Joan Ascends

Chapter 8: About damn time

"Is she going to die?"

"Get Flo."

I force my eyes to open. "I'm okay."

"You are far from okay," Justus says, and his eyes are filled with so much fear that I have to look away.

Flo bustles in with Marie, who must have run to get her. Flo checks my blood pressure and peers into my eyes with a light.

"Her blood pressure is dropping. That's what's causing the fainting. It's common with H2IV," Flo says.

"She needs the antidote," Marie insists.

"I already reached out to Lexi this afternoon," Harriet says. "She's sending a courier with the antidote this evening. I think even she was a little freaked out by how sick you've gotten."

"How can we trust her?" Marie asks. "She's the one who infected Joan, and now she could quite possibly be manipulating her thoughts."

Sun shakes his head slowly. "Joan's chip is still blocked from receiving any signals from Strand by the gel. But that doesn't mean that all this is a coincidence. What if the H2IV is triggering these visions she's having?"

My mind races ahead, considering what Sun is saying. "Lexi was blabbing about me being special, that there was a reason that she'd kept me alive and given me special treatment."

Justus tenses. "She knew this would happen."

"She hoped," Sun corrects him. "Strand is known for pushing the boundaries of what is scientifically possible. If Joan isn't being manipulated, then maybe she's accessed a kind of sixth sense that helps her understand cues in the world and make sense of potential future outcomes."

Justus runs his fingers through his messy hair. "If these visions are from Joan, products of her mind making sense of the world, then I trust them."

"I should message Lexi myself and see what she knows," I say, restless in spite of feeling like I've been hit by a bus.

I want to be moving, to find answers as quickly as possible, but my body is too weak to take any kind of real action. I lean back into my pillows and pull my knees against my chest.

"Rest, Joan," Justus says, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. "Figuring out your new superpower can wait."

My eyes are so heavy that I can't argue. "Fine. Just for a little while."

~ ~ ~

At some point in the night, Flo wakes me up and has me drink a foul-tasting concoction that leaves my mouth dry and chalky.

"Antidote?" I whisper, unable to make my voice any louder.

"So they say," Flo replies, eyeing the empty vial doubtfully. "I'm going to run some tests on the residue to see if we can reverse-engineer it and see what this 'cure' actually contains."

I want to stay awake to see if it's working, but I barely finish the thought before I'm unconscious again. When I wake up the next time, Justus is asleep beside me, and one of his arms is across my waist.

There's enough light in the clinic to see his face. He doesn't look relaxed, even in sleep. There's a deep groove between his eyebrows, like he's been worrying so much that it's permanently etched into his skin.

My eyes flicker down to his lips, and I can't help imagining myself finally kissing him. I've wanted to do that for as long as I've known him, but we had no choice but to hold back when he discovered he was Evolved.

But now that the H2IV is active anyway, I could let myself kiss him. Just once, to satisfy the intense craving throbbing beneath my skin. What would he taste like? How would it feel to have his tongue slide against mine?

"Tell me what you're thinking," Justus says, his voice a little slurred with sleep.

My eyes flick back up to his, and I try to stuff all my feelings deep inside so that he won't read my desire in my eyes.

"I'm wondering where everyone else is," I lie.

Justus grins, and my cheeks flush. "That's okay. You don't have to tell me. Our first kiss was never going to be in an underground clinic when I probably have morning breath."

He doesn't have morning breath, though. He smells like mint from the gum he sometimes chews and something else that's just him.

I sit up to put some space between us. Tentatively, I stretch my arms and swing my legs over the side of the bed.

"Flo says that your body is recovering more rapidly than she expected. So far it looks like Lexi wasn't lying about her antidote. How do you feel?"

Nothing hurts. Even my head has stopped aching. When I run my tongue over my gums, they aren't sensitive any longer. I stand and take a few steps to test my balance, and everything is normal.

"I'm better. If Flo manages to figure out what was in that vial, think of how many lives we could save."

"That's another thing I love about you. Lots of people see what's wrong in the world, but you are always finding ways to fix things."

I shake my head. "I've fucked up so badly so many times, Justus. I don't know how you can say that."

"Taking responsibility for the actions of Crew, or Lexi, or Officer Boer, or anyone else is a kind of narcissism, Joan. You didn't control those people. They would have found ways to hurt people no matter what choices you made."

I'm so stunned by Justus's words that I don't know what to say.

Justus must mistake my silence for hurt, because he stands up and takes my hand gently in his. "I know that you only want what's best for everyone, Joan. You have the purest intentions of anyone I've ever known. But even you aren't perfect. And when you take ownership for other people's actions, you take away their agency. For good or for bad."

After that terrible day when Elizabeth, Sacajawea, and so many others were murdered in the Chrysalis, I learned my lesson when it came to making choices for other people, thinking I knew best.

But maybe Justus is right, and that's only half the answer. Maybe I also need to accept that all the blood and pain that has ripped apart Seattle over the past few months isn't my fault, either. Crew and Lexi made their choices, and I've fought with everything I have to stop them.

I put my arms around Justus's neck as these realizations cascade through me. The hard, painful lump of guilt that has been sitting like a rock in my chest seems to shrink, and I take the first deep breath I've had in weeks.

"Justus?"

"Yeah?"

"Your breath is perfect, and this clinic happens to be one of my favorite places in the entire world."

I take a step closer, so that our bodies are flush against each other. Justus's breathing comes faster now, and his eyes dilate when I look up at him.

He bends his head and I rise onto my toes. He's the one to close the last inch of space between us, and when his mouth meets mine every other thought in my head fades away.

Our kiss is gentle at first, exploratory, but when I run my tongue along his bottom lip, he pulls me tighter. Suddenly we're kissing each other urgently, like this is our last kiss as the world explodes around us.

I inhale the smell of him and he pushes his fingers into my hair, tilting my head to deepen our kiss. His lips slide against mine and my tongue grazes his teeth and he groans and—

"Guess the antidote worked," Kat says.

Justus and I pull apart hastily, like we've been caught by Aft instead of one of our best friends.

We're both breathing hard, and I can't tear my eyes away from Justus's.

In my peripheral vision I see that Kat hasn't come alone. Harriet, Mason and Flo are all crowded behind her.

Mason shakes his head and smirks. "About damn time, buddy. About damn time."

A curl of happiness winds through me, lighting me up inside for the first time in months. But that moment of joy is almost immediately snuffed out by a blast of panic. Now that I have something wonderful in my life, I also have something I'm terrified to lose.