The Girl Who Always Wins (Soulless 13)

Was this really the reason why some patients didn’t get better?

And if I fixed it…would they all get better?

The elevator doors opened, and Deacon emerged, in his blue scrubs with an open jacket on top. His bag was over his shoulder, and with a shadow over his face and bags under his eyes, he walked to the desk.

I stared at him, unsure what to say, how to tell him this.

He set his bag on the counter and pulled out his things without looking at me.

“Deacon?”

“Hmm?” He sat down and sighed. “Just tired.” He got to work.

The labs were still in my hand. “I have some good news.”

He swiveled in his chair toward me.

I held out the papers to him. “They have inflammatory markers…every single one of them.”

His gaze was locked with mine for several seconds before he looked at the papers I’d extended. He grabbed them then flipped through them, wearing that same intense expression. He took out his pen and marked each one with a check mark. When he set everything down and looked at me, there was a new look in his eyes. He wasn’t the brooding, pissed-off guy anymore. “Holy fucking shit…”

“I’m in shock too.”

“The medication is putting them in an inflammatory state. The patients that already have diabetes were already in this state prior to treatment…and that’s why it’s working.”

“So, if we counter the inflammation, it should work for all of them. That can’t be possible, right? That just sounds too good to be true. I mean…that would mean we would have discovered a way to treat lung cancer…like a UTI or something.”

He must have been rendered speechless because he didn’t know what to say.

The greatest achievement of my career happened at the scariest time of my life because Daisy never left the back of my mind, our baby still inside her, still with us at this moment. But any day, that could be over.

Maybe that was why I couldn’t process this.

“I…I don’t know what to do.”

Deacon relaxed into the chair, his entire body sinking into the material. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. “We treat the inflammation…and save all our patients.”

When I walked in the door, she was already home.

She was on the couch in my t-shirt. She wore less sexy stuff around the house and opted for baggier clothing to hide her stomach. There wasn’t much of a stomach at all, but her clothes fit uncomfortably now, and if she continued to get bigger, she would need maternity clothes.

If.

All my excitement disappeared when I saw her because this was my reality.

Tomorrow would be the three-month mark.

Any moment, it could happen…and we would grieve forever.

She looked up from her computer on her lap. “Hey. I ordered Chinese.”

I came to the couch and set my bag down. I wasn’t thrilled about eating out more often, but I’d been so busy at the hospital that I didn’t have time to cook like I used to, and Daisy was terrible at it. “How are you doing?” I sat on the coffee table and faced her.

“Fine,” she said. “No changes.”

We had a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and I was afraid what the ultrasound would reveal. Maybe she’d already had a miscarriage and didn’t even realize it yet.

She brushed off my concern. “How was work?”

“Um…” I released a laugh because I was still in disbelief.

“Um?” she asked. “That’s an odd response.”

“Because I’m in disbelief right now.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Atlas, what happened?”

“I tested for the inflammation markers…”

She pushed her laptop aside and sat up straighter. “Oh. My. God.”

“And they had it. Every single one.”

She threw her arms down on her thighs. “Bitch, you lie.”

“Nope. So, your father and I put them all on steroids. Now we just have to wait—”

“It’s going to work.”

“Fuck…I can’t even bring myself to think that.”

“It’s going to work.”

I shook my head.

“This is one of the biggest advancements in medicine in…a decade.”

“We don’t know that yet—”

“Come on. Yes, we do. Dude, you’re going to win a Nobel!”

“Dude?”

“I’m sorry. I’m just so freakin’ excited right now. My dad must be…psycho.”

“He’s overwhelmed.”

“Oh my god, my dad is going to have two Nobel Prizes.”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves here—”

“No other research or advancement is bigger than cancer, Atlas.”

“We aren’t curing cancer. We’re controlling it. Like HIV or—”

“What once was a death sentence is now a bump in the road.”

I dropped my gaze and stared at my hands in disbelief.

“I’m so proud of you.” Her hands reached out to mine and squeezed them.

I squeezed them back, my heart beating so fast, it was like an iron fist banging on a door. I was so early in my career, and while I had high ambitions, I’d never expected to reach them—at least, not so quickly. All I wanted to do was make the world a better place, to help people, to give hope. To think I’d succeeded…was hard to believe. “I wish my parents were alive to see this…”