Chapter Twenty-Eight
“A cure?” Beckham asked skeptically.
“That’s not possible,” Meghan whispered.
Everyone else stared at the golden liquid, stunned. Even Gabe didn’t have a witty remark. The room was silent and shocked.
“I assure you it’s quite possible,” Washington said.
“And you discovered this in the last month?” Reyna asked. “I mean don’t you need more time than that to make sure it works?”
“The last month?” Washington stared at her in confusion.
“Oh heavens, no. I’ve been working on this for the better part of the last two centuries.
But it all clicked when I saw how a blood match and the healing properties found in your blood reacted.
It was a next logical conclusion to assume that you could heal more than just each other. ”
“But testing?” she pressed.
“Ah. Well, I’ve tested it on every kind of vampire blood I had on file here.
When combined in perfect conditions, the virus that causes the disease was forced into paralysis and eventually killed.
Essentially Golden Blood works as white blood cells attacking the foreign properties in the body. In this instance: vampirism.”
Washington hastily took back the small tube from Reyna. “Though, it hasn’t been tested on a vampire yet.”
Reyna’s eyes darted around the room. It was only Beckham who didn’t shrink back from the prospect of having Golden Blood tested on him.
“Well, let’s not all jump up at once,” Gabe said sarcastically.
“It’s untested,” Katarina said. “Who knows what it could do to us? I’ll take my chances as a vampire before that.”
“We have to test it,” Beckham insisted. “Think of the possibilities.”
Washington’s eyes lit up. “Imagine the number of people we could save. The number of lives we could change.”
Beckham shot him an incredulous look. “Think of the weapon it could be.”
Washington’s face fell. “This isn’t biological warfare.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. Not everything created has to be a weapon.”
“Fortunately for us the inventor doesn’t have the proclivity to use it that way.”
“We don’t even know if it works,” Reyna said.
“It works,” Washington insisted.
“What we need is someone to test it on,” Gerard spoke up from the corner. He gently placed a bookmark into his romance novel. “I’m not volunteering, but it’d be easy enough to find a vampire nearby to experiment on.”
“Absolutely not,” Meghan said.
“It is the most efficient option,” Zoya added.
“That’s unethical. It goes against all medical practice.” Meghan’s head snapped to Washington. “You can’t do that.”
“I agree with Meghan. I won’t force someone,” Washington said.
“For fuck’s sake,” Gabe said. “We have a couple of vamps here. One of you should step up.”
Every vampire in the room glared at him. He hastily held up his hands and backed down from that notion.
“There’s only one option,” Gerard said. “We’ll go now.”
He nodded at Beckham before moving at super vamp speed out of the house. Katarina and Zoya followed close behind. Only Beckham remained.
“You’re not going to let them do this, are you?” Reyna asked.
He stared at her. Fuck, he would let this happen. It made her sick to even consider it.
“Becks,” she whispered.
“It’s been a long night, Reyna. You should clean up and rest.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“In war, there are no rules.”
“No. In war, we decide what rules to break. We decide how much of our humanity we will have left. We decide.”
“Then you would rather choose to do nothing?” he asked. Not an ounce of offense or blame in his words. He was truly curious. In every world he’d ever lived, this was his reality. His life was a never-ending war of his own choosing, where rules applied to someone else and might was right.
“Not nothing. But we’ve only known about this for a few minutes. We can’t expect there to be one answer.”
“Find me another solution, then.”
He affectionately brushed her hair back and then disappeared. Reyna cursed softly under her breath. The rest of her ramshackle team of Elle members stared wide-eyed at her.
“You heard the man. Anyone know another solution?”
“I hate to say it, but, this seems like the only answer,” Gabe said, getting a good scowl from Meghan.
“We have to test it. There’s an army of vampires out there somewhere who want to take us down and rogue vampires going mad with an incurable disease.
Would you rather have a weapon to stop them or not? ”
“I would, but we could find volunteers. There has to be a better way to find someone willing to be tested on. So start looking,” Reyna said, and strode to a computer.
She wouldn’t believe there was no other option unless she had to. And she really fucking didn’t want to have to.
…
Reyna jolted awake. She stared blearily around her and realized she’d fallen asleep at her computer. The screen was blank. She’d accomplished nothing. Great.
She rubbed her eyes to try to clear the haze of the evening. It was late. When she glanced at the giant clock in the corner, she realized it was just past six in the morning.
Jodie was passed out on the couch in the corner. Gabe, Meghan, and Tye had long ago gone to bed, by the looks of things.
Another string of curses came from the entranceway.
Reyna stood and stretched her aching limbs.
When she walked out of the dining room, she found Gerard and Zoya restraining a blond woman.
She appeared to be in her late twenties.
Tall, trim, otherworldly beautiful with blue eyes that nearly glowed.
Reyna watched in horror as the blonde snapped her fangs at Gerard.
He dismissed her as if she were nothing. And to him she probably was.
“What’s going on?” Reyna croaked. She cleared her throat. “Who’s this?”
Gerard shot her an impassive glance. “You asked for a vampire. I brought you a vampire.”
“I didn’t ask for anything.”
“Irrelevant.”
“What the hell is going on here?” the blond woman asked.
“I won’t be a part of this,” Reyna said, ignoring the woman.
“Then don’t,” Gerard said.
He muscled his way past her as Katarina and Philippé entered, holding an unconscious man between them. He looked to be in his forties in a battered button-up and slacks. Unlike the screaming blonde, he looked as if he’d come out of a gutter. Dirty and disheveled.
“Another one?” she whispered.
Katarina tipped her head at Reyna and smiled as she pushed past her. “Morning!”
Beckham appeared then. Coming out of the early morning light in a fresh three-piece suit. Not a trace of his near-death experience on him.
“Little One,” he said with a smile as he approached.
“What are you doing with these people?”
“They’re vampires. My circle found them. Do you have another solution?”
“Becks, please. This is wrong.”
“I know,” he said.
“If you know, then stop this.”
“What’s going on?” came a voice from behind her. It was Jodie. She glanced between Reyna and Beckham and Katarina’s disappearing back. “You found someone to experiment on?”
“Beckham is going to put a stop to this,” Reyna said.
“It’s us or them. And none of my men are going to volunteer for something like this.”
“So instead you’re going to force people to do it against their will?” Jodie asked, her voice panicked.
She stalked toward them, stomping her feet with each step. Gabe, Meghan, and Tye were standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at them. Even Genevieve peeked her head out.
“I was taken at the age of twelve and experimented on by men who believed that this was ethical or just didn’t fucking care. They wanted my blood and they didn’t care what the fuck it did to me. If you do this, how are we any better than Visage?” Jodie asked with fire in every word.
“We aren’t,” Reyna said. “We do not need this cure to win. We can be better than them.”
“I would keep you innocent of this if I could,” Beckham said. “But sometimes we have to think like our enemies to defeat them.”
Jodie reared back and slapped Beckham across the face. His head didn’t move an inch. She wrung out her hand like a dirty dish towel as she yelped in pain. Reyna’s jaw dropped.
Beckham took a step forward, like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it. Then he lifted his gaze over Jodie’s head. Reyna could see the monster warring within him. How before he would have simply ended all obstacles.
“I can’t…I can’t let you do it,” Jodie said, choking on unshed tears. “Innocents should not be the casualty of war.”
“Beckham,” Reyna said softly. “Please.”
His gaze found hers and she could see him hesitate. How easy it would be to do this. How easy it would be to force people to do what he wanted.
But he had broken down to her in that bathroom after their escape. He had laid himself bare. He was not the same person who had been the prodigy nor the vampire sadist. He was something different. Something more. She knew he could be.
“Let them go,” Beckham said.
“What?” Katarina asked.
“You heard me.”
Philippé grunted and pulled the woman backward out of the house. Gerard shot his boss a confused look before following. As if his circle had never known him to show mercy. As if the thought of him showing mercy was abhorrent to them.
“Thank you,” Reyna whispered.
He nodded. His gaze swept to Jodie. “Only volunteers.”
Tears tracked down her cheeks and she swiped at them. “That’s right. That’s the right thing to do.”
“The right thing to do,” he said under his breath.
She wanted to open herself to him. To feel what he was feeling in that moment, but she wondered if he even knew.
If all of this was so new as to be befuddling to who he was as a person.
A crisis of character in fact. He’d changed when he came to Elle, but at his heart, he had still been the brutal overlord who got things done when it was necessary.
This was something different altogether. And she loved it even more for it.
“I’m going to…” He gestured as his men and then disappeared.
Jodie fell into Meghan’s arms as she continued to cry.
Reyna was glad for the change of heart. But she did wonder if they would lose the war because of this.
A few months ago, she wouldn’t have even stopped to think about this, but now she had to be a leader.
She had to win this war. And they had drawn a line in the sand for what they would endure.
She needed a new way to find volunteers and they needed it quick.
Or getting the vial in the first place would be for nothing.
Reyna pushed past Tye and Gabe as she went up the stairs.
She should go back to Beckham’s room and pass out.
She hadn’t gotten enough sleep and her emotions felt as if they’d gone through a blender, but that felt too accepting.
As if she could just stay up a little longer then she could figure out this problem.
Her feet carried her the opposite direction until she was standing outside of Brian’s room. Reyna took a deep breath and then entered.
Genevieve had ceased reading her book and was looking down at the words absentmindedly. Brian stared directly at Reyna. He was lucid, sharp, intelligent. It was clear that this much time feeding had helped. Yet he still appeared ominous. Not quite approachable. It was eerie.
“Reyna, now might not be the best time,” Genevieve muttered.
“I want to speak to my brother. Alone.”
“I said I didn’t want to see you,” Brian snarled.
“Doesn’t look like I care what you want right now.”
Brian snarled but Reyna held her ground. What the hell could he do to her? He was chained to that chair.
“Five minutes. I’ll come back if I hear anything out of the ordinary,” Genevieve said. She looked once more at Brian. “Behave.”
He flashed his fangs at her in warning. She chuckled in response and then closed the door behind her.
Reyna grabbed Genevieve’s abandoned chair and moved it so it faced backward across from Brian with enough distance to make her feel safe. She sat down and placed her arms on the back of the chair.
“Hey,” she said.
“Leave.”
“No.”
“You’re obstructing my recovery.”
“Bullshit. That’s what you are. You’re bullshit.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Brian snarled, pulling against his chains.
“Tell me what happened and I’ll leave.”
A low growl came out of him, but she was too numb about what was going on downstairs to care about his warning.
“I said tell me what happened,” she repeated. “Or I’m going to bring Drew and Laura here to see you.”
“No,” he snapped.
“I know you want to see them. That you’re feeling guilty about the devastation.
” She closed her eyes to stop the nausea that rose in her, thinking back on those scenes.
“I saw it. I know. But I’m pretty much learning that we all have casualties to this war.
And what happened to you was against your will.
You were another experiment, another weapon in Harrington’s arsenal. ”
“Don’t say his name.”
“Harrington? Yeah, I’m not too happy with him either. Remember when he kidnapped me? That wasn’t great.”
Brian’s chest heaved up and down, but his eyes were on the ground. “He tortured me.”
“I know,” she whispered.
“He captured me that night, brought me to his facilities, stripped us naked, and tortured us near to death. He killed Xavier in front of us. He did anything you can imagine and anything you can’t, to get information out of us.”
Reyna swallowed. Poor Xavier. He’d been one of the few vampires of Elle that Reyna had known. Quiet but dutiful.
“Then he turned you?” Reyna guessed softly.
“Almost. Drained us near to dying, over and over again, then kept us alive, and then did it again. He did it all without the bites so that we never had a single feeling of euphoria, only pain. A few people died. A few people…killed themselves.”
Reyna closed her eyes against the images that assaulted her.
“Then he turned me. Me and one other—Andrew. I don’t know what happened to him.
We were taken into different rooms and starved.
I remember little of that time, only when I was unleashed on the safe house and you found me.
Beckham stopped me.” Brian released a harsh breath.
As if finally telling his story had loosened something in him.
He stared down at the floor as he said, “I heard you talking downstairs.”
Reyna froze.
“A cure for vampirism.”
“It’s untested.” She couldn’t let that happen. Not when she still had never brought Laura or Drew back to see him. “What if something went wrong, Brian? I can’t let you do it.”
“I’m volunteering. You wanted a volunteer.” He met her eyes. “Well, here I am. You don’t get to make these choices for me.”
“Please,” she whispered.
“This is what I want.” Something clicked into place at that. Brian sat up straighter. His movements became more fluid. Some of the madness left his face. “I’d rather die than spend another moment as a vampire.”