****
Another week went by, and no one from the NCPD-CID had called for an update on my mission. The woman told me she’d touch base with me in a week, but it had been two weeks without contact; I’d also been instructed to not call anyone.
Had they forgotten about me? Had they expected me to fail? Maybe this was all a joke. Bear shifters weren’t real, and I was stupid enough to believe they could actually get a vaccine to be viably transmitted by ticks. This was all a test, and I was failing miserably.
I suppose it was a good thing, though, because, dammit, I still hadn’t released the ticks.
It was Friday morning, and once again, Ramon and I had spent another week together. He had taken more time off, telling his boss that he hadn’t been feeling well. And in fact, that wasn’t a lie; I’d been taking care of him the entire week. He had a fever, didn’t want to eat or drink anything, and he hardly wanted to sleep. When I finally got him to eat something, he couldn’t keep it down for more than a few hours. He told his boss that he had the flu, but if he did, I felt like he would have been sleeping much more than he was. It was like his body was shutting down, but his mind was on high alert.
I actually thought I was getting sick as well. I didn’t have a fever or anything like that, but I had to use the restroom at least twenty times a day, even if I hadn’t had anything to drink in a couple of hours. I was also nauseous and vomiting, but not after every time I ate, like what Ramon was experiencing, and I was utterly exhausted, no matter how long I had slept for. Probably just a stomach bug, I thought.
The night before, I had the most bizarre dream, too. I’d woken up to use the bathroom, and when I turned to Ramon, I could have sworn I saw the face of a bear instead of his. Strangely, I remembered feeling his arm wrap around me—which felt much heavier than usual—and when I touched it, I felt thick fur over his forearm. I jumped, and when I snapped my eyes open, it looked completely normal. I figured my subconscious must have been revisiting the videos that I saw back at the office, allowing them to invade my nightmares because I hadn’t completed the task yet.
I had hoped that whatever we’d come down with would be gone soon so I could go to the park to plant the ticks, but I wasn’t sure if that was going to happen.
Ramon was sleeping soundly beside me, and I was glad he was finally getting some much-needed rest. Just then, my phone buzzed quietly on the nightstand; I reached for it and noticed another notification from the My Days app.
‘Your period has ended.’
Wait, what? My period hasn’t even come yet.
I tapped the icon for the My Days app and remembered that my period was supposed to have come last week.
And it still isn’t here? That’s odd…My period is never late…
That’s when it hit me.
Nausea, vomiting, fatigue; peeing like crazy…
I scrambled out of bed, threw on a pair of sweats and grabbed my keys, quietly slinking out the door as I bolted to the car. I asked my phone where the nearest pharmacy was, and luckily, it mentioned there was one close by in Bar Harbor. I pressed the navigate button and careened my way into town, my mind racing. Thankfully, I was easily able to find parking—and, once inside, a pregnancy test—so I quickly headed back to my room and tiptoed into the bathroom. Ramon hadn’t moved a muscle, it seemed.
When I reached inside the box and pulled out the stick with a shaking hand, I stared at it and took a deep breath.
It’s going to be fine. There’s a first for everything. This could just be the first time your period is late, no big deal, I tried to convince myself, but it wasn’t really working.
I sat on the toilet, staring at the stick, waiting for the result.
And then after a few minutes—which seemed more like an eternity—it was there, just like that: a pink plus sign was staring right back at me. There was no denying it now. A part of me wanted to take another test, a third even, just to be sure, but deep down, I knew that the test was correct.
I was pregnant.
I sat on the toilet with my head in my hands.
How am I going to tell Ramon? Will he want to keep it? Do I want to keep it? I can’t tell him while he’s sick. Maybe I should just wait until he’s feeling better…That’ll at least give me time to decide what I want to do…
I took another deep breath and wrapped the stick in toilet paper, sneaking it out of the bathroom, and hid it in my suitcase.
“What are you up to, bella?” I heard Ramon’s sleepy voice and quickly zipped up my luggage.
“Oh, just checking to see how many outfits I had left. Turns out I didn’t pack as many as I thought I did. Good thing this place has a laundry room. I’ll have to go down and do some.” I smiled and walked over to the bed, checking his temperature with the back of my hand; he was still extremely hot. “How are you feeling?”
“Same as the past couple of days, honestly. I might go to the park and have Sophia check me out, just to make sure it’s nothing serious.”
“Who’s Sophia?”
“El medico del parque.” I took enough Spanish in college to know that meant the park medic.
“You should’ve done that when you first got sick instead of assuming it was the flu. You’re a scientist, not a doctor,” I chuckled. “Why don’t we put you in another cold soak in the jacuzzi? You said it helped last time and maybe it’ll get your fever down.”
“Si, seguro.”
I noticed that Ramon seemed to speak more Spanish now that he was sick; it was like his brain didn’t have the will power to translate his sentences to English as easily. I didn’t mind; if I didn’t understand him, he usually told me what he meant. I watched him take off his drenched white V-neck and was instantly distracted by his chest.
Oh, come on, the guy is sick! I shook my head to try and focus and then I saw something. It looked like some sort of an arachnid, and it had its head buried into Ramon’s skin.
“Is that…?” I moved my face closer to examine the insect. Sure enough, it was an engorged tick, but when I examined its body more closely, I noticed a marking resembling the letter H on its back. “That’s impossible!”
“¿Que?” Ramon was looking up at me with a confused expression. He then tried to peek at his shoulder, too, but the tick was too far back for him to see.
How the hell could one of these ticks be on Ramon? Could one of mine have escaped? Did they send someone else to disperse another batch? Wait a minute…This tick shouldn’t be on Ramon like this…When these particular ticks bite humans, they’re genetically engineered to recognize that they aren’t shifters and detach. So why is this one buried underneath Ramon’s skin like this? Unless…no…no…NO!
“You’re a shifter?” I shrieked, stumbling backwards away from the bed. I didn’t need him to answer me to know the truth. The dreams I’d been having weren’t dreams at all; they actually happened.
Ramon wasn’t looking at me, and that was all I needed to confirm my suspicions. “Min, let me explain.”
“Explain what? Why you didn’t tell me? How could you hide this from me?”
“What? I can’t just run around telling people I’m a fucking shifter!”
I just stared at him in disbelief. How could this happen?
“Espera un minuto… How do you know about us? And more importantly, how did you know I was shifter?” Ramon was looking at me suspiciously. “Who are you, really? You’re not an entomologist, are you? Is your name even Min?” He was getting angry, but I refused to go on trial.
“Everything I said to you is true!”
“So, do some explaining! How do you know about shifters? ¿Qué está pasando?” Ramon was still trying to look at his shoulder, seeming to realize there was something there that revealed his true identity. “What are you looking at back there?”
“If you sit down, I will explain,” I said finally, walking over to my luggage. I pulled out two things: the box of ticks and a pair of tweezers. I walked back over the bed where Ramon had sat down; his eyes were locked with mine, his brow furrowed in anger.
I checked the box for any cracks where ticks could have escaped from, and there were none. It was still completely sealed.
“Did you go in my suitcase at any point and open this box?” I asked, holding it up.
“No, I didn’t. What the fuck are those? You brought bugs with you?”
“They’re not just any bugs. They’re ticks.” I took a deep breath as I set the box on the bed and walked over to Ramon with the tweezers.
“What are you doing with those?”
“They’re part of my assignment. Here, hold still; this is going to hurt.” I grabbed the tick carefully by the head with the tweezers and twisted it around, dislodging it from Ramon’s skin.
“Damn!” Ramon exclaimed, his shoulder flinching. “What the fuck was that?”
I held the tick in front of his eyes. It was still moving and engorged with Ramon’s blood.
“I had a tick on me?” Ramon looked from the insect to his shoulder and back again. “Must have been from the last time I was at the park, I guess.”
“Well, not necessarily.”
“No entiendo.”
I drew in a deep breath, “Let me explain. What I’m about to tell you is top secret government information. As far as I know of, only three people know about this operation.” Ramon’s eyes grew wide as I continued, “A small faction of the government known as the NCPD-CID became aware of the real cause of death associated with Danielle Peterson. When the FBI report was filed, it seemed fishy, so they looked into it. They found satellite surveillance of the attack and therefore became aware of bear shifters.”
“So, you work for this department?”
“I guess you could say that. I work for the CDC, and the NCPD-CID is a sub department. They hired me to come to Acadia on a special assignment.”
“And I’m guessing it wasn’t to collect aquatic insect data?” Ramon crossed his arms over his chest.
“No, it wasn’t,” I sighed. “Well, about this bear shifter who attacked Danielle Peterson…based on what you’ve told me about your job responsibilities, I’m guessing that you’re the most qualified to study him.”
“Si,” Ramon nodded.
“And were you able to detect anything?”
“We concluded that he was affected by some sort of rabies mutation that he picked up somewhere.” Ramon seemed hesitant to disclose this data to me.
“Well, they know that, too, and they wanted to help. With these guys,” I said, grabbing a vial from my bag and sealing the engorged tick I removed from Ramon in it.
“How were these ticks supposed to help us?” he asked as I placed the vial in his hand for him to examine more closely.
“They contain the vaccine for the mutated virus. They used the rabies vaccine to create one that could combat the mutation as well, and they conducted two trials and found it effective in preventing infection. Due to the attack happening here, they wanted to make sure no one else would contract the virus by vaccinating everyone. They would rather have bear shifters living in secret, than have to deal with the ill effects of infected rogue bears running around,” I shrugged. It actually wasn’t as hard to talk about this as I thought it would be.
Ramon seemed very interested. “So, they sent you here to…vaccinate us?”
“Yes. But something is wrong,” I admitted, and Ramon’s eyes met mine with more confusion. “See the marking on its back? I didn’t release any of these particular ticks here in Acadia.”
“That’s not possible; you just found one on me. Maybe one escaped from the box?”
“I just checked and it’s still completely sealed. Unless you opened it, I don’t know how this ended up on you.”
Just then, my stomach dropped. I paused for a moment, worrying my lip as I recalled the virus’ symptoms from the NCPD-CID’s files: fever, headache, nausea, vomiting, hallucinations, insomnia… I started to put two and two together, and wasn’t sure if I should even suggest this, but I felt it was the right thing to do.
“Another thing is, well…Ramon, I think you might have contracted the virus somehow.”
“What?”
I walked over to the file I was given by the woman and showed it to Ramon. The first page outlined the symptoms of the mutated virus, and Ramon shook his head in disbelief at what he was reading. “I don’t understand. If the tick was on me, that means it administered the vaccine to me, so I shouldn’t have the virus. Right?” His eyes bore into mine with sheer panic.
Just then, if only for a split second, Ramon’s hand turned into a bear paw; when I blinked, it had transformed back to a human hand. I covered my mouth, staring at him in disbelief.
“Dios mío,” Ramon’s eyes were worried when they met mine and my heart sank. He didn’t deserve this.
“I don’t know…I don’t even know how to explain this or what’s going on…” I choked out as tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
He let out a long sigh, “Well, when I have questions that need answering, I always go to my lab.”
“I think we definitely need to dissect the tick and see what’s going on.” I grabbed the vial from him and the case filled with ticks, putting them back in the suitcase. “Come on! Let’s go!”
Ramon put his sweaty shirt back on and slipped into his boots, and we were out the door in no time.