“I can’t speak to Harriet’s decision, and you make a great point. We know that the cobalt burns us on the outside, and a blade of that same metal will singe our hearts to ash if held in long enough. However, we don’t know how much cobalt oxide it would take to burn us from the inside out. I suspect a large amount, as in more than a syringe full. And like any drug, it would depend on body weight and mass.” He adjusted the stethoscope around his neck. “It’s probably easier to set us on fire than inject us with cobalt oxide. Still, maybe Harriet has an underlying motive other than building her own army. Maybe she wants immortality.”
The crap was bubbling to the surface like a volcano ready to erupt. “If you can’t beat them, join them, so to speak.”
Doc straightened out the tubing from the needle to the bag. “Exactly.”
I rested my head against the pillow. “By the way, the antidote I took before we left to meet Jack and Ray didn’t prevent me from passing out, but it might have helped counteract the gelsemium. According to Carly, the gelsemium should’ve blocked my powers, and it didn’t—though maybe it was because my abilities are too strong.”
“I’m not surprised by the ketamine. The antidote we developed was for the endotoxin Edmund had used. Interesting about the gelsemium, though. I’ll add that to my research list. Anything else you learned while there?”
I chuckled. “Other than going through whatever the fuck Carly was doing to my brain and Dane’s? No.”
“I’m quite surprised Intech is testing shifters,” he said.
I had been more than shocked to find Dane in the bed next to mine. “You can thank Roman Brown. He was the one who snagged him.” I had yet to learn how or why, but Roman would go down with the Intech morons and the Aberdeen family.
“Just to be sure, I’ve got a call into a friend at the local hospital in the city to see if I can use the MRI machine for a quick scan of your head.” He headed for the door. “I’ll return shortly to check on the blood draw. Oh, and I thought you would like to know—Ben is fine. His wound healed, thanks to the shifter’s blood. Actually, it was a combo of shifter blood and Abbey’s.”
My eyes widened. “Abbey’s? How did you figure that mixture out?”
I was sure my sister was all over learning how her adoptive daughter had magical healing powers. The more we learned about my niece, the more she was becoming the Holy Grail of the supernatural world. Which meant the bounty for her life had just increased.
“Hours and hours of testing.” Doc sounded exhausted.
I admired him for his persistence. He put his heart and soul into his research and finding answers that would heal us, keep us alive, and improve our abilities. His resolve was ironclad, and he would work tirelessly for days on end until he found a solution.
I grinned. “I’m happy to hear about Ben. Where is he?” The last time I’d seen Ben was in the infirmary about five days ago, if my math was right.
“Last I knew, he’s on a mission with the SEAL team. They headed out this morning for Chicago. Hang tight.” Then he waltzed out.
Man, I wanted to be on that team. Webb probably sent them out to find Noah Aberdeen and maybe snatch Carly. On the way home, Webb and my father had been concerned about my uncle Patrick’s data—and rightly so. His research on genetically transforming humans into monsters falling into the wrong hands was a recipe for disaster. One of Patrick’s first test subjects had been Blake Turner. He’d been a bully at the high school Jo and I attended as humans. Blake had had it out for my sister, and somehow Edmund’s sick plan was to change Blake into a monster to kill Jo. Edmund succeeded, but not the way my uncle Patrick had planned. Blake turned into something far worse than any supernatural creature in existence—red eyes, fangs like a saber-toothed tiger, and allergic to the sun.
But Blake hadn’t lived long. Jo had been accused of killing him, stood trial for his death, and in the end the genetic experiment fucked with Blake’s heart, which was why he died.
Despite that, Blake was just one of hundreds or more humans who’d lost their lives at the hands of Edmund and Patrick. Who knew what Carly would produce if she finally had what she needed to experiment?
We had to stop her at all costs.
16
LAYLA
Darkness flowed in through the window as I sat on the edge of Sam’s humongous bed, naked and feeling like I’d been hit by a Mack truck both physically and emotionally. The morning sickness was beginning to take its toll on me, and the impact of the explosion had done more damage than I’d wanted to admit—resulting in soreness, mostly.
Steven and Webb apologized for blowing the door, but when the chip in Sam’s hip had reengaged, they knew exactly where we were and acted as quickly as they could. Apparently, the vampire military didn’t travel without their arsenal of weapons and explosives.
But none of that was important. Sleep and rest were. The problem I had was, I couldn’t keep my mind quiet or my eyes closed. I’d spent last night underneath a weight of blankets, restless and sweating. I tossed and turned every hour, and during those few minutes when I dozed off, I had a recurring dream on repeat where fire rose on both sides of a long stretch of road while I was chasing someone. I’d had the same dream the night before we left to meet my uncles, and recently a similar scene had played out when I’d fallen asleep in the hotel room.
Although my anxiety had grown tenfold, thanks to Rianne and my grandmother, I made a pact with myself. I wouldn’t put any more effort into trying to change Rianne’s mind about Sam or even about her idiotic decision to become Carly’s number one lab specimen. On top of that, I couldn’t shake Rianne’s question. Did I want to turn?
When I’d first learned of vampires and started hunting, I’d never been more frightened and fascinated at the same time. How a deadly creature could walk among humans and blend in. Their physical makeup was mind-blowing—fangs, a thirst for blood, they didn’t age, and they lived for eternity. I would be lying if I said I’d never thought about becoming a bloodsucker. But the more I hunted and killed and witnessed their destruction of humans, the more my answer was ahell no. They had no soul. But Sam did, which was enlightening and surprising. I didn’t see him as a monster. Even despite his arrogance and that snarky attitude, he was kind and caring. He protected humans as did his brethren.
I recalled what Jo had said on the plane right before we’d met with my uncles.Our mission from the day we turned has always been to use our abilities to protect humanity and to find a way for our people to flourish and coexist among humans.
I had yet to ask Sam specifically why he and the others went out of their way to protect humanity. My theory was that since they’d been human until their teenage years, they valued that part of their life. Sure, they depended on human blood for survival, but other animals existed to support their diet.
Nevertheless, I wasn’t any better than Rianne. I was in love with one of the monsters that I’d been programmed to wipe out of existence. I understood her hatred for the bloodsuckers. I wished she would accept my choice or at least not be so hell-bent on her revenge against Sam. In the end, no one would win, not even Sam. His craving to decimate my sister was unwavering, but my intuition told me he wouldn’t because of me. Why couldn’t we find a way to coexist together like Jo had said? Most vampires had found a way to do just that. It was families like mine who disrupted their habitat.
Yet, despite everything, I wanted to watch my child grow up, no matter what species he or she turned out to be. I wanted to be by Sam’s side for as long as I could. But it was suicide to alter my DNA. Someone like Ben, who was half human and half vamp, had gotten lucky. According to Steven, humans had suffered and died at the hands of his deceased brother, Patrick, and his enemy, Edmund, in their efforts to build a vampire army. In truth, if there was a natural way of making a genetic change, I would definitely consider shedding my humanity. Particularly if it allowed me to spend eternity with Sam and my child or children, if fate bestowed more kids on me in my future.
