CHAPTER 56
I rubbed my thumb across my index finger and flinched at the lack of sensation there. Fuck. I’d just taken a dose of the toxin two days ago, and based on the last dose, it should’ve lasted a week, or more. Long enough for me to synthesize more of it.
In the glass dome, the moth Lilia had named Patroclus barely fluttered across the floor of the cage, not only no longer able to fly, but in a state of constant paralysis.
The toxin was metabolizing too quickly. The effects were wearing off as the body learned how to respond to it.
I should’ve had another test subject lined up, but I’d gotten too overconfident.
Too fucking cocky.
And I didn’t have time to go hunt down Angelo DeLuca, to infect him, and harvest more of the toxin, as I had with Barletta. All that remained was a single sample and what I’d harvested from Angela Kepling weeks ago, which might not even have been viable.
If I wanted to save this study, to keep it from slipping into failure, I needed to find another victim.
The reality weighed heavily on me, and yet, at the same time, the only reason I’d made progress so swiftly was because I had sought out test subjects.
Without them, I’d have been in a stagnant state of growing toxin in moths.
At the click of the door, I frowned, turning to see Lilia enter the lab. An unexpected intrusion, seeing as it was early afternoon and she didn’t typically come visit the lab until evening, but her presence was certainly welcomed.
Every muscle in my body goaded me to sweep her up, but as I clenched my hands over the numbness that persisted there, I didn’t move.
The expression on her face as she approached told me something was troubling her, as well.
“What is it?” I asked, wishing I could reach out and caress her face, but not being able to feel her skin would only stab me in the fucking chest.
She stared off for a moment, frowning. “Can you take me somewhere?”
“Where?”
“Away. I just need to get away for a couple of hours.”
“I know of a place.” I pushed to my feet and gave a jerk of my head, stuffing my hands into my pockets. For a moment, she looked confused. Rightfully so. I hadn’t kissed her. Held her. Offered her any of the affection I’d given her over the past week.
Wearing a downcast expression, she followed after me, and after we’d deposited our lab coats on the hooks in the autopsy room, I led her through the cadaver entrance to the door leading out into the woods behind the school, where I’d parked my car in a small lot.
I opened the door for her, allowing her to slide into the seat.
“Jesus, a Maserati?” she asked, the amusement in her voice an improvement from the somber tone moments ago. “And black. How did I know Doctor Death would drive a black car with black leather interior?” She ran her hand over the seat as she settled in.
“It suits me.” The Ghibli was a sportier car, but practical, too, as it had a backseat, where I tossed my sport coat, and a trunk big enough to stuff a body. After rounding the vehicle, I slid into the driver’s seat and fired up the engine.
Locked in her preoccupations, she remained silent, just staring through the window, stirring my concern.
“What’s troubling you?” I asked again, driving down the small dirt road that ran along the perimeter of the school and down the mountainside.
“I learned who my father is today.”
When she didn’t say more, I cocked a brow and tipped my head to get her attention. “And?”
“I’m not sure I should say. I don’t really want to put it out in the universe. He doesn’t matter. He never did.”
“Then, don’t say his name.” I shifted the gears on the car, allowing it to pick up speed as we hauled down the mountainside at about seventy miles-per-hour.
As though sensing my venturous intentions, she opened the sunroof and tilted her head back, closing her eyes beneath the few scant rays of sunlight pushing through the overcast.
With my own head wrapped up in a mire of shit, I didn’t prod her for a response.
Instead, I let her enjoy the silence between us, with the cool sea air blowing her hair in disarray, and Chopin’s Nocturne in E-flat Major blaring through the speakers.
In spite of the mildly cool temps, a strange warmth settled over me, making me wish I’d opted for a T-shirt instead of the dress shirt.
An ache throbbed in my muscles, though not necessarily unusual, given the dosage had begun to taper.
As we approached a familiar road, I slowed the car, and Lilia sat up in her seat. I dared to turn down the long, tree-lined drive, even though it sent a pulse of dread through my veins, as memories emerged from the dark corners of my mind like corpses rising up from the grave.
Beside me, Lilia looked around at the dark and dilapidated trees that hid the long stretch of dirt road. “What is this place?”
I rolled the car to a stop just outside of a black, wrought iron gate with Bramwell Estate etched into its metal. “It’s where I grew up.” Beyond the gate stood the dark and dreary gothic mansion with its stained-glass windows, steep gabled roof and turret.
The place had always physically looked to be in a state of mourning, with its weathered, vine-covered stones, chipped and decayed, and the unkempt gardens my father had refused to keep maintained after my mother had passed.
She peered through the window, giving a quick glance to me and back. “You lived here?”
“Generations of Bramwells have lived here. Caed and I were away at school most of the time, so we rarely spent much time here. But, yes. This was my home.”
“Is this where you stay while on campus?”
“No. I haven’t set foot in the house in a decade.
Not since my father passed.” I hadn’t seen my father in five years, when our family lawyer had contacted me, urging me to pay him a visit.
He’d been on his deathbed for some time, afflicted with the same condition with which I suffered.
It was the day I’d refused to carry on his work.
The day I told him I’d happily watch him die knowing everything would die with him.
“The house is mine, though. The bastard cursed me with it.”
“Your father wasn’t a good man?”
“No. He wasn’t.”
“So, the rumors of what he did …” A hesitation carried on her voice, as if she didn’t want to risk letting me know she’d heard of it. “The Crixson study. Do you believe them?”
“Are you asking me if my father murdered six women?”
“I’m asking if he murdered my mother.”
I couldn’t look at her. My feelings for Lilia had grown to be complicated.
The lies to protect her no longer came to me as easily as before.
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. Perhaps the most honest I’d been with her.
While the details of her mother’s death and the timeline of her illness didn’t scientifically add up, I knew my father.
I knew his sadistic tendencies, his greed and desires.
“It’s quite possible. Though, I’ve never heard of anyone harboring the parasite for so long.
I can’t even investigate the circumstances.
There were files that went missing. A number of them were destroyed. ”
“I think Gilchrist has those files.”
Frowning, I turned toward her. “How do you know?”
“Because she offered to hand them over if I stopped seeing you and left Dracadia.”
“These files have information about your mother?”
“Supposedly.”
“And you didn’t leave? You didn’t accept this offer?”
She lowered her gaze to where her hands wrung in her lap, and a smile played on her lips.
“After I lost my mother, and Bee went off to school, I kind of spiraled into myself and learned how to find solace in loneliness. It became my home. The only place I felt safe. Then I came here. And I met you. And I learned that loneliness was a choice for me. This place is more than just a school to me.” The turmoil bubbled to the surface as she sat fidgeting.
“I suppose I could’ve kept to myself, as I always have, and remained another forgettable face in the crowd.
And maybe Gilchrist wouldn’t have bothered.
Or maybe she would’ve and I’d have just gone back to my old, lonely life, and had all the answers I’ve yearned for.
” She shrugged and looked away. “Answers that don’t really matter anymore.
” From her profile, I watched a hint of a smile play on her lips.
“The decision was made the moment I met you, though. To stay here. I choose you.”
Damn her. Damn this . What the hell was I doing to this girl? What the hell was she doing to me ?
I pushed past the revolting lack of feeling and hooked my finger beneath her chin, turning her to face me. “I choose you,” I said, and pulled her in for a kiss, feeling the smile against my lips. “And believe me when I say, you’re hard to forget, Miss Vespertine.”
Reversing the car back down the drive, I pulled out onto the main road and kept toward the north end of the island.
“I meant to ask. Why women? Why did your father choose strictly women for the study?”
For years, I’d suffered through the rumors that my father had been no different than my great-great-grandfather, who’d chosen prostitutes as victims. It wasn’t until I studied the parasite that I learned the truth of why. “The toxin responds more favorably in women.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t gotten that far. Genetics? Evolution? There’s so much left to learn about it.”
“I feel like I should hate this parasite more than I do. Everything about it fascinates me, though.”
I sighed. “Welcome to my world.”
We finally reached Amorisse Cove, and I parked my car off onto the shoulder.
After opening the door for her, I led her down a rickety staircase, to the beautiful cove surrounded by the tall, stone walls of the cliffs.
In the distance, about a half mile offshore, stood the arch known to the locals as Lover’s Leap.
An archway that made up the tail of the dragon-shaped island.