Summoning his courage, he pressed the needle into her vein and shot his blood into her, feeling sickened and disturbed the entire time.
“Kind of makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” Her weak voice startled him as he pulled the needle out of her arm. Her eyes looked tired, heavy with sleep, as she gave him a bitter smile. “If this isn’t where the whole vampire legend started.”
“The similarities are hard to ignore,” he admitted and he pressed a Band-Aid over her wound. She finally looked at him, and in her eyes, he could see she was speechless and thankful. He couldn’t help himself—the fear and frustration he’d felt when he couldn’t find her, the worry he’d felt when he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him, the burning attraction he’d felt since the very moment he looked into her blue eyes again—all spilled over as he leaned forward, cupping her face in his hands, and planted a soft, gentle kiss right on her thin lips.
Slow, needy, passionate, their kiss seemed to stretch on for an eternity, and he wished it could have. He’d love nothing more than to kiss her forever.
When it ended, all too soon, he rested his forehead against hers, keeping his eyes closed as the newly freed emotions swam through his body. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, he opened his eyes to be greeted by her caring blue eyes. “I love you,” he whispered, still cradling her face in his hands. “I never told you that...but I love you. Since the moment your lips first met mine, I’ve known I love you.”
Chapter Seven—Cure
By the time Caine, Max and Hannah hiked three miles into the thick North Carolina woods and found the seedy underground science lab, the sky was getting light as dawn approached.
The brick building looked so out of place, surrounded by trees as if an entire patch of them had to be cut down to make room for the lab. Outside of it, a man dressed like a guard was slumped on the ground.
“Sean’s been here,” Max said as he knelt to check the man’s pulse. “He’s still here...I can feel him.”
“This is where they took you?” Caine asked Hannah as they looked at the lab.
She nodded. “They kept us in the basement, there’re a bunch of rooms down there.”
“You and Max go down there and get the people out. I’m going to go find Sean.”
“Caine...we should stick together.”
“We can’t, Hannah. If Sean’s really still in there, I have to go distract him so you guys can get out. I’ll be okay.”
When she looked at him, he could see how scared she felt. Her eyes brimmed with tears, and her hands trembled lightly at her sides, but then she took a small, almost unnoticeable breath and he could see her bravery kick in. She nodded, clutching his hand tightly. “Just be careful.”
He squeezed her hand. “You, too.”
They crept up to the door, Max on one side and Caine on the other, with Hannah behind them, each one ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble. But when they entered the dark building, they saw nothing: no person in sight in the long, dim corridor, no sounds except a dripping faucet that echoed in the empty building.
A scream rang out from somewhere down the hall and to the left, and then Sean’s maniacal laughter echoed down the hallway.
“The basement’s this way,” Max whispered, pointing to the right.
“You guys go. Hurry,” Caine whispered, releasing Hannah’s hand. He didn’t look back at her as he followed the sound of Sean’s laughter. He was afraid if he looked back; he’d turn around and take Hannah home, and then leave Sean to pull another stunt like this all over again.
No, he couldn’t look back. He couldn’t change his mind. This feud with Sean needed to be settled, once and for all.
He turned left and saw a blue fluorescent light sweeping into the hallway from a room at the end of it. A shadow moved across the doorway, a figure that looked human.
Creeping up to the doorway, he didn’t make a sound, but his heart was pounding so loudly he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to hear anything else. To say Sean scared him would be an understatement, but he wouldn’t let that stop him. Finally reaching the doorway, he prepared himself to walk inside when he heard Sean’s voice say, “’Bout time you got here, bro.”
His body heaved as the tension of sneaking up on Sean disappeared to be replaced with embarrassment. Sean had probably been reading his thoughts since he walked in the door—maybe even before.
He stepped into the doorway to finally face his brother. Sean stood in the center of the room, a nerdy looking guy in a lab coat cowering in a corner at his feet.
“You know me,” Caine said, taking in his surroundings. “I’m always a day late and a dollar short.”
Sean laughed. “You got that right. Took you long enough to figure out what happened to Hannah, too. You were really late to the game on that one.”
“Funny that you mention that,” Caine said as he walked toward his sick brother. “That’s exactly what I came here to talk to you about.”
***
Hannah followed Max down the basement steps. Max held his gun in position in front of him, but they didn’t need it. When they came to the room where the hostages were held, they saw the guards were all unconscious lumps on the floor.
“Are they dead?” Hannah asked, a sick feeling swirling her stomach as she stepped back to avoid walking over somebody.
Max knelt down, pressing his finger’s against a man’s wrist. Suddenly he gasped as if he’d been shocked, and he yanked his hand back. “Sean...he put them out somehow. Like...psychically.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He did something to their brain...something that made them pass out.” Max stood up, raising his gun in the air, his voice thick with fear and tension. “We need to get out of here, fast.”
Hannah nodded, springing into motion. Each door of the hallway had a padlock that held another person—another mutant—like them captive. They weren’t all evil, Hannah remembered from her stay. Most of them were like Caine—with no idea what’s going on with their body.
Hannah used the strength Caine’s shot gave her to break one of the locks. She twisted the door open before she moved to the next one and broke its lock too. It was draining her energy fast, but she managed to get her side of the hallway done. Max easily busted open the rest of the doors while sending the captives a mental image of the escape route and plan.
They moved out like a herd, Hannah and Max bringing up the end while the group of starved and experimented on victims were desperately charging through the hallway toward freedom.
When Hannah finally reached the door, while the inmates she’d once dwelled with gathered outside, she looked back in the direction Caine had gone.
“No,” Max said, reading the expression on her face and not her thoughts. “He can handle himself.”
“I have to.” She started down the hallway but Max grabbed her wrist.
“Hannah, these people have no idea what’s going on or where the car’s parked...I have to stay with them.”
“Then stay,” she said. “But I need to face him.”
He sighed, shaking his head as he dropped her arm. Handing her his gun, he stepped back over the threshold and outside. “Be careful.”
***
“Why’d you do it?” Caine’s eyes narrowed on his brother as all of his fear vanished. There was nothing but anger. Nothing but the hate. “Why would you do something so horrible?”
“Does there always have to be a reason for you?” His brother taunted, turning the conversation around like he always did.
The scientist still huddled in the corner, and Caine tried to put himself between Sean and the human.
He wasn’t sure why it happened—maybe it was the anger, or the sympathy toward Hannah, or just the complete desire to know why—something opened the wall between Sean’s mind and Caine’s allowing Caine to see into his brother’s thoughts. He’d never been able to read thoughts—he’d never even tried, both out of respect for the regular humans and lack o
f interest. But he heard Sean’s thoughts clear as day.
And he realized this wasn’t about sibling rivalry at all. Sean had been obsessed with Hannah since before Caine ever moved to town—he’d followed her to church, he’d watched her cheer from the football stands, he’d lurked in the woods while she cleaned Angel’s Place. He even broke into her room once just to steal a scrunchie. Then Caine moved to town—and in Sean’s twisted way of thinking, yanked Hannah right out from under him and took what was supposed to be his. The fact that they were brothers just added fuel to the fire.
Stepping back in shock, from the intensity of Sean’s obsession, Caine stared at his brother in disgust. “She’s never been yours,” he said. “No matter what you think—no matter what you’ve convinced yourself in that demented mind—she’s never been your girlfriend. She never even knew you existed until you kidnapped her.”
Sean’s face twisting in the most violent expression of rage; he lunged forward with his fist aimed toward Caine’s face. Caine braced himself for the blow, prepared to counter, but a shot rang out and a spot on Sean’s shoulder started to bleed.
Whirling around, Caine saw Hannah in the doorway with the gun held steady out in front of her. Sean stumbled back against the wall, stunned more than he was hurt and Caine darted over to the doorway, motioning for Sean’s hostage to follow.
Being in this place where something so bad happened to Hannah made his control snap. Without thinking it through, he stopped in the doorway, blocking the exit as he grabbed Max’s gun from Hannah and brandished it in the air.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Caine said, his voice loud and demanding.
The nerdy scientist stopped, his arms shaking like leaves now. Hannah gave a little scream when he yanked the gun from her and she ducked back against the wall, trying to stay out of the way.
“We want some answers,” Caine said, with the gun aimed on the scientist, Caine took a step forward so he could keep one eye on Sean. “What’s happening to us?”
“W-w-well,” he stammered, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “It’s kind of...hard to explain really.”
“Try,” Caine snapped.
The scientist flinched, shrinking back. “Think of it as...massive amounts of testosterone and adrenaline flooding your body all at once.”
“Caine,” Hannah’s shaky voice interrupted as she looked down where Sean was knocked unconscious on the floor. “Caine...he’s recovering.”
Turning to his brother, Caine fired another shot into his other shoulder. Sean cried out in pain and clutched each shoulder as blood pooled out of his wounds.
Turning back to the scientist, he stepped closer, still blocking the door but allowing Hannah to hide safely behind him. “Forget the science mumbo-jumbo. The cure Sean wants to destroy. Where is it?”
The man reached into his pocket and held out a small vile filled with a creamy white liquid.
“Will it help Hannah, too?”
“I...I don’t understand...”
“She wasn’t born one of us,” Caine said, his irritation evident in his voice. “She was...turned somehow. That guy,” he pointed to Sean, “injected her with his blood and ever since then, if she doesn’t get any more, she gets really sick. Deathly sick. Another injection and she’s good as new. Will the cure fix that?”
“Fascinating,” the nerd said, his gaze travelling far away. “The initial injection must have altered her genetic make-up somehow...although I’m not sure how...”
“Will it work?”
“Yes,” he stammered. “I can do it myself. She needs a smaller dose of course—because of her small size and predominantly human make-up.”
Caine nodded, reaching his hand out. “You give it to her. Give me one for him.”
Arms still shaking, the nerdy guy hurried over to a cabinet and pulled out two needles. It took him a while but he managed to draw out the white liquid and hand one syringe to him.
Caine hurried over to de-monster his brother while the scientist called, “In the tissue not the vein!”
Caine knelt as he reached his brother, with the needle aimed right toward his bicep. Before he could stab the needle in, Sean grabbed Caine’s wrist, squeezing with all of his strength.
Caine swore he thought his wrist would snap if it had to endure much more of the crushing pressure. In one last desperate attempt to stop his brother, Caine swung his hand, the butt of the pistol hitting Sean’s cheek and making his head slam back into the wall. While he was stunned, Caine shoved the needle into his brother’s arm and plunged the antidote into his system.
Sean’s grip slowly weakened as every bit of the white liquid poured into his body and he eventually looked up at his brother, obviously rendered weak and helpless.
***
“So, he’s completely human now?” Hannah asked as she slowly approached Caine, nervously keeping her gaze on Sean, who squinted up at them from the floor. He looked disoriented and dizzy, and his hand kept slipping when he tried to support his weight.
The scientist nodded. “Completely.”
All of her bottled up pain, all of her guilt flooded her system at the same time, a wave of rage and hate washing over her and overcoming her completely. Bringing her leg up, she kicked Sean square in the face, and watched as he flew into the wall. She was on him in an instant, her sanity completely snapped as she kicked and screamed at him for everything he’d done to her.
Caine reached out to her, trying to calm her, but when she whirled around to face him, her gaze caught on the gun, and suddenly nothing else existed. She yanked the gun from Caine’s hand, spinning back around and aiming it point blank at Sean’s head.
“You sick, disgusting freak,” she screamed, squirming because just being near Sean was unbearable. “You took my life...you turned it into your twisted game!”
“Hannah,” Caine’s voice was soft, swirling into her anger and threatening to soothe her. She couldn’t let him—she needed to kill Sean. It was the only way to stop him from coming after them. “You don’t want to do this, Hannah. You know that.”
The skinny doctor stepped up to Caine, his voice still quivering. “In all fairness...the guy is a killer.”
“Hannah’s not,” he snapped back. “You know that, Hannah. He’s human now...nothing but human. You know what the guilt from this would do to you.”
She looked at Sean, helpless and weak and completely human, with the barrel of the gun pressing into his forehead. One tiny squeeze of her finger would blow his life away and send him straight to hell where he belonged. One tiny little squeeze would end all of her suffering...and create a whole new sorrow.
If she took his life, she’d never forgive herself. Even though he was an evil freak who’d shattered her world into pieces—she couldn’t kill him. Staggering back into Caine’s arms, she let him take the gun.
“You ever come after us again,” Caine leveled his gaze with Sean as he wrapped a protective arm around Hannah, “I won’t talk her out of it. I’ll let her kill you.”
Turning to Hannah, Caine said, “Can you find some rope or something? I need to tie him up.”
She nodded, turning to the scientist who pointed toward a closet on the other side of the room.
“Do you have a phone?” Caine asked the man.
He nodded. “Yes...it’s right over there.”
“When we leave, call the police. I don’t care if you stick around to explain this or not but make sure he’s sent to jail. And don’t tell them we were ever here.”
He nodded as Hannah handed Caine a rope. Caine turned to tie his brother up, when the scientist suddenly asked, “Do you want the cure, too?”
He realized he’d never even considered using the cure for himself. And last year, he would have jumped at the opportunity because this disease had been ruining his life. But it wasn’t such a problem now...and he wasn’t sure he needed it.
***
Hannah snuggled close to Caine in Max’s car as they drove back home. Once they’
d met Max in the parking lot where they’d hidden their cars, he told them he was going to take his little sister home and help the other refugees find their families, and that he’d be back for his car in a week or two.
As Caine and Hannah rode down the long, twisting mountain road, he smiled at how good it felt good to have her so close to him, but it felt even better to see the easy smile permanently on her face.
Nuzzling her head against his shoulder, she whispered, “Thank you, so much, for coming after me. For getting me the cure.”
“Did it help?” he asked, still worried that something would go wrong.
“Completely,” she said, sitting up to face him with the excitement clear on her pretty face. “I feel brand new—like this dark weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”
He smiled over at her, completely relieved to hear her so happy.
She reached out, touching his arm. “Why didn’t you take the cure?”
He took a deep breath, trying to think of a way to explain it to her. “This was one of the scariest times of my life—searching for you, facing Sean—and I didn’t change not once. I’ve really got the monster under control now...I think I found my own cure.”
Leaning forward, she pressed her lips against his cheek and gave him a kiss. “That’s even better than some miracle cure cooked up in a lab.”
“I guess it’s true what they say.” Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he pulled her against him again and inhaled the sweet scent of her hair. “The greatest strength is always within ourselves.”
About the Author
Jasmine Denton started writing when she was ten, authoring a series of short stories about a line of princesses who find themselves in similar forbidden love scenarios. As a teenager, she wrote stories filled with angst and growing pains. Now, she’s found a genre that allows her to tell forbidden love and teen angst stories against a paranormal backdrop. Jasmine’s published works include Soul of the Sea, the first in the Curse of the Sea series and Inner Demons, a modern day retelling of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
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