“It appears that the first wave of the injection worked. His vampirism is being fought off, eliminated. It will take more observation time to determine how much of the other side effects of vampirism are eliminated, but at this time, yes, it worked.”
…
Reyna stayed with Brian until Washington forced him to rest. The elimination of the virus would wreck him and leave him exhausted. He needed as much sleep as possible to process it.
Before she left him though, she got his permission to call Drew and Laura to tell them the good news. She was beyond ready to have something good to tell them. They’d both been worrying as much as she had. Laura had been a wreck, and Reyna was happy to tell her that they would bring her up to the mansion the next time they sent a car into town. At least this gave them hope.
“How’s he doing?” Jodie asked.
“The cure is attacking the virus. He’s sleeping finally.”
“Good.”
“How areyoudoing?”
Jodie shrugged. “A little numb. I thought experiments were long behind me. But it looks like the antidote must have come from my blood. Washington has been comparing my blood to the components, and it’s almost a perfect match. So…”
“So they had enough to keep working with it,” Reyna whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. It sucks that all of this is happening because of me.”
“Because of them,” Reyna said. “They did this.”
“I know. Yeah. I just wanted to make the world a better place and find my cousin. Can’t seem to make either of those happen.”
“That’s not true.”
“I think June is dead,” Jodie whispered. “I mean what other explanation is there?”
Reyna’s heart broke for her. “That’s not the only explanation.”
Jodie opened her mouth to respond, but Tye came rushing into the room. “Reyna, come quick.”
Reyna dashed after him. “Is it Brian? Is he okay?”
“It’s an email.”
“An email?” she asked in confusion.
He turned the computer and she glanced down at the inbox.
“It came in from Everett.”
Reyna had a bad feeling about this. A chasm opened in the pit of her stomach and remained there as she clicked on the new email. There was no subject line. No text in the body of the document. Just an attachment.
“Is that safe?” she asked.
“It didn’t pull up any viruses, but I can’t be certain. We could get Zoya?”
“Get her,” Reyna said.
Zoya appeared a minute later and gave the go ahead. “It’s safe.”
Reyna clicked on the attachment. A video populated. Jodie sidled up next to her. It was probably a bad idea, but she pressed Play anyway.
“Oh fuck,” she whispered.
Jodie clutched Reyna’s shoulder. “Holy shit!”
