Chapter 18 : Blood Price
The blood formed three constructs simultaneously: blade, shield, floating spikes.
I stood in the center of the Lockwood ruins at 5 AM, pushing harder than I ever had before. Three blood bags emptied into the metal bowl. Three weapons maintained at once. My concentration stretched across all of them like a rubber band pulled to breaking.
More.
I added a fourth construct—a tendril that coiled around a nearby tree. My vision started to tunnel at the edges. I ignored it.
More.
A fifth construct. Blood armor creeping up my forearm.
My nose started bleeding.
The warmth trickled down my upper lip, and some distant part of my brain recognized this as a warning sign. Internal pressure. Vessel stress. The kind of damage that happened when you pushed a body past its limits.
I didn't stop.
If I can't save Vicki, I can at least become strong enough to save everyone else.
The logic was stupid. I knew it was stupid. But the frustration from the past two days had to go somewhere, and training was the only outlet I had.
Six constructs now. The clearing was a web of red—blade hovering to my left, shield covering my front, spikes orbiting overhead, tendril wrapped around wood, armor on my arm, and now a stake forming in my right hand.
My head pounded. Black spots danced in my peripheral vision.
Hold it. Hold it. Hold—
Everything collapsed at once.
The constructs splashed apart, blood raining across the clearing in a crimson curtain. I dropped to my knees, hands hitting the grass, head bowed as the world spun in nauseating circles.
The nosebleed intensified. Not just a trickle now—actual flow, dripping onto the ground below my face.
Too far. Way too far.
I managed to crawl to the fallen log where I usually rested, then lay back on the grass and focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. The sky above was gray-pink with dawn, and a headache was building behind my eyes that made the worst hangover of my previous life seem like a mild inconvenience.
I'd pushed past the limit. Past the warning signs. Past the point where my body could compensate.
The cost was this: blood leaking from my nose, a migraine that felt like ice picks through my skull, and complete exhaustion that made even lifting my hand seem impossible.
Limits exist for reasons.
The thought came wrapped in my old self's voice—the twenty-eight-year-old who'd died at his desk from pushing too hard. Different context, same lesson. You couldn't save anyone if you destroyed yourself first.
A butterfly landed on my chest.
It was small—orange and black, probably a monarch—and it seemed completely unconcerned with the bloody human it was using as a perch. It sat there, wings slowly opening and closing, while I lay in the grass and tried to remember how breathing worked.
I didn't move. Just watched. Just breathed.
The butterfly stayed for nearly a minute, then lifted off and fluttered toward the tree line. I tracked its path until it disappeared among the leaves.
Okay.
I wiped my nose with my sleeve—the bleeding had stopped, probably accelerated by my healing factor—and slowly pushed myself to a sitting position.
The clearing was a mess. Blood everywhere, constructs dissolved, evidence of my breakdown splattered across every surface. I'd need to clean it up before leaving.
But first, I needed to process.
What just happened?
I'd lost control. Not of the blood—of myself. The frustration about Vicki, the helplessness, the fear—I'd channeled all of it into training, and I'd pushed past every limit I knew I had.
The result was collapse. Internal damage. A warning that couldn't be ignored.
You can't control Vicki. You can barely control yourself.
The lesson was brutal but necessary. I'd been treating my powers like a solution to every problem, like the blood manipulation could fix whatever was broken in my life. But powers didn't work that way. They were tools, not answers.
I couldn't force Vicki into recovery. I couldn't fight addiction with blood spikes. I couldn't train hard enough to outrun the fear.
Some things required a different approach.
I cleaned up the clearing slowly, my body protesting every movement. The blood responded to my will even now—weakly, sluggishly, but it still obeyed—and I gathered it back into the bowl, then poured what I could salvage into a spare container.
The blood bags were empty. I'd burned through 1350 milliliters in one reckless session, and I'd have to start the donation cycle over.
Stupid. So stupid.
But the lesson was learned. I wouldn't push like that again.
The drive home was slow. My head throbbed with every bump in the road, and twice I had to pull over to make sure I wasn't going to pass out. By the time I reached the trailer, the sun was fully up and I could hear Vicki moving around in the kitchen.
I sat in the truck for a long moment, gathering myself.
Different approach.
I couldn't force Vicki to change. But I could keep showing up. Keep making breakfast. Keep being present in a way no one else in her life was. The vervain tea would protect her from compulsion. The rest was up to her.
And I could train smarter. Build strength gradually instead of burning out in spectacular fashion. Respect the limits of my body while expanding them incrementally.
Control. Not the desperate, grasping kind I'd tried this morning. The patient, sustainable kind that actually worked.
I climbed out of the truck and headed inside.
Vicki was at the kitchen table, eating toast. She looked up when I entered, and something flickered across her face—concern, maybe, at my obviously rough state.
"You look like hell."
"Long run." The lie came automatically. "Pushed too hard."
She nodded like she understood. Maybe she did.
I sat across from her and poured myself water, drinking slowly, letting my body recover. The headache was fading to a dull throb. The nosebleed had completely stopped.
"Matt?"
I looked up.
Vicki was watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read. "I know I scared you. The other night."
"Yeah."
"I'm not..." She stopped. Tried again. "I'm not saying I'll go to rehab. But I'll try harder. Okay?"
It wasn't a promise of recovery. It wasn't even close to enough.
But it was something.
"Okay," I said.
We finished breakfast in silence, and then I went to lie down.
Sixty-eight days until Stefan arrives.
The countdown continued. But I was learning—about my powers, about my sister, about myself.
Some lessons came with a price. I was willing to pay it.
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