Page 29 of Even Vampires Bleed (Even Ever After #2)

Cassiopé

W e’ve planned for a week.

Everything is ready—the way we go in, the number of doors with locks, those that could have some but that we couldn’t reckon, and the way out.

Everything.

But I’m an antsy mess.

I’ve avoided Léandre as much as I could. I’ve even avoided talking to him when it wasn’t necessary.

I’ve been a pile of nerves the whole week, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t try to hug or kiss Léandre. I didn’t even try to smell him.

And as much as I could, I tried not to look at him.

By now, he must truly think I hate him. Or that I’m disgusted by him.

He couldn’t be further from the truth.

Because I definitely changed.

I’m not the sunny person he first met, and I’m not even sure the person he used to be would like what I became.

But that’s not the problem.

It might be easier if I knew he didn’t like the new me.

Because Léandre didn’t change.

He’s still the same at his core—nice, even when I’m rude, and trying to help when he can. I mean, he’s trying to collect his father’s wings when he doesn’t even remember the man. Who does that?

He’s still the same, and it makes it even worse.

Well, he’s not completely the same, if I’m honest. He put on some muscle, and he seems cockier.

But that doesn’t change the fact I’m recognizing the man I was falling for, while all he sees is the crying girl he met just after losing his memory.

Everything has gone smoothly so far. The tunnels that we had carved out until today were deserted.

No one seemed to hear when we got the last wall down and walked into the corridor above the room we’re supposed to rob.

Could we have carved the tunnel to the curiosity cabinet’s level? We thought about it, but since there is a layer of bulletproof, soundproof, waterproof, and anything proof surrounding the room? Yeah, we didn’t dig on that level.

We also didn’t bash the wall in when we got the last wall down.

We cut it in a perfect circle with materials I didn’t even know humans had and popped the piece of wall inside the tunnel.

And you know what? There is an illusion in place to make it look like the wall is still there while we get down to the right level.

It’s not a good one, but as long as people don’t get too close to it, it should do the trick.

I’m working on the first lock with only one leg shifted, and Léandre is looking at me like he’s seeing me for the first time.

“You’re so tiny,” he whispers.

I’m not responding to that.

I stay focused and open the first door.

Then I open the second one, and we’re inside the curiosity cabinet.

It seems like no one has been here for a while.

There are cobwebs in the corners of the room, and it sounds eerily quiet.

I look further inside the room, and I see everything.

It’s not what I expected.

I thought we would enter something more like a treasure trove, but no. It looks more like a mad scientist’s lab.

The walls are made of metal and there are shelves on the walls that host graphics and cut views of what look like humanoid organs. It’s all organized and neat, but also very creepy.

But that’s not the creepiest.

No, the creepiest are the big tanks that are lined up in the middle of the room. They have screens on the side showing medical information of whoever—or whatever—is inside each tank, and tubes all hooked on the animal inside.

Because they all sport a name, but none of the tanks seem to be hosting humans.

In the first one on my right, there is a butterfly. The quantity of tubes—more like strings in this case—hooked to that very tiny being is scary, and I wonder how we can remove them.

Then I remember why we came here and follow to the next tank.

Léandre is looking at its content with wide eyes.

Because hooked on this one’s tubes are two pristine white wings, and there is no doubt in Léandre’s eyes who they belong to.

How do we open the tanks? Can we open the tanks?

Is there a risk for what’s inside the tanks if we open them?

I’m full of questions and have none of the answers.

I look for Elis. He’s the one who is supposed to know what is going on in this room.

I find him at the end of the room, next to the biggest tank in the room.

It’s filled with dark water, so it takes me a while to see what I’m looking at.

Wait.

This is what he came for?

“Elis, this is not a fish,” I say in my calmest voice.

I still sound like I’m freaking out, but it doesn’t matter.

He can’t carry that with him.

The tank is too big. The animal within is too dangerous.

“It’s the biggest of them all, but yes, she’s still a fish,” he says as he plays with the buttons on the screen.

I know he’s right, but it doesn’t make it less shocking, because, here in a tank under Versailles’s Palace, floats a—most likely drugged and sleeping—ten to twelve meters long whale shark.

A WHALE SHARK.

And this is the fish Elis wants to save.

It all makes sense now.

I don’t even know how he’s going to carry her away, but he can’t possibly carry anything else.

I have no doubt about that.

As he toys with the commands on the screen, the tubes unhook themselves from the shark. She’s still not moving. He punches another button, and the water is evacuated altogether.

I gasp.

“Can she breathe outside of the water?” I ask Elis.

“She’s a shifter, of course she can,” he grunts, and I suddenly feel a little dumb because this is something I should know with all I read.

Except I’m a bat-shifter, and it never occurred to me that aquatic animal-shifters could both breathe underwater and on the ground.

He quickly moves to type on Gabriel’s wings screen panel so the wings release, and I commit to memory all the buttons he’s pushing.

When he’s done, he turns to me.

“This is goodbye. I won’t be seeing you again. I’m off now. Good luck,” he tells me with the huge shark on his shoulders.

It takes me a second to understand what he just meant.

He’s leaving.

He got his shark so there won’t be any other missions with him from now on.

I jump and hug the side of him—which isn’t easy to do with the shark in the way—before letting him go.

“Don’t stay too long here,” he tells me. “And don’t forget, you probably need to get those wings stitched back on in the next couple hours once they’re not in the liquid anymore.”

I nod and turn on a countdown on my holo as I see the rest of the liquid evacuate through a hole in the ground of the tank.

“What about beings?” I respond with a question.

I’m thinking about the butterfly and the lizard I saw in other tanks.

Blessedly, they are the only other creatures inside the tanks. The rest of the tanks seem to be housing body parts in various states of shifting, but they’re not attached to any creatures.

“Take them out at your own risk,” Elis answers me. “They might be feral.”

“And your shark won’t be?” I ask him with a questioning look.

“I’ve seen her at her worst. I can handle it.”

He doesn’t say anything else and walks to the door, but then pauses.

“Let the past be where it is and don’t presume what the future could bring you. It could be joy,” he says to no one in particular.

Except it was said so quietly that I know only a bat could have heard it.

And then he disappears, and I turn to Léandre, hoisting his father’s wings on his shoulders.

“We’re good to go?” he asks me, as if he didn’t just witness Elis go rogue on us.

Are we, though?

I look at the holo on my wrist.

Five minutes have passed already.

“You can go,” I tell him. “The wings need to be sewn back quickly.”

“You’re not coming?”

I look at the butterfly and lizard tank.

I can definitely carry those.

“I’ve got two more tanks to open,” I tell him as I walk past him to the butterfly tank.

I start pushing the buttons I remember Elis used when I’m cut short by Léandre.

“Say what you do out loud. I’ll do the lizard,” he says as he moves in front of the other tank.

Don’t swoon, Cassiopé.

We work in tandem, and the two tanks open at the same time.

Léandre stuffs the lizard in his pocket carefully, and I keep my butterfly in my hand as we run to the door.

That’s when I hear it. The soft sound of people trying to walk discreetly.

No one had been here for a while, but we obviously triggered an alarm.

“Faster,” I tell Léandre as we run, but it’s more for myself than for him. It seems that I have no stamina, and I’m barely keeping up with him.

When he realizes I’m not following, he’s already at the hole in the wall. He turns to come back and get me, but this is when the soldiers I heard come into view, and they’re closer to me than he is.

I see the dilemma in his eyes. He knows what Elis said about the wings and any minute that the wings stay like this is a minute that will make it harder for any doctor to sew them back onto Gabriel’s back.

“Go,” I tell him, and yet he’s still not moving.

“I’m not leaving you here,” he says.

Stubborn man.

“I can unlock any lock. I’ll be out in a couple hours at worst,” I mouth him from where I’m still trying to reach him.

But when the soldiers finally catch up to me, Léandre jumps to help me. He’s too far, though.

“No,” I yell at him. “Don’t let the wings go to waste.”

He still can make it to the hole in the wall and shouldn’t try to wait for me.

“I’ll come back,” he says before I turn and hit the guy behind me with all my might. If I can buy him some time, I’m going to do it.

I don’t buy him a lot of time though, because then something hits me on the head, and I feel people passing me as they run.

I hope that he escapes.

That’s the last thought on my mind before I black out.