. Three hundred twelve credits, transportation and sanitation fee.  
    I wasn’t hallucinating everything. So how could I tell what had actually happened?

    * * *

    The back of my neck tingled, and then