On the Edge of Humanity (27 page)

On the drive over, I had kept quiet, thinking through what Dr. Case had mentioned about my estranged father killing his sister. It seemed every corner I turned trouble found me because of my father. I was beginning to rack up quite the enemy list thanks to Commander Steven Mason.

I sifted through a few of the events during the past couple of weeks, trying to understand what Dr. Case’s role was in helping the Plutariums. Was he a vampire? Was he the one who started my life on its road to hell? Then it hit me, as if someone splashed ice-cold water in my face. Dr. Case had told the nurse that night to send my blood sample to Patrick. Was he referring to my Uncle Patrick, the great genetic scientist? Did Dr. Case know then that I was the daughter of Steven Mason? Was he the one following me in the black SUV?

Cold air rushed past me and I looked up to see Kate running over and wrapping her arm around me.

“Lord, child, what did you do? You look pale. Let’s get you up to Dr. Vieira’s facility.”

What did
I
do? She should be asking Dr. Case what he did, not me.

“Is Ben here?” I asked.

“He’s in the medical wing.” She guided me toward the elevator. “We have a surprise for you.” Her eyes were alight with excitement, turning from blue to a light gray.

I was learning that any emotional change in the vampires caused their eye color to change, as if they were mood rings, shining a vibrant color one minute and turning darker the next. Since I carried the vampire gene, I wondered how often mine were shifting.

Dr. Vieira walked in behind us. “Kate, please escort Jo up to my facility. I need to speak to Lt. London.”

“We’re on our way,” Kate said. She entwined her arm through mine.

We stood in front of the elevator waiting for the car to make its way down.

“So, do you want to know what your surprise is?” she asked, eagerness lacing her voice.

“No. I’m not ready for any surprises, unless you’re going to tell me Sam is here and he’s alive. Otherwise, I’m not sure I could handle anything else.”

Her expression turned sullen.

Did I just hurt her feelings? I didn’t care. I had been locked in a coffin and left to die by a Plutarium doctor who claimed my father killed his sister, plus I was almost taken by Fernando, another Plutarium vampire, who came close to killing Ben.

We rode the elevator to the fourth floor in silence. My heart banged against my ribs. I had drunk the two bottles of water Dr. Vieira instructed me to, but it didn’t quell the dizziness. My body was sluggish, my eyelids were heavy and I longed to lie down and sleep.

The mile long trek to the medical facility grew painful with each step. The white walls and never-ending hallways made it seem as if I were walking through a black and white psychedelic maze.

We reached the double doors to the medical facility and stopped. Now what? The last time I stood outside these doors, Dr. Vieira had to open them with the retinas of his eyes. Kate walked over to the metal panel, pressed a button, waited for the beep, then positioned her eyes over the clear bar at the top of the box. That answered my question.

“You ready?” she asked, apprehension laced in her tone.

“Ready for what?”

She was scaring me.

She extended her delicate hand. “It’s okay. You can see Ben,” she said.

I had a bad feeling about this. I placed my hand in hers and together we walked down to the second set of double doors that opened into Dr. Vieira’s world. I let go of her hand and scurried in looking for Ben, stopping near one of the computer desks.

“Over there.” Kate pointed to a windowed room on the right.

I spun around and adrenaline replaced the dizziness. A chill skittered up and down my arms. The site of Ben lying in a hospital bed sent a stabbing pain shooting through my chest.

My gaze fell on his neck and I drew in breath. Bandages covered his throat, wrapping around as if they were preparing him for mummification. Did he get bit by a vampire?

I dodged the maze of desks and lab furniture and ran into his room. Ben’s chest rose and fell as the machine pumped oxygen into his lungs.

Webb told me Ben was fine. Anger morphed through me. He wasn’t fine.

I stood beside the railing of the bed, reached over and grabbed Ben’s hand.

“He’s in a light coma,” a man’s voice cut in, in-between the heart monitor and oxygen machine.

I cringed.

I raised my head. A man with long black hair and forest green eyes sat in the chair in the far right corner.

My mouth fell open as I scanned his features.

God, how he looked exactly like Sam. There was no mistaking that the man in the chair was my estranged father, Commander Steven Mason.

I wanted to go over and punch him, beat him, even kill him for all that he put Sam and me through in sixteen years. How he had left Sam and me to grow up in filthy foster homes with perverted foster dads. How he didn’t tell us we carried a gene that would change our lives forever. Not to mention how I’d been beat up, chased, almost kidnapped, locked in a coffin to slowly die and told that I might have to shed my human existence.

Killing him might be too kind.

He stared at me, not saying a word. He had one leg crossed over the other. His hands grasped the edges of the arms on the chair as if he were bracing for the human storm that just blew into the room.

I glared back. His face was unshaven and patches of dried blood or dirt dotted his cheeks. His clothes were ragged, while dark circles punctuated his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks.

I had always thought that I would run to him and beat him until… But standing in the same room, feet away from him now, my body couldn’t move. My feet were glued to the floor.

Was he going to say something?

I swallowed several times, biting my lower lip. I shifted my gaze from the man in the corner to Ben, whose breathing was steady. The monitor indicated his heart was still beating. I inhaled and was about to speak when the door behind me slammed shut. Suddenly, the walls around me closed in and a blanket of claustrophobia covered me. Sweat beaded up on my forehead.

“Jo.” His voice, smooth and deep, sounded exactly like Sam’s.

My emotions went into overdrive. Tears pooled and one escaped, dripping down my right cheek. I closed my eyes and a few more tumbled down. What was he doing here? I thought the Plutariums had kidnapped him.

I blinked a few times trying not to cry like a bumbling teenager.

“Where’s Sam?” I asked, glaring at him through clouded eyes.

“I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

“No. You don’t have any right to ask me that. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know anything about me. You’re a rotten father. You deserve an award for being the worst father in history.”

He rose from the chair. Before I could say another word, he was standing in front of me. He smelled like he had just crawled out of a dumpster. He placed a finger under my chin and guided it upward. I kept my eyes down not wanting to look at him.

“You’re correct. I don’t have the right. At least, not now.” He stepped back and grabbed a large yellow envelope off the table near the chair. “But I would like to show you something. Would you come with me so we can talk privately?”

What could he possibly show me? I focused my gaze on Ben. He looked peaceful.

“Ben should be fine. Please.” My father held the door open, eyes pleading.

I struggled with my decision whether to listen to him or not. Maybe he did have news about Sam.

I gave Ben one last look and walked past my father out into the lab.

Dr. Vieira referred to this room as his medical facility, but it looked just like our chemistry lab at school. Webb, Kate and Dr. Vieira were standing against the black lab bench on the opposite side of the room, heads down, reading papers that were strewn across the counter. Going over their mission, no doubt, which I prayed was to find Sam.

I waited for my father to show me where we were going. He headed left, making his way into the back corner office, where he paused inside with his hand on the door.

The office floor had gray wall-to-wall carpeting, giving the room a warm and inviting atmosphere. A marked difference to the white tile floors, which decorated every other room I had been in.

“Have a seat.” He waved his hand toward the large sectional leather couch that ate up two walls of the office opposite the door.

I scanned the room, admiring Dr. Vieira’s diploma from Harvard and several awards from various medical and research organizations. I sat down on the far end near Dr. Vieira’s glass desk, hoping that my father would sit on the other end, creating a distance between us.

He took the middle ground and sat in the corner section, the yellow envelope resting on his lap. He raked his hands through his oily hair then looked at me. His eyes were no longer the deep, forest green I witnessed in the Ben’s room. They had changed to a lighter green almost on the verge of shifting to black.
Something is wrong.

He masked his worried look with a weak smile. “I understand that Webb has explained to you a small amount of our family history and genetics.”

“I thought you were kidnapped by the Plutariums,” I said.

“The Plutariums never kidnapped me.”

I narrowed my eyes. Where was he all this time? Did Webb know the Plutariums never had my father in custody? Then it clicked. Webb probably didn’t tell me since it was information on a classified, need to know basis, which was usually how Webb answered my questions.

My blood boiled. What else had Webb not told me?

“I don’t understand,” I said, rage flooding through me.

“It’s not important,” he said as his lips tightened.

“Yes, it is. You were supposed to be with Sam.” My cheeks burned and I was ready to lash out at him.

“Very well then.” He let out a deep breath, irritation leaking out as if I were keeping him from some other pressing matter. He rubbed his hands over his face. “There’s so much to tell you and we don’t have time.”

He appears out of nowhere, asks for my forgiveness, wants to talk and now he doesn’t have time.
Once again, I wanted to kill him.

As if he could sense my anger, he said, “When I got word you were in the hospital, I rushed over there to see you. I had been looking for you and Sam for years. And when I found out where you were, I had to—” He stood up and walked over to Dr. Vieira’s desk, gripping the envelope as if he had top-secret information in it.

Under the microscope of my glare he ran his free hand through his beard.

“I knew it was a risk, showing up at the hospital. But I had to make sure…I thought you were dead. Then the Plutariums got in the way. They got to you before I could because of Dr. Case. So I called in a favor from a friend of mine. After following you for a week, the situation got a little out of control and we lost a soldier in a fight. After that I wasn’t sure what the Plutariums’ next move would be. I knew they were after me, but now with you and Sam in the picture, the game changed. I had to do everything I could to lure them away from you. So I headed out of the city with a group of Plutariums following me. At first, they thought both of you were with me. Then last Monday something changed.” He sat down in the desk chair.

I was immobilized as he told his story. While I understood how Dr. Case fit into the jigsaw puzzle, and I knew about Patrick needing my father’s blood, I didn’t understand why it took me landing in a hospital for my father to find me. Not to mention wondering who his friend was?

“Monday was our first day back at school from spring vacation. That’s when Sam disappeared,” I said.

“I realize that now,” he whispered.

“So, was it you in the black SUV?”

He nodded.

“And were you standing in the garage when—”

“Yes.”

I cocked my head. “Is Neil Foster the friend, the guy that died?”

“I can’t answer that,” he said.

He didn’t have to. Neil was the one helping us that night. It had to be the friend he referred to, but was he dead? I still wasn’t sure and if Neil was part of the Plutariums, then why was he helping the Sentinels?

“Webb told me that Patrick needed Sam’s DNA. Is that true? Is he using Sam for his lab tests?” I asked.

“While Patrick does need my blood, his success hinges on a lot of things. I believe Webb explained it to you. But Sam was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Patrick found the Holy Grail in Sam. He’s a smart individual and he’s using Sam to study our family genetics. And if I know my brother, he will extract and study as much data as he can, even if it means killing Sam.” He rose from the chair and joined me on the couch, the yellow envelope still clutched in his hand.

I hated the way he articulated those last words as if it rolled off his tongue with ease.

I let out a deep breath. “But how did the Plutariums get into school to kidnap Sam?”

“I don’t know. We thought we had time to get in there on Monday morning, take both of you out and bring you back here. But Webb and his team were too late. When I found out that Sam was missing, I came back to help.” He slid a finger through the underside of the envelope flap. “I need to show you something. And…and…I need you to stay calm.” He slipped his hand into the envelope. “Will you try and stay calm?”

Tension snaked through me as he spoke. What the heck was in that envelope? Whatever it was, it didn’t sound good.

He pulled out an eight by ten inch picture and stared at it. He lifted his gaze and handed it to me. I reached over and took hold of it, but my father held on to it for a second more as if he were frightened that I might die from looking at it.

I pulled the picture toward me and dropped my gaze. My pulse quickened, thudding in my ears like a drummer beating a deep pitched drum.

This can’t be. It can’t be Sam.
No! No! No!

I flung the picture across the room and started crying, the tears flowing furiously down my face.

“I hate you,” I cried out between sobs.

My father had one hand rubbing my back while the other was trying to wipe away my tears.

“Get away from me! This is all your fault. You’re responsible for every horrible thing that has happened to us. Now Sam is lying dead on a bench locked up in a glass room with tubes in him.” I jerked my arm away. I wanted to stand up, but my body trembled and I couldn’t control my crying.

“Jo, please calm down.”

“Calm down! Sam is the only family I’ve ever known, the only one that has taken care of me and protected me from bullies at school, foster parents and every other danger thrown at me. If it wasn’t for Sam I’d be dead.” My tears intensified and I shuddered violently. “You’re a bastard. Why? Why did you leave us?”

“I want to explain. But not now. You’re in no emotional state to listen. Plus, we’ll have time to talk later.”

He tried to pull me toward him, but I moved back.

“There won’t be a later. I hate you,” I spat.

What was I going to do without my brother? Why did I wait so long to make a decision? I was a terrible sister. I stood up, knees wobbling.