Emily McKay - The Lair

“What you don’t have is time to waste.” I jabbed my finger in the direction of the closed door. “She’s sick. It’s been nearly twelve hours since she was exposed. Whatever you’re going to do to save her, you have to do it fast.”

Jonathon frowned, thinking about it for longer than seemed reasonable. She was his daughter, for god’s sake. What was there to think about?

Finally he nodded. He walked down the hall to where a guard was standing maybe ten feet away. While they were talking, I rapped quietly on the door. There was the click of Mel opening it from the inside with the passkey. She opened the door just a fraction and whispered, “ETA?”

“Another minute, tops,” I whispered back. “I’ve convinced him to bring Lily to the clinic.” I looked down the hall. “Actually, they’re bringing the stretcher now.”

“Fine. Don’t let him wake me.”

I wanted to ask what she meant, but Price, the guard, and the medic—still in hazmat—were almost on me.

A moment later, the second guard opened the door and they rolled the stretcher in. The medic and the guard moved quickly to get Lily onto the stretcher. It took me a moment to realize that I didn’t see Mel at all. Price must have realized it about the same time, because I saw him looking around the room, too. Did Mel get out already? If she didn’t where was she?

“She was exhausted, sir,” the guard offered up in a voice that sounded so young, it almost cracked. No wonder the guy looked smaller than me. He couldn’t be more than sixteen. “I told her she could lie down. I got her a blanket. Hope that’s okay.”

He nodded toward the back wall and I finally saw Mel. She was curled up on the bench facing the wall. Huddled under a blanket, all that was visible of her was her socked feet and a thick strand of dark hair, which hung out from under the hood she’d pulled up over her head.

Price looked annoyed and took a step toward her as if he was going to wake her up and make her talk to him. I remembered what Mel had said: Don’t let him wake me .

I grabbed Price’s arm to stop him. He turned to glare at me. “What?”

“She’s exhausted, sir,” I said. “She drove through the night to get here. She probably hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in months. You can’t wait another twenty minutes to let her have a catnap?”

Price glared at me, but after a few seconds, he nodded at me. “Fine. But you and I are going to have words.”

“No problem.”

I wasn’t sure how much time Mel needed to subdue this guard and escape from the room. If “words” with Price would buy her that time, I was game to go a few rounds.

I turned back to where Lily was on the stretcher. I reached out my hand to trace a finger across her arm, but it was so hot that I instinctively jerked away. She rolled her head toward me without lifting it from the gurney. Her eyes looked cloudy and unfocused. Her lips were parched and cracked. How had she gotten so bad in just a few hours? How could she possibly pull out of this and survive? How could she not?

“Carter?” She choked out my name.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “I’m here.”

“Worth it,” she muttered before her eyes drifted closed. My heart clenched and before I could say anything else, the medic and the guard rolled her out.

I didn’t have a chance to ask what she’d meant. I could only hope that she meant that the time we’d spent together had been worth it to her. To me, it had been everything.

Carter

I expected him to take me right out into the hall. Instead, the guards escorted us down two hallways and up an elevator. He led me into an office—his office, if I had to guess—with a sleek, modern desk, a ton of bookshelves, and a sweeping view overlooking the town.

We were at least five stories up, which meant we weren’t in the clinic anymore. One of those hallways must have been a walkway into the command building. I didn’t like all the time we’d burned walking here, close to ten minutes. Lily was dying by increments and I wanted to be with her when she got treatment. On the other hand, the fact that Price had wasted the time it took to bring me to his office told me something else: he planned to intimidate me.

I knew that tactic from watching my own father do business. You want to lord over someone, you make them feel small. You show them just how powerful you are.

But I didn’t doubt Jonathan Price was an extremely powerful man. And he wouldn’t have needed to drive that point home if he thought I was just some punk kid beneath his notice. He’d brought me here not only to intimidate me, but because something about me intimidated him.

And that was something I could use.

He gestured me into a seat, but didn’t sit down himself. Instead, he leaned against his desk, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“I’m sure you have many questions—” he began in a condescending tone.

I didn’t give him a chance to finish. “Yeah, I do. For starters, the medic was in full hazmat. So were the guards. But you’re not, and you’re letting me wander all over. Why?”

If he was taken aback by the way I took control of the conversation, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled benignly. “Because I’ve been vaccinated.”

“There’s a vaccine?” I couldn’t help but sag against the chair. A vaccine. All these deaths. All these millions who had died due to this crazy virus. And there was a vaccine?

I was flooded with questions and they were nearly out of my mouth before I realized what he’d done. He’d distracted me and I’d eaten up too much of my ten minutes by gaping at him in shock.

“So you’re safe?” I asked. “But the health of anyone else in this building doesn’t matter to you?”

He shrugged like the question barely bothered him. “The vaccine is costly and rare. In due time, everyone at El Corazon will have it . . . until then, we are as careful as we can be.”

“Next question,” I said.

“I didn’t realize I was being interviewed.”

I ignored that. “Do your daughters know you’re an abductura ?” I was just making a guess, but if Price’s expression was any indication, it was a good one. Why else would Price be here?

His smile practically oozed across his face. “I prefer the term leader .”

“So did Hitler.”

The charming smile froze as something like hatred flickered across his face, but he hid it quickly. “Not all of those with the gift use it to benefit mankind. Such a shame. That power, ignored or misused, it’s a tragedy, when a properly trained abductura is capable of such greatness.”

“Wow.” I didn’t bother to hide the derision in my voice. “When you say it like that, manipulating and controlling all of humankind to bring about the apocalypse almost sounds like a good thing.”

He looked at me for a second, his expression almost baffled. Then he smiled. “You give me too much credit. I did not end the world.”

“But your master did.”

“Roberto?”

“Yeah, Roberto.” I was tired of him being so damn coy. I wanted to wring this guy’s neck. I didn’t even care if he was Lily’s dad. Except I did care whether or not she got the cure, so instead, I clenched my hands tightly in my lap. I was tired of sugarcoating this crap. “The vampire who created the Tick virus that brought about the end of civilization as we know it. Sound familiar?”

But Jonathan was frowning. “It sounds like Roberto has been getting some very bad press. He is hardly the evil genius you think he is.”

“And what about you? Am I supposed to believe you’re a nice guy?”

“I suppose Lily’s told you all sorts of horrible things about how I abandoned them when they were ten. How I disappeared from their lives without a backward glance.”