Experiments.
They were doing experiments with the blood. She shuddered and wondered if her blood was being used for this, too.
An irrational anger suffused her. No amount of medical advancement would ever make up for the horrors she’d endured. She hoped all these people rotted.
“Smile,” Meghan ground out.
Reyna shoved her fierce anger down deep. Then she smiled. It took real effort not to bare her teeth and shoot savage glares at the people they passed. She had to appear placid, bland. She had to be like nurse Nancy to get through this.
They were about to clear the corridor when a doctor stepped out of one of the rooms.
“Hello there,” the man said, snapping his fingers at them. “You must be the nurses we sent for.”
Reyna shot Meghan a worried glance, but Meghan only nodded. “Yes, sir.”
It startled Reyna to realize that this man was a vampire. He didn’t have the usual magnetism or terrifying lethal threat. It wasn’t until he flashed his fangs at them that she even realized sheshouldbe afraid. Had she grown so accustomed to vampires that she didn’t see them for what they were anymore? Or were Beckham and Harrington that much more formidable?
“Wonderful. Please bring patient X13276 from her room.” He handed Meghan a tablet.
“Yes, sir,” Meghan said again.
“She’s here for her final. Pity,” he said with real remorse.
“Her final, sir?” Reyna choked out.
Meghan gave her a sharp look.
“X13276 is the first to be responsive to our testing. We’re going to put her through final paces to see if we can duplicate her blood to make the treasured blood antidote.” He beamed as if he were giving her great news.
“So, vampires wouldn’t have to have blood matches?” Reyna asked in horror. Meghan’s answering glare said she didn’t mask it well enough.
“Precisely. It’s a huge leap for vamp-kind,” he said, laughing at his poor joke.
“Great news, doctor. We’ll get her and deliver her promptly,” Meghan said. She practically tugged Reyna down the hall and away from the doctor.
When they were out of earshot, Meghan shoved her. “What the hell were you thinking? We don’t have time to stand around and debate the benefits or consequences of a blood antidote.”
Reyna chewed on her lip as a plan formed in her mind. Her eyes darted from the doctor who had just disappeared to the tablet in Meghan’s hand and back. “We need to get that girl.”
“Reyna, we don’t have time.”
“Think about it for a second. We can rescue this girl. We can get her out of this place. You saw what my life was like; now imagine what it must be like for this girl. Didn’t you hear what he said? She’s the key to a blood antidote. I don’t want that to happen any more than you do. If we can save someone else, don’t you think we should?”
Meghan puffed out a breath. “Yes, of course I think we should save someone. But we’re on limited time here. If we miss our rendezvous, we’re done for.”
“How much more time will it take to extract her?”
Meghan dug through the tablet, pulling up the information on the subject. “Fuck, her name is Jodie and she’s just around the corner.” Reyna could see the resolve in Meghan’s eyes. “Fine. We’ll grab her. Stay close and do exactly what I say. This way.”
They hurried down the hallway and around a corner, stopping before a blank door. Meghan was right. Jodie’s room only added a minute onto their timeline. Meghan tapped a code into a pad at the door, and it slid open. Reyna reeled back at the sight before her. This room was a true prison cell. A real one, nothing like the lush accommodations Reyna had been given. She really had been lucky these past weeks.
It was a ten-by-ten box with a metal bed in one corner supporting a thin, lumpy mattress and an off-white sheet. A pail sat in another corner for waste, and a drain opened in the middle of the floor. There were no windows. One incandescent lightbulb hung from a string in the ceiling. Otherwise it was just a box—a horrible fucking box.
It took a moment for Reyna to come to terms with the state of the room and focus in on the Black woman who had jumped up from the bed at their approach. She was no older than Reyna, wearing a threadbare version of the standard-issue white uniform to which Reyna had grown accustomed. The woman was tall and rail-thin, with unruly curly hair. She took one look at Meghan and Reyna in the doorway and skittered backward into the corner.
“It’s not time.”
“It’s Jodie, right?”
