Page 43

THREE DAYS SINCE she left Jonah.

The hotel room pressed in around her, thick with the scent of stale air and cleaning chemicals.

The television flickered, casting shifting light across the walls.

Grey’s Anatomy played on a low hum, dialogue bleeding together, but she wasn’t watching.

The betrayal sat heavy in her lungs, thick like smoke, clinging to her skin, her hair.

A familiar itch crawled up her spine, insistent, but she hadn’t given in.

Instead, she made a choice.

Lucas. He wasn’t high enough in the chain to be part of the conspiracy. More importantly, he had lost his partner to Edward. He could help her hold onto the anger, to the hatred she needed to continue.

Now, she sat in his office, the air thick with paper and burned coffee, her pulse a taut wire beneath her skin.

“There’s a cure, Lucas.” The words landed between them, heavy, irrevocable.

Lucas didn’t move. His eyes stayed on her, unreadable. Then, without a word, he made his way to the door, and turned the lock. The soft click sent a prickle of unease down her spine. He went back and folded his hands on the desk.

“I need you to understand,” he said, measured, deliberate.

Ruby pushed back from the desk, chair legs scraping against the tile. A slow burn of distrust crawled up her throat. “You’re one of them.” The words tasted bitter. “You knew. You bas—”

“They don’t know I know.”

The sharp interruption cut through her anger. Her mouth snapped shut. Her pulse thrummed as she searched his face for a lie and found nothing but exhaustion.

“Then how?” she asked.

Lucas leaned forward, forearms braced against the desk. “I’ll explain. But you need to listen. Promise me.”

Uncertainty coiled in her chest, but she gave a stiff nod.

He exhaled. “Edward and I were working together.”

The floor tilted. The room blurred at the edges. Her fists clenched, nails biting into her palms.

“You know my partner died a thermophile, right?” Lucas asked, quieter now.

The floor seemed to shift beneath her. The room tilted. She released her fists, stretched her fingers, and nodded, throat tight.

“It’s true the TCA killed him. Burned him alive, just like the others.” He wavered, staring at a framed photo on the desk. “But Edward didn’t make him one.”

“But he’s the only one who knows how—”

Lucas shook his head. “He’s not. The higher-ups know, Ruby. They’ve known for a long time. But no one turned my partner into one.”

Frustration flared sharp in her ribs. “So what are you saying? That he wasn’t a thermophile?”

“He was.” The weight of it settled between them.

She forced a breath, steadying herself. “Then how?”

Lucas ran a hand over his face, shoulders sagging.

“The bacteria is naturally occurring.” He met her gaze.

“It just happens sometimes. Like a fungal infection. Everyone breathes in small amounts, but occasionally, it concentrates. Starts in the lungs, spreads. Some doctors mistake it for pneumonia.”

Something cold curled in her stomach.

“That makes no sense,” she said. “How do they eat if they don’t even know?”

“They think they’re just sick,” he said. “They can’t hold down food, start wasting away. If they’re unlucky, they inhale phlogiston—that’s what activates it. If they don’t, the bacteria dies off. They recover like nothing happened.”

The walls seemed to inch closer. Her fingers dug into the chair’s armrests.

“Then why the fuck would Edward force people to turn?” she bit out.

Lucas laughed bitterly. “Because a lot of people are unlucky.” His jaw tensed.

“The infection is rare, but phlogiston isn’t.

Fireplaces. A friend’s cigarette. A BBQ joint.

Even Burger King’s damn smoke. Once it’s inhaled, there’s no turning back—unless they get the cure.

But without it, they deteriorate. You know what withdrawal feels like.

First the exhaustion, then the mania. After that?

Violence. Erratic behavior. Drug use. They end up in jail or on the streets.

And as soon as they’re exposed, the TCA swoops in. ”

Her grip tightened. “But why? If there’s a cure, why kill them?”

Lucas let out a slow breath. “The government has never needed a reason.” His voice cut through the air, sharpened by something dark. “The cure is expensive. Time-consuming. And if people knew it existed, they’d start asking questions about the infection.”

He hesitated.

“But mostly—”

Lucas assessed her reaction. “Because if no one knows there’s a cure, they can use the infected however they see fit.

The ones who don’t lose it, like you, need a purpose—a reason to live through their damned eternity.

They recruit kids, the ones who aren’t even thermophiles, straight out of high school to fight their wars.

You’re stronger, faster, practically invincible. Why wouldn’t they use you?”

The words landed like a blow. The room shrank around her, the artificial glow of the desk lamp casting long, accusing shadows.

The air thickened, pressing against her ribs.

She gripped the edge of the chair, nails biting into the worn leather, grounding herself against the tide of horror swelling inside her.

Then came the guilt. It hit first, sharp as a scalpel, slicing through her defenses.

The faces came next, unbidden—every person she’d hurt, every life she’d destroyed for the cause.

Some blurred together, others stood out in stark clarity.

A mother clutching her child. A man too slow to run. The way their screams silenced.

She shoved them back, locking them away. Later. She’d deal with them later.

Now, she needed the anger.

“Where do you and Edward come into this?”

Lucas exhaled, slow and measured. “You know the basics about Edward.” He leaned back, the chair creaking beneath him.

“Accidentally became a thermophile. Worked as a scientist. Watched his daughter grow older than him while he stayed frozen. His wife died. He hated his immortality and threw himself into searching for a cure. It took him nearly thirty years—he didn’t sleep, didn’t do anything but work. And eventually, he found it.”

His fingers tapped against the desk, a nervous rhythm. “He offered it to the government, hoping to help others like him. They took his notes.” A pause, then, quieter, “Then they burned his lab.”

Something flickered in Lucas’s expression, a heaviness that settled into the space between them.

Ruby forced her voice to stay steady. “And?”

His face hardened. “His daughter and granddaughter had gone to visit him that day. They brought him dinner. They didn’t know he didn’t need to eat.

The TCA locked them inside the lab and let them burn along with it.

Edward got home just in time to breathe in their phlogiston without realizing what he’d done. ”

A slow, sickening crawl of nausea twisted through her gut. The crackle of fire, the acrid stench of burning flesh—she could hear it, smell it. The image clawed at her mind, too close, too familiar.

If he had felt the agony of losing a daughter, how could he inflict it on her?

Lucas must have seen the question forming in her eyes.

“Because he needed to build his cause. For decades, he experimented on regular people, hoping to create someone strong enough to expose the infection—someone who could defy the TCA. That’s where I came in.

I was already working for the TCA when my partner became infected.

They blamed Edward. I don’t know how, but he found me a few weeks later.

Told me the truth. We’ve been working together ever since. ”

The floor tilted beneath her.

Ruby narrowed her eyes. “How do I factor into this?”

Lucas hesitated. His hands curled into fists against his thighs.

“You were his greatest success. The strongest. The angriest. I just had to push that.” He swallowed hard, then met her eyes, something raw and unspoken flickering behind his own.

“I—I told Edward about Jonah, back when you two were getting close as recruits. I chose his sister. I sent you on the first assignment. And every other assignment.”

A slow, creeping cold spread through her limbs.

The chair scraped against the floor as she stood, her breath steady, measured. A thin crack splintered across the cheap laminate desk where her hand rested, pressure building beneath her fingers.

The child, her cries silenced by the roaring flames. The old man who hadn’t even realized his wife died. His screams, sharp and raw. The failed farmer and his lover, holding hands as they burned.

Her stomach churned, guilt twisting into something sharper, something with teeth.

“How much does Jonah know?”

Lucas hesitated. “Just that there’s a cure.” He rubbed his jaw. “I can fill him in on the rest—if you think he wouldn’t try to stop me.”

“From what?”

“Exposing it. All of it. Thermophiles. The cure. Everything.” Lucas leaned forward, his eyes burning with conviction. “I’ve been gathering evidence for the last five years. I have enough to publish, but I need something big, something dramatic, to make people listen.”

He paused, watching her reaction.

“Edward did terrible things in the name of vengeance. And I helped him in the name of exposing the truth. I’m sorry for what he did to you, and how I contributed, but we need you.”

The words settled between them, heavy as a death sentence.

Ruby’s pulse drummed in her ears. She thought of her daughter, of the tiny hands that had once gripped her fingers, of the laughter that had faded too soon. She thought of Edward’s daughter and granddaughter, caged in a burning lab.

She loathed Edward—hated him for what he’d done to her, for what he had forced her to become. But understanding crept in, insidious and unforgiving.

She pushed back from the table, rising to her feet with slow, deliberate purpose.

“Something dramatic,” she echoed, rolling the words on her tongue like an ember waiting to catch.

She turned back to Lucas, her expression unreadable.

“Tell me where to start.”