“Jer, you okay?” she asked.
“I’m coming.”
He limped through the house. She stood at the end of the hall, next to the open closet.
“You look pale, can I get you something to eat or drink?”
His stomach twisted. All his organs were probably rotting away inside him. Food or drink wouldn’t be any help. He shook his head, made his way down the hall to her. “Both hands on the gun, Red.”
Her eyebrows rose, but she grabbed the butt with both hands. He walked past her into the laboratory. After flipping on a few switches, all the surfaces illuminated. Test tubes, a fridge with both the actual cure and the cause. The rest of his equipment covered every available surface. A small table in the center was packed full with medical files, case studies, research. He hadn’t been able to figure out why the latest cure only worked on those not bitten directly from the wolf or those it created, and he realized now he probably never would.
“I can’t believe I never figured out you had all this here.” Red shook her head as she took in the room.
Guilt sucker punched him in the gut. He shouldn’t have told her. If she let the truth slip, if Parish found out, she was as good as dead.
Fuck.
His gaze dropped to the gun swinging lightly from one hand. Did she ever listen to him? “Red, keep both hands on the fucking gun.”
Her mouth fell open, but she quickly closed it and obeyed. Her eyes studied him warily and he wanted to deck himself for the way he spoke to her. But he didn’t have the energy to waste. Sliding down onto a chair at the overcrowded table, he stared at the files. Where to start? He was no further forward now than he ever had been.
“Maybe talking through what you’ve tried, dumbing it down for me, would help,” she offered.
Jeremy smiled at her, and it was no effort to put it there. Red had told him how she hated science at school, and calculus. She’d reveled in cooking, fashion design and anything to do with crafts. Ruby always told him she wanted to be a good wife one day. He had no doubt, even without all that, she would have been to him. Even with her short temper, he wouldn’t trade her in for the world, supposing he could ever be good enough for her.
He gestured to the seat across the table. “The disease lay dormant through the years, but something in my mother’s system encouraged it to mutate when she came into contact with it. What we—I—came up with mutated again inside the wolf.
“When the wolf infects another, the disease is more condensed, but its strength weakens when those bitten by the wolf then go on to contaminate others. The new cure was copied, mass produced and distributed around the globe. It doesn’t work on the wolf, or those he directly infects, but it does work on the third generation of those with the disease. My theory is that the less concentrated the disease, the easier to cure.”
Red thought about that for a second, chewing on her lip. “But so is the cure, isn’t it? Surely a replica or a dilution would make it weaker?”
He nodded. “But that doesn’t explain why it causes the first bitten to die. Their whole body turns to pulp, Red. It’s like watching acid work through them from the inside.” He winced, remembering.
“What about a weaker version of the cure?”
Jeremy shook his head and resisted the urge to plant his face into the desk. Maybe that would rattle out some answers.
“It doesn’t make any sense!” She rose, slammed the gun down on the table, and he scowled at her. She ignored him. “Why wouldn’t it work on the wolf or those he bit? What are we missing?”
“Pick up the gun.”
“Screw the gun.” Her hands flew up, sweeping the air as she spoke. “You’re the scientist, the one who knows what he’s doing. Can’t you…try…something?”
He dragged himself to his feet. Other than the fact he smelled like a five day old corpse, he was still in control. Still had his mind. Locking his jaw closed just in case, he rounded the table and pulled her into his arms. She didn’t even hesitate, and that sparked a flame of irritation. But he couldn’t pull away while she was upset.
He’d barely managed this last year living without her. If she felt even a fraction of what he did, he was leaving her broken and alone. His heart twisted at the thought. He wanted more for her, wanted her to move on and be happy.
The phone beeped, the one in the lab he kept to make contact with the government. Shit. “Red, honey, you have to stay quiet now while I take this call.”
She inhaled against his tee-shirt, probably getting a whiff of the rotten smell of his skin, and nodded.
Jeremy released her and then crossed the room to the phone. “WC4,” he answered, his code for woodcutter and the number of his region of the forest.
“Agent Parish. You didn’t call in last night, everything okay?”
Shit, he’d been hunting the wolf last night, it was how he’d found Red. They’d been expecting his call, now they’d know something was up. “Everything’s fine. I saved a civilian, lost one. Killed six of the infected. The wolf escaped.”
“Our sources tell us the wolf caught up with you today.”
Parish’s tone grated on his temper. The fucker knew. Probably had surveillance all over the forest. “It did.”
“It bit you?”
He sucked in a breath. Fuck, they probably had a team on the way over to take him in. They’d find out soon enough. “Yes. My ankle.”
“No.” Red’s voice was barely a whisper, but with the look of horror on her face she may as well have screamed at him for the effect it had.
“We’ll be there tonight.” The line went dead.
“How could you?” she asked when he’d hung up the phone. “They’ll kill you!”
That’s where she was wrong. He’d be a living, breathing lab rat. But they wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. He had to get this over with before the sun set. “We don’t have time to argue. They’ll be here tonight.”
He sat at the table and pulled out a file, pretending to ignore the hurt in her eyes. Not that he could, it hit him like someone swung a baseball bat at his gut.
She was silent for a moment, but soon slid into the chair opposite him. “So tell me about all your experiments. Tell me what you’ve already tried.”
Jeremy drew in a huge breath, but his lungs felt gooey, damp even. It wouldn’t be long now. His whole body didn’t feel like it belonged to him. Even his heart beat was shady. He closed his eyes and rubbed the lids, when he pulled his fingers away to gaze at her, her mouth swung open.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Red gasped. “Look at your hands.”
Chapter Seven
Ruby was smack bang in the middle of her worse nightmare. Not even in all the horror movies she watched had she seen something so terrifying.
Where his fingers had rubbed his skin, it had slid right off, as easily as the film that covered cold gravy. He looked down at the black splurge covering his fingertips and his throat bobbed. When his gaze rose to meet hers, she saw a hint of gold shine through his irises along with his own terror.
She had to be strong for him. After all, she wasn’t the one rotting away to nothing. “It’s not bleeding. Ignore it, please. Tell me about your research, there might be something you missed.” Her voice was shaky, but her eyes stayed dry.
He frowned at her for a moment, and she wondered if his mind had gone now too. But he answered. As simply as he could, Jeremy explained to her all the ways he’d tried to help, all the tests, all the experiments that had gone wrong.
He believed the cure going directly into the first infected killed the disease so quickly the body didn’t have time to adjust or heal, like taking a full box of painkillers for a headache.
Red pondered that, then asked, “What if you mixed it with the original ‘cure’ that infected the wolf, tried out different quantities to see what works. Do you remember that formula?”
Avoiding her gaze, he answered, “I have a vial.”
She didn’t understand why h
e would be ashamed of that. Knowing Jeremy, it was probably so he could try to figure things out through science before testing on people and making them suffer. “You’re a good man, Jer.”
She reached across the table and gently placed her hand on his.
“I helped create it. If I go down in history now, it will be for the massacre I caused.”
“No, it was an accident. You were both hurt, desperate. Neither of you—”
His gaze snapped to hers, the yellow clearer. She tugged her hand back. “It was my formula. How do you think I was able to make it again when the government cleared my house?” Anger pulsed off him in waves, his attention darted around the room, then refocused on her. “It was me. This was all me.”
He twitched all over, little jerks in his fingers, arms and head. His mouth gaped and an ugly, familiar growl rumbled in his throat. Sanity slipped from his expression and for a frightening second he looked like the monster who had attacked her at Grandma’s.
“Jeremy, calm down.” Her tone was firm, harsh, but oddly controlled considering her heart felt like it was on a mission to gnaw its way through her chest. “Relax.”
All the twitching and jerking stopped. He stared at her for a long moment. She hoped her face was stern enough. Hoped she had him back.
“I’m losing who I am,” he whispered. “I almost went there. I can feel it coming, Red. There isn’t much time.” She’d never been so glad to hear him use her nickname.
Those yellow eyes shone from dark sockets. The color of his face was greyer now and the skin he’d wiped from his lids was rapidly darkening. He was going too fast. Grief soared through her, but she wouldn’t crumble now. Later, if things didn’t work out. Not when they still had a chance.
“Have you mixed your formula with the cure?” she asked.
He threw her a look that insinuated she was mad.
“I mean, if you mixed the disease in its concentrated form with say, a person’s blood, then mixed in the cure and injected it into the person, would that be less a shock to their body? Would that help the cure take?”
She didn’t know much about chemistry or biology, had spent most of the lessons flipping through magazines, but it made sense to her. Jeremy didn’t answer, only stared at her with a vacant look. She thought she’d lost him again.
“Jer?”
“It might,” he said. “But it might accelerate the change or create something else.”
“Isn’t there a way to test it?” She thought of the man she’d killed this morning and could have kicked herself. He would have been the perfect subject. “The Wolf.” A plan formed in her mind and she almost bounced off the chair with excitement. “I can lure the wolf here. We could test it on him.”
“NO!” His tone startled her. “You. Are. Not. Going. After. The. Wolf.”
He spoke the words through a clenched jaw, his eyes burning, driving home his refusal. “It might be the only—”
“Red, that wouldn’t work. The wolf has the full strain of the disease. It would be like giving a headache tablet to a patient suffering a full blown migraine. I can be the experiment. Worst case scenario, I’ll change faster but you have the gun. Best case I…”
Those stranger eyes softened. “I have some clean samples of my blood I was testing on. I can mix up a few batches, then try it on a sample of my infected blood. If it clears the virus, we can test it on me.”
She didn’t like the word test when it referred to him. Still, he was trying to do it as safely as he could even though what they faced was unknown. She cleared the table and brought the items he needed, suspecting his energy had waned. Not once did he get up, and his arms were slow and lethargic as he worked. If it wasn’t for the crease in his now stone colored forehead, she’d swear he wasn’t even trying.
Watching him transfer liquids from test tube to test tube made her uneasy. There wasn’t a clock in here, and she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed. Was it dark already? The government would come soon, and the thought made her want to demand that he hurry up. But it was clear in every determined movement that he was fighting to do this. Fighting to stay him, to stay with her and she couldn’t make any more demands of this man.
Ruby could only guess at the internal struggle he must be having to do this for her. If she hadn’t asked him to go look for Grandma, he wouldn’t be hurt in the first place. Her shoulders slumped as she watched him work.
“I’m sorry, Jer. If I hadn’t asked… you wouldn’t have been…”
His gaze met hers, and even though they were fully yellow, the emotion behind them was all his. A year ago, she wouldn’t have believed him capable of such depth.
“This isn’t your fault. It’s all on me. Don’t torture yourself, sweetheart. Please.”
He had it wrong, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. Not now. Instead she nodded.
Jeremy smiled, but didn’t look like he bought the lie. “Okay, I’ve tried it with three consistencies.”
She watched him use a sucky thing to pick up some of the liquid and drop it onto a slide. He put the same amount of another substance next to it, slipped the glass onto the microscope and checked the lens. “Shit.”
“Too much?” she asked, but the slide cracked, answering her question as the blood and mixture sizzled. She slumped forward, wondering if she shouldn’t be using this time with him to get to know each other better, tell him how much he meant to her, instead of putting them both through this.
He went through the process on another slide. She expected the same thing to happen again, but nothing did. When his gaze rose from the microscope, he shook his head. “Not enough this time.”
Third time lucky? Ruby hoped so with all her heart. Time seemed to slow down as he placed the mixture in the slide, carefully brought it to the microscope and looked down. His breath caught in his throat, then he burst into a croaky laugh that somehow managed to sound gooey.
“It worked.” When his head rose this time, he was smiling, triumphant with shock and awe. “You’re a genius, Red. I may have to marry you.”
She grinned at him, allowing herself to hope even though so much could still go wrong. “It worked?”
He nodded. Suddenly he was moving faster, taking the cure, and vials of his blood and mixing them eagerly. Her smile slipped as she realized this was it. They’d test the formula on him and either he’d die, turn quicker or heal. Time ticked on, the agents couldn’t have been far, but finally he had a syringe filled with the new formula.
Suddenly he froze. “Ruby, there’s something I have to say.”
Her throat tightened. “You can tell me after, when you’re healed.”
He sucked in a breath and it sounded wet, like his lungs were filled with fluid—more likely they had rotted into mush. Tears pricked her eyes.
“I love you. Always have, always will.”
The change was almost complete. His skin wasn’t much different from the monster she killed earlier, his eyes bright yellow, but they shone with emotion. His love.
“I love you too, Jer. Even when I thought you wanted someone else, I still loved you.”
His smile pulled his skin tight across his pale lips. “I’m going to inject it straight into my heart since the thing’s still beating. It should spread the formula faster.”
She held her breath as he lifted the syringe and gently pressed until the amber liquid spurted from the needle. Jeremy placed the tip just over his heart and closed his eyes. Her heart took off and her head spun. This was it, now or never.
“The gun,” he whispered.
She picked it up with shaking hands and pointed it at him. Could she kill him if it all went wrong? Ruby didn’t think so. But she had to. She couldn’t let him live as a monster.
Jeremy sucked in another deep breath, then stabbed the needle into his heart. He emptied the plunger immediately then pulled it out. The syringe clattered to the floor, empty, and he slapped a palm to his chest over the wound.
A crashing sound echoed thro
ugh the house. She turned, expecting to see a SWAT Team or something, but what appeared in the door to the lab took her breath away. The wolf pulled its lips back in a terrifying grin. It had found her. Idiot that she was, she hadn’t set up Jeremy’s security before they made it to the lab.
Jeremy panted behind her and groaned as if he were in pain. She pointed the gun at the wolf, desperate to look back and check on him. Desperate to see if it was working, or if she had lost him. The wolf sank back into a crouch and she pulled the trigger. The shot clipped the skin of the wolf’s back leg, slammed the butt into her already aching shoulder and she stumbled backward, dropping the gun.
The wolf didn’t need another invitation. It pounced. Instinctively, Ruby held both her arms out to protect her face, but what use was that really? Hot knives—or maybe it was the wolf’s teeth—sunk into her arm. She cried out, kicking wildly with her legs. The thing’s jaw didn’t ease its hold and a horrid crunching sound came from her arm.
The agony that followed made the edges of her mind murky, like she was about to pass out. That would have been fine, anything to escape the pain. The wolf released her arm as she rose to her knees. She was eyelevel with the creature now. Its yellow gaze almost comforting. It licked her face and she cringed back. The smell of death and rot and disease tainted its breath.
“Red, no…” she heard Jeremy’s voice, a broken whisper in the distance right before she collapsed onto the floor, knocking her head against the tiles.
Her mind was going, she was losing her grip on reality but welcomed it as the pain in her arm subsided. The last thing she registered was a male voice she didn’t recognize. Then everything went dark.
Chapter Eight
Jeremy’s body was on fire. It coursed from his heart, through his veins to every part of him. But the focus of his attention wasn’t the burning, or the fear of what he would become, it was the anguish he felt seeing Red lying on the floor beneath the wolf.
Once Upon a Twist Page 13
