Chapter Thirty-One
Reyna entered the cafeteria bleary-eyed the next morning.
Beckham had slipped out at an early hour.
She’d been mostly dead to the world, and all she remembered was a kiss on the forehead.
She grabbed a tray and piled it high with eggs, bacon, and orange juice.
Drew and Gregory were sitting together in a corner, and she headed in that direction.
She plopped her tray next to Drew.
“So,” she said in greeting.
Drew smiled. “Hey, Rey.”
“So, is this official, then?” she asked, pointing her fork between Drew and Gregory.
Drew looked at Gregory. “I guess it is?”
Gregory smiled brightly back at him. “About time. We’ve only been hooking up since before you moved in.”
“You said you weren’t together! Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” Drew said.
“You’ve never really had a girlfriend before, either. Doesn’t mean your sister has to be left in the dark.”
“All right. All right. My bad,” Drew said.
Gregory smirked at him. “I told you so.”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Drew said, nudging him with a blush.
“Brian and Laura still locked in their room?” she asked.
“As far as I know. Brian has to come out sometime. We have to leave once the sun goes down.”
Reyna frowned. She’d tried not to think about the mission her brothers were going on.
She knew they were going to check out the site and try to discover if it was really being set up as a human feeding camp.
They’d been on plenty of missions like this before, but it didn’t make it any easier to see them leave.
“Make sure you and Brian say bye before you go.”
“Will do.”
Reyna finished up her breakfast, listening to the adorable banter between Drew and Gregory. Jodie showed up just as Reyna was returning her tray to the front.
“Reyna,” Jodie cried. She jogged over to Reyna, holding a piece of paper.
“What happened?”
“We found something.”
“About June?” she gasped.
Jodie nodded. “An address.”
“Oh my God, where?”
“Here in the city. It’s not verified, but it looks like she lived here at some point. All we have to do is get Elle to approve us to go into the city.” Jodie’s eyes were lit up. Reyna had never seen her look this excited or happy. Not in the entire time she had known her.
“Then we should go!”
“Meghan is on it.”
Reyna pulled Jodie into a hug. “I hope you find exactly what you’re looking for.”
“Me too.” Jodie followed Reyna out into the hallway. “What are your plans for today? I’m so anxious. I don’t think I can go back to my room alone.”
“I actually think I’m going to the medical wing.”
Jodie stopped in her tracks. “Why?”
Reyna faced her. “I promised I’d help out.”
“Why?” she repeated.
Reyna linked arms with Jodie and forced her to start walking again. “Because there’s something wrong with my blood.”
“Duh. You and I are peas in a pod, sister.”
“But I mean…more wrong. Beckham can sense me.”
“Kinky.”
Reyna snorted. “Not like that. I mean he knows where I am, even from long distances away, and when I wake up. He’s worried that if he has the ability, Harrington might also have it. He thinks it’s something in my blood, and we’re checking it out.”
“Whoa. That’s freaky.”
“Yeah. It’s fine if Becks has that capability, but I don’t want anyone else to have it. It’d be like having a beacon over my head.”
“True. So, you think you can figure out what’s happening?”
“There’s a doctor here who’s looking into it. I thought I’d check on his progress. He said I could come anytime and be his assistant.”
“And you trust him?” Jodie asked skeptically. “I wouldn’t want to set one foot in that medical wing. No matter what Meghan says or does for me.”
“Beckham trusts him. And I trust Beckham.”
“Let’s hope vamp boyfriend knows what he’s doing.”
She understood Jodie’s fears; they mirrored her own.
She was still having panic attacks and flare-ups of her PTSD from what she’d endured.
The thought of donating blood, of working with her blood, of any of that nonsense, made her sick.
She knew she couldn’t keep running from her fears, though.
She needed to face them if she wanted to get answers.
Despite Jodie’s feelings about the medical wing, she followed Reyna into the empty med bay.
It was so sterile and silent. Only the slow whir of machines and the air-conditioning kicking on broke up the stillness.
Reyna headed to Washington’s office. The door was propped open and the room was empty, so she moved from there to the lab where she had last seen him. Success.
He was wearing his usual white lab coat, staring into a microscope. Petri dishes and graduated cylinders and pipettes and tongs and a bunch of other equipment were scattered all around him. She was sure there was some order to it, but she couldn’t begin to navigate it.
“Dr. Washington?” she said, rapping on the door to announce their entrance.
His head popped up, and he smiled brightly. “Ah, Reyna, have you finally come to help me with all this work?”
“Yeah. And I brought Jodie with me.”
Reyna gestured to her friend, but when she looked up into Jodie’s face, she was pale with terror.
“Jodie?”
Jodie shook her head. For once, words failed her.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?” Reyna asked, reaching for her. Jodie shuddered away.
“Miss Gardner,” Washington said. He took a step forward.
Jodie took a step back. “Don’t.” Her voice rasped, and she withdrew even farther.
Reyna’s gaze moved from one to the other. “Do you know each other?”
“You’re a fucking monster,” Jodie said savagely. “How dare you stand there as if you’re part of this rebellion. And if you really fucking are, then this entire thing is a sham. I knew it was all too good to be true. How could I have ever believed this wasn’t going to end exactly where it started?”
“Jodie,” Washington said. A look of absolute despair crossed his face.
“Fuck you! Just fuck you!” she spat and fled the room.
Reyna’s eyes widened, and she dashed after Jodie. She was already out of the medical wing and down the hallway before Reyna caught up with her.
“Jodie.” Reyna grabbed her shoulder and hauled her to a stop.
Jodie slapped Reyna’s hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“What happened? Tell me what happened. You know Washington?”
“Know him?” Jodie hissed. “He was the monster who started the experiments on me!”
Of course. Washington had developed the blood type cure, and he was working on the blood disease. He’d been one of Harrington’s best doctors. It made perfect, horrible sense that Jodie had been one of his test subjects at some point if she had been at Visage for ten years. Still, it hurt.
“How long has he been here?” Jodie asked. “No. Fuck it. It doesn’t matter.”
She kept walking down the hallway. She took the stairs instead of the elevator down to the floor where she still shared a room with Meghan.
“Jodie, what are you doing?”
“Getting the hell out of here.”
“You’re leaving?” Reyna asked.
“Well, I can’t fucking stay. If that man is a part of Elle, then this place is no better than that hellhole.”
“Jodie, I know Washington worked with Visage in the past.”
“If you knew, then how could you allow this?” she asked. “You were there in Visage, too, Reyna. He was part of that.”
“I know. He’s the one who invented the blood type cure in the first place. He worked with Harrington, but he’s not working with him anymore. He’s not still the person he was before. I have to believe that.”
“Well, you do you, then.”
“If Beckham can change, then Washington can, too.”
“This isn’t about your vampire boyfriend. This is about my life. Ten years of my life. I thought you understood.”
“I do,” Reyna said quietly. “I don’t want to work with Washington. I don’t want any of this. But I want him on our side, not Harrington’s.”
Jodie faced her, stuffing a pair of tennis shoes into a backpack. “That’s the difference between me and you, Reyna. I don’t believe that anyone can change. They’re not on our side. They’re on their side. Vampires are our enemies.”
“They’re not our enemies.”
Jodie snorted. “They feed off us. They drink our blood. They want to kill us. Nothing changes that. Nothing.”
“Okay,” Reyna said, holding her hands up. “I hear you. We both were put through shit. I’m not telling you to trust Washington. Or to even trust Beckham. It’s understandable that you’d hate them.”
Jodie’s shoulders shook as she clutched her backpack. “I can’t stay, Rey.”
“Seeing Washington fucked you up. It triggered you, and it’s totally understandable. If I saw Harrington right now, I’d want to bolt, too,” Reyna admitted, reaching her hand out for Jodie. “But I don’t want to lose you. You’re my friend. My sister.”
Jodie dropped her head. “You’re all I have, sister. The rest of this…” She glanced up at her. “It’s yours, not mine.”
“What’s mine is yours,” she told her. “Always.”
Jodie threw her backpack down. “He’s a monster, Reyna.”
“I believe you. And I’m sorry for what he’s done. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. That happened to both of us. But it isn’t any safer out there right now. And I don’t want you to get hurt. Running isn’t the answer.”
“Then what is the answer?”
“Take it one day at a time. We’re not going to get through this in a few weeks. It’s going to take a lot longer to recover. Even longer to change the world. You don’t have to forgive him or forget what he did to you. Just don’t leave.”
Jodie chewed on her lip and glanced away. “You and I see the world very differently.”
“That’s okay. As long as you’re still in my world.”
Jodie nodded. “I’ll stay…for now.”
“Thank you,” Reyna said, wrapping her into a hug.
“Just be careful when you’re working with him,” Jodie said. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“I will,” she promised and prayed that Washington never proved Jodie right.