Chapter 7 - The Trial of Fire
The forty-eight hours that followed were a waking nightmare.
Inside the sterile, glass-walled isolation suite, Nicholas was plunged into a storm of violent physiological reactions as the experimental gene vectors began attacking the cellular structure of the brain tumor.
High fevers racked his body, pushing his temperature to dangerous levels. He thrashed against the restraints, crying out in agony as the swelling in his brain fluctuated wildly.
Iris never left his side.
Wearing a protective gown and mask, she sat on a stool beside his bed for two days straight, holding a cool cloth against his burning forehead, whispering into his ear through every wave of delirium.
"Iris..." Nicholas cried out at three in the morning during the second night, his eyes wide, glazed over with fever, looking straight through her as if she were a shadow. "Where... where is she? Don't take her... don't take the maid..."
"I'm right here, Nicholas!" Iris wept, taking his thrashing hand and pressing it fiercely against her face. "Look at me! It's Iris! I'm here!"
"They... they paid her to leave," Nicholas mumbled incoherently, his body trembling violently. "Everyone leaves when the money runs out... my mother... Victoria... everyone..."
"I didn't leave!" Iris shouted over the rhythmic shriek of the heart monitors. "I don't care about your money, Nicholas! I love you! Do you hear me? I love you!"
Nicholas’s body suddenly went rigid. His breath caught in his chest. His bloodshot eyes locked onto hers, the glazed haze momentarily clearing as her words pierced through the wall of his fever.
"Iris...?" he whispered weakly.
"Yes! It's me!" she sobbed, kissing his burning knuckles repeatedly. "You have to stay, Nicholas! You have to fight! We have a home to build! We have cold days in Chicago to fix! Please... don't leave me alone!"
A single tear rolled down Nicholas’s flushed cheek. His hand tightened around hers with a sudden, miraculous surge of strength.
"I... I hear you," he choked out.
Then, his eyes rolled back, and his heart rate monitor plummeted into a deep, terrifyingly low rhythm.
"Cardiogenic shock!" Dr. Weber shouted, bursting into the room with a team of nurses. "Step back, Miss Vance! Administer two milligrams of epinephrine! Charge the defibrillator!"
"No!" Iris shrieked as nurses pushed her back against the glass wall.
"Charging to two hundred!" Dr. Weber called out. "Clear!"
Thump!
Nicholas’s broad chest arched off the bed. The monitors shrieked a flatline tone that sliced straight through Iris’s soul.
"Charging to three hundred! Clear!"
Thump!
Iris collapsed onto her knees behind the glass wall, sliding her hands down the cold surface, her world dissolving into pure, unadulterated agony. "Please... God, please... not him. Take everything I have, but leave me him..."
Beep... beep... beep...
A single, weak pulse registered on the screen. Then another. Then a steady, rhythmic cadence.
Dr. Weber checked the pupil responses, then looked back at Iris through the glass, letting out a long, exhausted breath.
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"The fever is breaking," Dr. Weber announced, her voice shaking slightly. "The intracranial pressure is dropping. The tumor... the blood supply has been severed."
Iris sat on the cold floor, covering her face with her hands, sobbing uncontrollably as the dark clouds of death finally began to recede from the room.
