As if on cue, she turned pale, her blue veins brightening beneath her skin. He pressed the back of his hand against her forehead, but his desensitized touch could only feel the barest note of fevered heat. Trained to know that it was not enough to cause panic. Yet.

She shivered, the convulsion stronger than her heartbeat.

“I will bring you an extra blanket tonight and turn up the heat.” He smiled and kissed her forehead, his lips feeling her heat inch a degree higher.

He let her be, thinking her body would overcome it with ease. It is only a cold, he thought. Nothing to worry about. It is still possible for her to get a cold. She is human. He’d seen all too many simple colds in his line of work and all too many overreactions to nonexistent medical threats. All those anxious parents who came to his office to make a fuss out of a little cough . . .

“No, Mrs. Johnson. Your son is not filled with disease, nor is he terminally ill.”

“Are you sure? But look at him! He’s so pale! And that cough! It sounds like there’s a monster in his lungs!”

“The only monster is the probable cigarettes he is inhaling without your knowledge. The cough sounds worse for smokers. Come back in a week after you’ve kept him hydrated and have better locked away your own vice.”

She never did come back. He had been right. He was always right about these things. Is always right about these things. The human body is like a first-grade textbook and he the teacher.

No, it is only a cold. It will pass and it will only make her stronger.

But soon after, she claimed she couldn’t sleep.

“Daddy?!” she would cry as she jerked herself awake.

“You are fine, Vanilla. I am here. You are safe,” he’d whisper as he stroked her boiling head. He imagined her brain roasting inside of her skull like a turkey in an oven.

(So much roasting.)

The coughs were keeping her up at night, and her shakes were too violent to allow a moment’s rest. He felt the tremors suffocating her muscles. She couldn’t control her body from wrenching itself out of sleep, and no matter how high he turned up the heat, she wouldn’t stop shivering. She wouldn’t just sweat it out.

“Daddy?” she whispered, the dryness in her throat causing her voice to crack so pitifully, like her lungs were filled with unquenchable desert sand.

“Yes?” he replied, his voice cracking as well.

“Why can’t I stop shaking?”

“Because you are cold, my sweet.”

“But my skin feels like it’s on fire.”

He didn’t want to scare her. To tell her that she was sick or that such things as sickness existed. To have to explain to her that not only creatures but diseases can cause death.

And, apparently, so can he.

“Your body is just trying to grow into the beautiful, strong woman you are becoming.”