Taking the Leap

Chapter 30

~Xander~

I opened my eyes, seeing that I was in a room I didn't recognize and it was crowded.  Both my parents were there, along with Elle, her wife, Achilles' mom Lily, Harrison, and then Achilles, looking like I'd never seen him before. He looked smaller somehow, hunched in on himself and his face was splotchy and red, like he'd been  crying. Achilles was still wearing his dress shirt stained with soy sauce. There seemed to be some kind of argument going on.

The room was a series of whites and blues and looking down at my arm and seeing an Iv attached. So, I was in a hospital, on a hospital bed. I looked at the monitor alongside me, seeing my heart beating away. Vampires in their resting state had extremely slow heartbeats. I would be dead if I were a human, but my heart rate was a bit fast, even now. Probably because of how freaked out I was.

My father's voice was the loudest in the room. "Don't tell me to calm down, Amma. This would never have happened if not for him!"He pointed at Achilles with a shaking finger.

I expected Achilles to stick up for himself, but if anything he only further slouched, mumbling quietly. "I'm sorry."

"I saw Xander just today and he was perfectly fine. Hours later and he's...like this." My father's pale skin was drawn tight over his features and I'd never heard him sound afraid before. He normally looked confident, blond hair always kept a bit long as the fashions changed but now resting in an elegant top knot. He had the tendency to stroke his thick beard absently when in thought. But, now his voice was shaking and he was holding my mother's hand like it was the only thing keeping him stable.

I cleared my throat. "C'mon Papa, don't bully my boyfriend." My voice sounded rusty but it was still me.

Every eye shot to me and there was a rush of voices all addressing me at once. I put a hand up to my face, trying to shush the cacophony of noise. "Please. Let's all just calm down." I looked at Achilles, who was looking at me like I was a ghost, eyes wide and his lower lip trembling. "What happened to me and where am I?"

I scooted over on the bed, tapping the side so Achilles could get the hint. He ignored me, rubbing hard at the silver bracelet on his wrist.

A tanned woman in scrubs moved into the middle of the semi circle of people crowding around my bed. Her name tag said 'Kiara' on it. She clasped her hands together. "Okay, family only. I'll update the rest of you later."

Elle came up to my bed, kissing me quickly on the cheek and ruffling my hair before she squeezed my shoulder and left. Audrey gripped my hand before following Elle. Harrison and Achilles' mom waved, and then left. Eventually, it was just my parents and Achilles. He looked torn as to whether or not he should go but I saw the doctor gesture for him to sit in a chair beside the bed.

"Will someone tell me what's going on here?" I said in a loud voice, getting more and more annoyed by the second.

My parents sat down in two chairs beside Achilles, my mom sitting between him and my father. My mom patted my knee, her lips trembling slightly but she didn't say anything. It was weird seeing my mom and dad clearly leaning on one another for comfort.

The doctor held up a clipboard, and tapped on it a few times before she started speaking. "So, Alexander was admitted here because of a code red. My colleagues and I originally thought it was a code red: blood rejection. But, when we looked at his blood we realized it was more complicated than that."

I shivered, suddenly afraid. I'd had blood rejections before, every vamp did. It was just the way things were when using blood banks. It was the equivalent of indigestion or food poinsioning for humans. Rare, but it happened. But, nothing like this. I'd never passed out before. "It's not like I can get sick. I only feed from the hearth blood bank and from my boyfriend, and Achilles is just fine." I said in a hard voice.