Chapter 13: Suppressants

Maybe the fever had not fully let go yet, because Cyrus fell asleep almost as soon as he returned to his apartment.

The food block followed him into his dreams.

In the dream, every table was full. Steam curled from paper trays and soup cups. Fried potatoes cracked under his fork. Meat hissed on grills. Melted cheese stretched in bright, unreasonable strings. Someone handed him a bag warm enough to fog the air, and for once, nobody asked where he had been, what he was, who he belonged to, or why he wore the ring.

There was only food, and Cyrus ate until the hollow place inside him finally quieted.

Then a cage dropped from above.

It came down without warning, iron bars cutting between him and the tables. The food stayed just outside reach. The smell stayed close enough to hurt. He reached through the bars, but his fingers never touched anything. The more he tried, the farther the tables seemed to move, until hunger and helplessness folded together into one familiar shape.

He did not know how long he sat there.

The cage had no door.

The sound that pulled him out was not a lock. It was cicadas.

Their thin, steady noise scraped through the summer morning and dragged his mind back to the apartment one piece at a time. Cyrus sat up slowly, hair falling into his eyes, and stared out through the narrow gap in the curtains.

Morning light had already claimed the room.

His phone said it was a little after nine.

Cyrus blinked at the screen, then yawned until his jaw ached. The dream had felt vivid seconds ago, but the moment he tried to remember the details, they slipped away. He was left with only a sour sense of wanting something and being unable to reach it.

Annoying, but not worth chasing.

At least the sleep had helped.

His body felt mostly normal again. Heavy, but usable. His head was clear enough. His fever had retreated. He sat still for a moment, checking himself the way he always did after a bad spell.

Then he noticed the problem.

Cyrus’s expression went flat.

He reached toward the small drawer in his nightstand and pulled out a dented medicine box. Inside was a blister pack with only two capsules left, green and white, sitting in the last unbroken pockets. The rest of the foil was wrinkled and empty.

He popped both capsules free.

From the same drawer, he pulled out a squeezable breakfast pouch, the kind of fruit-and-yogurt thing sold to people who wanted to pretend breakfast could happen without dishes. He swallowed the pills with it, then finished the pouch because wasting food was a moral failure.

After that, he waited.

The problem did not go away.

Cyrus leaned back, then dropped onto the bed with enough force to make the mattress creak. He lifted one arm over his face and let out a long, miserable breath.

"Being Frostborn really is too much trouble sometimes."

The complaint sounded small in the room, mostly because there was nobody else there to hear it.

Fever was not the only thing his body had dragged back to the surface.

Frostborn bodies were inconvenient in several ways, and most of those ways seemed designed by someone with a terrible sense of humor. Cold came easily. Beauty caused problems. Sickness could change his shape. His body guarded itself, reacted to heat, responded to stress, and occasionally acted as if Cyrus were only a tenant living inside it instead of the person who had to survive the consequences.

This particular problem was worse because it had history.

For Frostborn, desire was not always polite. Once that side of the body had been forced awake, the need could grow sharper with time, especially under sickness, stress, or heat. If Cyrus let instinct lead, it would not stop at one mistake. It would keep asking for more until his life narrowed into another kind of hunger.

Female Frostborn had old biological answers to that cycle. Cyrus did not. His version of the problem had no clean, safe resolution. If he let it run wild, he would either ruin himself chasing relief or end up at the mercy of someone who would be happy to call his weakness love.

He refused.

He had not escaped the black room just to become obedient to a different part of his body.

The medicine helped. Usually.

It kept the worst impulses down without damaging him, which was one of the few reasons Cyrus respected human medicine as a civilization-level achievement. People in this world had invented machines that washed clothes, buses that carried strangers across a city, and capsules that could tell a body to stop being stupid.

At the moment, however, the last two capsules were taking their time.

Cyrus stayed on the bed until the reaction eased from alarming to merely irritating. Once he trusted his legs, he got up and went to the bathroom.

The shower was unpleasant on purpose.

He turned the water warmer than he liked and stood under it with his jaw clenched, letting the heat bully his body into settling down. It made his skin crawl. It made old Frostborn instincts recoil. It also worked, slowly and with no concern for his comfort.

By the time Cyrus stepped out, the worst of the reaction had finally passed.

He dried off, changed into his usual school-facing clothes, and checked the empty blister pack again.

The medicine was gone.

That meant a trip to the hospital before work. Malcolm had told him to rest, and Cyrus intended to be reasonable in theory, but earning money remained important in practice. If he bought the medicine, ate something, and recovered properly by afternoon, he could still make it to The Full Moon Lounge later.

He kept his bangs low, dulled his posture, and left the apartment.

The sun hit him the moment he stepped outside.

Summer had no respect for people recovering from fever. The sidewalk shimmered faintly. The air smelled like hot pavement and cut grass. By the time he reached the bus stop a few blocks away, Cyrus already hated the entire concept of daylight.

The stop was empty.

That was useful.

Cyrus stood under the small shelter, looked around once, and exhaled a thin breath of white mist into the hot air. It vanished almost at once.

His body was still running cooler than it should.

At least that part was manageable.

The bus came with a tired sigh of brakes. Cyrus boarded, tapped his half-empty transit card, and took a seat near the back where nobody had a good reason to look at him. As the bus pulled away, he opened his wallet and counted what remained.

Rent had already taken the largest bite.

Now the medicine would take another.

What he had left after that would cover basic food, transportation, and the kind of small emergencies that liked to appear exactly when a person began feeling safe. Malcolm had paid him a little extra this month, explaining that some of it came from tips. That helped. It helped enough that, if the prescription did not cost more than expected, Cyrus could still buy one proper meal before heading to work.

A hot pasta bowl sounded good.

Something warm. Something filling. Something that did not come from a convenience-store warmer.

The idea improved his mood.

The bus filled as it moved through Grayhaven. People boarded with grocery bags, backpacks, strollers, coffee cups, and expressions that suggested they all had somewhere to be. Nobody paid attention to the gloomy boy sitting near the back with his hair in his eyes.

That was exactly the point.

After a while, Cyrus got off near the medical district and walked through a busier stretch of sidewalk. Grayhaven looked more polished here. The buildings stood taller, glassier, and cleaner than the blocks near his apartment. People moved with badges clipped to pockets, files tucked under arms, and phones pressed to their ears.

Cyrus crossed two intersections before reaching his destination.

Grayhaven General Hospital rose in front of him, white and broad, with the name mounted above the entrance in red letters. The lobby was large enough to make everyone inside look slightly lost. Patients moved from desk to desk. Families stared at signs. Nurses crossed the floor with practiced speed. Someone near the elevators was arguing quietly with an insurance form.

Hospitals had their own weather: bright lights, clean floors, restless waiting, and the faint smell of disinfectant under everything.

Cyrus kept his head down and moved with purpose. He did not need the main desk. He had been here before. He took the elevator to the third floor, followed the hallway around a corner, and stopped in front of the same outpatient office he had used the last few times.

The nameplate still carried the Sable surname.

That was a good sign.

The old doctor had been kind, patient, and willing to write the authorization without asking more questions than necessary. Cyrus liked medical professionals who understood that privacy saved time.

He knocked.

"You can come in," a woman’s voice called from inside.

Cyrus paused.

That was not the old doctor.

He looked at the nameplate again.

The surname was still right.

Maybe the voice belonged to a nurse. Maybe the doctor had an assistant today. Maybe human institutions enjoyed changing people without warning because stability made life too easy.

Cyrus pushed the door open.

A woman in a white coat sat behind the desk, reading a book as if the room belonged to her and appointments were an occasional interruption. She did not look up immediately. Her dark hair was pinned back neatly, and the line of her profile had the polished quality of someone who could have been on a magazine cover if she had chosen a less irritating profession.

Cyrus did not care about her face.

Beautiful women were not rare enough in his life to count as good news.

He stayed near the door. "Where is the doctor who usually works here?"

The woman turned a page. "He retired recently."

Cyrus looked at the nameplate again.

Same surname. Different doctor.

That was troublesome.

The woman finally lifted her face and studied him. Her eyes moved over his dull clothes, lowered bangs, and deliberately unremarkable posture with mild interest rather than recognition.

"What brings you in today?" she asked.

"I need a refill authorization."

Cyrus gave her the medication name.

If the old doctor had been sitting there, Cyrus would already be on his way to the pharmacy by now.

The new doctor’s expression changed.

Not by much, but Cyrus saw it.

She set the book down and leaned back slightly. "You are the boy my grandfather mentioned."

Cyrus looked at her. "Your grandfather used to work here?"

"He did."

That explained the nameplate.

It did not explain why the old doctor had failed to warn him that retirement could appear out of nowhere and leave him sitting across from a beautiful woman with curious eyes.

The woman pulled open a drawer, sorted through a stack of files, and removed one folder from near the bottom. "You come in occasionally for this specific prescription."

Cyrus did not answer.

She smiled faintly. "Do not worry. I know enough from the file to write the refill."

That sentence was supposed to be reassuring.

It was not.

She opened the file and glanced over the page.

Cyrus waited in silence.

The medication had two main uses. One was to help suppress dangerous spikes in heart rate. The other was less convenient to explain in polite company. It calmed an overactive physical drive, the kind tied to rare-blood biology, stress reactions, or bodies that had decided self-control was optional.

The old doctor had never made a face about it.

The woman looked at the report, then at Cyrus.

Her gaze sharpened with interest.

Cyrus disliked her immediately.

He could guess what she was seeing. A gloomy, forgettable boy with messy hair and a prescription that suggested a humiliating condition. To her, it probably looked like a secret tucked under an ordinary face. Something unusual enough to be amusing, but not yet important enough to treat carefully.

"Your dosage changed," she said.

"The dosage needed to change."

"It used to be one capsule at longer intervals."

"That stopped being enough."

Her pen tapped once against the paper. "Any side effects?"

"Nothing worth reporting."

"Any dizziness, nausea, chest pain, mood swings, fainting, or trouble sleeping?"

"Sickness caused the sleeping problem. The medicine did not."

"That is an answer, but not a complete medical history."

"I am here for a refill, not a conversation."

The faint smile returned. "Most patients try to make doctors like them."

"Would that make the medication cheaper?"

She paused, then gave a quiet laugh.

Cyrus did not feel proud of that. He had asked a practical question.

The doctor signed the form after checking another page. "You can take this to the pharmacy downstairs. Follow the current dosage. Do not increase it unless a doctor tells you to. If the symptoms worsen, come back instead of trying to handle everything alone."

"I understand the instructions."

He reached for the paper.

She held it for half a second longer than necessary.

"My name is Vera Sable," she said. "Since you seemed curious."

Cyrus took the form. "I only asked about the prescription."

"You asked where my grandfather was."

"That was also about the prescription."

"Of course it was."

Her eyes stayed on him as if she had found a puzzle that did not look like one yet.

Cyrus turned toward the door.

On his first day not seeing the old doctor, he missed him already.

The hospital pharmacy was downstairs, crowded, and slow in the way all pharmacies seemed to be slow. Cyrus took a number, waited under fluorescent lights, and tried not to think about how much food the prescription would cost him.

When the pharmacist finally called him up, the total made his stomach sink.

He paid anyway.

The bag of capsules felt too light for the money.

Cyrus stepped out of the hospital and into the summer glare with the prescription tucked safely into his bag. The medicine should last a month if nothing strange happened. That was the good news. The dosage had increased, and that was the part he did not like thinking about. At first, one capsule had worked for days. Lately, he needed two.

The situation was still under control.

That was what mattered.

As long as there were no accidents, no bad fevers, no dangerous women forcing old problems awake, and no body-driven disasters, he could live properly in the human world.

He could go to school.

He could work.

He could eat what he chose.

He could keep his own door locked from the inside.

Then his mind drifted, traitorously, back to the food block from last night. Garlic, fried batter, grilled meat, buttery noodles, potatoes with cheese, sauce clinging to paper trays, steam rising in the evening air.

Cyrus looked down at the pharmacy bag.

If the money for those capsules had gone to food, he could have eaten so well.