Chapter Twenty-Eight
FRANK LEANED OVER THE MICROSCOPE as he locked the slides into place. An image bloomed on the screen above him, letting us all see what he saw.
No one spoke as he studied the oily, tarry droplets, magnified thousands of times and looking absolutely rancid.
Rook stopped breathing, her energy reaching for mine.
I thought it was because she was afraid of how terrible our blood looked but she suddenly blurted, “So I was right all along...my parents really did this to Lucien, just like they did it to me.”
Frank whirled upright to face us. He opened his mouth as if to argue that fact then just dropped his head in defeat.
“Your father, Kristófer, was friendly with Lucien’s father, Jin.
After all, they were both owners of the two largest energy suppliers in the world.
And when his son was born with only months to live thanks to his damaged heart...
he was willing to give him a slim chance instead of no chance. ”
I laughed cynically. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that keeping me alive had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my bloodline is needed to run the reactors.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Frank said, his gaze catching mine.
“All I know is...if Rook’s parents hadn’t accepted you into the trial, you would’ve died almost thirty years ago.
” He sighed and raked a hand through his hair.
“Look, I’m not saying it was right, nor am I excusing what they did, but...
if you want to take a page out of Dillon’s book, then I think it was meant to happen.
You two have been fated ever since the first time you met.
And that would never have happened if you hadn’t been sent to us. ”
Rook stiffened. “Is this the part where you tell me about that file? About how I met Lucien before I was even born?”
Wincing a little, he grabbed the bench behind him as if he needed support. “I can...if you want me to.”
“I want you to.”
“Okay. Fine.” Sucking in a breath, he started with a caveat. “Your parents did love you, Rook, but...everything you’re probably thinking is right. Your conception was purely selfish on their part.”
Sweat broke out over my skin as Rook’s pain blended with mine, making my vision grey.
Whisper grunted and came to my side, nudging me.
“What do you mean?” she asked warily. “Selfish?”
“I mean they were so obsessed about lasting forever they didn’t stop to think about those they hurt in the process.
” Anger sparked in Frank’s eyes. “So many test subjects died. So many trials failed. Instead of giving up, they convinced themselves they needed an organic base already programmed with their DNA to test on—because if anyone was worthy of being immortal...it was them.”
The nausea grew worse as Rook gasped beside me.
Frank swallowed hard. “They, eh...regularly used their own embryos to test batches of immortality. Most shrivelled and decayed but...there was one.” He never looked away from Rook.
“A single one that was on a tray with other fertilised eggs being carried to cryogenics. The technician claims he didn’t trip, but somehow your vial fell into Lucien’s crib as he was being wheeled the other way—to a fire-retardant room to die.
He didn’t last long after the R gene infusion.
He burned up almost instantly. However, the moment his little hand locked around your vial, he calmed. ”
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“It gave us just enough time to grab one of the frequency collars we used on the larger mammals and block the powers running through him. We let him keep your vial for a few days and...his heart actually repaired itself. He was the very first to heal—after so much failure. I petitioned his parents to let us keep him. We explained that a phenomenon had occurred and he needed to stay. But Marcus came and took him away.”
His gaze flicked to mine. “We tried to keep you, Lucien. We knew we’d seen something miraculous between you and Rook, but...we didn’t have a choice. He took you and we never heard a word about you again—apart from when he asked for a pet, of course.
Flames incinerated what was left of my heart. “Thanks to that collar, Marcus had the perfect technology to shackle me for the rest of my life.”
His cheeks tinged with shame. “I didn’t know. I told him to use the lowest dose of frequency to keep you alive, that’s all.”
“Instead, they tortured him with it for twenty years,” Rook said ever so quietly. “And that frequency might’ve kept us alive, Frank, but it made both of us sick and miserable.” Her fingers strayed to her empty throat where her raindrop pendant used to live.
Frank sagged against the bench. “I’m so sorry...
to both of you. I’ll carry every sin I ever committed for the rest of my life and—” His eyes locked on Rook’s, his voice breaking with confessions as if he couldn’t keep choking on them.
“The day your parents decided to bring you into the world was the day I lost all trust in them. I knew they chose to give you life—not because they wanted a child—but because, ever since you fell into Lucien’s crib, the Requiem power stayed stable.
“Out of all the tests, you were the only one who lasted. And when you were born...” He shook his head, dropping his eyes to the floor.
“I saw how far they were willing to go—how many lives they willingly sacrificed to extend their own. I thought what we were doing would benefit all of humanity but that was the day I realised I was on the wrong side of history.”
Turning to face the bench, he poked the two oily droplets of blood with a needle. “Your parents were visionaries, Rook; there’s no arguing that. The advancements they made in science. The creations they came up with—they’ve improved the lives of countless people. However...”
His hands shook as he pushed the droplets closer and closer together.
“Their search for immortality slowly twisted them into something unrecognisable. They no longer saw life but merely experiments. They didn’t care how many were sacrificed...
only that they got results. All those animals they killed in the name of forever.
The babies that died in agony. The children that never got to go home—”
He cleared his throat. “Each time another death occurred—each time we were responsible for another body dissolving—another piece of me broke. I’d go home to my own children and picture the ones that had died thanks to the Requiem trials.
I couldn’t sleep from their screams. Couldn’t eat from the knowledge that there would be more.
There would always be more because your parents wouldn’t stop. And...I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Shaking his head, he turned to meet our eyes, his face white.
“Cleaning up the mess that used to be a living, breathing child will haunt me for the rest of my days. So...I fudged the data and hid the remains of the kids who died during their ascensions. I did it to save yet more being brought into the program. To buy myself some time to figure out a way to destroy the Requiem formula and shut everything down. I never expected your parents to treat a few measly columns of success as a sign that we’d succeeded.
They didn’t even ask me. I was away with my family—trying to figure out how to live with so many deaths on my hands—when they called me drunk.
They were in the lab, celebrating the pinnacle of their life’s work.
I told them to sleep it off, but they just laughed and showed me two empty syringes. ”
“What?” Rook leapt to her feet. “What did you say?”
I stood too, wrapping my arm around her to keep her upright as she swayed.
Pain chewed through both of us.
Frank struggled to hold her eyes. “They’d injected themselves with the R gene. They managed to hang on longer than most, but in the end, they succumbed...right in front of you.”
A blast of Rook’s emotions crowded my head.
Her horror of that day. The glimpses of witnessing her parents dissolve from human into nothing...
“You’re the reason they injected themselves?” Tears brimmed over her lashes. “You’re the reason they thought the immortality trial was a success?”
“I am.” Frank just nodded, a heavy sigh escaping him. “I killed them. And I will never stop feeling guilty...or relieved.”
Rook choked on a sob, but...even as I felt her heart breaking, I sensed her relief too.
Relief that they’d been stopped from doing to others what’d been done to us.
Relief that the blood staining her family’s name had been stopped with their deaths...
unlike the blood staining mine that had continued for far too long.
Flashes of the kids beneath the mountain in the Eastern Crucible filled both our thoughts. The horror they’d existed in. The suffering they’d endured. But then Rook’s memories showed me rows upon rows of cages and animals, all screeching and howling as they broke beneath their ascension.
It was hard not to feel responsible, even though we were ‘made’ just like them.
Frank gulped back tears as he choked, “I know you’ll never forgive me for being responsible for your parents’ death, Rook, but I’ll never regret stopping the Requiem trials.
The moment they passed away, I destroyed every single vial, burned all the data, and deleted all the hard drives.
No one can recreate it. No one can access the past. And I will never let anyone hurt you...
not after you’ve been hurt so much by what we’ve done. ”
Above him on the TV, the two oily droplets finally met on the microscope slide.
The moment they touched, a brilliant flash erupted. Silver and gold exploded outward like a miniature big bang.
For a few breathtaking seconds, the screen filled with pure, radiant power.
The dead cells began to repair themselves.
Colour flooded back—healthy crimson pulsating with metallic potential.
But then, the light snuffed out.
The blood shrivelled and bubbled, sizzling and disintegrating until only ash remained.
None of us moved.
Whisper nudged my hand as if trying to make sure I was alright.
Dillon staggered toward the TV, his mouth hanging open. “Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means?”
Frank looked haunted as he studied the ash, flinching as it scattered onto the bench like grave dust. “It means...I shouldn’t have wasted time airing my demons.”
He locked his eyes on us. “You’re dying.
And, because I promised I wouldn’t hold anything back, I’ll tell you.
” He swallowed hard. “You have hours. Maybe a few days if you’re lucky.
Your bodies are no longer rejecting the R gene; they’re entering the final stages of shutdown.
Your organs will probably start failing by the end of today.
Your bones will fracture and break. Eventually, the pain will become so bad that you’ll beg me for a quick death, rather than the slow one you’re in for. ”
Rook’s horror hit me.
Agony poured into my heart. Loss and fear, terror and denial.
The weight of everything crashed over us as love swelled so fiercely it hurt.
Hours.
We have hours.
Whisper snarled, sensing everything was wrong.
“That’s not acceptable.” Dillon tripped to the table and punched it with his fists. “There has to be something. Some way of—”
“Is there?” Frank cut him off, staring at both of us. “Is there anything you can think of that might help me figure this out? I don’t care how crazy or personal. Tell me.”
Rook coughed. Blood came up, splattering all over the table.
The sight of it made Frank launch across the room and grab her shoulders. “You’re different, Rook. You’ve always been different. Ever since you stabilised each other, you’ve both been different. There has to be something—”
“There’s a dreamscape,” I snarled, shoving Frank away and breaking his hold on Rook.
The power inside me spat and smouldered, unable to tolerate anyone touching her because they polluted her energy. His touch tarnished the very connection we shared that kept us alive, and...a rib cracked with a wet pop.
Ah, shit.
I coughed like Rook, adding to her mess on the table, crippled with pain.
“Dreamscape?” he repeated, cringing at our blood. “What’s that?”
My temper surged, shoving away agony, but Rook beat me to it.
“When we woke after we ‘died’ on the mountain. The moment we kissed, we fell into a place that wasn’t...
here. It’s somewhere we can’t explain. Everything is amplified there.
Better. It makes us better. The moment we touch and...
have sex...we seem to be able to reverse the damage and buy ourselves some more time. ”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me this earlier?!” Frank flung up his hands and marched to the door. “Dillon, take them to one of the sleeping quarters. Right now.”
Whisper shot to the door, his tail lashing with impatience.
“But it’s only temporary,” I growled. “We need something permanent.”
“Then help me buy some time to find something permanent.” Frank shooed the panther out the door. “I don’t care what that place is or how you get there—if it works, then I’d be fine with it being on the fucking moon.”
Whisper growled at us to follow, and Dillon eyed up Rook. “Can you walk?”
She nodded.
Frank got a dazed look in his eyes as if running hypotheses through his head. “If what you’re saying is true and intimacy helps stabilise you, then...the deeper the connection, the stronger the stabilisation.” Frantic eagerness filled his face. “Do it. Do all of it.”
“Do what exactly?” Rook frowned as we shuffled toward the exit.
“Everything!” Frank quivered with urgency.
“Kiss and touch, taste and make love. Go wild with fellatio and cunnilingus. Give each other as many orgasms as possible.” Shooing us out the door, he ordered, “Do it all. Use every position. Do whatever it takes to buy you more time, and...I’ll do my best to keep you alive afterward. ”