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Jem hadn’t noticed while he was killing the vampire holding Tessa, but as soon as it was dead, he looked up at Will and saw the blood smeared around his mouth. For a second, his heart skipped a beat and he thought that Will had been coughing up blood. Jem was about to run over to him when he suddenly remembered a younger Will standing in an alley with blood smeared around his mouth and grinning like a madman. His panic instantly disappeared and was replaced by disappointment.
“You bit de Quincey,” Jem said, shaking his head. “You fool. He’s a vampire. You know what it means to bite a vampire.”
Will’s proud look changed into a defensive look and he shrugged. “What else was I supposed to do? He was choking me.”
“I know,” Jem sighed. “But really, Will. Again?”
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As soon as they got to the Institute, Jem shepherded Will away to the attic with Sophie following behind with pails of holy water. Will grumbled about it the entire way there, but he knew that he needed to do it. As they walked, though, he couldn’t help but remember the first time he had bitten a vampire and how horrible he had felt the entire time. He really hoped that it didn’t happen again this time.
They went up the stairs into the attic and Sophie set down the pails and left, promising to bring more later. Jem took Will’s coat from him and said, “I’ll be back in a while. Remember, you’re not coming out of here until all of the vampire blood is out.”
“Don’t worry,” Will mumbled. “I’ll stay here.”
Jem nodded and left the attic, leaving Will to deal with the vampire blood on his own. He knew it was because Jem knew that Will didn’t him to see him coughing up blood and looking weak, but a small part of him wished that Jem would stay. Despite how much he didn’t want to be alone, he would never admit it and, instead of calling Jem back, he sat down on the floor and started the long process of ridding his body of the vampire blood.
Ten minutes later, he felt horrible. His lungs felt tight and constricted and it felt like he was breathing through a small tube. He did have days where he started out feeling like he wasn’t even sick and then ended up in bed or on the couch in the library by dinner, but it never got this bad this fast. He had felt the same way the last time he swallowed vampire blood, but this seemed to be worse. It could have been that he didn’t remember the last time as well, but it was most likely because his illness was more progressed than it had been a few years ago.
Will laid on his back on the floor for a few minutes and stared up at the ceiling before carefully sitting up and pulling one of the pails of holy water towards him. The holy water wouldn’t make the mucus in his lungs go away, but it would make the vampire blood come out faster so he could leave the attic and go to bed.
The holy water did not help at all. In fact, it made everything worse. The small mouthful Will swallowed made him start coughing, which didn’t bring up any vampire blood and instead brought up a rather large clump of thick, sticky mucus that got stuck in his throat before he could get it up all the way. Because it was stuck, he couldn’t take in any air to be able to cough it up and he ended up lying face down on the floor with his elbows propping him up and gasping for breath.
There had been other times where something like this had happened, but Jem had always been there when it did to help him. The feeling of not being able to breath had never lasted this long because Jem had always done something to help by then. Will was completely on his own and, although he would never admit it, he was scared.
Will’s vision was starting to go black around the edges and a little voice in the back of his head was telling him that he was going to die up there, all alone and scared and that Sophie was going to be the one to find him dead on the floor when she came back with more holy water. Will clenched his fists and tried with everything he could but no matter what he did he couldn’t breathe.
For some reason, probably because of the panic he was feeling, his oxygen-deprived brain made up the sound of a door opening.
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After leaving the attic, Jem had gone straight to his room to change and do what needed to be done. He had been worried the first time that Will had swallowed vampire blood, but nothing had happened then, so he felt that there was really no reason to be worried this time. He would just leave Will alone for a while and go check on him in an hour or so.
After changing his clothes, Jem gave the dirty gear to Sophie, who was going around the Institute with a basket to collect all of the laundry. After she left, he took the yin fen and had just opened his violin case to play when he had a very sudden and very strong feeling that he needed to go check on Will as soon as possible.
The clock on the wall told Jem that it had only been about twenty minutes since he left the attic. He still had time until he planned on checking on Will and tried to turn his focus back to the violin, but it felt as though something was tugging at the back of his mind and telling him that it was imminent that he go check on Will.
Jem sighed and closed the case again. A quick check wouldn’t hurt and he would be able to focus on actually playing his violin and not worrying about Will for no reason. Will probably needed more holy water anyway, so he could get that done and go back to what he had planned to do.
Jem left his room and made his way to the attic. The closer he got, the more the little voice in the back of his mind told him that he needed to hurry, but he ignored it. There was no point in worrying over something as minor as going to check on Will. The feeling would go away after he was done and everything would be fine.
When he got to the attic door, Jem opened it and climbed the steps. His heart started pounding as he climbed and he knew that it wasn’t from exertion. His brain was telling him that there was something very wrong when nothing should have been wrong. Will’s fine, Jem thought to himself. There’s nothing wrong and no reason to be worried. Everything is fine.
As soon as he got to the top of the stairs, however, he knew that he was right to be worried. Will was lying face down on the floor with his elbows propping him up and a panicked look on his face. He wasn’t breathing and was instead making a noise that was halfway between a gasp and a wheeze. Jem could have sworn that his heart stopped the second he saw Will but he couldn’t focus on that at the moment. His parabatai looked like he was dying right in front of him and he had to do something.
Jem rushed forward and grabbed Will’s shoulder. He didn’t know how long Will had been like this or how aware he was at the moment, but he wanted to make sure that Will knew he was there. He could feel Will shaking as he steeled himself to do something that he had known how to do since arriving at the Institute but had never actually had to do.
Jem slammed the heel of his hand down between Will’s shoulder blades as hard as he could in the hopes of dislodging the mucus that he knew was stuck in Will’s throat. It must have worked because Will immediately started coughing and, a few seconds later, he spit out a large clump of mucus onto the floor. Jem tried to ignore how it was about three times as much mucus as Will usually coughed up in one coughing fit and pulled him into his lap. He could feel Will breathing heavily and, as concerning as that was, he took it as a sign that Will was still very much alive.
Jem didn’t move for the next few minutes. All he could think about was that Will could have died alone and scared and Jem wouldn’t have known until he felt their parabatai bond break, and by then it probably would have been too late. If he hadn’t come to check on Will when he did, he wouldn’t be sitting on the floor of the attic with Will alive and (somewhat) well in his lap. He would be in a very different position if not for that bad feeling.
Jem finally let go of Will and let him roll onto his back on the floor. The lighting in the attic was very dim, but Jem could tell anyway that he was pale, and he knew that it wasn’t just from the vampire blood.
“How do you feel?” Jem asked.
“Horrible,” Will answered truthfully.
Jem nodded, surprised that he gave a real answer but not surprised that he felt that way. “Did you feel like that before the holy water?”
Will shook his head and said, “It started about ten minutes after you left.”
“Did you feel the same way the last time you swallowed vampire blood?” Jem was sure that he already knew the answer, but he asked anyway.
“It wasn’t this bad last time.”
Jem rolled his eyes slightly and made a mental note to lecture Will later on actually telling someone when he felt this bad. “Do I need to do your therapy?”
“That would probably be a good idea,” Will said.
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When the Silent Brothers arrived to check on Nate, Tessa was ushered out of the room and told that she would have to wait for a while before she could go back in. She waited out in the hallway for a few minutes but then remembered her aunt telling her that a watched pot never boils. It was going to feel like a very long time if she waited there and decided that there were other things she could be doing with that time.
One of those things she could do was check on Will. She hadn’t heard anything from him or Jem, but she had heard Jem mention something about the attic and holy water. She had no idea what that meant, but the attic was probably where Will was at the moment.
Tessa heard the door behind her open and close as she walked away and turned to see Charlotte standing in the hallway behind her. “Is Nate alright?” she asked. It had only been a few minutes since she left the room, but she could think of any other reason that Charlotte had come out other than to tell her that her brother was dead or dying.
“He’s quite alright,” Charlotte said. “I understand that you’re worried but he couldn’t be in better hands. The Silent Brothers will have him back to normal in no time.”
“I know,” Tessa said, looking down at the ground. “I know that the Silent Brothers are the best doctors he could have, but I still can’t help but worry.”
Charlotte smiled sympathetically. “I would be worried too if it was my brother.”
“Do you know where Will is?” Tessa asked her. “I know Jem mentioned something about the attic and holy water.”
“He should still be in the attic. Swallowing vampire blood can cause a person to become a darkling, so he has to drink holy water until all of the vampire blood he swallowed is gone.”
“Why the attic, though?” Tessa asked. She didn’t think that the cold and dusty attic would be very healthy for him. “Wouldn’t it be better if he was in his room?”
“I think the main reason that he’s up there is because he’s trying to hide from Jem,” Charlotte explained. “It’s also much easier to clean up. The first time he had to do this, he got water all over the floor and it Sophie almost an hour to mop it up so it didn’t damage the floors.”
“I’ll go to the attic, then,” Tessa said. “Will you tell me…”
Charlotte nodded. “If anything happens to Nate, you’ll be the first to know.”
Tessa thanked her and set off down the hall to find the attic. She realized too late that she didn’t actually know where the attic was and was about to go find someone to tell her when she passed by a door that was usually closed. She had never seen the door open in the time she had been in the Institute, but right now, it was slightly ajar, like someone had gone through and had meant to come back out soon after going in. She pushed the door open and saw a flight of stairs beyond it leading up into what she assumed was the attic.
Tessa climbed the stairs as quietly as possible in case Will was asleep and, before climbing up all the way, peeked her head over the top step to make sure that she wasn’t disturbing him. What she saw when she looked was somewhat unexpected. She had only been expecting to see Will so seeing Jem kneeling on the floor was surprising, although she knew that she shouldn’t be surprised. Wherever one of them was, the other was sure to be nearby.
Will was laying on his side on the floor and Jem was kneeling over him. They both had their backs to her, but Tessa could tell from the way they were positioned that Jem was doing Will’s physical therapy. She didn’t really understand why because he had done it just before they left and Will had said that combat was great for airway clearance, but she supposed that if it needed to be done, then it was done. This somehow seemed different from all of the other times that she had seen Jem doing Will’s therapy, though. It almost felt like she was intruding on a private moment. She couldn’t explain why, but she knew that she should go.
Tessa tiptoed back down the stairs and closed the door behind her. She wondered what exactly had happened to make something so normal seem so private, but she didn’t want to pry. If one of them wanted to tell her later, she would listen, but she wouldn’t ask.
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It was almost three o’clock in the morning when the last of the vampire blood finally came up. Both Will and Jem were completely exhausted from the battle with the vampires and hours without sleep and they immediately went to their rooms to sleep. Jem, however, didn’t sleep in his own room.
After making sure that Will wasn’t going to die on him and was fast asleep, Jem had gotten in his own bed and laid awake for an hour. Every time he closed his eyes, the image of Will gasping for breath on the floor of the attic appeared in his mind and he had to open his eyes again to get rid of it. He knew that Will was breathing normally and not dying in the next room, but he was still worried. If he had come in just a few minutes later, he could have lost his parabatai.
Jem finally gave up on trying to sleep and got out of bed. He knew he needed to sleep, but there was only one way that he was going to be able to do so. He pulled the blanket off of his bed and grabbed his pillow, then left his room and went into the one next door. It was dark in the room, but Jem could see Will facing away from him in bed and could hear him breathing. Jem went over to the corner of the room and sat down in the chair there and made himself as comfortable as possible, then closed his eyes.
He was asleep within minutes.
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Later that day, Jem told Tessa about the strange feeling he had had and what he found when he went into the attic. She could see tears in his eyes as he explained what had happened and she did her best to comfort him, but she couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount of guilt and fear that Jem had felt and was feeling.
Will didn’t wake up until noon. After he had eaten, Jem and Charlotte lectured him about telling them when something was wrong and hiding how horrible he felt. He listened to them and promised that it wouldn’t happen again, but they all knew that it would.
He was also told that he was never allowed to bite vampires again, despite not even being allowed to in the first place.