Visage | ONC 2023

ELEVEN:

I sat back against a chair in Mertz's lab. My fingers impatiently tapped at the armrests. Mertz, reluctantly, filled a syringe with the untested vaccine. He flicked at the glass, adjusting the liquid inside of it. He eyed the numbers marked on the side.

"Would you stop procrastinating?" Gerry grumbled, standing by my side.

I looked up at him, curiously eyeing my boss' expression. He seemed bothered, but also looked intrigued. As if he wanted to see how this would affect me; maybe he was hopeful, who knew? What I knew was that my impatience rang for multiple reasons; I needed to know if the cure would work and if this meant I could see Riley again.

My gaze drifted back to Mertz. He looked at the two of us before focusing on Gerry. "I'm not procrastinating," he said. "I need to make sure this is the right dose."

"How are you supposed to know what's right if you've never tested it before." Gerry tapped his feet. "This is your chance."

"You're being impatient." Mertz returned the veil to the table. "And it's a little annoying, Ger."

"Of course, I'm impatient," Gerry said. "If I wasn't then—" His voice drifted and trailed away. His gaze dropped to the floor.

I sat up in my seat. "Ger, you good?" I asked him. A part of me knew where this was going. And I felt a part of him had deep and hard regrets.

"Yeah." Gerry wouldn't look at me. He looked at the closed door instead. A man passed by the door, footsteps echoing in the hall outside. We all stopped as if listening to it. Then Gerry looked back at me. "You think this is going to work?" he asked me.

Me. He was asking me questions. "I mean," I shrugged. "You never know what's going to work until you try, right?"

"Point." Gerry looked down at his shoes. "Just, whatever happens, you got to come back here, okay?"

What he said made me feel like my thought was right; his regrets were heavy. They had to be about his son. He said he'd killed his son because he hadn't reverted back to normal; he didn't want his son to have this life. If he had waited, if he'd kept him safe, then maybe he could have this vaccine, too. He could have a chance.

But Gerry had been impatient and took his son's life into his own hands.

Passing my tongue over my teeth, I looked away. I was putting a story to the man that gave me one chapter of his life. A sad chapter. Maybe one day he'd confide in me the truth.

Until then, I'd be the guinea pig in this course.

I held my arm out in front of me. "I got good veins, doc," I said, grinning at Mertz. "All that water y'all made me drink."

Mertz sighed and approached me. "I think it's more of the fluids we put in your IV for the last twenty-nine days."

"Sure." I looked at my veins, the visible blue under light brown. "Call it IVs. Call it water. Whatever it is. I've got the spot for the shot."

Gerry snickered and turned away. He waved one hand above his head. "Has to have his jokes in there somehow."

I smirked and focused on the syringe in Mertz's hand. "Like he said."

"Right." The doctor sighed as he reached for my arm, gently holding it in his hand. He tapped the vein before locking eyes with mine. "There will be a pinch. If anything feels off, strange, or downright awful, please say something."

"Noted." I watched as Mertz pressed the needle into my arm. It pinched, just as he said. But it wasn't like I hadn't got a shot before. This was the easy part.