Page 24

23

S mashing glass wakes me up, my head aching as I open my eyes. What happened? I blink several times to clear my vision. My wrists hurt, my hands numb.

“Wha—” I realize my hands are above my head. I’m tied to one of the chandeliers far overhead. The tips of my shoes drag the ground, and I stand on tiptoe to relieve the pain in my wrists.

“She’s awake.”

“What did you do?” I wipe my face on my sleeve as best I can, but the movement puts more strain on my wrists.

“You met Josie.” The woman who’d found me earlier holds up a rifle. “Well, Josie’s butt, anyway.” She smiles, one of her front teeth missing. A patch has been sewn onto the front of her bulletproof vest, the image of a halo, light shining from it.

She puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles high and sharp. The room quiets, which is when I look around. Dozens of people are gathered in the atrium. I don’t see the soldiers from earlier, but a sinking sensation hits me as I realize they must be dead.

A man pushes through the crowd. He’s tall with gray hair and weathered, tan skin, a rifle hung over his shoulder. A deep scar cuts along his throat, as if someone tried to kill him and almost succeeded.

“So, you’re the president’s sister.” He pulls my badge from one of the pockets of his paramilitary gear, and I notice he bears the same halo emblem as the woman. “A doctor, no less.”

A ripple goes through the crowd, mistrust in every face.

I focus on the leader. “I’m working on a cure. I’m—” My words are cut short by a hard slap.

“No one said you could talk.” The woman snarls in my face.

“All right, Gina. At least let her have some last words before we execute her.” The leader grins and pulls the woman back.

“Why?” I swallow hard, my throat suddenly tight. “Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you sending good Americans into whatever woodchipper these blood camps are?”

“I’m not.”

“You just said you’re researching. That’s what these bullshit camps are for. At least, that’s what your sister keeps saying. But we know people—good fucking people—who’ve gone in and never come out. Not another word from them. Nothing . It’s like they disappeared. Why do you think that is?”

I press up higher on my tiptoes, the chandelier overhead shaking and tinkling from the movement. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the work we do here. I’m trying to help. I’m researching the plague and?—”

“Juno’s Miracle.” He chuckles darkly.

“Yes.”

“Fucking witchcraft.” Gina spits on the fine hotel carpet.

“Bunch of bullshit is what it is,” someone else says.

“You’re killing us. Using us like test monkeys so you can cure the rich and leave the rest of us dead or dying.”

“Taking our clean blood and putting it in them, killing us to do it!” A man at the front yells, a pistol in his hand.

“That’s not what we’re doing!” I cry, but there are too many voices, most of them yelling. “I’m trying to save you!”

A man to my left rears back, then spits in my face. Something hits me in the side of the head and shatters. I blink as blood runs into my eyes. Another glass whizzes past me and smashes against the bar. They’re moving closer, some of them pointing their guns at me.

I try to move back, but it hurts so badly I think the rope might sever my hands. “Stop!” I scream, but my plea is lost in a rising tide of uncontrolled rage.

“My cousin went in and never came out!” A blonde woman shouts and points. “You fucking killed her. You goddamn monsters!”

Another man pushes through the angry crowd to the leader who holds his hand up. The restless group quiets as silent tears well in my eyes and slip down my cheeks.

“Clay, reinforcements are approaching. We need to get this done and get out,” someone calls from behind me.

“Kill this one. Send a message. We’ll come back for the others.” Gina draws a long hunting knife from a sheath at her side. “Let me do it.”

“No.” Clay holds his hand out. “This one’s mine. I want to make it pretty fucking obvious that this is just the beginning.”

Gina flips the knife and catches it by the blade, then hands it to him.

He steps to me as I try to pull away despite the pain. Grabbing a handful of my hair, he yanks me forward. “This is going to hurt.” He glowers down at me. “A lot.”

“Please don’t.” I look into his eyes, searching for some sort of humanity. There’s nothing. Just determination.

“Your sister did this to you. Not me.” He plunges the knife into my stomach.

I scream at the searing pain, my knees giving out. He pulls it up, slicing through vital organs, gutting me as the rest of the room cheers.

I can’t hold myself up at all. My wrists take the brunt of my weight. He wrenches my head back, his hateful gaze on mine. “This is for what you’ve done.”

Something pops loudly behind him. My vision is blurred, my mind going sluggish and cold.

Then he’s gone. I don’t see anything. Not Clay. Not the angry crowd behind him. But I hear them. They’re screaming. Gunshots fire in a raucous explosion, and I could swear I smell gunpowder over the scent of my blood.

The pain in my gut is a fire, one that burns through my lungs and sears my insides. It’s a mortal wound. I can’t see my intestines spilling out, but I know they must be. For some reason that horrifies me more than dying, affects me more than the excruciating pain.

I don’t know how long it goes on, but the screaming eventually stops. Or maybe my hearing finally goes, bleeding out of me like my heart’s blood. In that moment, I want it to be over. I want to die and escape the burning agony.

Vertigo hits, my world going upside down, and then someone is speaking to me. A voice I know. It says my name, but it’s as if it’s coming down a long, padded hallway. A muffled sort of salutation. Is it Death come to greet me?

“Georgia!” He says my name again.

“ Death ?” I ask, though I don’t know if I actually say it out loud. “ Just let me die. Let me die. Take me with you. Please. ” I beg him over and over.

“Drink,” he commands.

Something hot against my lips.

“Fucking drink, Georgia!” Death shakes me.

I try to do what Death tells me, but I only manage a small swallow. “ It hurts . Take me with you. End it. ”

My mind goes blank, nothing but a silent wall of black infinity. Am I dead? Did he take me?

“Georgia!” Death howls at me.

The burning in my gut returns, and I scream, my body awakening to molten agony.

Valen. He’s moving in a blur, his hands all over my bloody abdomen. Another jolt of pain—worse than anything the knife had done—wracks my body.

He looks up, his fangs long, then tears into his own wrist and smears his blood into my gaping wounds. The burning increases, my body dipped in acid, my organs turned to paste.

I scream until there’s nothing left. Until finally, blessedly, I’m lost in nothingness, a dream I hope to never wake from.

* * *

“Wake the fuck up.”

“Aang!” Evie scolds.

“What?” he snaps. “She’s lying here like Sleeping Beauty surrounded by dozens of corpses! I need a goddamn explanation!”

“Guys?” I open my eyes.

“Hell.” Wyatt scrubs a hand down his face. “We thought?—”

“What happened ?” Aang stares around. “Are you a sleeper agent or something?”

I sit up and realize I’m still in the atrium lying on one of the blue couches. This one isn’t blue anymore, though. It’s soaked with blood. The rest of the atrium is, too. My gorge rises as I catch glimpses of severed arms, legs, entire torsos ripped apart. Bits of paramilitary fatigues and guns that have been shattered or folded in half litter the ground—all of it splattered with gore. A massacre.

“Oh my god.” I cover my mouth with my hand.

“We need to get out of here. Now,” Gretchen calls from somewhere farther away. “Up to Georgia’s room.”

“I want a goddamn explanation. Who did this? What the fuck happened?”

“Aang, now!” Gretchen yells.

Aang scowls and holds out his hand. “Can you walk?”

I look down at my ripped shirt, the blood on my stomach, the intestines that were shredded only moments ago. “What?—”

“Come on. We don’t know how bad the contamination is. If they fucked with the plague samples in the HCL, we’re all dead anyway.” Wyatt takes my arm and pulls me to my feet.

In a daze, I let them march me to the elevator and then up to my apartment.

“Where’s your laptop?” Wyatt calls. “I can check contaminant levels from there as long as you’re tapped into the—never mind, I found it. Password? Wait, you don’t even have it password protected? What the hell?”

I run my hands along my stomach, disbelief settling over me like a cloud obscuring the sun, my skin going cold. I was dead. At least, I was at death’s door. I shouldn’t have survived. But as I run my fingers along my smooth stomach, I realize what happened. Juno’s Miracle. Now it’s mine. Valen saved my life.

“You look like you’re about to faint.” Evie guides me to the living room and helps me into the armchair. She kneels in front of me. “What happened?” She frowns at my soaked jeans, the blood on my shirt, in my hair. My blood.

I can’t tell her what happened. I need to, but I can’t. The words won’t come. I stare at her, tears hazing my vision. Those people wanted to kill me. They had killed me, or close enough. The same people I’ve been working so hard to save. It’s so fucking twisted. A sob tears from my chest.

“Oh, Georgia.” Evie pulls me into her arms. “Let it out. It’s all right.” She holds me as I struggle to get myself under control.

I press my forehead to her shoulder, her long hair tickling my nose. “It’s not all right,” I whisper.

She hugs me tighter. “I know.”

“Looks like they didn’t have the balls to fuck up the HCL.” Wyatt leans over my laptop at the kitchen island. “There are no live plague samples in the main lab, so we’re clear. They destroyed a ton of shit, but nothing escaped. The air is safe to?—”

“Dr. Clark?” a tinny voice.

“What was that?” Aang barks.

“There’s a um, a …” I can’t think of the word. Any words, really. I keep seeing the leader’s eyes while he plunged the knife into me. There was sick satisfaction and enjoyment—he liked hurting me. I shudder.

“Must be an intercom. It’s coming from the hallway.” Evie keeps her hold on me. “Go and see.”

“Got it,” Aang says and stomps away. “Who the fuck is this?” he says.

“Major Terrence Barker. I’m here to rescue you,” the stern voice comes back.

“It’s a little fucking late for that, Major.” For once I’m relieved to hear Aang’s snide tone. He’s turned it on someone else. Good.

“We’re coming up. Stay—” A loud boom cuts through his words, and then the apartment is filled with soldiers.

“Hands up!” one shouts and sweeps the room.

“We’re the scientists.” Wyatt puts his hands on top of his head and laces them together. Seems like he’s been in this situation before. “Not the guys cosplaying Army.”

“Is there anyone else here, Dr. Clark?” One of the soldiers peers at me.

How does he know my name?

“No. Just us.”

“Clear!” someone yells from my bedroom, then others yell the same.

The soldiers finally lower their guns.

“Sorry for the theatrics.” A stout man strides through the soldiers, his wide shoulders and no-nonsense expression matching the stiffness of his gait. “Everyone, head out to the rendezvous and reinforce Delta Company.”

The soldiers file out neatly, the entire apartment clearing with remarkable speed.

“Dr. Clark, I’m Major Barker. The president gave us orders to come extract you.” He holds out his hand. “Please come with me.”

Extract me? I can only stare at him. Extract me to where? What the hell is he even talking about?

“See?” Aang sinks onto the sofa, his arms crossed. “This is what nepotism bullshit gets you. She gets extracted. We’re left here to do what, exactly? Fend for ourselves?”

“I’m not going anywhere.” I shake my head. “And you’re too late. If it weren’t for—” Valen . I start again. “If it weren’t for my friends getting me the hell out of that bloodbath, I’d already be dead. So, thanks but no fucking thanks.” I scowl at him.

“What exactly happened down there?” he asks, his piercing gaze on me.

I can’t tell him the truth. I’m not even sure I know the whole truth of what Valen did. The horror of it, and worse, the sick sense of appreciation I feel. As if that carnage was deserved, though the ethical part of me cringes at the notion. But the primal heart of me—it’s pleased. It sours something in my soul to admit that, but it’s there no matter how uncomfortable of a truth it is.

“Doctor?” Major Barker presses.

“I don’t know. We weren’t there.” The lie is weak, so thin it’s practically see-through.

“You weren’t?” He looks pointedly at my bloody clothes.

“She just said we weren’t.” Evie kicks her chin up. “So you can go now.”

The creases on Major Barker’s forehead deepen even more. “I’m afraid the president’s orders aren’t something I can ignore. Dr. Clark, let’s go.”

“Who were those people?” Aang asks.

“Militants, people who have the wrong idea about the work you’re doing here.” Major Barker sounds a little too nonchalant for my tastes.

“I saw a few of them. They all had patches on them with an emblem that looked like a halo. What was that?”

“Dr. Clark, I can explain in the chopper. Let’s go. No more stalling.”

“That’s cute.” I pull my legs under me and wrap my arms around my shins. “But I’m not going with you. This is where I belong. You can leave the way you came.”

His bushy eyebrows curve downward in a frown. “As I said, Dr. Clark, I’m duty bound to follow the chain of command. I’d prefer not to have to take you against your will, but?—”

“Excuse me?” Aang is on his feet and standing in front of me in the space of a breath, and the attitude he’s wielding is just as cutting as any blade. “You think we’re going to let you take anyone against their will?”

Evie scoots over so she’s standing in front of me, too. Then Wyatt moves to stand beside Aang as Gretchen wheels herself to my side.

“She said she’s not going. That’s final.” Gretchen takes my hand.

“If you think it’s a good idea to manhandle the president’s sister …” Wyatt shakes his head. “I mean, look man, it’s your ass on the line. Not ours.”

Given the shade of red that creeps up Major Barker’s neck, I get the feeling that he’s not used to being spoken to like this. And he’s certainly unfamiliar with being told no.

“There’s your answer.” I glare at him.

He pins me with a stare. “I suggest you reconsider this course of action before someone gets hurt.”

“Going to be honest, I’m not much of a fighter, but I did some jujitsu, a little Krav Maga back in the day.” Wyatt whips his hair up into a messy ponytail and pulls the elastic from his wrist to keep it in place. “You’ll probably beat my ass, but it won’t be the first time that’s happened to me.” He puts his fists up. “It’s never stopped me from trying.”

The emotions inside me are soaring in a million different directions. Fiery and fearful, elated and terrified. The fact that any of the people here—let alone all of them—are willing to stand up for me, might be what finally breaks me.

“Wyatt, you’re not fighting anyone.” Gretchen’s tone is calm. “Georgia, can you call your sister? Tell her you want to stay?” As always, she’s the voice of reason.

“I, yeah, I think I can.” I stand and scoot past Evie. “But I’ll have to use my cell. Hang on.”

“No sudden moves, dude.” Wyatt shakes out his hands. “I’m a grappler. I’ll take you to the mat if I have to. You’ll be tapping out in no time.”

The major simply watches, taking everything in. I would wonder what he’s thinking, but I find that I don’t give a shit. He showed up late to my execution. If I had to rely on him, I’d be dead.

I hurry to my nightstand and pull out my phone. “I don’t know if she’ll answer.” Fuck, I hate just saying it out loud.

I dial and put the phone to my ear. After two rings, Fatima answers. “Georgia? Is that you?”

“Yes. Where’s Juno?”

The phone gets muffled, as if Fatima’s pressing it to her clothes and walking.

“Fatima?”

“Georgia?” Juno’s voice, the tenor of it frantic. “Georgia, are you okay?”

“Yes, but?—”

“Oh my god.” Her voice breaks. “I thought … I thought … Georgia.” She sobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Juno!” I snap far more angrily than I intend. “Listen to me. There’s a major here, and he’s trying to take me away from the lab. Tell him I can stay.”

“You can’t.” Juno sniffs hard. “You can’t stay there. It’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe anywhere, but here is where I can do the most good.”

“No.” Her voice has that familiar iron in it now. “I never should’ve brought you here. I have a secret location for you. I’ve been working on it ever since?—”

“Ever since what?” Something rattles inside me, like the lid of the box where I hide everything I don’t want to think about. Things about Juno, about what got us here. “Ever since you sold me out to the v?—”

“Don’t!” she yells so loudly I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Georgia, please. Please don’t.” Her voice quiets, shaking now. “Don’t say anything. They’re listening ,” she hisses.

“Tell the major to leave.”

“Georgia, if?—”

“Tell him!” I’m too overwhelmed, too damn mixed up after what happened in the atrium. I can’t be her little sister right now. I can’t give in and follow whatever she says like I’ve done for most of my life. “I’m not leaving. The only way is if he drags me out of here by the hair, kicking and screaming.”

The line is silent.

I take a deep, shuddering breath. “You owe me this, Juno. Let me have it.”

“I owe you more than this. So much more.” She sounds tired now, beaten. “Hand the phone to Major Barker.”

I take him the phone, and he handles it like it’s a live grenade.

The others crowd around me, forming a new wall as Major Barker mutters a few “yes ma’ams” and “I understands” before ending the call.

He hands the phone to Evie.

“Well? What’s it gonna be?” Wyatt’s fists are up again.

“My men will establish a wider perimeter outside the DC safe zone. Anyone entering the area without authorization will be shot on sight, no exceptions.” He speaks directly to me, his stony gaze unwavering. “You will be safe here. All of you. You have my word on that.”

“Because you’ll kill people first and ask questions later?” Gretchen scoffs.

“Would you rather they storm the place and try to murder us all again?” Aang fires back.

“I’m just saying that maybe…” Gretchen shrugs and doesn’t finish her thought.

“Why did this happen in the first place?” Evie asks. “Why were they here?”

“Unrest,” Major Barker says shortly.

“Unrest?” Aang steps toward him. “Why? I want specifics .”

“I don’t answer to you.” Major Barker’s tone remains level.

“It’s the blood resorts,” I say quietly.

“What about them?” Aang whirls, his usual scowl back on me. “What did you hear?”

“They—those people—they think we’re stealing blood from the volunteers. Killing them.”

“What? Why?”

“For our experiments.”

“That … doesn’t make any sense.” Aang shakes his head. “The fucking truth makes more sense than that does.”

“Aang, don’t.” If I have to tackle him to shut him up, I will. We can’t talk here.

He closes his eyes. “Fucking Idrine. I told him not to—” He puts his palm over his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Hey, we don’t know anything. He could be fine.” Evie wraps her arm around his shoulders.

Major Barker, listening the whole time, takes a step back. “I’ll be going. I’ll have my men dispose of the bodies downstairs. My command station will be two blocks east along the avenue. Contact me if you need anything.” Major Barker turns on his heel and strides down the hall, then pauses when a voice comes through his radio.

“Major, we have someone detained down here.”

There’s some scuffling, then another, more distant, voice. “Good Lord, you got a strong grip, fella. Hey, tell Dr. Clark?—”

“Gene!” Gretchen and I yell in unison.

“Let him up. He’s my assistant.” I feel like it’s a trick, like I’m imagining a happy ending where there isn’t one. But maybe I can hope just a little more. He survived.

“He’s with the scientists. Turn him loose.” Major Barker radios back, then marches away with the same neat precision as he’s done everything else since he entered the apartment.

Once he’s gone, I sink back into the armchair, everything in me on the verge of collapse.

“Come on. Let’s get you some water.” Evie leads Aang to the kitchen.

“I’m not a fan, but I suppose if anyone can keep us safe here it’s that absolute hardass.” Wyatt leans into the hallway, perhaps checking to make sure the major is really gone.

I’d like to believe that, too. But I know the major and all his troops won’t be enough. Not when we’re defending a war on two fronts—one against our own people and another against the vampires.