Page 20 of These Vile Hearts

My self-loathing increases tenfold when I speak again. “I will just have to patronize this sector more frequently to make up for the losses. Spread the love and gold around.”

She stands, hellfire in her amethyst eyes. “You shouldn’t be spreadinglovearound at all, now should you, Castor?”

The sharpness of her words lances me. “No.” My voice comes out hollow. “I suppose I shouldn’t.”

“You spent the evening with Dahlia the night before last,” Evodia says pointedly. “How many times had that been?”

The nepenthe isn’t working. At all. “Maybe…three. Four? I don’t know.”

She nods solemnly. “Perhaps it would be best if you kept your distance from the orchids for a while.”

Alarm and anxiety and all the panic feelings sizzle through my chest. “You are cutting me off, then.”

There’s lonely without love and then there’s just lonely. Without anyone to even pretend with. What am I supposed to do, face the night on my own?

“With the arrests, we’ve already lost several orchids and my best bookkeeper. Fern is a sweet girl, but not quite as organized as onemight hope. And since you’ve made it clear that you have no intention of helping release those who were imprisoned, I can’t afford to lose any more. I don’t want any of them getting too…attached to you.”

Waving a hand, she retracts the vines of silence and disappears through the feathered curtain, leaving me alone with my nepenthe and wine.

6

Maddox

Afew months ago, when Javen and I were rewatchingThe Walking Dead, I looked up how long diabetics could go without insulin. Javen had dreamt up an elaborate zombie survival plan that involved chopping down hundreds of trees and building a fully functioning community within the timber walls.

But when he’d asked what I would do I’d answered, “Stake out in the biggest pharmacy I can find, I guess.” Because, in the case of zombies taking over, it’s likely my disease would kill me before any feet-dragging creature ate my brains. He looked down, ’cause the zombie game wasn’t fun now.

According to Google, there is no single answer as to how long diabetics can live without our life source, and it depends on a billion uncertain factors. The general consensus is that a type 1 diabetic with a fully dead pancreas like mine can live a few days without any insulin before they die of DKA. A week if they’re lucky.

Right now, I’m not feeling so lucky.

I’ve missed both doses of long-acting insulin—the kind that lingers in your system, battling the body’s normal glucose production.Plus, there is dawn phenomenon to deal with—an early-morning rise in blood sugar that happens for seemingly no reason other than to piss diabetics the fuck off.

The longer I’m in this fanciful underground cell, the more quickly my breathing comes. My hands shake. My head pounds. It feels like a tree has fallen on my chest.

Sitting with my legs propped up on the leather chair at the base of the bed I refuse to sleep in out of spite, I curl forward into a ball, pressing my head between my knees, squeezing.

When I was younger, I had panic attacks all the time. They were usually brought on when I felt out of control of my own body. When my mom and my doctors insisted on controlling everything I ate, how much insulin I took, how much juice I needed to correct low blood sugars. Everything was in their hands. Never mine.

There were instances in my childhood that I felt so out of control that I created a coping strategy I called “locking down.” My mom had a bit of a temper, and locking me in my room was the best way in her mind to shelter me from it. Despite the comfort of my bed and toys and books, the feeling of being trapped was there all the same. I would start to panic, to breathe so quickly I felt dizzy. So I found a way to soothe myself.

First, I’d make myself as small as I could. A ball, like this, wrapping my arms around my legs like a roly-poly. I’d picture myself as a house in a storm with doors and windows flung wide where anything and everything could get in. Open and vulnerable. I’d picture this, then go around and mentally close every open place. I would start with my sternum, a set of double doors. I’d slam them closed and lock them. Twice. My brain was an unlatched window. Pull it shut. Lock it. The rest of me was more manageable. My trembling hands. My shaking legs. My spine. All windows and doors. I closed each one. Locking and latching and bolting. Until all of me was secure and contained and safe from the outside.

I do this now. It takes longer to work than usual, but eventually it does.

My breathing slows.

My mind stops spinning.

My racing heart slows down to a steadythump…thump…thump.

But the longer I’m in here, locked down or not, the higher my blood sugar rises. If my body’s cells were a popular nightclub, glucose would be the clubbers waiting in a long line outside and insulin would be the bouncer at the door letting people in.

Only I have no bouncers. I have no doors. My clubbers have nowhere to go. So they crowd around the building and break away to cause mischief. A riot is breaking out in my body.

~

The next dryad to enter my prison is Atlas, the quiet one with the bone-white antlers. She brings with her a tray of food. When I refuse it, she frowns and crosses her arms sternly, though I catch a hint of warmth in her gaze. Worry.