Page 56 of This Vicious Hunger

“Make me.” Olea bites down on her inner cheek and spits a bloody glob at the doctor. Petaccia only steps to the side, as if she expected exactly this. As if this is not the first time Olea has spat or shouted at her, and as if she simply doesn’t care.

“Oh, Olea, stop being childish. Isn’t it time you admitted that this is bigger than you? Bigger than all of us in this room? This is about the future of humanity.”

“I never asked to be a part of this.”

“No, that is true enough, but you’ve been a part of it since birth and I’m afraid that was a sacrifice I was absolutely willing to make.

I’d do it again if it got us here. Wouldn’t you?

Look at you both! Back from the dead in full glory.

I know you feel a bit unsteady now, but in half an hour you’ll be right as rain.

I’d bet my doctorate on it.” She laughs, as though this is the funniest thing she’s ever said.

“What do you mean?” I ask, taking in Olea’s stricken expression. What colour was left in her cheeks has leached away and the effect is eerie, like looking at a ghost. “A sacrifice you were willing to make—are you talking about Olea ?”

“Florencia?” Olea prompts. “Tell me it isn’t true.”

“Well, I couldn’t exactly try the microdosing many other ways, could I?

” Petaccia sighs. It is a petulant sound, small, although it sends the story of Olea’s life down like a house of cards.

“I’ve always suspected it was part of the equation, though I’ll admit I wasn’t sure exactly how it would all fit together.

I suppose I was wrong, in that way. But I did manage to prove that consistent dosing of the toxins can cause a certain level of synchronicity—”

“ You did this?” I don’t try to keep the horror from my voice. “You made her this way?”

Petaccia shrugs again. “It started during my pregnancy. The garden called to me then. So perhaps it wasn’t all my fault—”

“Olea is yours?” I fight to my feet, leaving Olea slumped on the flagstones. I’m not sure what I intend to do, but the rage is blinding and I can hardly stop myself as I stride—or attempt to stride—across the room. “What happened to ‘I am no mother’?”

Petaccia doesn’t even back away. She holds her ground, and it is only then I realise she’s not unarmed.

In one hand she carries a knife with a blade so pointed it makes me feel sick.

None of us know how this works, how the antidote has changed us, how precarious our fresh grasp on life might be.

Flashes of my nightmares stutter and all I see is blood. I falter.

“Semantics, Thora. As you said yourself. She was the garden’s before she was mine,” Petaccia says matter-of-factly.

“I have never considered myself a mother. I dreamt of this place constantly, and when I wasn’t by the wall it felt a little like going mad.

I made a mistake the first time, let Niccolò get in my head, let him lord his experience over me.

‘Your father wouldn’t have wanted this,’ blah blah.

As if he really knew what my father would have wanted.

My father was the one who gave me the bloody idea.

Of course, by the time I brought the child in, it was too late, and Niccolò never let me have enough time.

By the second pregnancy I knew that early exposure was absolutely vital to maintain a certain level of health.

Niccolò tried to sabotage me every step of the way, spineless little man that he was, nothing was ever good enough, but I learned from the first time, and frankly he looked better under his little burial mound in the trees.

” She smirks. Olea’s face has grown still.

“When I tell you I have never been so sick in my life as those months.” Petaccia lets out a cheerful chuckle, as if the murder of her child’s father, and the lifelong, systematic abuse of her daughter, is a fucking joke.

“But I was determined. I couldn’t do it to myself, you understand—too impractical—but a child?

It turns out if you introduce them early enough, frequently enough, they can adapt to anything.

Of course, I never meant for any of it to manifest outwardly.

I was aiming for immunity, not conformity, but I suppose the end result is the same.

In any case: a little poison each day keeps the outside world at bay. ”

Olea is entirely speechless. Is it disbelief?

Dissociation? Or is that more resignation I see in her face?

Tears well in her eyes but she refuses to let them fall, her throat bobbing with each painful swallow.

Petaccia’s singsongy voice shows no sign of remorse.

In fact, there is nothing about her behaviour that even hints at apology. She’s fucking insane.

“Let me get this straight,” I say with as much fight as I can muster. “You microdosed through your whole pregnancy, then dumped your daughter in the garden and prayed she’d become a monster?”

Olea flinches at the word, but Petaccia does not.

“No.” The doctor examines the blade of her knife with the same quizzical stare I’ve seen levelled at her seedlings. “I prayed she would solve the puzzle. And now look, here we are, albeit in a roundabout sort of way—”

“No fucking thanks to you.”

“Entirely fucking thanks to me, actually.” Petaccia glares, flashing the knife.

Still, I can’t bring myself to feel guilty for my language.

“If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have been possible.

And now, here we are, staring down the barrel of the greatest scientific discovery the world has ever known.

Do you understand the door you two have just unlocked?

I’ve checked both your vitals and you’re doing excellent.

A bit of muscle weakness, but I’m sure that will pass.

I have a few questions about what the next few days will look like—I think we should treat this as a kind of clinical trial, given that we’re already here—”

“The only door we’ve unlocked is the one I’m about to walk right through,” I snap. “I can’t speak for Olea, but I will not be sticking around to help you with any kind of trial. I never agreed to this.”

Petaccia laughs. The sound is throaty, so like Olea’s laughter when I first met her in the garden that I freeze in place.

Olea has hardly moved, barely blinked; she stares at the wall ahead as though she’s trying to imagine she is anywhere but here.

I don’t blame her, but it would be nice to have some support.

“You think you’re just going to walk out of here? After everything I’ve done for you? I don’t think so.”

“You said yourself, we’re perfectly well now. Why should we stay? I can’t think of anything worse than being stuck in this place while you play doctor.”

“I said you were doing excellently,” Petaccia concedes, “but we still have the question of how your bodies will adjust to the added toxins. At the very least I need you here until we understand how the antidote interacts with the latent toxicity in—”

“We’re still poison, aren’t we.” Olea glances away from the wall, finally meeting my gaze again. I hadn’t considered this until Olea said it, but the possibility sinks in with surprising speed. Petaccia may have removed her mask, but she is still dressed with good coverage.

“Both of us?”

“I haven’t had the time to properly assess—”

“Both of us?” I say again, louder.

“Early signs point to yes.” Petaccia waves the knife in the direction of the door, where two hares hang unnoticed from the knob, their bodies limp; green-black tendrils extend from their mouths, marking their fur akin to tabby stripes, and their eyes are the cloudy grey of skies before a storm.

This is the final straw. I sink to my knees again, relieved when they bark in familiar, living pain. All I did to protect myself from the garden this time and none of it matters. I’m as toxic as Olea is. I don’t cry, but sickness swirls and I dry heave a couple of times.

“Yes, well.” Petaccia sheathes the knife, clearly no longer worried I’ll attack her.

“Enough with all that. There’s no evidence yet it won’t pass with time, so I suggest you both try to ride it out.

I’ll leave you to it, but do make sure you make a note of any symptoms over the next couple of days, positive or negative. I’ll be back to check on you shortly.”

I watch her go, considering—briefly—how easy it might be to launch myself at her right now.

If I’m poison, then I can get rid of her, no problem.

It would be immensely satisfying to see her collapse, her skin greying and that horrid inkiness spreading from my touch.

She hasn’t developed any tolerance for this new version of us, after all.

But the rational part of my brain holds me in place.

Without Petaccia we would be technically “free,” but then what?

The antidote was supposed to cure Olea of her deathly touch, not make me the same.

What if our toxicity doesn’t pass?