Something cold doused my fiery skin. Light’s flickered on. The sound of scissors opening. Fabric ripping. Everything went dark again.

...

“Maribelle, I have to stay with him. I can’t leave him, he needs me! Maribelle, please!” My eyes fluttered open to the sound of a sobbing woman. Emery. I shot up in my bed and immediately regretted it. Burning pain spread all around my body as I curled in on myself. “Dios mios, Ollie!”

Small, warm hands gently pushed me back against the mattress. My head pounded like the drummer of a heavy metal band. The only thing I could see was a blurry person right above me. The small, warm hands lingered over something on my neck. When they skimmed the edge of the wound a cry ripped itself from my chest. The person backed up. Emery backed up.

“I think that maybe you should let me deal with this. I mean, Honey, you wouldn’t even let me address his chest. Why did he have so many bandages wrapped around him?”

Shit. She knew. Emery and Maribelle both knew.

“Maribelle, I can’t tell you that, but I know how to treat this. I’ve prepared for this because I knew, even before the fucking apocalypse, that I would probably have to do this. Ollie needs my help, and I can’t leave him here to die!” There was shuffling, my vision was starting to become less blurry, but everything was still grey.

“I can’t let you be here when he dies. I won’t let you see him turn. I want the last thing you see of Ollie is him sleeping. I won’t let you force yourself to put him down or worse. I won’t let you let yourself get bitten. Honey, please leave.” I sat up again, more slowly. The fire was contained to a dull roar. Emery had hatred and tears in her eyes. Maribelle was pushing her back. Emery reached for the med cart and tried to shove it into Maribelle, but Maribelle stopped it with her foot.

“Emery!” My voice crackled and rasped. It felt like I had never taken a drink of water in my life. The pounding in my head increased tenfold. The colors were back now, and I was swimming in green. Maribelle and Emery stopped. Emery dropped to her knees and let the tears run down her face.

“Ollie?” I almost didn’t hear it, but her croaky whisper was just audible over the hum of the fan. I nodded.

Emery stood up and ran over to me. Her movements were wild, she seemed desperate. Her hand reached the bed, and she crumpled to the ground again. Emery was blubbering and sobbing by my bedside. Her tears soon turned to a frenzy of rage.

“Ollie, how could you? You idiot! Do you even know how terrible ace wraps are for binding? If you weren’t half dead, I would kill you myself. What the hell were you thinking? Why didn’t you tell me? Ollie, do you know the kind of internal damage you could have given yourself? You could have died! Your ribs could have broken and then pierced your lungs or heart. You could have bled to death, and I wouldn’t have known that you were hurt until you were already gone! Ollie!” Emery pressed her face into the mattress and screamed. I appreciated that she tried to muffle the noise, but I still winced. The wince hurt more than the noise.

After a few deep breaths, Emery sat up again. I squinted at her, my glasses were who knows where, and everything was more cloudy than I was used to it being. Bits of hair were clinging to her face, her curls were covered in blood, a bandage was wrapped around her wrist. Emery brought her bloodstained hand up to my face; it shook and looked so cold. Warmth soothed the pounding in my forehead for a second as she pushed the sweaty black hair off of my forehead. Maribelle cleared her throat.

“Well, now that I know why Emery wouldn’t let me check you, I understand. I still should have been made aware of this, we have things to help transitioning people. But, Emery does know about the bite, Oliver.” My heart dropped to my stomach. I felt Emery tense for a second, but she continued pushing my hair back until she was satisfied with my forehead being clear. “Emery had to rip your shirt open. She also had to cut through the ace wrap. She doused the bite in hydrogen peroxide and actually had get pieces of skin out of your bite. You almost bled to death.” I was quiet for a second. So many words were swirling around in my head, but I could only manage to get one sentence out.

“Why am I not dead?” Maribelle laughed. She pushed her gold-rimmed glasses firmly against her face and pulled up her sleeve. Maribelle always wore long sleeves. It usually was a white cotton underneath her grey work shirt. Her tawny skin was in great contrast to the pale, blurry circle on her forearm. I met her eyes, she had a smirk on her face.

“I also used to have brown eyes like Emery, but now I have these things,” Maribelle gestured to her eyes and stepped closer. I had never really paid close attention to them, but now I could just see that they looked just like Neo’s. Grey and very reflective. Almost like a mirror.

Emery took her hands and grabbed my face gently, she stared at my eyes. She looked almost sad when she realized that mine looked like Maribelle’s.

“Welcome to the club. Neo also has a bite mark. Your secret is safe with me but keep it far away from Nestor. He knows that Neo and I are immune, and he takes advantage of it. I usually have to deal with all of the patients that turn, but I can’t use a gun so close to the med ward unless the sirens are going off.” It all started to click together. It made more sense the Neo had been sent out to gather up survivors, and it explained why I had only ever seen him without his face mask once. The day he held his son for the first time.

“Does Darcy know?” Emery had pulled herself up to sit on the edge of my bed, her face turned towards Maribelle. She spoke with a soft voice.

“Oh, yeah.” Maribelle acted like it was obvious, but I could tell that Emery was as unsure as I was. Maribelle sighed. “Well, I’m going to check the back to see if we still have some testosterone. When we hit a bunch of pharmacies, we took all of the stock. I think we might have a spare binder from a member who is no longer with us.” Emery stood up.

“Oh, I have that stuff. I got it from John.” I let my head thump against the mattress. I was an idiot. She had a binder in her hands that night, it wasn’t some weird boyfriend proposal. Why didn’t she give it to me sooner if she went through the trouble of getting it?

Emery walked over to where a small satchel bag was resting in the corner. She rummaged around until she produced a black chest binder and a bottle of testosterone. My face started to hurt from how hard I was smiling.

My only binder had gotten trashed after Emery and I escaped the school. To get back to my house, I had to wiggle underneath my family's chain link fence. I got caught on one of the edges and tore up my back, and my binder. Emery and I stayed in my house for a week. I used that time to stockpile everything into duffel bags and call my mother every hour, my dad every two hours. Emery tried calling her parents, but when she rang her little sister and all she got were screams, she didn’t try again. In the basement, I found some old packages of ace bandages from before I came out to my parents, I snuck into the bathroom and used them. Emery never knew that I had been wearing them and changing them constantly, until she cut my shirt off. We left the house in the middle of the day, and I never wanted to go back.

Emery placed the binder on my lap and got a syringe from the cart. She looked at Maribelle; Maribelle nodded. Emery filled the syringe up with the testosterone and walked towards me. I tried moving the blanket out of the way, but my hand felt heavy. Maribelle saw me struggle and piped up.

“The first few days are tough, but after that, it’s like normal. The longer the recovery time is with the more bites you get though, so try to stay out of trouble.” I nodded. Emery took the covers and pulled them back. I was wearing a white cotton hospital gown; she looked at me to see if it was ok for her to pull the edge of it up. I nodded. Emery gently hiked the gown up, and she injected the shot into my thigh at a 90-degree angle. The ache had already started blossoming after the pinching, but I was so excited to get back on testosterone. My body fat distribution was going to start going back, my muscles were going to get a little bulkier, my menstruation cycle was going to stop again.

With the binder, my chest wasn’t going to hurt as bad. There would still be some irritation, but my ribs wouldn’t feel like they were about to snap from the pressure. My lungs wouldn’t hurt as bad everything I exhaled. I was going to feel like myself again.

Emery stood up again and walked over to her bag. She set the bottle and syringe in there neatly. Maribelle stepped next to me and started talking.

“Well, Oliver, I know that this is a little awkward since I’m not your doctor, but I do know a bit about the subject. If you have questions you can ask me, or have Emery ask me. Ok, Honey?” I nodded, the grin still across my face. “Ok. I’m going to let you rest now. Neo will talk to you soon. Stay safe, both of you.” She looked over at Emery who just blushed.

Maribelle walked out of the room, and Emery walked back over to me. Sunlight was starting to stream in through the blinds.

“Estoy muy cansada, can I sleep next to you?” I looked up at Emery. Everything was still a tad blurrier than normal, but the purple circles under her eyes stood out. I nodded and tried to scoot over; Emery laughed at my attempt and walked over to the other side. My body was all on the right side of the bed, so it was easier for her to just rest on the left.

Emery smoothed the blanket out and made sure that I was completely covered before she got in. I could hear her tennis shoes thump against the floor as she took them off. My head turned slowly to look at her. The pounding had gone down a bit, but pain flared up in my neck as it moved. Emery put her hand on my cheek and gently moved my head back. I sighed. The pain let up a bit, but I couldn’t see her face as she rested her arm across my stomach. The hum of the fan lulled us to sleep. I knew that she was smiling as hard as I was.