Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40814 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 204(@200wpm)___ 163(@250wpm)___ 136(@300wpm)
“Are those from the experiments that ran overnight?” I reach for the papers.
Logan comes and sits beside me on the bed, not giving up the papers but holding them so that we can both look on.
“Your numbers are holding but we aren’t getting the improvement that were looking for.” His voice is gruff and I know he’s trying to hide his frustration from me.
“We knew this might take some time.” I interweave my fingers with his. “Cancer immunotherapy is still such a new field.”
He frowns down at the papers. “Not that new. It’s past time somebody figured this out.”
I look at him fondly. “And that somebody is going to be you?”
He finally tears his eyes away from the numbers and he meets my gaze. “It’s going to be us.” Then he frowns when he sees my breakfast plate. “You didn’t finish your eggs. You know you need your protein.”
I stick my tongue out but reach for the second half of a boiled egg. “I miss greasy bacon,” I moan.
“Eat all your grapefruit slices and blueberries, too. The antioxidants are good for you.”
“Yes, mother.” I pop a few blueberries into my mouth, just in time, too, because the next second I’m squealing as Logan jumps on top of me, knocking me backwards onto the bed. The papers go flying but Logan’s focus is only on me.
“You’ve got a mouth on you this morning. Is somebody feeling frisky? Want to play?”
He reaches around and gives me a swift, sharp smack on the ass and I yelp, then giggle. I squirm for a second to try to get away from him but I don’t have much energy and I don’t really want to get away from him anyway so I tap out with my palm and call, “Uncle, uncle! I give in.”
But Logan doesn’t roll off of me immediately. Instead he clutches me tighter and buries his nose in the crook of my neck and inhales.
“I love the way you smell,” he says in a low rumble.
I giggle and try to push him away, to no avail. “You’re weird.”
“You’re wonderful.”
Full body happy sigh. Then I remember I’m sick and the shifting back and forth flood of emotions makes me feel a little tipsy. Blinding happiness. Followed by gut-clenching anxiety at the thought of losing it all and sadness at my day-to-day limitations. But then Logan touches me and all that fades away, and the joy is all I can see and feel.
Sometimes I think I’d pay any price, even Battleman’s, if it means I get this time with him. And that makes me glad that life doesn’t work like that. That there are no cosmic bargains to be made, no matter how many hours our puny little human brains waste coming up with scenario after scenario we’d prefer to our own.
“Okay, okay.” I try to slide out from under Logan, putting my hands on his chest to show him I mean business. “I really do want to get some work done today.”
His eyes are dark and hungry but like always, he accommodates my wishes and rolls off. Though not without one last lingering look and a growled promise of, “We’ll pick this up later.”
He starts to pick up the scattered papers but I wave a hand.
“What if we’re too mired down in our thinking? Let’s go back to basics. We’re trying to create a living drug, right?”
Logan nods, sitting at the edge of the bed again while I scoot up into a sitting position. He helps arrange pillows behind my head so that I’m comfortable.
“Okay, so let’s think it through. What are we trying to accomplish, at the core?”
“We need to create a modified T cell that’s able to recognize the target,” Logan says. “To recognize the diseased cells.”
“Yes. And second, our drug needs to modify that cell in such a way that it replicates the superhero cell into a clone army.”
Logan nods and starts ticking them off on his fingers. “Recognize, replicate. Third, it and its clones need to actually work, so it can kill the sick cells and not just be duds once they’re actually injected in the body.”
“And fourth and finally,” I breathe out, “these magical cells we’ve treated to become super cells have to live for the lifetime of the person, so that it’s a forever cure.”
Logan waves a hand. “No big deal. We got this.”
I laugh out loud, but there’s a heavy dose of despair in it. “You know we’ve always had trouble with steps three and four. Belladonna’s anti-aging cream work so well because we mastered the first two, targeting aged and diseased tissue and cloning regenerative cells.”
“But we’ve yet to figure out a solution for delivering the super cells into the bloodstream in a way that allows them to live for the life of the patient, curing a disease like Battleman’s long-term. I know, I know.”