“Leave.”
“No.”
“You’re obstructing my recovery.”
“Bullshit. That’s what you are. You’re bullshit.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Brian snarled, pulling against his chains.
“Tell me what happened and I’ll leave.”
A low growl came out of him, but she was too numb about what was going on downstairs to care about his warning.
“I said tell me what happened,” she repeated. “Or I’m going to bring Drew and Laura here to see you.”
“No,” he snapped.
“I know you want to see them. That you’re feeling guilty about the devastation.” She closed her eyes to stop the nausea that rose in her, thinking back on those scenes. “I saw it. I know. But I’m pretty much learning that we all have casualties to this war. And what happened to you was against your will. You were another experiment, another weapon in Harrington’s arsenal.”
“Don’t say his name.”
“Harrington? Yeah, I’m not too happy with him either. Remember when he kidnapped me? That wasn’t great.”
Brian’s chest heaved up and down, but his eyes were on the ground. “He tortured me.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“He captured me that night, brought me to his facilities, stripped us naked, and tortured us near to death. He killedXavier in front of us. He did anything you can imagine and anything you can’t, to get information out of us.”
Reyna swallowed. Poor Xavier. He’d been one of the few vampires of Elle that Reyna had known. Quiet but dutiful.
“Then he turned you?” Reyna guessed softly.
“Almost. Drained us near to dying, over and over again, then kept us alive, and then did it again. He did it all without the bites so that we never had a single feeling of euphoria, only pain. A few people died. A few people…killed themselves.”
Reyna closed her eyes against the images that assaulted her.
“Then he turned me. Me and one other—Andrew. I don’t know what happened to him. We were taken into different rooms and starved. I remember little of that time, only when I was unleashed on the safe house and you found me. Beckham stopped me.” Brian released a harsh breath. As if finally telling his story had loosened something in him. He stared down at the floor as he said, “I heard you talking downstairs.”
Reyna froze.
“A cure for vampirism.”
“It’s untested.” She couldn’t let that happen. Not when she still had never brought Laura or Drew back to see him. “What if something went wrong, Brian? I can’t let you do it.”
“I’m volunteering. You wanted a volunteer.” He met her eyes. “Well, here I am. You don’t get to make these choices for me.”
“Please,” she whispered.
“This is what I want.” Something clicked into place at that. Brian sat up straighter. His movements became more fluid. Some of the madness left his face. “I’d rather die than spend another moment as a vampire.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Tell me about the side effects again,” Reyna said anxiously. She paced back and forth in front of Washington’s table, where he was removing another dose of Golden Blood. She couldn’t believe this was happening. That Brian, her Brian, was going to take this experimental cure.
“Reyna,” Washington said with a sigh, “I have already informed you that I do not know what could happen to Brian. I have no way of determining what could go wrong.”
“Guesses?” she pushed.
