Cold Blood (36 page)

“
My mission cannot die. Astor De’Luca has the answers. Find him,” he whispered.

Then his body jerked violently against me and everything went slack. His hands lost their hold; his eyes glazed over. His head slumped against my shoulder and he became deadweight. Hands came down and yanked his body off mine, and I stared up into Cord’s burning eyes. She was panting and staring at Miles with the most twisted expression I’d ever seen.

I looked at Miles, a sinking feeling in my stomach. He was on his side and his expression was blank. A heavy stake protruded from his back, right behind his heart. Steady streams of blood were already coating his shirt.

“
Cord?”

She didn’t respond to my voice.

Then Alex and George were there, both looking a little shocked, and I let them help me up. We all stared down at Miles.

“
Everybody okay?”

The sound of Kane’s voice brought us all back. He frowned at Miles’ body and then looked back and forth between our faces. Logan came up behind him, looking concerned and exhausted. Cambria followed but her expression was something different. She was wide eyed and transfixed on Miles’ ashen face.

“
We’re fine,” Alex answered.

“
What happened?” Kane asked.

I glanced over at Cord and saw the look of open hate she wore as she stared down at Miles’ body.

“
He attacked Tara,” Alex said. “Cord stopped him.” I didn’t miss the confusion in his tone, as if he was trying to understand what had happened.

Either Kane didn’t notice or didn’t care. He glanced at Cord, who was still as a statue, and nodded once. “A clean kill. That’s my girl,” he said. Then he turned on his heel and began shouting out orders to the Hunters that scurried over the room.

Cambria inched closer. She was still staring down at Miles and shaking her head side to side in some pattern of shock.

“
What is it?” I asked.

“
I don’t believe it. I mean, I knew it the moment I saw him. But…” She looked over to where Demi was being roused awake. “He played me, but her… he was honest with her and she was okay with that.”

“
What are you talking about? You knew Miles?”

Cambria met my eyes and blinked. “That,” she said, pointing a finger at Miles’ body, “is Phillipe. My ex.”

I looked back and forth between her and Miles while that sunk in. Then I looked back at Demi, all of it finally clicking into place.

Demi was standing, with help. She had a Hunter clinging to each elbow, helping her make her way towards the trail that would lead her out of the cave and back to school. Our eyes met across the room, and I held her gaze, hoping she could read exactly what I thought of her in my expression. She didn’t even blink at my hostility. Just before she turned the corner and disappeared, she winked.

Chapter Thirty Three

The dim lighting didn’t help the pressure behind my eyes. It felt like the culmination of an entire semester of stress; a heavy ball of pain had finally burst inside my skull and I couldn’t get past the pounding. I was in the infirmary, halfway between awake and pretending to be asleep, thankful it was three in the morning. If anyone had spoken to me then, I would’ve ripped their head off to stop the blaring noise before it reached my eardrum.

In the bed next to me, behind the half closed hospital-issued curtain, George slept. They’d kept him here for observation not because they knew about the injection, but because he was a human; a weakling who would probably collapse into shock the moment the drama dissipated.

I’d stayed because I was a nervous wreck that any moment, George was going to morph into a flesh-eating monster like Miles had said. If it came to that, I’d make sure my flesh was first, and pray Miles wasn’t lying when he said Hunter blood would be the cure. But so far, George was himself. He was soaking in all the attention, too. Between Cambria, Cord, and my mother–who’d arrived after dinner, along with Grandma–George was getting the royal treatment.

I was okay with it. It kept my mother occupied and the room too crowded for her to really let loose on me.

So far.

I had no doubt it was coming.

Voices drifted back from the office and the door was wrenched opened, the rusty hinges amplifying the pounding in my skull. I cringed against the pain in my head caused by the bass in the speaker’s voice and tried to pry my eyes open to identify the footsteps that approached. I managed to squint out into the darkened room but it did little good. The curtain that surrounded my bed was pulled shut enough that I couldn’t see around it.

The voices came closer.

“
Put them here,” said the man whose voice echoed in my skull like a drum beat. Through the migraine, I recognized him. It was Kane. “And cover them up.” There was a pause while he waited for someone to obey him and then he said, “No, all the way over their heads. We don’t want anyone to recognize them. Or see the restraints.”

“
Won’t it look suspicious?” came a woman’s voice. The nurse who’d checked us in. She sounded even more mousy and nervous than when I’d met her earlier. Kane probably had a way of bringing that out in people.

“
We’ll pull the curtains around them. No one will notice, and if they do, your patients will appear asleep,” said Kane.

“
But –”

“
It’s the best we can do until we figure this out,” he snapped.

“
O–okay,” she stammered.

Approaching footsteps sounded on the linoleum. “Sir?” It was a female’s voice but overly deep. A mental picture of Betty popped into my head. “You wanted to see me?”

“
How are the wards coming?” Kane asked, confirming my suspicions.

“
Slow, sir. I’m not as good at this as Vera – I mean, Ms. Gallagher.”

“
Well, work faster. We don’t need any more of these getting in,” he said. “Or more importantly, any unwanted information getting out, until we have it under control.”

“
Yes, sir,” Betty said. “Are those the survivors from the cave?”

“
Yes. There were only these two.” Kane sighed, but it sounded more impatient and aggravated than sad. “There were a few more but they managed to slip away. And if these two are any indication, this is a long way from over.”

“
Is it true then?” Betty asked. “I wasn’t there, but I heard… I mean – are they really–?”

Kane cut her off. “Mr. and Mrs. Lexington? That information is highly classified until I say otherwise, do you understand?”

“
Yes, but they’re…” Betty trailed off, her voice a mixture of disbelief and awe.

“
Some sort of hybrid,” Kane finished for her. He sounded grim. “It shouldn’t be possible, but here they are. CHAS is going to have their hands full with this mess.”

No one responded, and I heard the sound of another arrival.

“
Professor Kane? We’ve got a situation.” It was Alex.

I froze, the pounding in my head momentarily forgotten as I held my breath and listened.

“
What is it?” Kane asked.

“
Intruders at the main gate. A pack of them, sir, and some are familiar faces. The students won’t fight their own people.”

“
They’re not our people anymore,” Kane growled.

“
Either way, this isn’t going to end well unless you get out there,” Alex said.

“
Fine. I’m going. Betty, you’re with me. See what wards you can construct while we’re there.” Footsteps started and then stopped again. “Harriet, I trust you can keep our patients… quiet until I return?”

“
Yes, Jonah, I can do that,” she said, her exhaustion coming through in her tone. She obviously didn’t like what was being asked of her.

“
Is there a problem?” Kane demanded, his tone harsh and impatient.

“
Well, I’m not sure we should–”

“
I don’t have time for this,” Kane interrupted, his voice rising.

“
Jonah, please. You’ll wake the others,” the nurse said.

“
I’ll stay with them,” Alex said.

“
I can’t spare a fighter right now,” said Kane.

“
You’ll have plenty of manpower at the front, if you can get them to fight,” Alex said.

Kane sighed. “Fine, but keep your earpiece on. I’ll call if I need you.”

“
Yes, sir.”

The footsteps receded, and the door creaked closed. The throbbing in my head lessened some once they left, and I tried to make sense of what I’d heard. Victoria’s parents were alive, lying in bed somewhere in this room. And they were… hybrids?

The curtain in front of me fluttered as it was pulled aside. I tensed. I had no time to move or react before a face appeared from the other side. I let out the breath that had caught in my throat and forced the adrenaline away.

“
Alex,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “I thought you’d be asleep. How much of that did you hear?” I didn’t answer. “That’s what I figured,” he muttered. He stepped into the small space and came closer. “You can’t tell anyone about them.”

“
By them, do you mean Victoria’s parents or the Hunter–hybrids as a whole?”

Alex sighed. “Yes. I mean, all of it. At least not until we figure out how to deal with them.”

I raised a brow and winced at the throbbing it caused. “We?”

Alex shrugged. “The school, CHAS, the Hunter community.”

“
And you’re back to being a part of that?”

“
I never stopped being a part of that,” he said. His words were gentle, but his expression was serious. “Just because I helped you with Miles and kept it from Kane for a few days doesn’t make me a traitor to my own kind. It doesn’t mean I’ve turned my back on my purpose.”

I scowled. It sounded so childish when he put it that way. Of course he hadn’t turned his back on anyone. “I know that, I meant –”

“
And to prove that I’m not taking sides, and that I can be your friend AND be true to my Hunter side, I’ll tell you something you don’t know. Something that I’m not supposed to share.”

“
What?”

“
Remember that pack of rogue Werewolves that attacked us in the woods near Luray? The ones that killed Miles’ errand boy?”

I nodded. How could I forget?

“
Well, after everything went down at the cave today I told Kane about them, and he sent some guys up there to take a look and the entire pack of them were hybrids.”

“
What? Hunters?”

Alex shook his head. “Not Hunters. Humans.”

I stared back at him, wide eyed. “But how…?” I remembered Miles saying that humans didn’t take to the serum very well, so he’d used Hunters instead. It made sense when I thought of the wolf that had pinned me. He’d been so violent, so intent on killing… there was no humanity there like there was in other Weres.

“
I don’t know,” Alex said. “But I know they had it out for you, for some reason. I’m telling you this because I think you might still be in danger, and I think you deserve to know.”

I nodded, still processing everything; still connecting all the dots.

“
Even on school grounds, I want you to be careful. Betty’s skill with wards isn’t entirely solid yet.”

“
Yeah, be careful, don’t get dead. I get it,” I said, waving a hand. My head was cramping again. I leaned back and shut my eyes.

“
How are you feeling?” I could hear the frown in Alex’s voice even with my eyes closed.

“
Nasty headache,” I said through gritted teeth.

Alex didn’t answer. I cracked an eye open and found him leaning over me, frowning in concentration.

“
What?” I said.

“
I don’t know. You feel different.”

“
This again? I can’t deal with this right now. My head hurts.”

“
Interesting…” He leaned closer again and our eyes locked.

I felt a shudder go through me, and the pain cleared enough that I felt my muscles tense in excited anticipation. I stared up at him, feeling warm and shaky all at the same time. He stared back at me, his dark eyes burning into mine for what felt like forever.

“
I might’ve lied,” he said finally. It was a whisper, gruff and low, and I could feel his breath on my face. He didn’t pull away but he didn’t come closer, either.

“
About what?” I breathed.

“
About staying away from you. About letting you go. And about my ability to do either one.”

“
Oh.” I blinked up at him, trying to think of something else to say, but my brain was foggy.

“
You’d kiss me back right now if I kissed you,” he said, and I tried to decide whether to even attempt a denial. “But then you’d remember him and you’d feel bad for it.”

His face clouded, and I dropped my eyes from his, already feeling guilty at the reminder. His hand came up and brushed hair away from my face, his fingertips barely grazing my skin and leaving a trail of tingles in their wake.

“
When you won’t feel guilty anymore, I’ll kiss you again.” He eased back, looking down over me with an expression that said he was actually enjoying my speechlessness. “Get some sleep,” he said. Then he turned and slipped out.