Breed of Envy (The Breed Chronicles, #02)

by Jordan, Lanie

  But if he woke me up before six in the morning again, I was going to rethink the kick-his-ass part.

  *~*~*

  Friday wasn’t my best day. I spent the whole week not looking forward to it and hoping someone, somewhere, had invented a machine to skip days. Sadly, when I woke up, it was Friday, which meant that invention hadn’t been invented yet and I still had an appointment with Doc. I wasn’t sure what ‘time-consuming’ physical tests Greene wanted her to run, but I really wasn’t looking forward to them, especially if Doc wouldn’t let Linc stay.

  My appointment was in thirty minutes and I was dressed comfortably in workout clothes, as directed by Greene. Yesterday, when Greene told me to wear workout clothes, he also told me not to eat or drink anything after midnight, so my stomach was rumbling embarrassingly loud. I was starving. If this test or tests (I wasn’t actually sure what or how many there’d be) lasted too long, I’d be forced to chew my arm off.

  Walking to my window, I looked outside. The South Tower still had that wall thing around the entrances so I couldn’t see anything past it (they were roofed too, so even though I was on the fourth floor and should’ve been able to see over them, I couldn’t). There were still big trucks parked out front, backed up until they were just under the edge of the fence line and out of sight.

  When I’d woken up at seven that morning, the construction had already been in full swing if the sounds were any kind of indication. Though I still couldn’t figure out why they had to guard the entrances and make it impossible to see anything other than the men who came and went throughout the morning.

  “Probably more torturing devices,” I mumbled to myself, turning away from the window since I couldn’t see anything interesting.

  My stomach grumbled again as a knock sounded at my door. I shhh’d my stomach on the way to open the door. I found Linc standing outside, leaning against the wall carelessly. “’Bout ready?”

  “To escape? Yes. For the other stuff? Not so much. Oh! Maybe we can get you a wig and you can pretend to be me.”

  He made a yeah-right sound. “I’ve dressed as a girl exactly once, and that was for Halloween two years ago. Never again, not even for you, Hall.”

  My heart thudded against my chest at the mention of Halloween two years ago. I cleared my throat, turned away from Linc, and squeezed my eyes shut. “Well, you’re no fun,” I said after a second, hoping my tone wasn’t as strained as it felt. I went to my desk and grabbed my ID. Turning back, I plastered on a fake smile. “Ready.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

  I nodded quickly. “Yeah, fine.” I walked out of the room and shut the door behind me. “Let’s get this over with. I’m going to need food soon.”

  My pace was fast and I refused to meet his eyes, so there was no question in my mind that he knew something was wrong. But he didn’t question it again. That was something I liked about Linc. Even if he knew something was wrong with me, he’d ask once, and if I didn’t say, he’d just wait until I told him. Probably because he figured I would eventually.

  But this time, I wasn’t sure if I could tell him or if I really wanted to.

  Everyone was so excited about Halloween, because it was apparently a big production at the CGE. How could I ruin that for everyone else? How could I ruin it for Linc and Tasha, my two best friends?

  And how did I—or could I—casually bring up the fact that my mom and brother had died on Halloween, and that this coming Halloween would mark the second year since they died?

  I didn’t know how to say anything, or if I really even wanted to, so I didn’t try, and ended up staying quiet on the way to see Doc. Thankfully, it wasn’t that far of a trip and by the time we reached Doc’s office, I’d mostly distracted myself with the stupid tests I was there to have done.

  “Hey, Jade. Linc,” Doc said in greeting when she answered the door. “Come on in.”

  Doc started Linc’s blood work first. I couldn’t sit and watch or I’d make myself sick, so I roamed the room. It’d barely been five minutes before I heard, “We’re going to another room.”

  “What?” I groaned and spared Linc a glance. “I have to get scanned again?”

  Doc, if I had to guess, looked unhappy, which actually gave me a small amount of hope. “No, not until next week.” She frowned. “But what I need is still in another room. This is just a mini lab for some blood drawing. The easy stuff.”

  Obviously, she’d never had to have her blood drawn weekly or she wouldn’t call it the easy stuff. There was nothing easy about having your arm probed with a needle and your blood sucked into a tube.

  While I wasn’t exactly thrilled about having to go to yet another room on this floor (seriously, there was a reason I avoided this floor), I was hoping the new room wouldn’t share the same smell as this one: the disinfectant smell that I hated.

  Doc paused in the middle of room and looked around. “I just need…ah, there it is.” She walked over to the table on the left side of the room and picked up her small, black tablet. “Okay, we’re ready to go.”

  She walked out, closing the door behind us all, then led us to another room. This one was directly across from the TT room. When we all stepped in, I almost sighed with relief. One, I didn’t see anything that looked like it stole blood. Two, it didn’t have the disinfectant smell. It had a mild sweat smell (which was definitely preferred, even if it was gross).

  The room itself was pretty bare. There was nothing hanging on the brownish beige walls, no shelves. Besides having what looked like a treadmill on steroids in the middle of the room, there were only two chairs and a small computer desk in the far right corner. The treadmill, like the Terminator Tube, had a lot of wires coming from it.

  I pointed to the wires. “Let me guess…those are for me?”

  “They are. They’re just going to measure your heart rate and oxygen levels. It’s just like your basic treadmill, only it has a few enhancements.”

  “Those aren’t enhancements. Those are torture devices in disguise,” I mumbled. Doc didn’t hear me, but Linc did, and grinned.

  I slapped him as Doc went to the desk and turned on the computer. She set her tablet up beside it and then walked over to the treadmill. Motioning for me, she said, “Let’s get you hooked up.”

  I went to her. “What exactly am I going to be doing? Besides running, I mean.”

  “That’s all for today. I just want to get a baseline and a few numbers.” She started attaching electrodes to my chest and put what looked like an oblong contact lens over the pad of my thumb.

  I studied it and spotted a tiny little black spot in the center that looked like a piece of dirt or— “Is that a microchip?”

  “Yeah,” she answered slowly, nodding and giving me a startled look.

  “It’s tiny. Cool. So what’s this thing do?”

  “It’s a wireless O2 saturation monitor.” At my blank stare, she added, “It’s just going to measure your oxygen levels.” There was a pause. “But that’s interesting.”

  I hated that tone. And that word. “What’s interesting?”

  “That you saw the microchip.”

  “What, I wasn’t supposed to?”

  Doc shook her head. “It’s not that you weren’t supposed to, just that most can’t see it without a magnifying glass.”

  “Oh. I guess I just have really good eyes?” I held up my thumb, made a motion at Linc. “Can you see it?”

  With his hands in his pockets, Linc walked over to me and glanced at my thumb. After a second, he pulled one hand from his pocket and used it bring my hand closer to his face. His eyebrows scrunched together. “It looks like a miniscule piece of dirt.”

  Doc smirked at me. “Like I said, interesting.”

  “It’s not interesting,” I muttered. “Some people just have better eyesight than others.”

  “It is interesting, because not many people have that great of eyesight, Jade.” Doc went over to the computer desk, picked up her tablet and started typi
ng something in. “It’s probably due to the treatments your parents had. The only other people I’ve ever met who have that good of eyesight are the agents who have had the genetic therapy treatments. And even then, it’s not everyone—just a handful at most.”

  How could she call something ‘interesting’ and make it sound almost bad at the same time? And why was everything that I considered to be good things attributed to demon DNA? Actually, I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to the second question. I’d spent the last two months not thinking about my demon DNA and I didn’t want to start now. It was too creepy.

  Someday, I’d have to give in and learn about it, but today was not that day.

  “Can we just get this test over with?” I asked, rolling my shoulders and trying to push demons from my mind. “Greene said not to eat, so I’m kind of starving here.”

  “Oh, of course. Go ahead and step on.” I did as she asked and waited until she set the settings on the treadmill. When she was done that, she tapped on her tablet a few times and then nodded at me. “Just press start when you’re ready. I’m only going to have you do three miles today. After a quick warm up at a slow pace and no incline, it will gradually get faster and the incline will get higher. Everything is automatic and based off your readings, so it’ll only push you as fast as it thinks you can go. If you have any problems, let me know and I’ll adjust things.”

  I had no idea how this was supposed to help them find a cure for vampirism, but I didn’t argue and just pressed the start button. Slowly, the belt started to move. After a few minutes, the pace picked up until the readout said I was going at a three mile-per-hour pace and the incline went up to three percent. Every few minutes, it went a little faster and the incline rose higher.

  Behind me, Linc and Doc started talking about the CGE’s annual Halloween party. Apparently, even the teachers thought it was a big deal. I’d been hearing whispers about it since summer break, but I’d mostly ignored it. I tried doing that now, but with only the sound of my feet pounding on the treadmill for a distraction, it wasn’t working so well.

  Why hadn’t I thought to bring music? Better yet, why hadn’t someone thought to tell me to bring music? I glared at Doc, even though she couldn’t see it, and made a mental note about bringing tunes next time.

  The pace increased again, this time fast enough that I was actually running. The height adjusted seconds later, up to ten percent.

  “How are you doing, Jade?” Doc asked.

  “I’m doing just fine.” Though I would have been a lot more fine with music, or at least without the talk of Halloween. Just thinking about it had my blood boiling and heart pounding. I focused on the treadmill, on running, tried harder to block out Doc and Linc’s voices. The treadmill got the clue at least and made me run faster yet—fast enough that the sounds my feet made did block out the voices.

  But then it seemed like the treadmill slowed and then stopped seconds later.

  “Did you stop it, Jade?” Doc asked.

  “No. It stopped itself.” Stupid thing. Just when I was almost starting to like it—and I hated exercising!

  She made a tsk sound and, leaving Linc standing by himself, walked over to the computer. She pressed a few buttons on the keyboard, then tapped a few on her tablet screen. “Oh. Well, hmm.”

  “’Well, hmm’ what?” I demanded.

  “You ran your three miles.”

  “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Why did she make everything sound so bad?

  She was too busy staring at the computer monitor to respond for a minute. “What? Oh, yes. That’s what I wanted,” she said, her tone distracted. She glanced at me, frowned, then returned her focus back to the monitor.

  Linc looked at me. “You broke it, didn’t you?”

  I (mostly) refrained from growling and just bit my tongue and shrugged. If anyone would know what was going on, wouldn’t it be him, since he’d been the one busy chatting away with Doc? I’d been minding my own business, doing what I was told.

  Doc turned around and faced us. “Jade didn’t break anything,” she said, though I wasn’t convinced that was the entire truth. Doc didn’t have a great poker face, and if I hadn’t been scared to, I would’ve called her bluff, but I really wasn’t sure I wanted to know whatever she wasn’t telling me. “Alright. I think we’re done for today.”

  Linc headed for the door. I rolled my eyes—both at him and Doc. “Um, I’ll unhook all this stuff if you tell me where it goes.”

  “Oh! Right, right.” Doc’s cheeks turned bright pink as she all but tossed her tablet to the desk and rushed over. “Sorry.” She smiled at me as she pulled the oxygen reader thing from my thumb and placed it in a little carrying case. “I guess I’m a little spacey.”

  As she unhooked the rest of the electrodes, I studied her. Her movements were fast and jerky. They were…un-Doc-like. Doc was usually all composure. The only other time I’d seen her like this was when she’d been avoiding telling me that she, along with Dr. Hamilton (aka Dr. Asshat) and Greene, thought I was dying from the vampire bite.

  Greene reassured me when the Phase started that I wasn’t dying and I was trying to keep that in mind, but Doc’s behavior was very odd and worrying. “You okay, Doc? You’re acting kinda…” I made my eyes go wide. I didn’t want to say crazy, even though I was basically thinking just that.

  She visibly forced herself to relax, which only made her look more suspicious. “I’m fine.” Another fake or forced smile.

  And as much as I didn’t want to know what she wasn’t telling me, now I felt like I had to know. If it was making her this crazy, it couldn’t be good news.

  I laid a hand on her shoulder. “Doc? What’s going on? Really?”

  She opened her mouth to, I was sure, deny that anything was wrong, but then Linc walked back over, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “You’re a bad liar, Doc. You can’t even think a lie without it showing.”

  “There’s nothing wrong. Really. Just…” She sighed. After a second, she retrieved her tablet from the desk and came back with it. “Your results aren’t typical.”

  “Like that’s new,” Linc muttered, earning him a jab to the stomach. He gave me an angry glare. “Sorry, Hall, but there’s not much about you that is normal.”

  I bit back an argument, but mostly because I didn’t have a good one. Damn him. “What was wrong with them?” I said to Doc instead.

  Holding up her tablet, she pointed at a multi-colored graph. “See this chart? The red lines indicate average mileage and run times. The green is above average. And the blue—” She used her finger to swipe across the screen where a graph with blue lines popped up. “—is your average.”

  I studied the page, but I had no idea what was special about it. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “On average, Prospects run three miles in somewhere between fifteen and twenty minutes.”

  “Okay…”

  “You ran your miles in twenty minutes.”

  “I don’t like running.” I paused. “And I’m not great at math, Doc, but that seems typical to me.’

  “Yes, it would be.” She blushed again. “But I set the treadmill for six miles, not three.”

  “So her average is five miles per hour.” Linc shrugged. “That’s fast, but not extraordinary.” He glanced at me. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Doc shook her head. “Her average. The first two miles were run slower. Her last mile, according to this, was run in barely four minutes. And look at her!” She waved her hand at me and had me frowning. “She’s barely sweating or out of breath.”

  “Well, I’ve been done for a few minutes now!” I didn’t know why, but now I felt like I had to defend myself for…something.

  “Your numbers wouldn’t be quite so remarkable if they belonged to an actual athlete, but you don’t run at all, do you?”

  Linc smirked. “Not unless she’s forced to.”

  “Bite me, jerk.”

  He bum
ped his shoulder into mine. “Oh, come on. You know it’s true.”

  I glared. “Linc might not have a lot of tact, but he’s right. I don’t run unless I have to for classes or class exercises.”

  “And has it always been like this? You being able to run like that without sweating or being out of breath?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I said. I didn’t really pay attention to it. If I was running, it was because I was forced to and usually had other things on my mind.

  “Not really, Jade,” Linc argued. “The exercise when we earned our ride-along, we ran. You weren’t out of breath or anything like that, but I know you didn’t run that fast and I know it affected you more then than it does now.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Oh, will you stop with that word!” When Doc’s eyes widened and Linc’s eyebrows rose, I added, “Sorry. You just never use that word in a good way.”

  “Sorry, Jade,” Doc said, her tone sarcastic and eyes rolling. “Is ‘intriguing’ better? Or is ‘fascinating’ more to your liking?”

  Linc nudged me and winked. “Go with intriguing. It makes you sound mysterious.”

  “I don’t want to sound mysterious. I want to sound normal.” Though around here, ‘normal’ wasn’t really happening. How normal could any of us be? We were all living in a secret semi-government-funded facility, having our blood tested, being poked and prodded with needles, and training to hunt demons. “Just…pick something other than interesting. Please.”

  All this talk about anything having to do with me being interesting was making me crabby. It just reminded me that I wasn’t normal, even around here, which said a lot. I had demon DNA, though I still had no idea what that really meant except my apparent immunity toward vampires and the fact that Doc, Greene, and his funding people, all wanted me studied like a lab rat.

  “I don’t mean it in a bad way, Jade. It’s just not what I’m used to seeing. Though, I suppose where you’re concerned, I shouldn’t be used to anything.”

  “Not helping.”

  Even though he snickered beside me, I saw a weird look cross Linc’s face. “She needs food,” he said. “Is she good to go?”