The camera scene changed then and the manwalked over to a fridge. He was wearing different clothes, so I was assumingthis was the eight-to-ten hours later. He was still wearing that stupidHalloween mask and I wanted to rip it from his head. Reaching in, he verycarefully pulled the bags one by one from the fridge and placed them on thecounter. The bottom part was filled with red blood and the top had a clearishyellow substance.
“Plasma, theoretically, would keep thehuman from being infected with the lycanthrope virus, but I haven’t seen anystudies to prove it,” Avery offered.
“Theoretically?” I asked as the manexplained how to use a syringe to pull the clear stuff out and try not to getany of the blood.
“Yeah, well, we don’t know much. Usuallyit takes a wolf bite to change a wolf, but it is a virus, so there are a fewcases where an extreme amount of blood transfusion would do it.”
I had dropped Gavin’s hand and was nowrubbing my temples. This was a freaking nightmare. I wanted to rip this guy’sthroat out! I couldn’t believe this was happening. On the video, the masked mannow had four big syringes full of the clear fluid and he was walking down ahallway and knocked on a closed door.
“Jason?” he crooned in a sweet voice thatmade me sick.
“Hurry,” a panicked female voice calledout. The door opened and we were given a view of a bed with a young boy in it.The boy had no hair, thin pale skin, and he too wore a mask. This mask was onethat just covered the eyes, like you would wear to a masquerade ball. He lookedabout eight years old and wore the hallmark signs of cancer. Leukemia was myguess.
A woman was lying in bed with him wearingthe same wolf mask as our host. The host moved to the boy’s side and I could seethe boy was breathing shallow, his eyes rolling in his head. He was alreadyhooked up to an IV and the man now squeezed the fluid into the line, dispensingall four syringes in one quick go.
“You’re going to be okay, baby,” the woman,who I assumed to be the mother, said as she stroked his sweaty cheek.
The man looked at the camera. “He will beokay. Because I’ve already healed my wife of cancer. This is my neighbor’s sonand he too will be healed. We all will.”
The video fast forwarded and text rolledacross the screen.Twelve hours later.
The boy was sitting up and holding a bowlof soup, drinking the broth with a spoon. His hair was peach fuzz and hiscoloring looked healthier.
“Mommy, can I have more?” he asked themasked woman and then they all broke out into laughter.
“Yes, baby. You can have anything youlike,” she replied.
The screen changed again and now we werein another room with the masked man facing the camera in a terrifying close up.“I’ve given you the information. Now go out there and do what needs to be doneso that we can make humanity strong again.”
Then it went black. The video just ended.
“What the actual fu–” Jaxon began, but Icut him off.
“Does he think that he will garnersympathy with the dying boy routine?” I growled. This was bad, this was so damnbad I didn’t even know what to do. I was frozen.
Gavin chewed his lip uncomfortably. “Well,didn’t you feel bad that boy was suffering?”
I stopped my pacing and pinned my matewith a glare. “Of course! I have feelings. I also felt for the poor young wolfthey bled out in the next room!”
Gavin looked at the floor. “Yeah, I know.Me too. But if there was a way to help–”
My jaw dropped open. “Don’t you dare!You’re either with us or against us. Pick a side.”
‘Sis, that’s your mate.’ Jax’s voice in my head had me secondguessing my fury. I wasn’t mad at Gavin, I was mad at the situation. Luckily mymate knew that because he crossed to where I was and placed his hands on eitherside of my face, bringing his green eyes to rest on mine.
“I’malwayson your side. Neversecond guess that,” he growled.
I don’t know what it was, his intensesupport or the vision I had with Lina, or what, but the tears came then. Out ofnowhere they rolled down my face until a sob escaped my throat. Avery, Jaxon,and Mason closed in around me until I was sandwiched between them all.
“That poor wolf. I don’t want that humanboy to be sick, I don’t. But this isn’t right,” I moaned between my tears.
The smell of sage grew stronger and allof a sudden Nahuel was there peering at me from between my friends.
“Then what are you going to do about it?”His strong voice echoed throughout the cabin.
I looked the shaman right in the eyes.“I’m going to fight back.”
Because God have mercy on anyone who thoughtthey could treat my people like lab rats.
