After what happened at the mall, Stas drove me home, and he managed to convince me to call Maria. He reasoned that while Kostya was in such a state, it would be good if my mother stayed nearby. I only half-agreed with Stas. In my view, Maria really should know what was happening with my father, just in case things took a turn for the worse. However, it was definitely not safe for me to be near her. I was still angry with Maria and not sure that it was safe for her to be around me in my current state. What a witch could do against a creature like me, I did not know for sure and did not want to find out.
Maria calmly listened to me and Dr. Smirnov, who, after hearing the news about my father's condition, assured her that he would watch over both of us and that I was completely safe around him. I still had doubts, out of habit. My mother, however, found such a promise as reliable as Swiss watches, and so she wished me a peaceful night and disappeared again, God knows where, without even trying to offer help. A cuckoo of a mother, honestly. Out of sight, out of mind. I wonder what she told her new husband Sashka when she rushed off to Kserton? Maybe she'll just roll back. Anywhere. Without her, I'd figure out what to do and why on my own. Maria had already decided enough for me.
I spent the entire night on an unpleasant task: listening to the sounds from the next bedroom. Dr. Smirnov stayed on duty beside Kostya all night, hoping that my father would wake up by morning. A nasty feeling of distrust gnawed at me from the inside, despite all the reasoning, and I couldn't really sleep. As soon as I closed my eyes, the edge of a white coat appeared in the darkness, and the doctor with a syringe ready. Strange visions only provoked the spirit inside, changing me more and more. We had already determined that vampire venom only made things worse. The fear that Kaandor was not what he was supposed to be did not let go.
I understood that Maria, with the best intentions, approved the doctor's experiments, seeing how the reverse practice—injecting something into my blood—slowly but surely helped Vladimir's wife and Nik reverse the vampiric processes. If it worked for me, my heightened hearing and vision would no longer return. Even if the changes rarely reminded me of themselves, I couldn't attribute them to the positive effect of the vampire venom. Father said that we, werewolves, constantly fluctuate in our perception of the world, feeling things more or less depending on the moon phase. But these strange thoughts and desires had never come to me before. Was I supposed to crave human flesh? If I felt the same way about Violetta, Stas, or Diana, I wouldn't have been surprised—they were natural enemies of the creature I had become. But imagining how sweet and soft Tatiana's flesh was… wasn't that against the very essence of being a werewolf? We are supposed to protect people from others, not feed on them.
No matter how tempting it was to return to a normal human life, continuing experiments with vampire venom was impossible. The awareness of the risk—that I could really snap at someone who wouldn't even have time to squeak—made my blood run cold. Speed, strength, reflexes—everything a wolf had in its arsenal was enough to finish off a victim in two easy moves, and no one would even have time to interfere. I needed to talk to the doctor, and then to my mother once I cooled down a bit. Convincing Kostya probably wouldn't take long: he would be glad if it meant keeping me away from Vladimir. But predicting the doctor's reaction was difficult, almost impossible. Returning to the apartment and learning that Vladimir would have to stay in the house all night, I prudently avoided bringing up his research. Who knows, if he sensed I wasn't ready to participate voluntarily, Smirnov might have acted more decisively. For example, he could have snuck into my room with a syringe in hand and a grin that looked more like a snarl. I didn't believe that Vladimir focused entirely on Olga's problem and Nik's experiments. If the changes inside me gave the doctor such a breakthrough, who could be sure he wouldn't start looking for a cure for his wife while continuing to experiment on me?
Imagining the syringe again, I shivered and firmly decided to give up on trying to sleep. I turned on the light and started checking my homework list. Algebra still awaited me. If any subject came hard to me, it was algebra. But there was no choice: I had missed quite a few classes and now had to catch up, thinking about entirely different things. It would be good to immerse myself in studying again while there was time and improve my grades by the end of the term.
Teachers gave me leeway after the hospital, sighing sympathetically whenever we met in the hallway. To them, I was the poor new girl who, in her second month of school, had fallen into the clutches of a forest beast. Thanks to my father and Dr. Smirnov, the whole town knew what happened, and everyone readily believed it. But people's sympathy is fleeting. Kserton might be a small town, but since my arrival, this had been the second big event occupying the townspeople's minds. Who knows when the third one would happen? In a week, or maybe even tomorrow? There was no guarantee I had any time left, which meant it was time to roll up my sleeves and really focus on my textbooks if I still planned to enroll in the Kserton State Institute.
My eyes ran over the textbook pages as I tried to grasp the essence of the definitions. The formulas contained fewer numbers and more letters, making my already tired eyes water, but I pressed on, biting into the dense words, as if the textbook was written not for eleventh graders, but for professors. Who teaches like this, I wondered? Why not just explain what goes where, and most importantly—why?