"So, you had a heart-to-heart with Olga?" I asked.
Stas became serious and cast me a quick glance, as if afraid to be distracted from the road.
"We did. And we said our goodbyes," he said, brushing the strands of hair from his forehead. "She said she was tired of being like us. It turned out Mom had long urged Vladimir to find a way to restore her humanity, but he refused outright. He was afraid of causing harm. After all, they had been together for centuries. Then all the chaos with Galina happened, and Nikita asked him for the same. He wanted to get rid of the thirst, to become normal. He said he was willing to do anything, and you know Vladimir: he just loves experimenting. Father was glad to find a volunteer he didn't care about, and he took it on. Vladimir did something with samples of your blood, extracted something from them — he didn't explain the details to us yesterday, and the results didn't take long to appear."
I was stunned by what I heard, not knowing whether to be happy for Karimov or envious. If he managed to become human, fate had played a cruel and ironic joke on me: it seemed unfair that after everything, Nik was the one to get what I could only dream of.
"So Nikita is human now?" I asked.
Stas shrugged.
"At first, Dad thought he had succeeded: Nikita's thirst receded, and his abilities were broken. Vladimir planned to wait a bit to observe any arising complications and adjust the formula, but Olga wouldn't listen. As soon as Dad left for work, she took the serum from the lab and injected herself."
"That sounds reckless on her part. Kind of dumb, actually," I said skeptically, but softened my words, thinking it was still Stas's mother we were talking about. "No offense."
Stanislas calmly kept his eyes on the road.
"Desperate actions provoke desperate decisions," he said thoughtfully, then continued, "Even to think that the solution would come so quickly, it was madness for Dad to start. Vladimir understood that miracles don't happen, but Olga wanted to believe only in them. I don't know, maybe vampires get dumber with age? Your mother's been alive a long time, has seen a lot, and yet this absurd desperate act."
Stas frowned, lost in thought. He stared ahead as if answers to questions spinning in his mind were hidden just beyond the horizon, but he couldn't reach them. Ending his internal debate, he waved his hand and resumed:
"At first, her reaction was roughly the same as Nikita's, with one exception: her body started catching up with the years she had actually lived. Vladimir couldn't notice this with Nik: he'd lived about as long as I have. But Olga's body began to wither. That's why she looks so ill now."
"Is she dying?" I asked.
"We don't know for sure, but the conclusion seems obvious," Stas pressed the accelerator, making the car speed along the highway. "I don't believe her body has a couple of extra years left once the serum catches up with the lived years. She knows it's the end. We all know it's the end, but no one says it out loud. It turned out that Dad was gradually moving Olga's things to another apartment in secret. So we wouldn't notice, but we still felt something was wrong."
Stas came to a sudden stop at a traffic light, as if deciding at the last moment not to break the rules.
"Vladimir isn't sure he can fix everything before her body reaches its limits, and Olga… seems to have accepted her fate entirely. You know, she talks about the end as if she's glad it's coming soon, and asks us to do nothing, to accept this strange, twisted choice. We argued even worse yesterday than when you were here, and she left. She said she wanted to find out what it's like to be an ordinary human."
Stas's jaw tensed. Memories of yesterday's events brought him pain, and I didn't know how to help: even I couldn't handle it myself.
"Don't you think going to her now might be a bad idea?" I asked as gently as I could. I least of all wanted a new meeting with his mother to rip off the scab of a still-healing wound and hurt Stas again. If he had already made up his mind, maybe there was no point in trying to talk him out of it. There are paths people consciously choose to satisfy some inner need. A friend can warn of the risks, but no one can make the decision for another, because the responsibility never falls on the adviser. Sometimes negative experiences are necessary to move forward. And it doesn't matter if we like someone's choice or not. A friend can only accept it and be there when it's time to pay the price.
Stas bit his lower lip, as he always did when he got nervous, and I noticed his hand gripping the steering wheel tighter.
"I wouldn't go to her, even if I knew where she went. I have a general idea where Olga lives now. I'm sure Vladimir will be watching her from afar in case things turn backward, and mother starts contacting one of us again, or worse, a creature like Galina. We can't allow that. Nikita is staying at our house, and maybe father can track changes in him sooner."
I tried to ignore every mention of Nikita, afraid to ask about him. I needed time to start seeing Karimov as just an acquaintance and not think about what his appearance in my life had cost me, which was difficult whenever Stas brought him up.
A mask of cold seriousness darkened Stanislav's face, promising nothing good.