Page 40 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)

JIN

Jin’s jaw dropped beside Arthie’s. This was one of his parents’ stashes. The space was unfurnished and unadorned, chilling him to the bone, and like the emperor in a fairy tale hoarding gold in a room to near bursting, it was full of coconuts. King coconuts, oblong and golden.

In addition to making excellent weapons, coconuts make you happy , his father had once said, and Jin remembered he had been certain they could do more than that.

He had hoped vampires could subsist on coconut, and it wasn’t until Jin had discovered that Arthie was a vampire herself that he’d learned his father was right.

“They’ve been impossible to import for the longest time,” Arthie breathed.

“I didn’t know you were a businesswoman,” his father said.

Of course the Ram had conveyed Jin’s and Arthie’s notoriety to his parents, but nothing about Spindrift.

“Among other things,” Matteo said, and Jin approved of the pride in his voice—not necessarily the coy glance he slid Arthie’s way though, causing her to look down. Wicked knives, was his sister shy ?

“Well, in that case, I apologize for monopolizing the Ceylani coconut trade,” his father said, and Jin watched for Arthie’s reaction.

They hadn’t spoken about how the lack of coconut had affected her. Before, she would ask him every few days for an update on their shipments, and Jin had always assumed it was for Spindrift’s bloodhouse menu. Not for her.

He still didn’t take lightly the fact that she’d drunk blood for him.

“I’ve been slowly accumulating the fruit and preserving it to the best of my ability. Early discreet tests have indicated that it can reverse the effects of the inoculation,” his father said.

Matteo looked impressed at the lengths they’d gone. “It might have been easier to feed the vampires what they typically drink, no?”

“So we assumed,” his mother said. “But it’s not nearly as easy to gather and accumulate fresh blood for over one hundred starving vampires, especially without the Ram’s men finding out.

Further, we’ve found that a dose of coconut aids vampire vitals and has longer-lasting effects than blood.

It can keep them sated long enough to escape. ”

“Clever, since vampires don’t need to feed daily,” Matteo said.

“But if any decide to feed on the guards we might need to fight during our escape, I can’t blame them,” Jin added.

“And the brutes will have deserved it,” his mother said.

Jin’s father was aghast. “Forgive my wife. She’s angry.”

Arthie burst out laughing, and upon seeing the look on his father’s face, Jin did too. And perhaps it was the laughter, or the spurt of joy, but Jin wished Flick was here with them.

His mother sniffed and jutted out her chin.

She had always been the more fiery of the two.

Where his father failed to react, his mother did.

Where his mother fell too deep into emotions, his father reeled her back.

But this was a situation where Sora Siwang deserved every ounce of her anger, and then some.

“That’s a lot of coconut to extract in such a short time,” Arthie said, powering ahead with a glance at her pocket watch.

Jin’s father nodded. “That is what I had been eager to tell you. We knew we couldn’t risk feeding the vampires one by one: Bloodworth or his men would notice before we made it far, because once awoken, the vampires won’t sit quiet.

The ruckus will draw the guards, and trapped vampires are easy targets for the very well-armed men.

“Unleashing the vampires at once is the only way they’d stand a chance, so during what little time we’ve had away from Bloodworth’s eyes, Sora and I have been automating a way to feed them and unlock the cells from one central location in the hopes that one day we’d have a way to escape.

The coconuts here will drop into a contraption that will crack them and send a measured amount to each cell.

Once fed, the vampires will come to. We’ll then unlock the cells.

Again, there’s no predicting the outcome once the vampires are out. ”

“They’re not rabid animals,” Matteo reminded them. “Especially once they’re fed. I don’t doubt they’d want to kill the guards on sight, but does the same apply to you two?”

Jin’s father shook his head, albeit guiltily, and Jin couldn’t abate his own growing apprehension.

It was his mother who answered. “They’ve seen us in and out of their cells, in between doses of the serum that keeps them asleep. They know us. Still, Shaw is right. There will very likely be chaos.”

“And that’s where the work of the scientist comes to an end, and ours begins,” Arthie said. “Chaos is exactly what we need.”

She gestured for the others to gather closer, and Jin caught the flare of her nostrils, breathing in the breezy, nutty aroma of the coconuts around them. It seemed to set her at ease.

Matteo pulled the sketch from her and added coconuts to the room they were in. His sketches were well done for how quickly he made them, with labels and decor, including the ornate chandelier Arthie mentioned but Jin hadn’t seen on his walkthrough, likely because his head was in a sack.

“We’re here,” Arthie said, pointing. Across the short hall was the wide laboratory, planted in the center of the sanatorium. There were more testing rooms and smaller laboratories throughout. “This is where we were. The main laboratory.”

“Where’s the switch to feed the vampires and open all the cells?” Jin asked.

Sora pointed to a room farther down the hall, near the giant chandelier.

Arthie took note and traced a finger around the inside of the sanatorium. “The cells line the perimeter of the sanatorium.”

“Those are a lot of cell doors we’d need to open manually if not for your automation,” Matteo remarked.

Jin’s father beamed at his compliment.

“The moment those doors are opened, the guards will mobilize,” Jin’s mother said. “They’re stationed throughout the sanatorium, with more outside.”

“This is a good moment to bring up that Bloodworth’s guards will be armed for killing vampires,” Jin’s father said. “It’s dangerous.”

That was the first acknowledgment his parents had given about him being a vampire.

“The green darts?” Matteo asked.

He nodded.

“Created by you, I’d like to guess?”

His nod this time was far less assured. “I—”

“Needed to keep yourselves safe, I understand. I’m not unreasonable,” Matteo said with a sniff. “Dangerous, yes, but a shot at an escape is better than none.”

Any other time, Jin would have derided him for thinking he could speak for someone else, but he now knew Matteo saw himself as one of those vampires. He’d put himself in their shoes more than once, as if he was making up for the scores of people who didn’t care for them.

Arthie skimmed through the sketches once more before she glanced at her pocket watch. “Fifteen minutes before Bloodworth’s arrival.”

“And how is he supposedly aiding our escape?” Jin asked.

“By letting us take the keys right off him,” Arthie said.

“First, our timing has to be precise—we’ll face guards either way, but if Bloodworth is distracted, we’ll have the element of surprise on our side, and thus extra time.

Sora and Shaw, you’ll be splitting up. Sora will go for the switches; Shaw will meet with Bloodworth. ”

Arthie looked at her pocket watch, calculating. “Activate the switches at the half hour. We’ll be ready.”

“Are you certain?” Shaw asked. “Bloodworth can be unpredictable.”

“We’ll make it work,” Arthie said. “You’ll meet Bloodworth with us as your prisoners. We’ll apprehend him, snatch the keys, and regroup here”—she tapped at the junction beneath the chandelier—“Shaw, Sora, the vampires, and us.”

“Why there and not at the exit corridor?” Matteo asked.

“At that point, we’ll have a number of guards on our tail, and I aim to make that chandelier a main attraction to aid in our escape. Any other questions?” she asked. “Right. Sora, cuff us.”

Jin thought it very sad indeed that they had equipment to apprehend people readily available in every room. He watched as his mother cuffed Matteo.

“I’m not fond of putting myself in the hands of strangers, you know,” Matteo said.

“They’re not locked,” Sora said, “if that’s any consolation.”

“It’s not.”

Sora patted his cheek and turned to Jin next. “This is the last thing I ever wanted to do to my son.”

Jin tried not to let his apprehension consume him when the cold metal touched his skin. They were unlocked, he reminded himself, and not prone to piercing his flesh the way the captain’s had been.

But when his mother took his umbrella from him and handed it back to his father, Jin felt… off.

Sora turned to Arthie, who was still studying Matteo’s sketches. “Why is this space empty?” Arthie asked. “If it’s to scale, it’s as large as the laboratory. Is it one of your secret rooms?”

“I’d been meaning to ask about that,” Matteo said as he and Jin shuffled closer, and the three of them looked up when neither of his parents answered.

No, they had paled .

“Awfully quiet there, Shaw,” Matteo said, widening his stance. “Sora.”

Jin knew, somehow, that this was what his parents had been hiding from them, why his father had been unable to not speak with guilt and self-reproach. That numbness crept back into Jin’s veins. He felt his trust crumbling again. It was a fragile tree to begin with, weak bows begging for strength.

And now it was falling.

“Sora, the switches,” his father said softly. Sora nodded, slipping from the room without another word. Shaw turned to them. “Remember when I mentioned that the long-lasting effects—”

“We don’t have time for this. Show us,” Jin said. I don’t trust you , was what he wanted to say.

As if he heard the unspoken words, his father looked at him, resigned and empty.

Just like Jin.