Page 41 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)
Seeing my opening, I spritz Louise with the contents of the atomizer—a pale lavender cloud curling its tendrils around her as her gasp tapers into a chain of wet coughs.
Susan and I wait until the mist clears before removing our masks .
I can tell by the way Louise's pupils have expanded—the change in her scent—that the drugs have taken hold.
Susan stands back, her shoulders nearly against the large windows, arms crossed over her chest as she watches me work.
Louise blinks unsteadily, her nostrils flaring as I get close enough for her to catch my scent. I can see the twinkle in her eyes, the enchantment. Her iris, green apple, and pink pepper scent carry the notes of poppy, rose, thyme, and oud of her bonded fated mates.
Though we do not yet share the bitten bond of pack, I can smell the undercurrent of my own musky scent intermingling happily with theirs, along with the memorial note of Michael's plum brandy—like a ghost in the room with us.
Her eyebrows furrow slightly as she takes me in. Already she can tell that these aren't the suppressant melters I’ve dosed her with—it's something completely different—but the drugs are still taking a toll; the connection of our mating bond still fuzzy, not yet open wide.
“No more threats, Louise, no more games. The higher-ups are going to release the virus soon, whether they’ve found a cure or not.”
Louise just shakes her head, still silent.
“Just like Lowry said, you'll go to a breeding camp. There'll be no hope for you. Your last chance to escape that fate lies here with me. With us.”
Louise appears to look through me, and I can see her breaths becoming deeper and more ragged, almost a panting.
I take a step closer and reach up for her wrists, bound to the St. Andrew’s Cross with two heavy iron shackles.
I lean in so that our noses almost touch, so that Lowry's attention is drawn instinctively to our faces, a breath away from a kiss.
When I'm certain that Lowry won't notice, I allow my index finger to skate over the ring of bite marks that loops from the heel of Louise's right hand up to her right thumb.
As my touch glances Sébastien's bonding bite, I can feel her shudder beneath my touch—I can feel her like a warm hand running along the shell of my subconscious.
There, that's it. We're not quite connected, but it's just enough for her to hear what I need to say down the bond.
Louise's eyes flutter open and lock with mine, the two of us suspended in silence as I allow my mind to reach for hers across the misty fields of our fated-mate connection.
Don't give her everything, but tell her you're the cure.
Tell her about the designation switches.
Pretend as if the suppressants have broken you.
That might buy us enough time. Accuse me of being the White Knight and refuse to continue collaborating with me.
Lowry won't like it, but she'll have something to take back to the higher-ups.
Something that will keep you safe—even if only for another few weeks.
Louise tilts her chin up to face me, the tip of her nose ghosting alongside mine—our lips brushing against one another.
“And what do I get out of this?” she asks.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, along the bond, I can feel the others trying to push through—trying to convince her to shut me out.
Luckily, I don't have to be the one to answer this question.
Susan, clearly uncomfortable with having to watch me work at this close of a distance to Louise Penny, pushes off of the windows and takes a few steps toward us.
“My previous offer is still good. If you help us. If you cooperate, you will be provided for. You will not be allowed to re-enter your public life, but if you so choose, you could be relocated to any number of?—”
“Gilded cages?” Louise interrupts, a dreamy quality softening her voice and features from the drugs.
Lowry's lips press into a thin line.
“Call it what you want, but I don't think it would be so bad to be held up in a Chateau in the Loire Valley for the fall, a villa in Bali for winter, or a mountain lodge high in the Rockies during the summer and spring—all of your needs cared for, all the alphas you could want or need on offer.”
I feel my stomach turn over, cold and queasy as Lowry's gaze flits to me before returning to Louise.
“And if you don't?” I allow my hands to travel down her arm to the soft hollow of her neck—my palm resting over her bobbing throat as I draw my face back.
“There'll be no return from where they send you, Louise.
Once you're no longer useful as breeding stock, you'll suffer just like this. Desperate and touch-starved until it drives you mad… Or you die, whichever comes first.”
I can feel resonance beneath my outstretched hand letting me know Louise understands through the muffled vibration of our connection—I can just feel the others urging Louise to hold on for a little bit longer.
Suddenly, Louise's face crumples—her eyes screwing shut, fat tears rolling down her cheeks as her lids remain pressed closed.
Her lower lip buckles, and Louise begins to sob.
“They did it,” she whimpers, trembling in her bonds, her knees going soft—the iron shackle at her midsection biting into the soft curve of her hips through the thin fabric of her hospital Johnny.
“They did what?” I growl, pressing her to continue, though my hand stays frozen, feather-light over the column of her throat.
“My parents, they found a cure, but only because they infected me and the other children,” she begins to wail. Lowry's hands fly to her mouth in breathless shock and horror.
“How do you know they found the cure?” I hiss, bringing my forehead so that it presses against hers.
“I saw proof in the records when I was with you and the Saints—I just hid it from you.” She begins to bend the truth, Lowry none the wiser.
“And you didn't think to share this with anybody?” I bark, her whole body shuddering under my grip as she does her best to resist me .
“Did you find it? Did you find the formula?” Lowry sputters, crowding in close to the two of us.
“No. I didn't find the formula. But I did find details of their research, and I saw my own medical records that had been sealed by the FBI.”
Susan goes so quiet, so still—I wonder if she might be holding her breath.
“But the cure came at a cost,” Louise's voice breaks, her body going slack in the cuffs and shackles as she hangs on the mahogany St. Andrew's Cross.
“What do you mean came at a cost?” I move my hands, posting them flat against the wooden X beneath Louise's stretched arms.
To Lowry, it'll look like an act of intimidation, but I'm actually trying to support Louise's body weight. Thin streams of blood flow from the iron wrist cuffs that bite into her tender skin, suffering from being kept in bondage so long.
At this, Louise gulps down her bawling to cast a sidelong glance at Susan.
“It changed me. It changed my designation.”
“What?” Susan hissed beneath her breath, horrified.
“Not just me, but all the other children in the sample group. We may have started off as one designation, but after infection by the Zeitnot virus and treatment with the cure, every single one of us shifted our designation.”
“But that's not possible.” Susan shakes her head in disbelief, slowly drifting backward toward the windows; the sun, round and golden, dropping toward the horizon—the purple mountains and shadowy dark green canopy of trees appearing to rise behind her.
“I was born an omega, Susan. The Zeitnot threatened to burn me inside out. The cure forced me to become something else entirely.”
Susan's hands crawl up and over her face, shrouding her momentarily from view.
“You should know after all—Fed stooges like you and Compton—you know all about the secret projects my parents had been involved in for the Department of Reproduction. The suppressant melters, the scent replicators. That magical super serum meant to produce perfect soldiers,according to the military—or a eugenics tool to produce the next generation of shadow government rulers, if you ask a cabal like the Windmill,” Louise accuses with the last vestiges of her strength.
Susan emerges from behind her curtain of wrinkled, gnarled fingers.
“The formula! If you found all this, you must have found the formula!” she exclaims.
Louise surprises even me with the sickly sweet, high-pitched giggle that escapes her.
“You made me a deal, Lowry, and I've given you quite a bit already, but I'm not giving you the rest until you make good on your part,” Louise trembles, her voice thready.
“Yes, everything that you've given me is very good, Louise, but unless you can at least point me in the direction of the formula for the cure, I'm not sure how much I can do this late in the game. The Windmill had already assumed that you were somehow integral to the cure—hence our prioritization of returning you to our custody.”
“I won't hand over my parents' life's work to the White Knight!” Then Louise shrieks, fixing me with a wild stare.
While her outburst initially puts me slightly off balance, I have to remember that according to Lowry, one of Louise's main motivations is still her need for vengeance against the White Knight.
Susan digs in her heels, preparing for a fight.
“I told you, Louise, I will deliver him to you on a silver platter. All you have to do is cooperate.”
“You've made it pretty clear that you'll never give up Frank Stone,” Louise challenges.
It was as if the phantom hand of Louise that stroked the outermost shell of my subconscious through the mating bond closed its fingers into a fist and began knocking against the surface in a wordless plea for me to make my interjection.
The words spring forth from me, a powerful bark without warning. “I am not the White Knight!”
It's the first time she’s seen me make the denial in front of Susan, who stares at me—bewildered.
Louise reacts with the appropriate appearance of earth-shattering shock.
Lowry glares at me hatefully, but I rush to assure her.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that? If the only reason she isn't spilling the beans is because she thinks that I plugged her parents, shouldn't we tell her the truth?”
“Shut up! Just shut up!” Lowry hisses, unable to take back my words.
Louise lets out another high, eerie giggle.
“Ohh, Susan, by the way, I meant to ask, where's Eddie? I lost track of him when the boys picked me up last time. It got a little hectic on our way out.”
Susan bares her teeth, pushing me out of the way so that she can stand face to face with Louise.
My stomach lifts as I watch Louise's body sag under its own weight again, blood gently seeping from her wrists once more.
“He's fine. Had a few scratches and bruises, no thanks to you, you conniving little bitch.”
“Oh, Compton's a lucky boy. I would have thought after a fuck-up that large scale that the bigwigs would have put an end to him personally.”
I don't understand why Louise has decided to dive down this path.
Sure, doing her best to wound and antagonize Lowry has proven a powerful momentary distraction, but how long will it last? Once Lowry's had enough, she'll turn on Louise, and it won't be pretty .
I've crossed my arms over my chest, my hands itching for the guns in my shoulder holsters.
I'm just about to step in, to pull Lowry off of Louise and talk her down when the high tinkling sound of breaking glass sings out behind us—the floor to ceiling windows crashing to the floor in a sparkling sheet like deadly, razor-sharp rain.
When the cacophony and the dust settle, the Saints—Sébastien, Cazimir, Quentin, and Dennis—remain, guns trained on Susan and I.