“I’ll take my chances.” I leaned in to whisper into Rick’s ear. “Show us the way out, Einstein.”
“Okay, just don’t push the needle in anymore.” His raspy voice made him sound like he was near fainting. What had happened to that crazy mad scientist who’d cracked my mother’s sanity until it was broken beyond repair? Something wasn’t making sense, but I pushed the thought back for later. I had more important issues to deal with at the moment.
“Well, don’t make me.”
“This way.” I let him go and held the syringe pointed at him, nodding down to it. “You run, I stab.”
He bobbed his head up and down and turned forward, pointing ahead. We headed in that direction. Once we’d turned down several halls and gone past the lab, I noticed Mercer and Christian were no longer following us. “Where did your fine leaders go?”
“Probably to round up everyone else in the armory.”
Nice.
“Where’s that?”
“Toward the rear of the facility.”
“Any way to lock it down so they can’t get out of there?” This wasn’t sounding good for us at all. We had limited weapons.
“Uh… I… um….”
“Spit it out, human,” Rye hissed. He had been next to me the whole time, but I hadn’t noticed with my focus on Rick. I gave him a tight smile and nodded.
“Yeah. I can lock it down from my lab. It’s like a quarantine mechanism we set up in case there was a severe mutation that got out.”
I grabbed his arm and turned him toward the door to his lab. “Don’t just stand there. Turn it on.”
Chapter Six
Chemicals and Quarantines
“How secure are we in this lab? It’s made of glass all over the place.” Elijah pressed a hand against the cool surface of one of the see-through walls. He turned to view the hall in each direction, but no one was coming. Not yet. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
“It’s a fortress, I assure you. The glass is extremely impact resistant and bullet proof. There is no getting in or out. It can also be sealed for quarantine protocols.” Rick pushed his glasses up slowly with his left hand. His right arm was dangling at his side, probably dislocated. My bad.
“Get the armory and back section locked down now.” Rye wasn’t losing focus, and I was glad to have such stringent and focused warriors at my back.
“Okay, just one moment.” Rick fumbled with his fingers as he hit a half dozen switches before turning three keys and flipping a bright red switch. A huge rumble shook the ground as the gates shut. Several monitors above this station displayed the rush of activity in the lower floors of the fortress. Only a few stragglers had been trapped outside the quarantine walls, and the bulk of the vampires ran at the noise of the large lockdown doors sliding down into place. I couldn’t find Mercer or Christian on any of the monitors and wondered where they’d gone off to. I hoped they were trapped behind the barrier, but they would know about this feature and had probably made it out before we’d gotten the doors secured.
“How long before they get the doors back open?”
Rick settled into one of the rolling chairs, sighing as his eyebrows furrowed with pain. He held his arm, dangling uselessly at his side. “It’s made to keep things inside or out. It could take them days to get it open again if they really, really tried to short circuit the system. They won’t die in there; there’s emergency supplies of food and water all over this compound.” He grimaced as he rubbed his arm, the agony making him sweat and pale before my eyes.
I stepped forward, motioning for Elijah to help me. He threw me a knowing glance, and we both approached Rick. He flicked his eyes between us and paled even further. “I might need something for this pain… wait….”
“This’ll just take a minute.” I grabbed his arm and braced a leg on one of the solid metal counters bolted to the floor. Elijah wrapped his arms around Rick’s chest and held on tight as I gave him a nice hard tug.
Rick’s scream echoed through the lab, and I was sure the glass beakers and test tubes would shatter from it. I let his arm go and bent it, moving it around a bit to check mobility. This caused him further pain and had him passing out on the chair, slipping down before I braced his body against the chair with my weight. “Got a tough one here.” I patted his shoulder after I propped him up enough so he wouldn’t tumble to the ground. “Sorry about that. No, wait… not really sorry.”
Plopping down in my own rolling chair, I felt the fatigue tugging at my bones. The sun had just barely gone down, but I was exhausted. What had happened to the days of staying up all night?
“You hungry?” Rye plopped an energy bar and a glass of water in front of me. Glancing up at his gorgeous, gunmetal grey eyes, also encircled with a reflective strip of a yellow halo, I found myself smiling at him. I hadn’t really looked at him closely lately. He’d been around, holding me in bed, kissing my neck and making me feel wanted, but I hadn’t really let him in completely. Especially with the crazy blood bind going on with Christian.
But at that moment, I made myself look, really, really look at Rye. I liked what I saw, and it warmed my insides with a spill of heat as his eyes hypnotized me. I took the food he offered, grateful that he could read my needs better than I could.
“Thank you. I’m more tired than I thought. Maybe I should eat.” I unwrapped the foil covering and took a large bite of the thick bar. It was chalky and a bit tough to swallow, but hey, it was food, no matter how horrific it tasted.
“How are you feeling about all this?”
Ah, therapy time with Rye. Always the turn off for me. I frowned as I chewed.
“I’m fine. No, really.” I chugged the water back and looked toward the rows of mutations nearby. A chill ran down my skin, but I tried not to shudder. “I still need answers, but this antidote… it really could be something.” Rye’s frown was prominent, and it made me wonder what he was thinking. “What do you think about it?”
“It depends on if it’s for us hybrids or for the ferals only. If it’s for us, we could all be turned human again, and with the state of the world right now, that could be really bad.” He sighed, rubbing the fatigue from his eyes, making me realize just how exhausted and pale he was looking lately. “If it’s just for the ferals, that’d be amazing, to save all those infected, but I have a feeling this isn’t meant for the ferals at all. It’s meant to make all those with extra powers, like us, like you and me, to make us normal and human again. Do you think everyone will want that? I don’t. Who wants to give up power after having a taste of it? Who’d want to be utterly normal again?”
I nodded and pondered what he said. He had a point. Who could give up the powers we’d been given after so long and all the trials we’d faced? I wasn’t sure even I could if it came down to it. What if it would be used as a weapon instead of the salvation everyone would initially think it was? That could be disastrous.
“I guess when Rick wakes up, we’ll find out.” I tapped my fingers on the counter, which reminded me of my chemistry classes back in high school. I looked up to see Sarah take another chair across from me. Her bright smile always lifted my spirit, and I was relieved that she was there with me. She no longer looked peeved at me, at least. No one better to have than my best friend.
“Would you take it?” I asked. She picked at her nails, frowning at her disintegrating manicure. Sarah always took care of herself, beauty queen style. Her flaming red hair was still pulled back into a ponytail, but she made that look stylish with smooth strands and a lock of her brilliant hair wrapped around the elastic. Me, I was the epitome of style neglect. My hair wasn’t smooth, but fine and flat, pulled violently back into a ponytail with wisps escaping the tie’s grip with each step I took. My face was free of makeup and clear, but I was no looker like she was.
“Maybe.”
Somehow, our stark differences hadn’t mattered so much before the apocalypse, but now? Now I caught Rye throwing her the tiniest of smiles before he looked away
and fished out another energy bar from his supply pack to hand it to her. At least he was smart enough to have grabbed his pack from his room before escaping into this foodless lab.
I wasn’t a jealous girl, but that one tiny look made me feel like a wallflower. Lately, now that Sarah was around me so much more, I’d felt inferior to her pretty face. Why that was bothering me now, I had no idea. I liked having my friend with me. I loved it, actually. Maybe it was all the company around me all the time. Before, I’d had no one except my family, and a year of it had turned me into a complete recluse. Breaking out of that habit was proving to be slightly difficult.
I just didn’t know how to make it any better for myself. I was utterly clueless.
“I don’t think I’d take it.” Rye fished out his canteen and took a swig of water. “It’s too dangerous. What if no one wants to take it? What good is it to take the cure and be defenseless? Unless it can be given in a mass dose to everyone, I don’t see it ever going anywhere.”
He was right, and the thought of everything being normal again made my stomach twist. So easy to just shoot up the world with an antidote to make it all all right again, but it wouldn’t be easy. Nothing was ever easy.
Rick roused on his chair. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, but his pallor had subsided somewhat. Asleep, he’d looked harmless, like a school teacher, weak, pathetic. I knew better, though, and the urge to go and snap his neck again resurfaced. I sighed, closing my eyes to remember that I had so many questions to ask before I could kill him. Why is there always something in the way of a simple thing like killing someone?
I almost choked on the stifled laugh I let slip out. Everyone looked up at me for a moment, confusion flashing in their eyes. I must have looked like I was losing my mind, but I pretended to have almost choked on the energy bar sitting half eaten in my fingers.
“I’m okay,” I managed to squeak out. They all turned back to what they were doing, and I refocused my eyes onto the now groggy but awake Rick.
“Where’s your morphine?” Elijah let his gaze slide over the dozens of cabinets and drawers lining the wall. “You’re going to need it.”
“Third cabinet from the left on that wall.” Rick pointed across from us and let his head fall back, his breath heaving from the pain. It probably wasn’t as bad as it had been while it was dislocated, but he sure was a bit wimpy if you asked me.
I guess being utterly human did have its disadvantages. Even superpowers like telekinesis and telepathic abilities didn’t make up for no tolerance to pain. What a pity.
Elijah grabbed a vial of morphine from the cabinet. After plucking some alcohol swabs, two by twos, a filter needle and a Tb syringe with a needle, he made his way over to Rick. I watched him expertly snap the ampule top off, suck up the liquid, switch needles, tap the air out and dilute it with saline. I wondered how much medical training he’d had.
“All right, give me your uninjured arm, show me a vein.” He snickered as he snapped a tourniquet onto Rick’s arm. Finding a vein didn’t seem too hard for him, and he inserted an IV port easily. The smell of blood seemed to heighten Rye’s senses, and I watched as he made his way to the farthest point in the large laboratory, away from Rick.
I sighed, rubbing my head. I was relieved that the blood didn’t affect me like it did him. It was one advantage of being a hybrid human, not a vampire. Watching Elijah, I wasn’t sure how a vampire would not want to munch on Rick’s arm from the tiny amount of blood expelled from the IV site. Once he cleaned the site and slapped a tegaderm clear film on it, the smell seemed to dissipate, and Rye was able to come back to sit near me.
At least Rick didn’t look like he was going to pass out again. His eyes were practically glassy from the nice dose of morphine he’d just received.
I jumped up and headed toward him, hoping he wasn’t about to pass out again. “Don’t knock him out, I still need to interrogate him.”
Elijah cleaned up the mess of papers and needles, dropping them into a sharps container installed on the wall. “He’s all yours, April. He’s just feeling mighty good right about now, not knocked out.” He stood up and walked away but not before revealing how tense his jaw was and how his fingers curled into fists with his hidden fury. He didn’t have to hide it; I could feel it coming off of him in waves. The narrowed glare he threw me topped the cake before he made his way to take my place besides Sarah. His demeanor grew less intense as he turned to throw her a smile. She reciprocated and began her usual torrent of chatting about anything.
It was nice some people could forget so fast just what a predicament we were in. I was pretty sure Mercer and his gang were working diligently to get out of the quarantine area, and we were sitting here fucking around like it was afternoon tea. Yeah.
I took the seat Elijah had emptied and rolled closer to Rick, who watched me cautiously. I had to admit, now that he was stoned on the morphine, he didn’t seem so scary anymore. I hoped he would answer my questions, or it would have all been a waste of my time and patience. Something told me that he held more secrets than I wanted to know. Regardless, I needed to know everything, no matter how deep or how far it went.
Chapter Seven
Soot and Ashes
“You look like your mother.” Rick’s beady eyes focused on me as I inched closer. I wondered what was running through that huge brain of his. If he knew what was good for him, he’d answer everything I asked, thoroughly and without any fancy riddles or avoidance. I hoped he knew this.
“I need to know what you did to her.”
“She was an excellent patient. Very tolerant for the most part. Patient, too.”
“Her name was Helen.”
At those words he tilted his head, his eyes shifting to a faraway look. “I’m very sorry to hear she’s gone. My condolences. Helen was an amazing woman.”
“She was. Until you did something to her. I need to know what you did.” I leaned forward. “And I suggest you don’t leave any minor details out.”
This didn’t make him shiver or cower away from me as I would’ve expected, but instead, he lifted his chin to look at me straight on. He was cradling his injured arm but didn’t flinch as I rolled my chair closer.
“When Christian brought her to me, I was very impressed by how strong-willed and tough she was. I wanted to break her down, make her mine in every way. By that, I mean I wanted to know exactly what made her immune to the virus. There are more strains of this disease than what you’ve seen. It’s such an amazing entity in how it has developed, morphed and mutated as time has gone on. Zompires, hybrid vampires… they were just the beginning of the phenomenon which happened when it was released into the world.”
“Get to the point.” I could tell how much the subject fascinated him. My remark made his enthusiasm waver just that little bit. Still, he continued, ignoring my interruption.
“However, the human strains were what interested me the most. How is it that of all the living humans that I’ve encountered above ground, only you and your family remained immune to the virus? The people in Vida did well to quarantine themselves against any outside contamination during the time the virus was alive and actively changing people via airborne infection. Now the virus is no longer airborne but bloodborne. There’s a good chance those humans who survived will never be exposed to it.
“So you see, your family is quite rare. Even the hybrid humans of the city of Vida acquired their particular mutations from exposure prior to going underground. I believe that you were immune even before the breakout occurred. Some strange genetic mutation that triggered your superhuman powers also kept you from turning into a vampire. I wanted to force a vampire mutation onto your mother, see if it could somehow still manifest and hopefully create a super hybrid vampire.”
“So she was right, she was turning into one of them.” I felt my heart breaking as he spoke.
“Yes. She fought it, though. She refused to drink blood, no matter how hard we pushed or starved her.” He shoved his glasses up his nose
, looking somewhat ashamed for a flicker of a moment. Damn right he should be.
“Well, I tested her blood over and over, and it looked like she was morphing as expected. I couldn’t wait to see what abilities she would have. At that time, she’d stopped eating and become withdrawn. She stopped speaking, too. I think she knew what she’d become, before even we did.”
“Of course she knew! She even thought she might be turning into a feral, a fucking Zompire! It made her lose her mind!” I seethed, ready to shake Rick into oblivion, but forced myself to calm down. I had to hear it all, no matter how much it was going to sting. I had to.
“Yes, well. I transferred her to the Stratosphere tower lab to start testing her tolerance to things that most vampires shunned. She passed all the tests with flying colors, but she was starting to wither away, either from her own doing or due to the changes. I couldn’t be sure. I had returned here with a sample of her blood to figure out what was going on with her. If it was the virus causing her deterioration, then I had to discover how to counter it as quickly as possible. If it was her own doing, well, I thought maybe some antipsychotic meds might do the trick, because she was still utterly human.”
“Did you give them to her?”
He gulped, looking outwardly distressed as his memories flooded across his vision. “No. Your hive retrieved her before I could return to try the meds. I also came up with the antidote when the tower was attacked. I had Christian’s antidote for the withering sickness finished at the same time and came to give it to him when I found him barely alive. I had the medicines and antidote for vampirism for your mother, but….”
“We’d already taken her back.”
He nodded, no longer looking at me. “Yes. You’d taken her from me before I could fix what I’d done.”
“Would you have?”
He flicked his eyes back up to me, confusion swimming in them. “Would I have what?”