Nature or Nurture: the raising of a monster

Chapter 20

Victor notices his friends are not looking well, and he decides they will have to go home immediately. 'Can you make it to the carriage, Adison and Vincent?' he asks. Vincent answers, 'I feel like I have been trampled by a bull, but I'm in no danger. But check out Adison please, she looks positively grey.' Victor lends Adison his arm, she seems ready to faint, and she takes it gratefully. 'What is wrong with you, love?' Vincent asks her worriedly. Adison looks bad, with a black eye and a bruise on her cheek, getting darker by the minute. She says: 'I'm having trouble focussing, and I feel nauseous. Head hurts.' Victor says: 'You're concussed Adison, you need rest, but no deep sleep.' And looking at Vincent: 'You cannot watch her, you need sleep more than anything. Neither of you is in any shape to do anything for Miss Yves anymore, I'm bringing you home. If this hasn't worked, there will have to be another time.' So they leave Miss Yves in the care of Sembene and Sir Malcolm, and get a ride home in the coach. Victor and Mina help their friends into their bed, where Victor cleans Vincent's wounds carefully, checking if the stitches have held. They have, but the wounds too small to stitch have opened up again, and the whole left side of his body is bruised. Victor bandages Vincent back up, and then leaves him to take a good sleep. Mina helps Adison out of her clothes, and when Victor is done with Vincent they examine her to rule out internal damage and they check the seriousness of her head trauma. To be on the safe side, Mina decides to stay with her and watch her through the night. 'Victor, will you stay here with Vincent? I have to take Adison to my room, I cannot risk daylight here.' And with that, she lifts the smaller girl easily and takes her to her own bed.

Once there, she installs her in her bed, then fetches a book and a candle. When she returns, Adison is still awake, so Mina sits beside her and strokes her hair softly. 'Can't sleep? Do you miss your man next to you? You can lie close to me, I'm not all muscle, but a woman's softness can be comforting too.' This makes Adison smile, but: 'Actually, I have a raging headache, can I have a painkiller? Or would that be dangerous?' Mina laughs and says: 'I'd say that as long as it doesn't make you sleep unnaturally deeply, you can take one. But you're the doctor here. Do you want me to ask Victor? He's probably still awake.' Adison whispers: 'Yes, please. I don't quite trust my own judgement.' Mina quietly leaves the bed and walks the few doors to Adison's bedroom. There she moves to the side where Victor is trying to fall asleep after his exiting night. She nuzzles him and asks in a low voice: 'Adison wants to know if she can take a painkiller. And if so, where do I find it?' He sits up and says: 'I'll show you, I cannot sleep anyway.' She takes some time to kiss him, then they go into the study to fetch the painkiller. Victor shows her the different kinds, giving her one that only relieves pain, not one that induces sleep. As Mina fetches a glass of water and takes the painkiller to Adison, Victor checks on Vincent's temperature and breathing, then crawls into bed again. Still astounded with what happened in the evening with Mina, he falls asleep.

Adison is still awake when Mina comes back, and she is glad to take the painkiller. Mina settles back on the bed next to her, as Adison asks her: 'Do you love him?' Mildly, Mina replies: 'Shouldn't you go to sleep, you have concussion'. Adison lies back and says: 'I can't sleep yet, head still hurts too much.' 'Yes Adison, I'm very much in love with your friend Victor. I think I have a bad case of love at first sight. As a young girl I hoped to fall desperately in love with the man of my dreams, but I never met him. I was engaged to marry a handsome man once, and I finally married another, but I did not fall in love with either of them until I had known them for some time. And when I got turned I didn't care anymore, the world was my plaything and men were just food or amusement. The last thing I would have expected was to become more or less human again and then fall head over heels in love with the first man I met. My girlhood dream finally came true.' Adison reflects: 'I must have been a very strange girl, for I never dreamed of men at all. All I wanted was to learn as much as I could and then become a doctor.' Here, Mina observes: 'And still you found true love...' Adison seems surprised by this remark: 'I suppose we did. I never saw it that way. We were not looking for that kind of love, it just happened. You might say true love found us.'