Chapter 8 Isla's Story Begins
POV: Isla Reid
Location: St. Thomas Hospital, Southwark
Time: Three Weeks After Alpha Ronan's Death
The homeless man in Bay 7 is dying. Everyone knows it. The other nurses have stopped checking on him beyond basic vitals. He's not a priority. Sixty-three years old, liver failure from decades of drinking, no insurance, no family. He'll die in the next twenty-four hours and free up a bed for someone worth saving.
I hate that calculation. I hate that we make it. But I understand it.
I check on him anyway.
"Mr. Patterson." I adjust his IV. The fluid's running slow. Someone reduced the drip rate. Probably Dr. Chen, trying to conserve resources. "How are you feeling?"
Mr. Patterson's eyes open. Yellowed from jaundice, barely focusing. "Thirsty."
"I'll get you water." I pour from the pitcher on his bedside table. Hold the cup while he drinks. His hands shake too much to manage it himself.
"You're kind," Mr. Patterson says. Voice weak, cracking. "The others don't come anymore."
"You're still a patient. You deserve care."
"I'm a drunk who wasted his life. Don't deserve anything."
"Everyone deserves dignity. Especially at the end." I help him lie back down. "Do you need anything else? Pain medication?"
"No. Just. Don't want to die alone."
I sit in the chair beside his bed. I've got twelve other patients, three emergencies waiting, paperwork stacked to my elbows. Sitting with a dying homeless man is objectively a waste of my time.
I sit anyway.
"Tell me about your life," I say. "Before."
Mr. Patterson talks. Rambling, disconnected stories about his childhood in Manchester, his wife who left him, his daughter who hasn't spoken to him in twenty years. Some of it might be true. Some of it's probably confused memory.
I listen to all of it.
He dies forty minutes later. Quietly, mid-sentence, talking about a dog he had as a child. One moment he's breathing, next moment he's not.
I close his eyes. Call the time of death. Fill out the paperwork.
Sarah finds me in the nurse's station an hour later. Sarah Chen, my best friend since nursing school, currently on her break between double shifts.
"You sat with Patterson." Sarah's voice is gentle, not accusatory. "Isla, you can't save everyone."
"I wasn't trying to save him. I was trying to let him die with dignity."
"Noble. Also exhausting." Sarah sits beside me. "You've been here fourteen hours. You're supposed to go home."
"I'm finishing charts."
"You're always finishing charts. You work more than anyone else in this ward. When's the last time you took a day off?"
I think about it. Can't remember. "I like working."
"You like avoiding. There's a difference." Sarah touches my shoulder. "Your mum's care home is paid through next year. Your flat's secure. You don't need to work every shift available."
"I need to build savings. In case Mum needs better care. In case something happens."
"In case the world ends and you're the only one prepared." Sarah smiles. Takes the edge off. "You grew up poor. I get it. But you're not poor anymore. You're a senior nurse at a major hospital. You can breathe occasionally."
"I'll breathe when I'm dead."
"That's morbid."
"That's realistic." I finish the last chart. "Besides, what else would I do? I don't have hobbies. I don't date. Work is what I have."
"That's depressing."
"That's honest."
Sarah sighs. Doesn't argue further. We've had this conversation a hundred times. She thinks I work too much. I think working too much is better than having too much time to think.
My childhood was council estates and free school meals. Dad died when I was twelve. Mum worked three jobs to keep us housed and fed. I watched her destroy herself trying to give me opportunities.
I got into nursing school on scholarship. Worked nights to pay for books. Graduated top of my class because failure meant wasting Mum's sacrifice.
Now Mum's got Alzheimer's. Doesn't remember me most days. Costs eight thousand pounds a month for decent care. I pay it because that's what you do. You take care of family.
Work pays for that care. Work gives me purpose. Work means I'm not the scared twelve-year-old watching Dad's coffin lower into the ground.
So yes, I work too much. Better than the alternative.
"I'm heading home," I say. "Happy?"
"Ecstatic. Try to sleep more than four hours tonight."
"No promises."
I grab my coat and bag. It's past midnight. Night shift's technically over. The hospital's quieter now, just emergency cases and overnight staff.
I wave to the security guard on my way out. Marcus, older Caribbean man who's worked here twenty years. Marcus nods back, already absorbed in his phone.
Outside, London's cold and damp. January rain threatening. I pull my coat tighter and head toward the bus stop.
Then I reconsider. The bus takes forty minutes this time of night. If I cut through the Tabard Gardens Estate, I can walk home in twenty.
I've done it a hundred times. It's fine.
Sarah catches me before I make it off hospital grounds.
"Isla, wait."
I turn. Sarah's in the doorway, backlit by hospital fluorescents.
"Walk home safe, yeah? Through the main roads. Not the estates."
"It's fine. I always cut through Tabard Gardens."
"I know. But there's been incidents lately. Couple nurses got mugged near there last month."
"I'll be careful."
"Isla..."
"I'm tired. I want to get home. The shortcut's faster." I wave. "See you tomorrow."
Sarah looks like she wants to argue more. Doesn't. Just waves back and disappears inside.
I head toward Tabard Gardens Estate.
The estate's a maze of brick council blocks built in the 60s. Fifteen stories tall, narrow walkways between buildings, lighting that's more decorative than functional. During the day it's fine. Families, kids playing, normal urban life.
At night it's different. Darker. Emptier. The kind of place smart people avoid.
I'm not smart. I'm tired and cheap and my flat's on the other side.
I enter the estate at the northeast corner. Pass the first block without incident. My footsteps echo off concrete. Somewhere above, a baby's crying. Someone's playing music too loud. Normal estate sounds.
I'm halfway through when I notice the quiet.
The baby stopped crying. The music cut off. Even the traffic noise from the main road seems muffled.
I stop walking. Listen.
Nothing. Complete silence. Like the world's holding its breath.
That's wrong. London's never silent. There's always noise. Cars, planes, people. The city doesn't sleep.
But right now, in this moment, there's nothing.
I start walking faster. My flat's two more blocks. I can make it. Just need to keep moving.
A shadow detaches from the wall behind me.
I don't see it. I feel it. The way you feel someone watching. The primitive hindbrain alarm that says predator, run, danger.
I turn.
There's a man twenty feet behind me. Male, tall, muscular build. Wearing dark clothes that blend with the shadows. I didn't hear him approach. Didn't see him until he wanted to be seen.
"Evening," the man says. His voice is rough. Damaged-sounding.
"Evening." I keep my voice steady. Don't show fear. Predators respond to fear. "Beautiful night."
"Is it?" The man moves closer. Still in shadow. I can't see his face clearly. "You're out late."
"Work. I'm a nurse. Just heading home."
"Nurse. That's caring work. Helping people."
"I try." I'm calculating distances. My flat's too far. The hospital's behind this man. The main road's to my left, maybe fifty meters.
I could run. Might make it.
"I need your help," the man says.
"With what?"
"Test. For science." The man steps into the light from a streetlamp.
I see his face. Eyes that aren't quite human. Teeth too sharp. Something wrong about the proportions.
Not human. Supernatural. Something that lives behind the Veil.
Oh god.
"I don't know what you're talking about." I start backing away. Slowly. "I should go."
"Can't let you go. Need to complete the test." The man's voice is apologetic. Almost regretful. "Orders. From someone important. You're the subject."
"Subject for what?"
"Turning. See if dormant genetics activate. See if you survive." The man moves faster than humans can move. Suddenly he's in front of me, hand on my shoulder, grip like iron. "I'm sorry. This isn't personal."
I try to scream. His other hand covers my mouth.
"Won't hurt long," the man says. "Either you die or you turn. Either way, you won't remember much."
He's pulling me toward the shadows between buildings. I'm fighting, kicking, trying to bite his hand. It's useless. He's too strong. Supernaturally strong.
We're in the darkness now. He spins me around, one hand still over my mouth, other arm locked around my waist.
"I'm Omega Marcus," the man says into my ear. "If you survive, remember that name. Remember who did this."
I feel his breath on my neck. Hot. Wrong.
Then teeth. Longer than human teeth. Sharper.
They pierce my throat.
Pain explodes through my body. Not just the bite. Something in his saliva, in his teeth, burning through my bloodstream like acid. I'm screaming against his hand but no sound comes out.
The man, Marcus, drinks. I feel my blood leaving my body. Feel weakness spreading. My legs give out. He's holding me up, still drinking, still injecting whatever toxin makes humans into monsters.
This is how I die. Murdered in a council estate by something that shouldn't exist. No one will know what happened. I'll be another missing person, another statistic, another failure.
Mum will die alone in the care home. No one paying her bills. No one visiting.
I failed her.
The darkness is spreading from the bite wound. Not unconsciousness. Something worse. Something changing. I can feel my body fighting, trying to reject the infection.
It's not working.
Marcus pulls back. Releases me. I collapse on the concrete. Can't move. Can't speak. Just lie there bleeding while he stands over me.
"Good luck," Marcus says. Not cruelly. Like he actually means it. "Turning's forty percent fatal. If you survive the next three days, you'll be werewolf. If you don't, you'll die screaming."
He walks away. Disappears into the shadows.
I'm alone. Bleeding. Dying or changing or both.
My phone's in my pocket. Can't reach it. My hands won't work properly.
The burning's getting worse. Spreading from my throat through my chest, down my arms, into my legs. It feels like my bones are breaking and reforming. Like my muscles are tearing themselves apart.
This is the turning. This is what happens when humans become monsters.
Forty percent fatal, Marcus said.
I'm going to be part of that forty percent. I can feel it. My body's shutting down, rejecting the change, killing me rather than letting me become something else.
I close my eyes. Think of Mum. Hope someone tells her what happened. Hope she's too far gone with Alzheimer's to understand.
The darkness takes me.