“Isn’t it?”
“No. Not everything created has to be a weapon.”
“Fortunately for us the inventor doesn’t have the proclivity to use it that way.”
“We don’t even know if it works,” Reyna said.
“It works,” Washington insisted.
“What we need is someone to test it on,” Gerard spoke up from the corner. He gently placed a bookmark into his romance novel. “I’m not volunteering, but it’d be easy enough to find a vampire nearby to experiment on.”
“Absolutely not,” Meghan said.
“It is the most efficient option,” Zoya added.
“That’s unethical. It goes against all medical practice.” Meghan’s head snapped to Washington. “You can’t do that.”
“I agree with Meghan. I won’t force someone,” Washington said.
“For fuck’s sake,” Gabe said. “We have a couple of vamps here. One of you should step up.”
Every vampire in the room glared at him. He hastily held up his hands and backed down from that notion.
“There’s only one option,” Gerard said. “We’ll go now.”
He nodded at Beckham before moving at super vamp speed out of the house. Katarina and Zoya followed close behind. Only Beckham remained.
“You’re not going to let them do this, are you?” Reyna asked.
He stared at her. Fuck, he would let this happen. It made hersick to even consider it.
“Becks,” she whispered.
“It’s been a long night, Reyna. You should clean up and rest.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“In war, there are no rules.”
“No. In war, we decide what rules to break. We decide how much of our humanity we will have left. We decide.”
“Then you would rather choose to do nothing?” he asked. Not an ounce of offense or blame in his words. He was truly curious. In every world he’d ever lived, this was his reality. His life was a never-ending war of his own choosing, where rules applied to someone else and might was right.
“Not nothing. But we’ve only known about this for a few minutes. We can’t expect there to be one answer.”
“Find me another solution, then.”
He affectionately brushed her hair back and then disappeared. Reyna cursed softly under her breath. The rest of her ramshackle team of Elle members stared wide-eyed at her.
“You heard the man. Anyone know another solution?”
“I hate to say it, but, this seems like the only answer,” Gabe said, getting a good scowl from Meghan. “We have to test it. There’s an army of vampires out there somewhere who want to take us down and rogue vampires going mad with an incurable disease. Would you rather have a weapon to stop them or not?”
“I would, but we could find volunteers. There has to be a better way to find someone willing to be tested on. So start looking,” Reyna said, and strode to a computer.
She wouldn’t believe there was no other option unless she had to. And she really fucking didn’t want to have to.
…
