The syringe is in his hand and plunging into my shoulder in seconds. Dubois sets a timer on his watch and nods happily.
“Bring him into the dining room in exactly ninety seconds.”
Now…
“Ye fecking bastard ye bastard ye-” Cat’s screaming, reaching for me desperately and the guards push her back into her chair.
“We can talk without a fuss, can’t we?” Hugo asks. Holding up a pistol, he nods to the guards. “Leave us.”
The calvary’s gonna come crashing into this place in fifteen minutes, but I won’t be here to see it. Just so long as Cat is.
“You recognize the effects of the slow-stepped dose of the formula,n'est-ce pas?”He prompts Cat, who is still hovering halfway out of her chair, her stiff body angled toward me like an arrow.
I feel the first trickle of blood drip from my nose, coughing wetly, more spills down my chin.
So little fecking time, my Cat. I wanted so much more with ye.
“Of course.” The words sound like they’re being strangled from her throat. “He’s bleeding from his nose and mouth, breath coming in short bursts and I know, Iknowall the goddamn signs and he’s in stage one of C-1161’s effect on the body.”
My chest feels like it’s caving in, intestines turning liquid. The pain is bad, but the anguish on her face is somehow worse.
Catriona…
Hugo waves the gun, not really pointing it at Lucas or me. “I am disappointed you needed another demonstration.” He makes an odd retching sound, like he’s not sure if he’s gonna cough or vomit. “I know you have been moving at a far too leisurely pace-” I clench my fists, muscles tensing.
His face is nearly purple again and sweat’scoursing down his face, wetting his shirt. Then he hunches over, coughing and hacking up blood, the bright red splattering across the white tablecloth. I’m shaking, bones rattling, when comprehension dawns on Hugo’s wet, bloody face.
I swing the candelabra closest to us at him with all my strength, the heavy silver piece slamming against his chest as I surge across the table, ripping at my hair, scrabbling through it to find the vial and forcing it into Lucas’ mouth.
My momentum knocks the chair back onto the floor and I cover him with my body, sobbing. “Swallow, swallow please, love.” I rub his neck, feeling his throat muscles move, rubbing some more. “It’s awright, it is. You’ll be grand. You’re just entering stage two ye got it in time it’s in time you’ll be fine.” Babbling nonsense, words running together and begging him to swallow.
It takes a bullet hitting the chair and splintering it for me to look up from Lucas’ bloody face.
Hugo is lying half on, half off the table, a pool of vomit and gore mixing with the mess of spilled wax. “You have it.” His voice is slurred, like his throat is melting.
I remember what that feels like.
Lucas lies unmoving under me, struggling to keep his eyes open. His muscles are loose,though. They would be stiffening, spasming now if he was in stage two.
“Aye, I created it.” I yank at the ropes binding Lucas’ wrists, the shattered chair falls apart and I help him sit up, leaning against me. “It workedperfectlyHugo. When the compound binds, it turns a beautiful shade of blue.”
Hugo’s arms are rigid now, his finger still hooked into the trigger guard of the gun. “You have…” It comes out all slushy-sounding. “Give it..” He coughs violently, gore spraying from his mouth and his finger twitches on the trigger. A bullet fires, going wide. Lucas lunges across the table, landing heavily, and pulls the gun loose from Hugo’s twitching hand.
“Shoo…” His purple lips are slack. The fourth stage is the most painful. “Mmm…”
“And let ye miss all the fun?” I laugh wildly, like a nutter. Like a woman who just watched her husband nearly die. “Lucas got the antidote. Ye get exactly. What. Ye. Deserve.”
We watch him in his last agonizing moments. It’s unspeakable.
I love every second of it.
When gunfire erupts outside in the hall, Lucas pulls me under the table, he’s still weak andbloody but ready to stand between me and an army if necessary.
The service door opens and Édouard glides in. Lucas aims the gun at him, clicking the safety off. “That will not be necessary,Mssr.Stewart. I mean no harm.” He locks the dining room doors. “That will not hold them for long, of course.”
He steps closer and Lucas raises the gun again.
With a sigh of deep melancholy, Édouard says, “I am reaching into my pocket to retrieve my phone. I trust you know who to call?”
