Sawyer pinches the bridge of his nose.
For some reason when Sawyer says I'm dying, it sounds so much worse. The reality of everything hits me and I sit beside Grant.
"Explain to me what's going on in this picture?" Grant taps a picture of I don't know what, it's zoomed in and looks really blurry.
Sawyer pinches the bridge of his nose again, his jaw locked.
"Frankly, I don't know. There are these black cells devouring my cells, but then that's it. My white blood cells are attacking it somehow. I don't know." Sawyer shuffles his curls, frustrated.
"And this one?" Grant taps at a different picture.
"That one..." Sawyer huffs out and looks at me. "That one is different. The black cells are eating everything in sight. No white blood cells are being reproduced."
My stomach sinks.
"So what does that mean?" I question. Sawyer looks to his dad, to which Grant encourages him with a nod.
"Means you're dying faster than I am."
"Okay, I don't like the word dying. I'm not dying. I feel fine."
"And you say this all happened because of Whit? You think it's contagious?" Grant says.
"No one else is showing symptoms, just her." Sawyer says. They're talking between each other like I'm not in the room.
"That bloody bastard. I'll kill him." Grant pounds the table with his fist and I jump back.
"Dad." Sawyer seethes.
"He's been after my life long work. Now he's after yours." Grant raises his voice. "When will he give up."
"He wants the fame and fortune. He doesn't care whose on his way." Sawyer shrugs he looks at me. Whit never cared, I'm living proof.
"Why did you really come here? Hell, I know it wasn't to see me." Grant says.
Sawyer takes out a few papers from his satchel and hands them to his father.
"I need your help." Sawyer begrudgingly says.
Grant chuckles, "After all these years."
Sawyers face hardens.
"I'm missing something, I just don't know what." Sawyer says handing Grant all the pictures.
"Oh look, you translated them into Braille for me." Grant says sarcastically. Grant glides his hands across the paper, humming as he does.
I sit quietly, and the more Grant grunts as he reads the closer to the edge of my seat I get.
I catch Sawyer biting his middle finger as he anxiously waits for his father to say something.
"Somethings wrong with this equation. You're missing a carbon atom and what is this, Viper in?"
"Viper what?" I question. Sawyer looks my way.
"It's a, a umm. An interferon-inducible protein that inhibits the replication of a variety of viruses by apparently diverse mechanisms. In some circumstances it also plays a role in intracellular signaling pathways." Sawyer explains. I give him a confused look, as I try to pretend to know what he explained. It went in one ear and out the other.
"Can you make viperin?" I ask, this time my attention on Grant. I feel like he can explain things way better than Sawyer.
"We can synthesize it." Grant says, he doesn't seem sure of what he's saying.
