She looked taken aback. “Logan wouldn’t do that.”
I glanced over her head at Ash, who had his arms crossed. “Ask Ash. He had to pull Logan off me because Jace was dithering over what to do.”
Gina looked up at Ash.
He sighed and signed at her.
“Oh.” She looked back to me. “That’s never happened before. Logan can be a little rough, but he always knows when to stop.” She glanced back at Ash as if for confirmation. He signed some more, and she nodded. “He was wounded. He was probably disoriented.”
I looked right at Ash, speaking not only to Gina but directly to him too. “I can forgive that, but Jace was there. He should have stopped his brother.” It was my turn to cross my arms. “How am I supposed to trust them after that?”
Ash moved into Gina’s line of sight and signed some more.
“Okay.” Gina nodded at him before turning to me. “Ash says he will be at every feeding. He says your blood has a powerful effect. He says he will make sure you’re safe.”
The knot in my chest loosened a little at the assurance, but either way, I had no choice. I’d given my word to them. We had a deal. They’d kept their end of the bargain and nearly gotten killed in the process. The fact we’d failed at retrieving Tobias wasn’t their problem. The fact that the Vladul had him wasn’t their concern, but if I played my cards right, it could be. If I kept my end of the bargain, then maybe they’d help me get him back.
Gina plucked a bowl of soup from the tray she’d brought in. “It’s broth,” she said. “Chicken. I killed a chicken.” She looked proud of herself. “It will make you feel better.” She offered it to me. “Please. I know this isn’t your ideal situation. I know you’re probably upset you didn’t get your friend back, but I’m so grateful that you survived, that you saved Logan.”
The way she said his name … she definitely had a soft spot for him. Her cheeks flushed under my regard, and she adjusted the scarf around her neck. She was a fool. Logan cared about no one but himself. She was nothing to him, especially now that she was infected. But who was I to tell her this stuff; heck, she probably knew it. But knowing something was bad for you and accepting it were two different things.
I took the broth and began to spoon it into my mouth. I needed to keep my energy up, because my mission was by no means over.
Gina watched me eat and then took the bowl once it was empty. “Get some rest. Noah will see you in a few hours.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Noah’s back?”
She nodded. “Jace is with him now.”
I leaned back against the pillows that smelled of cedar and safety. Noah was the one to ask for help. The one to try and strike a new bargain with. My heart squeezed painfully, because what if he said no? What if he refused to help me? The Genesis Foundation was an impregnable fortress. We had no map, no blueprints, no way in, and it was crawling with ancient Fang. Going after Tobias alone was suicide. My throat tightened, and I forced myself to breathe through my nose until the constriction abated. We’d had a mission, a goal, and my efforts should have been focused on that. On figuring out what this key that Dad had given me was. I should be worrying about getting back to Haven and finding out why Dad had sent me there in the first place, but Tobias’s face was all I could see. His despair as the van had driven him away from me. My hand went to my chest where the key lay against my breastbone, covered by the tattered scrap of fabric that made up the collar of my shirt. The shirt the Vladul with the turquoise eyes had torn with his blade. The key he’d seemed to recognize.
I sat up suddenly.
He’d recognized the key. That had to mean something, right?
“Are you okay?” Gina asked.
The key is important. You keep it safe, you keep it secret until you get to Haven. Find Benedict. Benedict will know what to do.
But Benedict was probably dead. Or was he? What if he had been taken by the Vladul like Tobias? Everything led back to the ancient Fangs. Everything led back to Genesis. But I couldn’t do this alone. It was time to take a leap of faith.
I tugged the key from my shirt and held it up. “My father left me this. It’s why I came to Haven. To find Benedict. I need to know what it is and what it does. The Vladul seemed to recognize it. It’s what stopped him from killing me straight off.”
Ash had taken a step forward, his attention on the key.
“You know what it is?”
His eyes narrowed and then he signed something.
“He says that he’s seen that symbol before.”
My pulse kicked up. “You have? Where?”
Ash signed.
“In the lab,” Gina interpreted.
“Take me to it.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ash led me into the computer lab, past Noah’s station and to a door I hadn’t noticed before. He rattled the handle and then growled in frustration.
“It’s Noah’s private sanctum,” Gina explained. “He usually spends most of his time in there. There’s even a bed.”
Jace had mentioned that Noah slept in the lab. “You saw the symbol in there?”
Ash nodded.
“Well, we have to get the key from Noah then.”
“The key to what?” Noah entered the room.
His dark hair was damp, and his tawny gaze was bright as it fixed on me. There was no sign of the monster he’d become, and as if to emphasize his civility, he was dressed in neat, pressed gray trousers and a pale blue button-down shirt. The only casual thing about his appearance was the sleeves of the shirt, which he’d rolled up.
He looked from Ash to the locked door. “Is there a problem?”
I lifted the key from my breastbone. “Ash says he’s seen this symbol in that room.”
Noah walked toward me, his attention on the key, but he faltered and stopped a foot or so away. He was giving me physical space after what he’d done to me. Considerate but not necessary.
“It’s fine. We’re fine.” I held up the key. “But if you’ve seen this symbol, if you know what it is, then I need you to help me.”
He bridged the gap between us and tentatively reached out to finger the key. “Yes. I’ve seen this.”
He reached into his pocket and retrieved a silver key. Ash moved out of the way, and Noah unlocked the door. The room beyond was a smaller version of the one we were standing in. Several monitors, dark and unseeing, lined the walls. There was a bookcase carrying heavy tomes with strange scientific titles and a desktop computer. No sign of the symbol. Noah walked over to the wall of monitors and reached for something hanging on the wall. An item of clothing? He held it up. It was a navy shirt with the strange symbol printed on it—the same symbol of entwined hexagons that decorated my key.
Noah turned to me. “It’s the Genesis symbol,” he said. “This is the shirt I was wearing the day I escaped.” He hung the shirt back up. “That key is from Genesis.” His eyes were bright with excitement. “Where did you get it?”
I wrapped my fingers around it, suddenly uncomfortable. “My dad gave it to me. He told me to get it to Benedict at Haven.”
Noah frowned. “Benedict used to work for Genesis. He told me a few months ago. We’d grown close, and I guess he felt comfortable confiding in me. But I have no idea what he’d have done with a key that probably only works inside a Genesis lab.” He studied me for a moment. “May I have a look at it?”
I hadn’t parted with the key since Dad had handed it to me, but if I was going to get answers, I’d need to trust these guys to help me. Ash took a step closer to me, so his arm brushed my shoulder. It was a reassuring sensation having him beside me. I tugged the leather loop over my head and handed it to Noah.
He turned the key over in his hand, studying it from all angles, and then his mouth made an “o.” “Clever,” he said. He pushed down on the key and something clicked. He held up a USB stick in one hand, and the key in the other.
God, how had I not seen that?
“I gu
My heart was thudding so hard I was sure everyone in the tiny room would be able to hear it. “Yes.”
Noah strode into the main lab and fired up his computer. It only took a few seconds and the USB was in. The monitor above the keyboard went dark and then it lit up with a familiar sight—wire-rimmed spectacles on a lean, inquisitive face and deep brown eyes filled with warmth.
My dad.
He stared out of the screen, looking shell-shocked for a moment, and then he cleared his throat and glanced behind him at a closed gray door before turning back to the camera. There was a poster behind him, one I recognized from the compound. When had he filmed this? How long before the facility was overrun?
“Hello, Eva,” he said.
My heart climbed into my throat and then plummeted a moment later, because, of course, he wasn’t speaking to me directly. My eyes pricked, and I blinked back the threat of tears.
“If you’re watching this then it means I didn’t make it.” He sighed. “I’m sorry, baby girl, but I hope I had time to prepare you, to train you. I hope you became the amazing woman I knew you’d always be.” His throat bobbed. “Because, sweetheart, if you’re watching this you’re going to need that strength now. The key you’re holding in your hand is everything. If you have it, then you should know to guard it with your life because it holds the secret to stopping all of this.” He leaned forward in his seat. “That key unlocks the cure.”
His words echoed in my head, incomprehensible for a beat before my brain lit up with their meaning. Cure … was he—
“Yes. The cure to the virus. The one that turned our world upside down. We have it, sweetheart, and that key unlocks it. Now, I hoped to take this journey with you. But if you have the key, if you’re watching this, then you’re on your own. I hope I’ve managed to point you in the right direction; maybe we’ve found someone who can go on this journey with you. But if not, if you are on your own, you can still do this, sweetheart.”
He held up the key, the same key that was now in my hand. “You need to get this key to these coordinates.” He rattled off the numbers. “Okay, I know what you’re thinking, you’re wondering why we don’t just go right now, why I didn’t go sooner. The simple answer is that it isn’t time. The cure isn’t ready in my time, but if you have the key, and if I’m gone, then it doesn’t matter. You need to get to the coordinates, to the Genesis lab, and you need to activate the key. Once you do, then you’ll have the answers you need. You’ll have the cure.”
He blew out a breath. “It won’t be an easy journey, but there are several government bunkers hidden all over the country. Specifically, for essential personnel.” The screen flipped to a map with five locations marked in red.
“That’s us.” Noah pointed at one of the dots in the lower right-hand side of the map.
“We weren’t able to find a way into them, but maybe something will have changed in the future. Maybe you’ll be able to find a way in. If you do, then they’ll provide shelter on your journey.” Dad bowed his head for a long beat, then raised it again. “I really hope you never have to see this. But if you do, I want you to know that I love you. I want you to know that you were the key to my heart.”
The door behind him opened, and a young girl came bounding in. I caught a flash of sandy blonde hair and a Pokémon T-shirt. It was a ten-year-old me.
Dad spun away from the screen. “Hello, sweetie.”
The screen went blank.
There was silence, lengthy and pregnant, punctuated only by the rush of blood in my ears. He’d made this video eight years ago. Four years before the compound fell. Had he known we’d be thrown into the wild? He’d planned for it. He’d sent me to Benedict, to Haven, because he’d hoped they’d have computers to watch the USB on, he’d hoped they’d help me get to the coordinates. He’d even stolen a map of the government facilities that they’d been unable to penetrate.
I needed to figure out where those coordinates were. “I need a map.”
Noah’s fingers flew over the keyboard and then a map popped up. He inputted the coordinates and it zeroed in on the location. The final months before his death, we’d been moving toward these very coordinates, toward the mountain terrain. If he’d lived, we would have reached them in a month. We’d been close. So fucking close.
“A cure,” Noah said softly.
Gina’s face was shell-shocked. Her hand went to her throat. It was obvious what she was thinking. She was thinking she didn’t need to die. She was thinking that we could save her. That we could save the world. The coordinates were for a Genesis lab. A lab that may have information on the main Genesis Foundation—the supposedly impregnable place that the Vladul had taken Tobias. There could be codes to the main foundation there or maybe blueprints. My dad had just given me the key to finding a cure and to saving my friend.
“I’m leaving in the morning.” I met Noah’s gaze head-on. “You want my blood, then you’re going to have to come with me.”
But Noah wasn’t even looking at me; his attention was on the screen, his fingers tapping away as he navigated through files and data. And then a list of numbers came up. Five seven-digit numbers.
“Codes,” Noah said. “I knew they were codes, just not what they were for. But we know now. The security lock on this bunker was disabled when we stumbled across it—some kind of water damage—but these must be the codes to the bunkers your dad was talking about.” He rewound the video on the USB and hit pause on the map of the bunker locations, and then overlaid our map with the coordinates over the top. “We need to get here.” He jabbed at the coordinates. “There are three bunkers on the way, approximately three hundred miles between us and the first one. Three hundred miles to bunker two and another fifty miles to the final bunker, and then you’ll be thirty miles from your destination. The van should get you to the first bunker, but the terrain to the north is wilderness. You’d need to continue on foot to the second bunker.” He blew out a breath and rubbed his chin. “There are safe zones, friends we’ve made …”
He was considering it, of course he was. It was a cure, for God’s sake.
“You’ll come with me?”
He blinked at me as if resurfacing from a dream; his leonine eyes brightened and then his face fell. “No. I can’t. I need to be here.”
Of course. He had the hospital lab here, the ability to extract and store blood clinically.
He studied me for a long beat. “Not just for the blood, Eva. I can’t leave Gina,” he said softly.
Gina’s eyes widened, and she shook her head. “No. You have to go. If we can find a cure, then you need to go.”
Noah smiled at her. “It’s safer if I stay here. If Eva is willing to wait a couple of days, I can extract enough blood to last me while she’s gone. We have long-range radios they can take, and you and I can play command central.” He smiled with his eyes, and Gina visibly relaxed.
She wasn’t afraid of him, not one bit, even though she knew what he was and what he could become.
“I can wait a couple of days.”
“Good.” Noah turned back to the screen. “I’ll begin mapping the quickest, safest route to the mountains. Ash, you need to go tell the others what’s happening. Eva … you should go get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
The door behind us whooshed open and Logan and Jace sauntered in. Freshly showered and smelling fruity and fresh.
Logan’s gaze went to the monitor behind Noah. “Are we planning a trip?”
Jace’s gaze was on me, probing and apologetic. The back of my neck heated uncomfortably. Out of them all, I’d felt the most at ease with him from the beginning, and then, when it had come down to it, he’d almost let me die.
I cleared my throat. “Noah, would you be okay filling everyone in? I need to lie down.”
Noah nodded. “Of course.”
I headed out of the room, but I didn’t get far before a hand snagged my elbow. “Eva, please.”
Damn him. “Jace, I just need some time, okay.”
“Look at me.”
I met his eyes, his dark blue, sorrowful eyes. “I believe you’re sorry. I do. I just. It bugs me that I can no longer trust you.”
“You can trust me. I swear I was about to pull Logan off when Ash intervened. It was just so claustrophobic in the back of that van. Logan’s blood and your blood, shit … it was so strong. It threw me off guard.”
“And almost got me drained.” I gently tugged my arm free of his grasp. “There are no second chances when it comes to this shit, Jace. You fuck up and I die. It’s as simple as that. You don’t get a do-over or a free pass. You want to feed from me, then you’ll do it supervised by Ash. Same goes for Logan.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. I can live with that.”
“And if either one of you loses control while feeding again, then the deal is off. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I exhaled. “Good. Now I suggest you get back in there and let Noah fill you in on our next adventure. I have some zzz’s to catch.”
I walked away without looking back, my chest tight. I didn’t need to see the shame or the genuine sorrow on his face any longer. There was no getting soft when it came to survival.
* * *
I stood in the cabin assigned to me, the one with the busted door, and looked around. There was nothing to pack. I’d come here with nothing but the torn and bloody clothes on my back, and I’d gained only one item, a tulwar, which was back in Ash’s room. The bed looked tiny compared to Ash’s; in fact, the thought of sleeping in here opened an empty chasm inside me. I’d spent weeks sleeping beside someone, curled next to a body, Tobias’s body, and while here, my substitute had been Ash. Ironic, really, considering that all this time Dad had drummed the need to be self-sufficient and self-reliant into me. He’d wanted me to be tireless, strong, to put my life above all others, because I’d had the key to saving the world hanging around my neck. I’d almost blown it going in after Tobias.
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