by K. A. Linde
Reyna froze. “About what?”
“The cure. A cure for vampirism.”
“No,” Reyna said. She couldn’t let that happen. Not when she still had never brought Laura or Drew back to see him. “It’s untested. What if something went wrong, Brian? I can’t let you do it.”
“I’m volunteering. You wanted a volunteer.” He met her eyes. “Well, here I am. You don’t get to make these choices for me.”
“Please,” she whispered.
“This is what I want.” Something clicked into place at that. Brian sat up straighter. His movements became more fluid. Some of the madness left his face. “I’d rather die than spend another moment as a vampire.”
Chapter 29
“Tell me about the side effects again,” Reyna said anxiously. She paced back and forth in front of Washington’s table, where he was removing another dose of Golden Blood. She couldn’t believe this was happening. That Brian, her Brian, was going to take this experiemental cure.
“Reyna,” Washington said with a sigh, “I have already informed you that I do not know what could happen to Brian. So far our two other…participants are moving along nicely. Maybe better than I expected. But it has been under an hour. I have no way of determining what could go wrong.”
“Guesses?” she pushed.
“That is not how medicine works.”
“Well, we’re about to throw my brother under the proverbial bus. Give me something?”
“Why? So that you can worry?” Washington set the tube down and turned to face her again. “If you persist in badgering me, I’ll have you escorted out of my laboratory. Brian has volunteered for this operation. That’s what you wanted—a volunteer. It would be imprudent to reject the opportunity now.”
“Fine. Fine,” Reyna grumbled. Except she desperately wanted to reject the opportunity.
Reyna tried to sit and wait out the process as Washington added Golden Blood to a syringe. The needle made her mouth dry. It wasn’t even for her and it made her want to run in the other direction. She shuddered and hastily glanced away just as Brian was escorted in.
It was the first time in two weeks that he’d been unchained and out of that room. His eyes took in everything like a sponge soaking up water. Reyna could see that his vampire abilities had manifested just in the way that he moved. Most vampires post–blood type cure had developed a human way of walking again, especially around humans. But Brian seemed to shift from one space to the next as if he couldn’t quite control his vampire speed. He prowled more like an animal than a man. It was…disturbing.
God, she hoped this worked. She desperately wanted her brother back. She knew he’d never be the same.
Brian took a seat next to Washington, flanked by Beckham and Philippé. The rest of Becks’ circle was observing the other “participants” and were to report to Washington if anything changed.
Reyna clenched the lab table as Washington prepped Brian for the cure.
“You understand that this is experimental treatment for the case of vampirism. Possible issues related to the cure are still uncertain,” Washington said to Brian as he swabbed his arm with an alcohol pad.
“Yes,” Brian said. “Just…fix me.”
“You’ll feel a pinch and then a burning. That’s normal.”
“I’ve endured torture. Just get it over with.”
Beckham raised an eyebrow at Reyna. She shrugged. He’d asked her for another solution. She just wished she’d figured one out sooner.
It only took a second. Washington inserted the needle and pumped the plunger until the liquid was gone. He removed the needle just as quickly, covered the drop of blood with a cotton ball, and then placed a ridiculous Band-Aid over the injection site. A vampire with a Band-Aid. Now she’d seen everything.
“Did it work?” Reyna asked. She chewed on her lip and stared intently at Brian to look for any changes.
He hissed and clutched his arm. “You said burning. Not like I was on fire from the inside out.”
“It was hard to determine the mental state of the others,” Washington said by way of apology.
Brian doubled over, clutching his stomach. It was as if he had a stomach bug and was about to spew everything he’d recently eaten. Except all he did was moan over the pain. Utter uncontrollable pain. It scorched through him as Golden Blood took root, acting as white blood cells fighting the vampiric virus that had infected his body.
Suddenly, he fell backward off of his stool and collapsed onto the ground. His body seized once, twice, three times.
Washington rushed to him, turning him on his side to try to mitigate the problem. Reyna was there next. Her hand on Brian’s shoulder. Her eyes full of worry. She didn’t care that she was potentially in danger. This was her brother. She would not let this happen.
“What can I do?” Reyna gasped. “My blood?”
“No,” Washington snapped. “I warned you it would be traumatic. Golden Blood has to get through his entire system. It’s as painful to be remade human as it was to be turned.”
Brian convulsed, yet was unresponsive for a solid five minutes while Reyna watched helplessly. He had volunteered. This was what he wanted. But he must be in unbelievable agony. Suddenly he stopped, shifting onto his back and groaning.
His eyes fluttered open and he looked up at the ceiling. “Oh God.”
“Brian? How are you feeling?”
“My skin is melting off.”
“Did it work?” she asked Washington eagerly.
“Let’s carefully get him back up,” Washington said. “I need to test his blood.”
Philippé helped Brian back into his seat. Brian shuddered against every touch as if he had an intense sunburn and his skin was on fire. Beckham stood stoically nearby and awaited the verdict. Washington drew blood and went to work to verify what he had seen with the other two. Reyna remained at Brian’s side, hoping and praying that this wasn’t all for naught.
Finally, Washington loosed a breath. “It’s eliminating the virus.”
Reyna gasped. “It worked?”
“It appears that the first wave of the injection worked as with the others. His vampirism is being fought off, eliminated. It will take some more time of observation to determine how much of the other side effects of vampirism are eliminated, but at this time…yes, it worked.”
* * *
—
Reyna stayed with Brian until Washington forced him to rest. The elimination of the virus would wreck him and leave him exhausted. He needed as much sleep as possible to process it.
Before she left him though, she got his permission to call Drew and Laura to tell them the good news. She was beyond ready to have something good to tell them. She knew that they’d both been worrying as much as she had. Laura had been a wreck, and Reyna was happy to tell her that they would bring her up to the mansion the next time they sent a car into town. At least this gave them hope.
“How’s he doing?” Jodie asked.
“The cure is attacking the virus. He’s sleeping finally.”
“Good.”
“How are you doing?”
Jodie shrugged. “A little numb. I thought experiments were long behind me. I just wanted to make the world a better place and find my cousin. Can’t seem to make either of those happen.”
“That’s not true. Don’t be so tough on yourself.”
“I think June is dead,” Jodie whispered. “I mean…what other explanation is there?”
“That’s not the only explanation.”
Jodie opened her mouth to respond, but Tye came rushing into the room. “Reyna, come quick.”
Reyna dashed after him. “Is it Brian? Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure he’s fine. It’s an email.”
“An email?” she asked in confusion.
He turned the computer to face her and she glanced down at the inbox.
“It just came in from Everett.”
Reyna had a bad feeling about this. A chasm opened in the pit of her stomach and remained there as she clicked on the new email. There was no subject line. No text in the body of the document. Just an attachment.
“Is that safe?” she asked.
“It didn’t pull up any viruses, but…I can’t be certain. We could get Zoya?”
“She’s busy.”
Reyna clicked on the attachment. A video populated almost immediately. They exchanged a confused glance. Jodie sidled up next to her as she realized what was going on. Reyna knew it was probably a bad idea, but she pressed Play anyway.
“Oh fuck,” she whispered.
Jodie clutched Reyna’s shoulder. “Holy shit!”
“Whoa…I…I…” Tye stammered.
“We need to get the others,” Reyna said. Except she couldn’t pull herself away from the video that was playing. None of them could.
“I’m going to kill that motherfucker,” Jodie spat.
“Get in line,” Reyna said.
Tye disappeared finally to get the others. Reyna couldn’t stop watching the video. It was hours’ worth of material. She could stay riveted to this spot for days probably.
“What’s so important that you pulled us from the cure?” Katarina asked, storming into the room with her bright red hair flying. “Seems counterintuitive.”
“Yeah. What’s going on, Reyna?” Meghan asked.
“Everett sent us a video.”
Reyna turned the laptop toward them so they could all see exactly what was on the disturbing video. He’d said he was going to prove himself…and he had.
“The camps,” Meghan whispered.
“An inside look at the feeding camps. He turned himself in and somehow kept a video camera on him. I have no idea how he got the footage out to us, but it shows us everything we feared and were told in real time. Being sorted by blood type, the vampire army, being administered an antidote, the feeding frenzy, the general dehumanization of Harrington’s supposed housing project. We need to get the footage edited and mass distributed as soon as possible. This is what we needed, to show the public the atrocities of Visage.
“Everett’s inside that facility. I want to get him out. It was a huge sacrifice to be able to get this for us. I don’t want that sacrifice to be in vain.”
* * *
—
Reyna divided her time over the next two days between looking in on Brian and helping with the time-consuming process of digging through Everett’s video footage. It was an enormous file and they’d had to process the most impactful parts first. They’d distributed it to the public only an hour ago. She felt buoyant that they were finally having an impact.
Especially with Brian.
After two days of observation, he was eating human food again. The virus had completely detached from his blood. Though it wasn’t fully gone; it was still powering some of his vamp powers. But hearing went first. One day he could hear whispers down the hall and the next he was back to normal hearing.
Reyna was almost giddy with excitement. She knew that she should guard her heart for the worst, but it was so hard to do that when she saw such marked improvement.
“Little One,” Beckham said against her hair. She’d sensed him coming her way long ago, but it was nice to wait for him to embrace her before reacting.
“Mmm?”
“Give him some peace.”
She’d been watching Brian sleep. He’d been doing a lot of that.
“All right. Fine,” she said, turning into him for a kiss. “I’m just so…pleased.”
“We need to go back to the cabin. I want to test to see if I can give you my speed again. If I can heal you. What else we can do.” Beckham kissed the shell of her ear. “A battle is coming. We should prepare.”
“Ever the lord.”
“This is simply the calm before the storm. The troops should rest, but never the general.”
She glanced up at him, feeling her sense of ease evaporate. “How are we going to find Harrington?”
“Leave that to me.”
“How are we going to stop him?”
“I have an idea about that too.”
“Going to share?”
He kissed her lips. “Letting it percolate.”
“Your ideas are coffee now?”
His laugh was a full-bodied thing that made her tingle in all the right places. “Oh, my love. Come. Let us practice.”
Beckham had the decency to let her march out to the cabin rather than carry her. She wanted to be back at the house watching over Brian and waiting to hear the reaction from the public to the video that Zoya had uploaded. Instead, she was in the cabin, practicing Beckham throwing her his vampire skills.
Healing they had figured out. Speed he’d been able to give her at Penelope’s. Hearing was what he worked on next. Opening her up to their connection and pushing out the ability. It took a few tries before it worked, but she could only listen to the outside world for a minute before dropping the connection.
“Oh God,” she gasped, falling to one knee. Beckham rushed to her side.
“What happened?”
“My ears. They hurt like a bitch. Ugh! Ringing and pain.” Reyna put her hand to her ear. Blood ran out of one of them.
“Did you have symptoms for healing or speed?”
Reyna closed her eyes as the pain receded, and thought back. “Nothing for healing except some pain as I healed. When you gave me the speed, I was disoriented and dizzy. Some ringing in my ears and it took a second to stand steady again.”
“Of course.”
“Of course what?”
“You’re getting my enhancements but without the virus changing your composition to be able to accommodate them. So your body is exhibiting physical side effects.”
“What…what can we do about it?”
“Not do it anymore.”
“No.”
“Building up to it could take weeks, months…even years. We can’t just force this onto you. You could die,” he told her.
Reyna groaned. “Then fucking turn me! Let’s just make it easier. If as a human I can’t handle it, maybe I could as a vampire.”
“That’s not part of this discussion.”
“Make it part of the discussion. There’s a cure now. I could always turn back.”
Beckham turned away from her. “I understand why you want this, but no. It’s risky.”
“Do you not want me to live forever with you?” she whispered.
“Do we have to decide about eternity in the midst of war?”
“When else will we decide?”
“Reyna, I don’t know how many ways I can tell you that I love you. That I love you so much that I would never want this to happen to you. Look at what it did to your brother. Yes, he was tortured and starved, but you are a kind soul. What would the virus do to your heart? Would you still be my Reyna afterward?”
“Of course I would. We’re blood matched. You’re my soul mate.”
Beckham shook his head. She could see the resignation in him. The sheer horror and discomfort that had settled onto him. “If it’s the only way, Reyna, then I’ll do it.”
“You will?” she whispered.
“You can make your own choices. You trust me not to be a monster. Perhaps I could trust you not to be your own.”
Reyna stared at him in shock. Not that he would allow her to make her own choice, but that he’d agree to this choice.
That was the moment she realized she could never do this to him.
Never.
Not ever.
It would break him.
For the man who had spent so long hatin
g himself for his deeds, she could destroy him by doing this. He would see it as his greatest failure. Another chink in his armor that finally hit hard enough to shatter. He’d survived his parents and Bronwyn and hundreds of other deaths. But she could see in his onyx eyes that he would not be the same if she was remade.
She placed her hand on one of his. “We’ll find another way, okay?”
He tilted his head in surprise, but said nothing. Just drew her close and kissed her hard.
A promise, a recognition, an understanding.
They linked hands and began their trek back to the house. She’d try again tomorrow. Maybe she could figure out a way to take the abilities for shorter periods of times. Guard herself against the side effects. Be better at it now that she knew what she was up against. There had to be a way.
A hundred yards from the front door, Beckham abruptly stopped. “Do you hear that?”
She raised an eyebrow. “No.”
He held his hand up. “Two seconds. No more. Don’t hold on too long.”
Then he opened himself up to her. She reached for the ability to hear and suddenly she could. She gasped when she heard it and then dropped the connection. Her breathing was rough and her ears hurt a bit, but nothing as bad as before.
“A helicopter?”
“On its way here.”
Chapter 30
Beckham took off, leaving her in the dust. Reyna cursed under her breath and then dashed for the house. She couldn’t leave everyone in there. She was leading Elle. These were her people. She needed to get everyone out.
“Gabe!” she gasped, nearly running into him in the entrance. “Get to the cars as fast as possible. A helicopter is coming. We need to get out.”
“On it. You need to get out too!” Gabe yelled. Meghan came dashing after him. He grabbed her hand and rushed for the door.