Chapter 26 Dimitri
DIMITRI
The painkillers had done their work, pulling Mattie into a deep sleep, and Dimitri was grateful for it. After all the trauma and the pain, she needed rest more than anything else right now.
Watching her sleep, he thought about the attack, the fight, the calm and brutal efficiency with which Dave had eliminated the threat. How close he and Mattie had come to losing their lives. Or rather, how close Mattie had come.
He was immortal now, and he doubted the four who had attacked them would have bothered tearing his heart from his chest. They would have left him for dead, and his body would have healed the damage.
But that was assuming that they hadn't realized he was one of them.
Dave knew.
The Eight had seen him fight and witnessed his unnatural strength, speed, and healing rate. They'd already started asking questions, and he'd promised them answers, but he'd been hiding up here in his and Mattie's bedroom the entire afternoon, hoping Dave would leave.
But the Eight would be back, and they wouldn't accept Dimitri's deflections and half-truths.
A soft knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts, and as he rose to his feet and opened the door, he found Petrov standing in the hallway, looking concerned.
"How is she doing?"
"She's asleep. The pain meds kicked in."
"Good." Petrov nodded. "You should eat. Dinner was delivered a while ago."
"I can't leave her."
"She's fine. She's asleep. Come downstairs."
Dimitri shook his head. "I'm not leaving her."
"Don't be ridiculous—"
"I said I'm not leaving her," he barked, then forced himself to take a breath. "I'm sorry. It's been a long day. I just don't want her to wake up alone after what she's been through. She's traumatized."
Petrov studied him for a moment, then sighed. "Fine. I'll bring everything up here. We can eat together, and Mattie can have hers when she wakes."
"Thank you."
When Petrov went down the stairs, Dimitri retrieved the single chair from their room and carried it into the hallway, positioning it next to the dresser, designating it as their impromptu dining table.
Petrov returned carrying three wrapped trays stacked in his arms, set them down on the dresser's scarred surface, went into his room, and returned with a chair.
They sat across from each other, the dresser between them, and unwrapped their meals in silence.
Standard fare of grilled fish, rice, and steamed vegetables.
Dimitri had thought he wasn't hungry, but as he began eating he realized he was ravenous, and he finished his meal long before his dinner companion.
Petrov set his fork down and fixed Dimitri with a penetrating stare.
"Dave waited a long time for you to come down," he said. "Eventually, they gave up and left."
Dimitri arched a brow even though he had known that. "Why?"
"They had questions."
He had a good idea what those questions had been about, but he asked anyway. “What kind of questions?"
"They wanted to know if you'd been experimenting with the enhancement drugs and modifying the formula for humans so you could use it yourself."
Dimitri said nothing and kept his expression blank, but his mind was racing with ways he could explain what Dave had seen.
"I told them that I didn't know what they were talking about," Petrov continued. "I said the very idea was absurd."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." Petrov leaned forward, his eyes boring into Dimitri's. "Dave described what he saw you do at the harbor. He said you were fighting four trained immortal warriors and holding your own. You should have been dead in two seconds."
"They didn't want to kill me. They were toying with me."
That sounded like a good explanation, at least to someone who hadn't seen the fight.
"That wasn't Dave's impression." Petrov wasn't buying it. "I want the truth, Dimitri, and I'm not going to accept 'the power of love' as an explanation."
Petrov needed the truth because the situation was about to become much more complicated, and they couldn't navigate it if they weren't on the same page.
"I've transitioned," Dimitri said finally. "Into immortality."
Petrov went very still. "What?"
"Turns out I had the immortal genes." He let out a breath.
"According to Dave, it's not uncommon for humans to carry them without knowing.
Anyway, they were dormant, and they got activated when Tarik bit me.
The immortals' venom is the catalyst for the transformation.
" Dimitri met Petrov's eyes. "When Tarik attacked me that night in the bar and bit me, he pumped me full of the stuff with the intention of killing me, but the others pulled him off before he could finish the job, so instead of dying, I transitioned and became immortal. "
"Immortal." Petrov breathed the word like a curse.
"The immortals on this island are not born immortal. They're born human and transition into immortality at puberty using the same method. The venom bite." Dimitri chuckled. "Tarik wanted to kill me, but instead he made me immortal."
Petrov was silent for a long moment, and Dimitri could almost see the wheels turning behind his eyes, the scientist in him analyzing the information, looking for flaws in the logic, searching for alternative explanations.
"Is there anything in your family history?" Petrov asked. "Anything out of the ordinary? Were you adopted, perhaps?"
Dimitri shrugged. "As far as I know, I wasn't adopted.
The dormant genes must be more prevalent among humans than anyone realizes.
Think about it. These immortals have been around for thousands of years, breeding with humans, producing offspring who may or may not carry the genes, and I bet they didn't follow all the kids they had fathered to check if they carried the genes or not.
Without activation, the offspring live out their lives as humans, but some of their descendants inherit the special genes and give them to their descendants in turn.
Over many generations, the genetic material would have spread far and wide through the human population. "
"But most humans never transition because they never get bitten by an immortal." Petrov leaned back. "It makes a strange kind of sense."
Dimitri nodded. "The fangs and venom are mostly used to fight other immortals and to induce the transition of pubescent boys who carry the special genes and need to be activated.
Immortals don't go around biting humans.
They don't have to get so close and personal to kill physically inferior males. "
Petrov absorbed this, nodding slowly. Then he stood.
"I need a drink to think clearly."
He ducked into his room and returned a moment later with a fresh bottle of vodka. Sitting back down, he cracked the seal and poured a generous measure into the empty cup that had come with his dinner tray.
"To your immortality," he said, raising the glass in a mock toast. "May it bring you nothing but joy and prosperity."
"Somehow I doubt that."
Petrov drank, grimaced, and poured another. Then he laughed—a short, sharp sound that held more resignation than humor.
"You know, I find myself wondering if I might be a dormant too."
"That's not such a far-fetched idea. You might be."
"Maybe I should ask one of Dave's bodies to bite me." Petrov's lips curved in a sardonic smile. "See if it works. What's the worst that could happen?"
"I don't know. Dave didn't tell me what happens if a human is bitten but given that Tarik's friends expected me to live after his bite, they didn't expect the quantity of venom he managed to pump into me to be lethal for humans."
"That's a valid point." Petrov lifted his glass, emptied it in one go, and grimaced at the burn of it going down his throat.
"Another point, one that I've been wondering about ever since being introduced to this bizarre population, is where are the female immortals?
Does the gene only transfer through males? "
"I don't know," Dimitri admitted. "I didn't want to ask Dave too many questions because we are not supposed to ask about things that are not directly related to our research. But given that we haven't seen any immortal females on the island, it makes sense that the genes transfer only to males."
Petrov refilled his glass. "No wonder these immortals are so aggressive and hateful. They can't have a life partner, a wife to build a home with, and children to raise. Their entire purpose is about killing."
A coldness settled in Dimitri's gut at Petrov's description of what immortality meant in practical terms.
That was his future.
Mattie would not last forever, and he would be left alone like these males, aimless, purposeless…
Would he become a mindless killing machine like them?
Petrov was quiet for a moment, staring into the vodka in his glass. "So, what are you going to tell Dave?"
Dimitri had been struggling with the same question. "I don't know."
Petrov sighed and set down the glass. "They're going to come back tomorrow for their shots, and they're going to demand answers. You need to have something plausible ready."
Dave had accused him of no longer being human, so they probably suspected the truth. They had asked Petrov about the possibility of Dimitri using the drugs on himself to gauge if Petrov knew what had happened to his assistant.
"They suspect that I'm no longer human, but I could lie and claim that everything they saw me do was achieved by experimenting with a modified enhancement formula designed for humans, including the rapid healing."
He doubted Dave would believe that explanation.
"What happens when they want to test it on other humans?
" Petrov asked. "Losham would love for you to produce a miracle formula so he can create an army of enhanced human soldiers.
" He shook his head. "You don't have anything like that, and you can't manufacture the formula overnight.
You also can't use the formula we use for Dave on humans.
I wouldn't even dare test a much weaker formulation. "