Chapter 1: The Injection
The key turned in the lock with a dry, scraping sound. Lewis looked up from the box of old vinyl records he was unpacking, the single overhead bulb swinging slightly and making the cardboard shadows dance. Before he could call out a greeting, the door flew open and Mary stumbled inside.
She didn’t look like his Mary. Her normally smooth black hair was wild around her face, stuck to her temples and the side of her neck with sweat. Her eyes were wide, the warm brown almost black with panic, and her breaths came in sharp, hitched gasps that didn’t seem to bring any air.
“Lewis,” she choked out, one hand clutching the opposite arm just below the shoulder. Her knuckles were white.
“Hey—hey, what’s wrong?” He was across the room in three strides, vinyl forgotten. He reached for her, his hands finding her trembling shoulders. Her skin was cold and clammy. “Mary, talk to me. Are you hurt?”
She shook her head violently, then nodded, a frantic, disjointed motion. “The train. On the Blue Line. A man—he just… he was just there, and then he wasn’t—” Her words dissolved into a sob. She leaned into him, her small frame shuddering. “He jabbed me. In the neck. With something. A needle, I think. It burned, Lew. It’s still burning.”
A cold needle of his own, this one made of pure dread, slipped down Lewis’s spine. He guided her to the couch, the old springs groaning under them. “Okay, okay. Let me see.” His voice was softer than he felt, a practiced calm coating a rising tide of alarm. He gently moved her trembling hand from her neck.
There it was. A small, angry red puncture mark, right at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. The skin around it was already beginning to flush an ugly, deep pink.
“We need to call an ambulance. Now.” He started to get up, fumbling for his phone in his pocket.
“No!” Her hand shot out, grabbing his wrist with surprising force. Her grip was hot. “No hospitals. Not yet. I just… I feel strange. Not right. My head is… buzzing.” She looked up at him, her brown eyes swimming with tears. “Just stay with me. Please.”
He sat back down, pulling her close. He could feel the rapid, frantic drum of her heart against his chest. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed her hair, inhaling the familiar scent of her coconut shampoo now undercut with the sharp, acrid smell of fear-sweat. And something else. A faint, metallic tang, like ozone and copper, that seemed to be coming from her skin.
For a few minutes, the only sounds were her ragged breathing and the frantic skitter of a moth against the light bulb. Lewis held her, rubbing circles on her back, whispering nonsense reassurances. He watched the shadows on the peeling wallpaper deepen and stretch.
Then he felt it. A change in her.
The tremors running through her body weren’t subsiding. They were deepening, becoming less like shivers and more like resonant vibrations. The heat coming off her skin intensified, moving from feverish to something akin to standing near a banked furnace.
“Mary?” he whispered.
She pushed herself upright, away from him. Her head was bowed, her long hair a curtain hiding her face. Her hands, now clenched into fists on her knees, looked… different. The tendons stood out like cables. The bones seemed more pronounced.
“It’s… spreading,” she whispered, her voice low and thick. “The burn. It’s in my blood. I can feel it… moving.”
“That’s it. We’re going.” The alarm in his voice was naked now. He stood, reaching for her again.
She looked up.
Lewis’s breath caught in his throat. Her eyes. The warm brown was being swallowed, consumed from the inside by a luminous, emerald green. It wasn’t a reflection. They glowed, faintly, like swamp fire in the dim room.
“Lew?” Her voice was a confused rasp. “I don’t…”
A sickening, wet crackle cut her off, the sound of cartilage and bone reorganizing itself. Mary cried out, a short, sharp sound of pain and terror, and clutched at her own shoulders. But her shoulders were broadening, the fabric of her nurse’s scrubs stretching taut with a faint tearing sound.
He watched, frozen, as the petite, athletic frame he knew began to expand.
It wasn’t gradual. It was a violent, relentless inflation. Her biceps and thighs swelled, muscle piling upon muscle, shredding the seams of her clothes. The soft cotton of her top split open down her spine as her lats flared. The color of her skin was changing, leaching of its warm tan, flooding with a deep, vivid jade that spread like a storm front across a map. Her fingers, gripping the couch cushions, grew thicker, the nails darkening to onyx.
“Mary, stop—” The words were stupid, meaningless, and died in his mouth.
She threw her head back, a corded neck now as thick as a thigh straining, and a guttural sound ripped from her throat—part scream, part roar. The last of her clothes gave way, falling in tatters around her on the couch. The transformation surged upwards. Her jaw squared, her cheekbones becoming pronounced ledges. Her black hair seemed to wilden, gaining a deeper, almost blue-black sheen.
In less than a minute, it was over.
The trembling had stopped. The room was silent except for the low, rhythmic rush of air being drawn in and expelled by enormous lungs.
Where Mary Saysay had been sitting, now occupied most of the couch and seemed to fill the entire room, was a giant. A seven-foot-tall monument of raw, feminine power. Her skin was a uniform, sleek green, her muscles not bulky but impossibly defined, flowing into one another like sculpted stone. She radiated a palpable, physical heat.
Slowly, she turned her head and looked at him.
Those eyes. They were Mary’s eyes in shape, but the glowing emerald light within them was alien. The panic, the vulnerability, the kindness—all of it was gone. Replaced by a lazy, predatory awareness. A sly, unsettling curiosity.
Lewis stumbled back a step, his hip hitting the edge of the unpacked box. Records spilled across the floor with a clatter.
The sound seemed to amuse her. A smirk played on her full lips. It was an expression he’d never seen on Mary’s face—confident, possessive, hungry.
“Lewis.” Her voice was a deep, resonant contralto, like smoothed gravel. It vibrated in his chest. She said his name not as a plea, but as a statement. A tasting.
“Mary… please,” he whispered, holding up a hand, as if he could ward her off.
She uncoiled from the couch with a fluid, powerful grace that was terrifying. The floorboards creaked in protest under her weight. She took a single step toward him, closing the distance he’d tried to create. The faint, metallic scent was now a heady, dangerous perfume.
She looked him up and down, that green glow intensifying. Her gaze felt physical, like a touch. “All this time,” the She-Hulk that was Mary purred, a low rumble that started in her chest. “So gentle. So… careful.” She tilted her head, and the predatory smirk widened. “I bet you don’t even know what you’ve been holding.”
He backed up again and found the wall cold against his back. There was nowhere else to go. The kind hazel of his own eyes was wide with pure, animal terror, reflected in the twin emerald suns fixed on him.
She leaned in, bringing her face close to his. He could feel the heat of her breath. She didn’t touch him, but her presence was a cage.
“Let’s find out,” she growled, her voice dripping with a seductive menace that made his blood turn to ice.