What Keeps Our Hearts Beating

Chapter 15

Lacey stared up at the decorative Corinthian columns that lined the dark mahogany wood staircase that rose upwards, the tiffany stained glass windows emitting a rainbow of light against spiraled wooden railings. The fine hand-carved paneling was lined with paintings of her ancestors that she didn't recognize, nor was there any semblance of herself in any of those portraits. The eyes of one grisly looking grandfather felt like they stared at her no matter what direction she went in, as if knowing her underhanded motives, or her feelings for that boy that was so heavily guarded at the top of that staircase in the north wing.

Discussing poetry with Brasen had felt like a lifetime ago and yet it had only been a week since she had seen him. She had hidden the Dorothy Parker poetry book in a hidden brick within the marble fireplace in her room having secretly memorized 3 poems already and giving her renowned strength even though her own health was dwindling. She had 3 more unsuccessful blood transfusions and nothing was making her feel any better, except the thought that she would make it to the Halloween dance. She had finally gotten a hold of her father on the phone and it was an unpleasant and disagreeable phone call that had spearheaded her meeting now with Dr. Weber.

She knocked on the 18th century mahogany door, the musky scent of the floral carpet still lingered in the air and she had to force herself to not look at herself and her sad complexion in the weathered and stained copper mirror, streaks of the past unable to be wiped clean on the glass surface, like stained with the images and faces of the past forever haunting those hallways. Vanity caused her to steal one quick glance at her reflection and her face looked more pallid, yet her lips were still a rosy hue from her lip-gloss she had smuggled with her in her backpack. Her curls were less bouncy from the cold showers she was forced to suffer through from lack of hot water in those dilapidated bathrooms and her eyes looked bleak and hopeless.

If it wasn't for Brasen...

She shut her eyes at the thought of him. Brasen just needed her to escape from this blood bank. That was all. After the Halloween dance she would never see him again.

"Come in," a hollow yet cheery voice called out from behind the door, and Lacey took a deep breath pulling on the old brass doorknob, the color draining from sweaty fingerprints, and she entered a dark and cold room. The room was surrounded by closed windows, draped shut with gold layered curtains, and 4 candle sconces aligned the walls, casting shadows upon the deep emerald green wallpaper. A long wooden desk stood in the center upon a bear skin rug and it looked like some hunter's paradise, with more antlers hung over the black fireplace on the right side of the desk. Dr. Weber sat on a high leather chair, the only modern piece of furniture from something that could have been Teddy Roosevelt's office had it not been for medical journals piled high on the desk and a fluorescent lamp emitting a light upon the doctor's warped smile as she walked toward him, his dark eyes a little too wide like he was analyzing her as much as she was analyzing him in this new light. This man who was torturing Brasen for his own personal gain.

"How are you feeling, Lacey?" He asked pointing to a seat opposite him but Lacey preferred to stand, finding herself adjacent to a nearly hidden grandfather clock, its ticking causing her to nearly leap out of her shoes. There was so much tension in that room.

"I assume this is about my call with my father," she said, crossing her arms and not beating around the bush. She felt nauseous and wishing she hadn't eaten that mystery meatloaf for dinner.

He smoothed out the goatee that had grown longer over those past weeks and nodded, "As you can imagine, he called me right after your conversation with him. He wasn't too happy."

Lacey bit her lip, reliving her own conversation with her father. Of her telling him the truth. That the treatments weren't working. That Dr. Weber had been straight up from the start about his experiments were for blood diseases.