Of Royal Descent (25 page)

"I know," she said smiling, letting her jeans hit the floor.  I swallowed hard.  "Your mother and I spoke in the car.  She's aware we haven't had a private moment alone since our first date.  She offered to keep everyone away from you tonight so that we could... talk."  I watched her walk to the light switch on the other side of the bars before she gave me a wicked smile and killed the lights.  The room went pitch black, and immediately I remembered the experience with the MZ.

"Uh, Addy?"
  I tried to keep the hysteria out of my voice.  "Could you leave some kind of light on?"

I heard her footsteps padding toward me on the carpet.  "Yeah, I think it was right about here," I heard her say from the vicinity of my bathroom.

Incandescent light poured into my cell, and she partially shut the door, regulating the flow of illumination.  She crossed the short distance to the bed and crawled in beside me, pulling the blanket up around us.

She brought her mouth close to my ear.  "How's your pain?" she asked, somehow making it sound seductive.

"It's okay at the moment," I answered, "but I'm very weak."

"I know," she replied.  "That's why I'm going to take care of everything." 
             

She began to kiss my neck.  Even as my body instinctively shifted to grant her a wider range of access, I knew I couldn't allow her to continue.  I finally had Addy alone, was no longer hindered by The Shadow Effect, and I still wasn't able to be physically intimate with her.  Although she seemed more than willing, my pride couldn't handle it.

"Wait, Addy," I said, gently pulling away and rolling to face her.  "I can't.  Believe me, I really, really,
really
want to, but I can't."  Her eyes reflected confusion.

"Our first time is going to be spectacular. 
Period.  I'm not going to be so feeble that I can't reciprocate.  It's not going to be before I know without a shadow of doubt that I can trust myself not to harm you.  And there's not going to be any cameras pointed at us, well, unless we're the ones that put them there," I smiled.

Addy smiled in return, but her face read full of rejection.

"Hey, give me just a little more time to become the man you deserve.  As soon as I'm able to properly see to your needs, you'll have to fight me off with a stick."

"Hmm," she said, rubbing her fingertips lightly over my chest, "Okay, Doyle.  But I'm warning you, if you make me wait too long, it's going to take more than a stick to hold
me
off."  She laughed, but I had a feeling there was a current of truth running through her words.

I kissed her on the nose.  "Can I have another promise?"

She eyed me suspiciously.  "I'm listening."

"Until I learn to control it, will you promise not to put yourself in a compromising position?"

She stared at me, "I'm not afraid.  You won't hurt me Doyle."

I growled in exasperation.  "Either promise me
, or I'll have my dad keep you out of the basement by means of force until I know it's safe."

Her eyes grew round.  "You wouldn't dare."

"Are you refusing to promise?"  My tone was firm.

We sized each other up.  "No, I didn't say I was refusing.  I just meant I wasn't afraid of you.  I'm not stupid, Doyle.  I'm not going to put myself in danger."

"If you're not afraid of what I'll become, then you won't know danger when it's staring you in the face.  Promise me."  I flinched as the pain crept up my chest in response to my increasingly angry tone.

Addy spun in the bed and grabbed a syringe from the bag on the floor.  Pushing the liquid through my access port, she gave me her word. 

"Doyle, I promise not to willingly place myself in a potentially dangerous environment with you.  There, is that good?" she asked without sarcasm in her voice.  I couldn't tell if she were referring to the promise or the morphine.

"Perfect."

She snuggled back up against me, and I closed my eyes.  It had been an exhausting day - too much commotion, too much noise.  I instantly fell asleep.  If I'd known I was never going to fully awaken again while alive, I might have fought against it.

On day twelve, I lied in bed, unable to open my eyes or speak but completely aware.  The morning was brutally long, as everyone assumed I remained
asleep.  No one wanted to disturb me, so they tiptoed and spoke in tones too low for me to hear.  Addy stayed at my side, administering pain medication and sometimes crying.  As the day grew long, Stephen came to speak to me.

"Hey Doyle,
it's Stephen," he said.  His voice was gentle, and I could hear more than one person crying in the background.  I knew what he had come to say.  I'd been waiting for it all day.

"Sometim
es at the end of the first shade, the body shuts down before the mind does.  Usually, the patient is aware of his surroundings, although he can't communicate.  We're going to keep you as comfortable as possible."

This was Stephen's positive spin on the fact that I was actively dying.  I could hear the sniffles amplify and wondered if I should have felt sadder myself.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that I wanted to die.  But it's not like we didn't know it was coming, right?  Mostly, I just wanted to get it over with.  I felt the same about the second shade.  Aside from the fact I still wouldn't be capable of triggering the active virus in Chuck, I didn't see any point for drawing either the first or second shades out.  Might as well dive head
-first into the third and start learning to control the freak that I was becoming.

I heard Stephen push away from the bed and address the others.  "This might be a good time if anyone has anything they would like to say to Doyle before he returns to us... altered."

Someone sat on the edge of the bed, and I heard the majority of the group begin to climb the stairs to the study to give us privacy.  When the footsteps subsided, Gretchen spoke.

"You were just two weeks old when we brought you home.  You were so small and so helpless that I told your father the
re must have been a mix up."  I heard the sad smile in her voice.  "Because there was no way that the sweet child I was given could have harbored anything evil in his blood.  I've watched you grow into a man that I'm proud to call my son.  And I'm just as sure now as I was twenty-one years ago that there is nothing evil inside of you, Doyle. 

We all have DNA markers we wish we could change.  Do you think I like my hips being this wide?" she laughed softly.  "No, I don't. 
So I watch what I eat, I exercise, and I wear clothes that accent other areas.  There are always ways to diminish that which you cannot change.  I promise you, with the right teacher, it will be possible to control your instincts in the third shade.  I'm sure you didn't see much of that at the clinic, but that's because Edgar's job is to make the royals as deadly as possible, not to teach them self-control."

She sat in silence for a
while, stroking my hair back from my forehead like she used to do when I was little.

I thought about what she had said.  I already knew Edgar's job was to focus on making the royals into weapons, so it made sense teaching them self-control wasn't high on his priority list. My flame of hope leapt and crackled.  Maybe my situation wasn't as gloomy as I had come to believe.

"I'm going to go now, Doyle.  I know your father wants to talk to you too.  I love you."  My adoptive mother kissed me on the forehead before she rose and made her way up the stairs to mourn her loss with the others.

I could make out my dad's heavy steps descending into the basement.  He sat in the chair Addy had occupied throughout the day.  It creaked under the weight of his fidgeting.

"I'm sorry, Doyle.  This is all my fault.  If I would have just told you the day you found those letters from William, this could have all been avoided.  I thought I was making the right choice; I thought I was somehow protecting you from the truth."

Russell began to cry
, and I wished I could have told him I didn't blame him.  There's just something so awful about hearing your father cry.  He stayed a few more minutes before making way for the next visitor. 

This pattern continued until everyone came to same good
-bye in their own way.  My one-sided conversation with Kai was, by far, the most surprising.

"I'm really sorry you're dying.  It must suck.  They say you're going to be really different when you wake up.  That sucks too because my best friend is in love with you.  Addy says she's not worried about what you
’ll become, but I can't see how that's possible."  Kai cleared her throat. 

"And I know it isn't your fault, but now Chuck's at risk.  He could die and become one of those hideously gross monsters too, no offense," she added on quickly.  "And that sucks as well," Kai said, beginning to sob
, "because I've went and fallen in love with the moron."

I was thankful for the fact I wasn't expected to console anyone.  I wouldn't have known what to say.  I felt awkward enough as it was, just lying there.

"I'm sorry," she laughed between gushes of tears.  "I usually talk over my problems with my clients at the mortuary.  Only it's been a while since I've been back home, and I need to talk with someone.  I guess you'll have to do, even though you're not dead... yet."

This
was brutal.  How could this girl have absolutely no social skills?

"You may not know this about me Doyle, but I don't always get along so well with others.  People who are alive, I mean."

You don't say.

"But your goofy friend Chuck had to go and be perfect," Kai said, sobs heightening.  "He's smart, cute, loaded, funny, and he makes my toes curl."

Ew.  Wasn't someone timing these good-byes?  Shouldn't someone be coming to check on us?  I had less than zero interest in learning about Chuck's toe-curling abilities.

"
And I can't tell him any of that so I just insult him instead.  I'm so scared of getting hurt that I keep pushing him away.  Only, my body burns for him to be near."

Oh geez, was it too late to go back to the toe
-curling?

Kai wailed forlornly and blew her nose.

"Hey, I heard you crying.  You okay?" asked Chuck from the other side of the basement.

At the first sound of his voice, Kai screamed.

"Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" she snapped.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to check on you," spoke Chuck softly.

"Well, I'm fine.  So you can go back to doing whatever it is that egocentric, rich boys do."

"Okay, that one doesn't even make sense.  How can I be egocentric when I came down to check on
you
?" Chuck replied.

"Well... you scared me.  I'm not thinking clearly.  Quit stalking me!"  She rose from the chair.   "Doyle, try really hard to not be a demon," she advised, directing her voice at me again.

"That's your good-bye?  That's the worst good-bye I've ever heard," Chuck said.

I imagine there was an eye and/or hand gesture involved on Kai's part, because there was no vocal response as she made her way up the stairs.

"Hey man," Chuck said, making his way to take his turn in the chair.  "I guess this is it.  I'd tell you I'd miss you and all that girly stuff, but I know you're coming back.  Your dad says you'll still be you, even if we can't see it for a while.  So I guess there's no need for all the sentimental junk," he said, despite his voice growing thick.  He cleared his throat.

"Anyway, we haven't had much time to catch up since we stormed the clinic.  I have my El Camino back.  Turns out Edgar's henchmen had it combed over for possible research samples, whatever that means.  That was the night with the helicopter, remember?  I guess when you flipped out that night, you were emitting what
they call
aggregation pheromones
and the MZs were going crazy in their cells.  That's how they found us.  They have a device that tracks levels of those pheromones in the area.  Russell said that Edgar wasn’t targeting us that night, only him and Gretchen.  He sent the chopper to keep them away from us until it was too late."  Chuck took a breath before continuing.

"Supposedly Edgar made a promise to Dylan that he would never force you to come to the clinic.  In return, Dylan promised to consent to testing.  Only, he didn't count on Edgar being so literal in his promise.  Edgar didn't force you inside the clinic, but he did allow you in of your own free will.  And he'd promised nothing about forcing you into shading, even though he had orders from above not to."

I thought about Dylan being subjected to Bradbury's whims over the last twenty-one years, believing he was protecting me.  I thought of how he kept me safe in the pit, or at least made William keep me safe.  Despite Bradbury's goal of making the royals deadlier, Dylan found a way to teach himself control.  Of all the test subjects, myself included, Dylan was the most deserving to be freed.  It suddenly became very clear to me.  I didn't know how or when, but I was going to get him out of that crypt beneath the clinic.

"Let's see, what else is new?" Chuck mused, interrupting my current train of thought.  "Obviously Kai's still a lunatic.  Too bad I can't get her out of my mind."  He sighed.