Chapter 24 Dimitri
DIMITRI
They had only taken a few steps away from the carnage when Mattie's legs buckled.
Dimitri caught her before she hit the ground, his immortal reflexes kicking in without conscious thought. One moment she was walking beside him, pale and trembling but upright, and the next she was a dead weight in his arms, her eyes rolled back, her body limp.
"Mattie!" He shifted his grip, cradling her against his chest, careful of her injured hand. "Sweetheart, can you hear me?"
No response. She was unconscious, her lips parted, her breathing shallow, and her face ashen. The pain of her ruined hand and the shock of the violence and terror of the attack had all caught up to her at once.
He looked down at her injured hand, the fingers swollen and misshapen, and the sight made his stomach clench with a mixture of rage and guilt. This was his fault. He'd convinced her to come to the harbor with him.
He'd promised her she would be safe.
When he lifted his gaze, he found all eight of Dave watching him with identical questioning expressions.
It was disconcerting in a way that was hard to articulate.
The Eight didn't look alike. Some were taller, some shorter.
Some were lean and wiry, while others carried more bulk.
Their skin tones ranged from fair to dark, and their features varied in ways that made them easily distinguishable.
But they wore the same expression, which made them look more alike than different.
Their singular consciousness was peering out from eight different windows, and the windows themselves were starting to warp under the pressure of that unified gaze.
Dimitri had noticed before the way the Eight had become more similar over time.
When he'd first started treating them, their individual features had been more distinct, their mannerisms more varied.
Now, months into the treatment protocol, they moved the same way, stood the same way, and manifested the same facial expressions even though their faces were structurally different.
It made him think about the relationship between mind and body, about how the inner workings of consciousness might influence facial appearance over time.
The expressions a person made most often eventually carved themselves into their face, creating lines and contours that reflected their inner state, but that should have been true only for humans because immortal bodies were frozen in time.
And yet, the shared mind of these eight bodies seemed to affect their physical appearance.
Perhaps it was just his perception of them?
It was fascinating from a scientific perspective, but a little unsettling from a personal one, especially when those identical expressions were directed at him.
"What?" he asked.
"You are no longer human," Number One stated with conviction that left no room for argument.
The words hung in the air, not as an accusation but as a statement that demanded explanation.
Dimitri remained silent.
"How did that happen?" Number One continued. "You were human when we first met you, and now you are not. You're stronger, faster, and your rate of healing is not human either. Did you find a way to turn regular humans into immortals?"
Dimitri chuckled. "If I could do that, I would be a very rich man." He glanced around, aware of the attention their procession was drawing. Workers and guards alike were watching them pass by, but no one dared to say anything.
Dave had just killed four immortals, and no one wanted to step in his path and be next.
"We'll talk when we get to the lab." Dimitri shifted Mattie in his arms, trying to find a position that wouldn't jostle her injured hand.
"Right now, all I can think about is getting Mattie help.
Can you call the doctor and have him meet us at the lab?
Mattie needs medical attention that neither Doctor Petrov nor I know how to provide.
Her fingers need to be set properly, and she needs strong painkillers. "
"Yes. Of course." Number One pulled out his phone, then paused.
"Some things do not occur to me naturally.
I didn't consider the fact that she is human and doesn't heal on her own.
Then again, even an immortal would need someone who knows what they are doing to set their bones so they don't fuse incorrectly.
When that happens, they need to be broken again. "
That, in turn, hadn't occurred to Dimitri. He hadn't known that about immortals. Even though he wasn't a medical doctor and fixing broken bones was not part of his arsenal of expertise, he should have known that.
He was a chemist and a biologist.
He and Petrov hadn't been as diligent as they should have been in their treatment of Dave. They'd followed Navuh's directives and hadn't bothered with proper protocols.
In a way, they hadn't treated the Eight as people. They had treated them more like lab animals.
As Number One placed the call, explaining what was needed to the person on the other end of the line, Dimitri reflected on how bizarre the situation was.
The Eight were the most dangerous beings on this island, feared and detested by humans and immortals alike.
They had just killed four men without breaking a sweat or batting an eyelid, had ripped out hearts from their chest cavities to make sure they wouldn't resurrect, and yet Dimitri trusted them to help Mattie and to keep his secret.
That odd sense of friendship must have been born out of gratitude for saving his and Mattie's lives because it made no sense to trust the Eight. Dave was a weapon, their collective consciousness operating more like a computer network than eight biological people with feelings, wants, and needs.
But maybe that was exactly why Dimitri could trust the Eight.
The lack of feelings made Dave logical. The combined consciousness didn't have the capacity for petty betrayal, or jealousy, or spite, or the simple reveling in the pain of others because of some sadistic urges.
Dave calculated and made assessments of threat and benefit.
And somehow, in that cold calculation, Dave had decided that Dimitri and Mattie were worth protecting.
"The doctor will meet us at the lab," Number One reported after ending the call.
"Thank you."
"No thanks are necessary. You are valuable. She is valuable to you. Therefore, she is valuable to the enhancement project."
The Eight started walking, and Dimitri followed them with Mattie cradled carefully in his arms, staying close to their protective escort.
No one approached them. No one even made eye contact. The workers and guards who had gathered to observe the aftermath of the fight scattered before them, crossing the street to the other side or ducking into doorways.
Walking through a crowd that shrank from them in terror should have bothered Dimitri, and being surrounded by beings who had just committed brutal murder should have made him at least uncomfortable.
But Mattie was unconscious in his arms, her fingers were shattered, and the men who had done this to her were dead, their hearts torn from their chests, their threat permanently neutralized.
He couldn't bring himself to question any of it. All he felt was immense gratitude because if not for Dave, things could have ended much worse.
When they finally reached the lab building, an older human male was waiting by the entrance. He carried a worn leather medical bag and had the weathered look of someone who had seen too much and stopped being surprised by any of it.
"You must be Dimitri," the doctor said, his eyes flicking from him to the unconscious woman in his arms. "I see that she passed out from the pain."
"Her fingers were crushed by a brute who stomped on her hand on purpose." Dimitri's jaw tightened at the memory. "I'm glad she fainted."
The doctor nodded. "Let's get her inside. I'll need a clean surface to work on and good lighting."
Dimitri moved toward the door, then stopped.
He needed to free one hand to enter the code, but he was afraid of shifting Mattie's weight to one arm and causing her pain.
He also didn't want to give the code to Dave or the doctor.
During the day, when he and Petrov were in the lab, the door was unlocked, but perhaps they should start locking it now.
The reinforced lab door had been designed to hold in enhanced immortals, which meant that it was impenetrable.
He was still debating what to do when Petrov’s rumpled form appeared behind the glass, and a moment later the door swung open.
Petrov regarded the scene in front of him with confusion, then alarm, and then horror as he saw Mattie's mangled hand and the blood covering Dimitri's clothes.
"Boje moi," Petrov breathed. "What happened? Are you injured? Is she—"
"She's alive." Dimitri pushed past him into the lab. "We need to take care of her hand first. I'll explain everything later."
"But—"
"Later, Konstantin," Dimitri said sharply. "She needs help."
Petrov stepped back, his questions dying on his lips.
Dimitri headed for the stairs, with the doctor close behind him. The Eight remained in the lab's main room with Petrov.
The hallway outside their room was just as they'd left it that morning, which felt like a lifetime ago. The dresser stood against the wall, its damaged finish waiting for the restoration work that Mattie had been so excited to begin.
Dimitri's heart squeezed at the sight.
With her ruined hand, she wouldn't be able to do any of the work she'd planned. No sanding, no staining, no careful application of wood filler to repair the gouges. The project was now beyond her reach.
That brute had crushed more than her fingers. He'd crushed her spirit.