by Jen Haeger
*
Evelyn awoke in a sweat, rattled by unremembered, though still disturbing, nightmares. Only pale, grey light streamed in through the window, but a quick glance at the clock told her it was nearly noon. Feeling unrested, though not eager for more sleep, she slipped out of bed and went to the window. The colorless day outside did nothing to raise her spirits. Evelyn threw on some clothes and went downstairs, thinking that she might call Sylvy today and set up a time to visit her and check on Peko. When she entered the kitchen, she found David and Kim there, dressed in sweaty workout clothes, preparing lunch. Evelyn detected a slight hiccup in their conversation when she appeared in the doorway, but pretended not to notice.
“Any news?”
David glanced up from the bread he was slathering with mustard and shook his head. “Nothing.”
Evelyn shrugged. “At this point, maybe no news is good news.”
David looked unconvinced.
Kim swallowed a bite of sandwich. “How did it go at the lab last night?”
Evelyn rummaged through the refrigerator, seeking milk for her cereal, glad that she didn’t have to look Kim in the eye. “Oh, okay I guess. Seems like I’ve been gone longer than a few days, though. Missed you. You’ll come in with me tonight?”
Finding the milk and extracting her head from the fridge, she saw Kim nodding vigorously. “Of course! Yeah, I wanna get back to work too!”
“Mind if I come too, Evie? With everything on hold for the time being, and Roberto keeping me out of the loop, there is literally nothing for me to do right now.”
Evelyn’s throat tightened. She could sense that David was still mad at her for the secrets she’d kept from him, but feeling useless was worse, much worse. She remembered that feeling from just before the challenge at the Council manor and couldn’t force David to go through it just to spite him. “Of course you can come. Not like you don’t know your way around my lab.”
David raised his eyebrows at her, a whisper of a grin on his lips.
“Wha…oh. Oh. You know what I mean!” She hit him playfully on the shoulder. “And just for that, you’re going to be washing glassware and sterilizing benchtops all night.”
David’s face transformed as an actual smile graced it for the first time in days. His eyes sparkled with life, humor, and a twinge of mischief. Evelyn beamed at him as she stared into his eyes, and for a moment she was lost in them like when they’d first kissed. Then he focused over her shoulder, his smile wavering, and Evelyn remembered Kim sitting at the table behind her. Evelyn’s emotions were caught between anger that Kim was spoiling the moment and sympathy for her. As much as Evelyn’s life sucked right now, Kim’s was that much again worse, all things considered. The sympathy won out and she turned to face Kim.
“Hey, you know, now that things are…have calmed down for a little while, maybe we should go visit your mom. What do you think?”
Kim’s eyes went wide and her lips parted. She swallowed several times. “Do…do we have time for that? Is it safe?”
Evelyn poured her cereal and considered. “Well, really I’m not even sure that the Vulke know that you’re with us. And I don’t see how they would have the resources, or quite frankly the patience, to stake out every relative of every stray or every Wahya member. Not that we should completely let our guards down, and like go back to your apartment, but I want to visit with my mom too.” She turned to David. “And Sylvy. And bring Peko here to live with us.”
David scowled. “Evie, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Which part?”
Sandwich finally complete, he sat down at the table. “Um, any of it?”
Evelyn sat down with her cereal. “Why? There’s no reason to think that the Vulke are going to do anything before the next full moon cycle. They’ve got us on the ropes. Even if we figure out which brand of power bars they are using to spread the mutant, how do we know where they’ll distribute the next batch? Or if they already have? And even if we shut down the factory, they could just contaminate something else, like a water supply. If they’ve been researching the virus as long as we have, they’ll know finding a cure in a month is a joke. And we’ve used up our one trick. They won’t fall for the deer carcasses again, they’ll expect it, have the strays well-fed or train them to ignore food while fighting. I think that they’ll be using this time to regroup, stabilize their new territory and allies, and prepare for the next Wolfkin cycle. I don’t think that they even care about us anymore really…and if they were going to track us down and kill us, they have a spy. They don’t need to come after our families.”
David sighed. “That sounds like a lot of defeatist rationalization.”
“Maybe. But now that we’ve got the chance, don’t you want to see your folks one last time?”
“I…I don’t know, Evie. Not if it means putting them in danger. I’ve e-mailed them. I don’t know what I would say in person.” He looked away. “After Tommy and Russia, they…well, we’re not as close as we used to be.”
Evelyn bit her lip. “Kim, what do you think?”
Kim glanced down at her half-eaten sandwich. “It’s probably selfish, but I think you’re right, Evie.” She looked up. “At least for me. David and I ran away before the Vulke ever saw us, so I don’t know how they could know that I’m with you guys, or want to spend much time tracking down my mom. But for you guys…I don’t know, but I think it’s riskier.”
Evelyn tapped her spoon against her teeth. Kim was right. They needed to know if their friends and family were being watched. And she now knew who to ask.
57
After some preliminary research on the internet, Evelyn determined how she was going to contact Nicolas. First they would need to purchase a prepaid cell phone with cash. They would then remove the battery (the only easy way to confidently block someone from tracing the phone) and drive to Ohio. There they would place the call and then throw out the phone. It was an expensive venture, but in the end it would be Roberto’s money, so Evelyn didn’t trouble herself about it too much. The plan was to continue on from Ohio to Tennessee in order for Kim to visit her mother. Based on the information from Nicolas, and how much they could trust it, David and Evelyn would then decide whether or not to set up meetings with their friends and family members. Evelyn had wanted to go that day, but David convinced her to wait a few days, citing several reasons. Among which was the possibility that it might look suspicious for Nicolas to receive mysterious phone calls directly post-battle. Not entirely persuaded that a few days would make no difference, she nevertheless conceded to wait because she didn’t want to argue and have David decide against the plan entirely.
Her spirits lifted by the prospect of seeing her mom soon, Kim’s cheerful demeanor returned in full force. It was even difficult for Evelyn, frustrated as she was by having to wait to call Nicolas, possibly not being able to visit her own family, and having not heard a peep from Caroline about the power bars, to maintain a sour attitude in the face of Kim’s smiles. Work at the lab was also progressing, though Evelyn was beginning to feel like she was going in circles with the research. She would locate wolf DNA, then identify attached viral sequences, but their blending with wolf and human DNA made finding the definitive beginning and ending points all but impossible. Additionally, she was constantly reminded that any curative vaccine would have to be oral or inhalant, which complicated matters further. Concentrating more and more on the mutant strain, Evelyn searched for the changes which made Languorem luporum hardy enough to withstand the acid of the stomach and then able to be absorbed into the blood stream. If she could elucidate the way the virus could be made infectious orally, maybe she could find a way to effectively neutralize it orally. Sadly, this technique not only felt like a long shot, it also ran the risk of working only on the mutant strain of the virus.
Then, the day before they were going to leave to enact Evelyn’s plan and visit Kim’s mother, there came an unexpected knock at their door. The sound caused Kim to sp
ill her water at the dining room table and Evelyn to miss the last step of the stairs, catching herself with the railing just before falling on her face. David sprinted in from the kitchen and ushered the women towards the back door.
“Be ready to run.”
With no heads-up phone call from Roberto, it wasn’t an outlandish suggestion as no one else, save Clem and Madeline, knew where they were. Evelyn scurried behind Kim to the kitchen, but then ducked down and attempted to listen, though her view of the front door was blocked by the dining room. She heard the front door open, but then only murmurs. Kim had positioned herself next to the back door, and was lifting a blind to peer out into the small yard behind the condo. Abruptly, the front door shut again and Evelyn tensed. Kim shot her a quizzical look, but all Evelyn could do was shrug. Then she spied David coming into the dining room with a package, which he set carefully on the table. Relieved, Evelyn rose. David spotted her and held up a hand.
“Don’t get any closer.”
“Why?”
“It could be a trap.”
Kim danced over to stand next to Evelyn. “What’s going on?”
“David thinks someone sent us a bomb.”
Kim’s brow knitted into an adorable expression of befuddled concern. “Oh.”
Evelyn stepped forward into the dining room to get a better look at the package while David glowered at her. “Evelyn, this is serious, especially if there’s a spy in the ranks.”
She bit her lower lip. David had a point. A bomb wasn’t a Vulke M.O., but it could certainly be a spy’s. But is Roberto really sloppy enough to let a spy know where we are? Stopping, she leaned forward to look at the address.
“Looks like Roberto’s handwriting. What’s the return address?”
David stared down at the package, mouthing the address. “Hmmm, it’s Sault Ste. Marie. Maybe Clem’s sister? But it’s definitely not Clem’s handwriting.”
“No, definitely not.” Evelyn huffed. “Well, either we open it or we don’t.”
Kim hadn’t left the kitchen, but she was just inside the doorway, listening. “Why don’t we just call Roberto and ask him if he sent it?”
Glancing at David, as Evelyn’s eye met his, she couldn’t stifle a giggle. “Man, how dumb are we?”
David battled a creeping smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just going to suggest that.”
As he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, David paced towards the kitchen and gestured Evelyn to go in ahead of him. Kim backed up a few steps, covering a smile with her hand as she and Evelyn watched David. His finger poised to dial, all of their cell phones simultaneously announced a received text. Evelyn plucked hers from her pocket and Kim picked her phone up off the kitchen table while David checked his own text.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Thanks, Roberto.”
Evelyn looked down at her own message: package for you arriving today.
*
The package contained an open, dented power bar box with two bars left in it, and a note from Roberto: Caroline’s team extracted from little girl’s home yesterday. Kim’s eyes widened when she saw the box. “Those are the ones I bought! The ones on sale, Super Power Plus Bars.”
“We have to test these bars right away! We have to know if Nicolas was telling the truth about them.”
David rubbed his chin and looked over at Kim. “Are you okay with postponing the trip to see your mom?”
With a smile that didn’t extend to her eyes, Kim nodded. “For this? Of course.”
Glancing up at the clock, Evelyn grimaced. It was only just after 2pm, hours before the lab would be safely free of students; hours of impatient waiting. “Crap. We won’t be able to get into the lab until nine at the earliest, and even then there still might be students finishing up for the night. What are we going to do until then?”
David set the box of power bars down on the table. “Well, Kim and I still need a shower from this morning’s run, so if you want to shower first, Kim, I’ll help Evie with some research on the power bars. Roberto’s probably already got people breaking down the doors of the factory, but you never know what information is going to be important. And the more information we have, the more likely it is that we’ll be able to spot any inconsistencies in Nicolas’s story.”
Evelyn nodded and Kim also bobbed her head. “I won’t be long.”
“Take your time. Looks like we have an entire afternoon to kill.”
Pressing her lips together, Kim nodded then headed towards the stairs. The irony of the situation was not lost on Evelyn. They had so little time to find a cure and to figure out a strategy against the Vulke, yet at every turn they seemed to just be wasting what precious time they had.
“I’ll go get my laptop.”
Evelyn trudged down into the basement and returned to the dining room, laptop under her arm. Plugging it in and setting it up on the dining room table, she began with a Google search of the power bar company, Energinc. David sat down next to her and they both scanned the company’s webpage. In addition to power bars, they made energy drinks, energy gels, protein bars, protein drinks, and vitamins. According to the site, they had only one factory located in Duisburg, Germany, but shipped their products worldwide. Evelyn searched again for recent news stories involving Energinc, but came up empty. She sat back in her chair.
“This is ridiculous! Why hasn’t Roberto gotten us a private lab? Does he really think that I can get anywhere only being able to use a lab half a day at a time!”
“I think his resources are stretched a little thin right now, Evie. It’s not like there are just state of the art labs waiting for someone to waltz in and use them with no grant or credentials.”
“I’ve got credentials!”
“You know what I mean. And it’s not like he didn’t already build us a lab. That took months.”
Evelyn glared at him. “Do you think I don’t know that it’s my fault that we lost the Tennessee lab?”
“I didn’t say that.”
Hot tears stung her cheeks and she looked away. “You didn’t have to.”
David reached out and touched Evelyn’s shoulder. “Listen to me. None of this is anyone’s fault but the Vulke. We couldn’t know that any of this was going to happen. There was no way that we could’ve been prepared for all this. But we have to work with what we have now.”
Evelyn turned back to him. “But all we need is like an empty warehouse that we can set up a new lab in.”
“Sure. And just one PCR machine wouldn’t take like a week to get there. I hear minus eighty freezers are now on overnight delivery.”
Fire sprang up from Evelyn’s belly and threatened to spew from her mouth, but logic quelled it just in time. He was right. It would take too long to set up a new, well-equipped, functioning lab. Damn him.
“Well, actually, you can get new minus eighty freezers overnight delivered because if one breaks down, all the samples will be lost if they aren’t transferred to another one as soon as possible…” she stuck out her tongue at him, “but I see what you’re getting at. It’s just…it’s just so frustrating.”
“I know.”
“And what if the Vulke are still researching Languorem luporum? What if they do find a way to transform at will, or…or something worse?”
“Then I know you’ll think of something to stop them.”
Lost in David’s green eyes, Evelyn tore her gaze away. “You have a lot of faith in me.”
David squeezed her shoulder. “Yeah, I do.”
*
Evelyn tried to nap around four. She figured that if she was going to whine about not having enough time in the lab, she should really be awake enough to make use of the time she did have in the lab. But even in a darkened room, and with a fairly comfortable bed, sleep would not come. The pressure of finding a cure for the Wolfkin virus was one thing, but David’s unwavering faith in her was another. On the one hand, she hoped that it wasn’t an act to keep her from giving up. On the other hand, sh
e couldn’t bear to let him down. But in her mind the research kept spinning in circles and she felt like she was hardly any further now than she’d been two years ago. That’s why you have to stop thinking about it twenty-four seven, Evelyn dear. But there’s so little time! The brain needs rest. Work at the lab. Relax out of the lab. Relax when the Vulke are poised to take over the world!? Don’t be so dramatic. And yes. Why beat the virus to driving yourself insane? You realize that talking to yourself is not necessarily considered sane. We’ve always talked to ourselves…Sad but true. Rest now!
Rolling over, Evelyn cleared her mind, casting out thoughts of her research, of the war, and of werewolves. It seemed like she’d thought of nothing else for two years, but when she tried to think of a happy memory, David’s green irises filled the vision of her mind’s eye. She felt his lips on hers, smelled the ‘David’ smell of his hair, tasted his salty skin, and then she slept.
*
Dinner was a quick and brutal affair of boxed macaroni and cheese, though an organic brand instead of the kind in the blue box, which made it very marginally better. There was almost no chit chat as the three of them stuffed their faces, cleaned up, and then piled into the car. As the anxiousness to be doing something buzzed through the vehicle, Evelyn had to consciously rein in her desire to speed through the East Lansing streets to get to the lab just a few minutes sooner. Once at the lab, blissfully student-free, Evelyn wasted no time in assigning Kim and David tasks as she prepared to extract DNA from a sample of the power bars, and after her initial instructions to the others, a diligent silence permeated the lab.
Hours later, David roused her from a scientific stupor. “Hey. How’s it going?”
“Slow, but going. The power bars have a lot of other stuff in them so it was a bit of a pain to separate out what I think is the viral DNA, but I managed to get about a nanogram to work with.”
“It’s in the PCR machine now?”
“Ayup.” Evelyn sighed grumpily. “But all it’ll really tell us is that the bars do contain mutant virus.”
