Chapter 18
Come to me.
I jolt, my hands shaking so badly I drop a tray of vials on the lab floor, the glass shattering everywhere.
I grab another tray and start again. Unsteady hands and clammy skin, I struggle to simply fill my syringe and insert it into the fresh vial.
When I finally have it done, I grab it and stuff it into my pocket, then fill another. One more and I’m done.
I step over the glass, some of it crunching under my shoe, and hurry to the lab door.
Pausing for only a moment, I say a silent prayer for Gretchen and Aang, hoping that they’re at peace.
Then I whisper my goodbyes to Evie and Wyatt, sending them my love and my hope for a cure.
I also say a silent wish to see them again, though I know that’s asking far too much.
When I enter the hallway, Gage is a few paces away holding a radio up to his ear. “We good?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I pat my pocket.
“All right. My team is at the helo. We’ve got another 15 minutes or so before sunrise.” He leads me away from the lab and into the network of tunnels that crisscross the base.
Come to me. My feet tangle with each other, black spots flaring at the edges of my vision.
“Whoa.” Gage grabs my elbow and pulls me upright.
I lean on him, a sheen of cold sweat all over my body.
“He’s calling me. Gregor.” I wipe my forehead with my sleeve. “It hurts.”
“You should stay.” Gage holds me up while I catch my breath. “Please, just stay. We can fix this. We can find a way to hold him off.”
Gregor’s voice is a cold knife, a blunt one that does more damage each time I feel it penetrating my mind, and there’s no stopping it.
“We made a deal.” I pull myself up and start walking again.
“No, you made a deal with General Lopez. Not me. I would’ve never accepted.
” He grits his teeth, his grip on my arm tightening.
“Valen can’t save you, not when Gregor is in your blood somehow.
You can’t go running to him when you should stay here with your own kind.
Whatever you’re planning, it’s suicide.”
“I’m stronger than you think.”
“It’s not a question of strength.” He looks over at me.
I keep staring straight ahead.
“Why are you doing this?” He pulls me up short, pushing me against the cold wall and holding me there. “Gregor is going to die. It’s just a matter of time. My sources say he may have a month left, if that. You—”
“Your sources? You mean Valen. You mean the one vampire who’s risked his life again and again to help the humans, right?” I’d push to keep going but this little respite might be what keeps me from vomiting at the moment.
His eyes flash. “He’s still one of them, Georgia. What part of that are you not getting?”
“He’s half human. Why do you always leave that part out?”
“Whatever humanity he may have had is long gone. Let him go, Georgia. He’s a monster. Let him die with the rest of them.”
“‘Die with the rest of them.’” I shake my head.
“And you say he’s the monster. Your General Lopez would’ve given me anything to secure the formula for the poison.
I could’ve asked for all the gold in the treasury, an entire state to make my own, and he would’ve given it to secure one vial of it.
Not once did he offer a single fucking thing for the plague vaccine.
Not once. Are you sure you know who the monsters are? ”
“The vampires!” He slams his fist into the wall beside me. “They’re the ones killing us, Georgia. Why can’t you face that?”
“I have faced it!” I yell back. “I know what they’ve done, what they’re capable of. But saying they’re the only evil in the world is a lie, and you know it.”
“We didn’t start this—”
“And that makes it okay to end it the way General Lopez plans? To erase their existence? How are we the good guys in that scenario, Gage? We aren’t. There is good in them just like there’s good in us. I’ve seen it just like I’ve seen the depth of their depravity.”
“This is war. Do you understand that?” He takes my shoulders and shakes me. “A war for survival, and I’m making damn sure that we survive!”
I shrug out of his hold. “It’s not a zero-sum game!”
“Maybe not to you, but to the rest of us, it is. It always will be. No matter what you’re trying to accomplish with this insane plan, it won’t work.
You don’t stand a chance against Gregor, against any of them.
And no matter what you do, we aren’t going to live and work beside killers and pretend they’re like us. ”
“We do it all the time, Gage. All the time. Your Saints killed me once upon a time. Before the plague, soldiers like you killed other humans as part of your job description. Or have you forgotten about all that? Taken our atrocities and somehow chalked them up to the vampires?”
“It’s not a competition of who’s worse,” he snaps.
“No, it’s not, but pretending we’re all good and they’re all bad is part of the problem. We know enough about them to know that isn’t true. You know it isn’t true. Their blood can save us! We need them as much as they need us.”
“All right. If you really believe that—” He sucks a tooth. “—then why did you make a deal with Lopez for the poison? Hm? Why would you agree to give him what he needs to kill all of them?”
“Because it was the only way.” Defeat dampens my words. “He wouldn’t agree to anything else. I have to get out of here. I have to try to get to Valen. The poison was the only bargaining chip I had left.”
“Well, I guess you got what you wanted out of that bargain, didn’t you? A one-way trip to your death. Maybe that’s what you’ve been after all along.” Bitterness sours his tone. “Or are you hoping Valen will turn you? Is that it?”
I stare up at him. “You really don’t know me at all.”
His gaze strays to my mouth, then back to my eyes before he pushes off the wall and grabs my elbow, pulling me along with him.
Uncomfortable silence falls between us as we trudge deeper into the base, passing a few guards who all stand at attention for Gage.
By the time we get to the helicopter pad, I’m drenched in sweat with a headache pounding between my temples.
“Sir.” A soldier salutes and climbs into the helicopter, then offers me a hand up.
“I’ve got her.” Gage lifts me easily, and I take a few shaky steps before collapsing into the hard seat. He follows me in, his hands quick with the straps.
I pull on the headphones. This set has noise, the pilot speaking about sunrise. I lean back and close my eyes as the machinery clanks and whirs, lifting us to the surface of a new day. We take off, a cold wind whipping through the open doors as we soar over the quiet landscape.
I think of Evie and Wyatt, of them walking into the lab and discovering my hastily scrawled goodbye and notes about the vaccine.
In a way I’m glad I wasn’t able to say goodbye in person.
It was hard enough the first time, when I’d sent them fleeing from DC.
Doing it again, especially now that I know what I’m walking into, would’ve been so much harder.
They’ve already lost so much, survived so much.
I left them with what I hope is a sort of peace, a knowledge that they can and will create a vaccine.
They are my hope for the future now, for the fate of humanity in this new Emergence Era.
“You’re wrong.” Gage speaks through the headset, surprising me from my thoughts.
I open my eyes to find him kneeling in front of me, his fingers on the bottom of my jacket.
“I know you.” He gets the zipper to catch and zips it all the way up to my neck. “I’ve known since we first met.” He gives me a look that probably would’ve melted my heart a few years ago, then he rises and sits beside me.
No more talking, there’s only the noise of the helicopter, the blasting wind, and the slight crackle of static through the headsets.
We sit arm to arm and simply wait.
For landing.
For parting.
For the end.