“Someone smart in this room. Congratulations! I would clap, but you cut this opportunity from me.”
This thing calms me down with the same intensity it unrests me.
“What is the longest duration of action?” I ask him in a more stable voice.
“Around one week on the weakest subject of mine. So around half of the time, for someone stronger.”
I don’t know if I just thought Bianca growled like a feline that was ready to attack. She abstains sufficiently well not to jump on his neck again.
“Maybe even less. It depends on the dose he received. A lot of them were stolen to know their exact action time. But don’t put your hopes up for less than a day. That’s extremely rare.You’re actually lucky that the stolen doses were made from the same ingredients because otherwise I couldn’t even tell you the side-effects," he says with ease.
“What side effects are we talking about here?” Lucas asks.
“Nothing special. Insomnia, strong headaches after the effect passes, and sometimes… heart attack shortly after it. I think the ones you suspect are quite strong, so it won’t be the case.”
I feel Lucas starting to shiver next to me, and I quickly realise why.
Blake has a heart condition.
A heart attack could kill him.
“We have to find him. Now!”
Lucas takes my hand, and we get out of the door, leaving Bianca swearing that we left her with Marshall.
?
I stay by the door frame, watching Lucas as he takes his suitcase and flips it upside down in the centre of the bed.
“It has to be here somewhere. I know I put it here,” Lucas says while he is searching through the pile of stuff.
“What exactly are you looking for? From what I know, we need to look for Blake and Paul, not for clothes to dress them up with,” I say, only thinking about the worst.
I don’t even know why we aren’t on our way to… actually, I don’t even know where we could start searching.
“Among the devices I create, there is one that restarts the heart. I always had it with me anywhere I went, and I know for sure that it has to be here.”
“And what the hell would you do with it if we find them dead?”
He freezes at my question, but then slowly lifts a strange device from his clothes while he takes his gaze to mine.
“Because that’s why I created it. To bring anyone who died in the last few hours to life. That’s how I managed to get more information from the people who annoyed me the most," he says, and comes closer to me.
“That… is impressive,” I say, and I have to admit that something like that didn’t even cross my mind.
With his free hand, he touches my cheek and gets me into a short and full-of-desire kiss that he ends too quickly.
“I want to promise you with all my heart that everything will be fine, but not even I know what the future will bring with multiple variations of this…obsession. But, I can promise you that I’ll do everything in my power to protect you, even if I have to kill my own brothers in the process," he says, making me shudder.
“Where do we start?”
“Guess, Anmara. How could they have gone out?”
I don’t really want to put my foot there, given the state we found Blake in last time, but he is right, and we don’t have any other choice.
“To the tunnel of horrors.”
I get out of the apartment first with Lucas behind me, but not before I give him a kiss that proves what I already knew: I am head over heels for him. Worse than anybody before Marshall. Worse than…himand I hope that will only remain an illusion, andshewon’t want him as bad as I do.
