On the Edge of Humanity (38 page)

“I know, sweetie.” Then he nodded at Dr. Vieira or used his telepathic link because Dr. Vieira tapped Sam on the shoulder.

Sam picked up his head and I jerked away my arm and grabbed my wrist. Before I could wipe the blood that dribbled out, the puncture holes closed before my eyes. I didn’t know if I was more shocked at how fast I healed or the sight of Sam sucking on my wrist.

“You know, you may not like waking up a vampire, but don’t let him do that again. I could have killed—”

Sam jumped on me. “You mean you were going to kill me?” He started tickling me.

“Hey, stop…stop…stop it,” I pleaded between laughs.

“Son, she needs blood. I’d get off her if I were you,” my father warned.

Sam jumped off me and onto his bed. I sat up. Blood smeared his lips and his eyes were now their normal forest green. The black circles beneath his eyes were gone, his pale complexion replaced with a hint of color.

Tears welled up and I tried to catch one as it fell.

My father beat me to it as he kissed me on the forehead. “I know. I’m happy too. Here.” He handed me another container of blood. “Drink this.”

I downed the blood as I kept my eyes focused on Sam, who was staring at me with his eyebrows arched and his head tilted to one side. There were so many questions leaking from his expression and I had a few of my own. Before I could open the floodgates to ask anything, glass shattered somewhere in the lab.

Dr. Vieira and my father flew out of the room. Sam and I followed.

What was going on?

As I stepped out, my father and Dr. Vieira disappeared into Ben’s room.

The floor outside his room was littered with glass. Did Ben break it?

When Sam and I reached the doorway, my father was trying to restrain Ben.

“I need to get the sedative, Steven,” Dr. Vieira said. “I’ll be right back.” He ran past Sam and me.

“You two get back in the room and close the door!” my father commanded.

Sam and I didn’t move.

“
Now!
” my father growled.

“I want to see her,” Ben said. “I’m not going to hurt her.” Ben began pulling and squirming, trying to get free from my father’s vampiric grip. “Please,” he cried.

He was shirtless with sweatpants covering his lower half. His stomach muscles rippled along every ridge, carving out a distinct six-pack. My mouth fell open and a twinge grabbed my stomach when a tingling sensation zipped through me. My gaze traveled up; his eyes met mine as he peered around my dad. There was confusion and sadness in his eyes once again. He tilted his head to one side, exposing the massive incision tattooing his neck. His pulse beat clearly behind it—not a good move to make in front of three vampires.

I inhaled and the same smells he gave off before wafted through the air. I couldn’t tell if I was more enamored with his physical appearance or the scent of his blood.

I covered my mouth as my fangs descended. I tore my gaze from Ben and glanced at Sam. He was glaring at Ben as if he didn’t know who he was. Then, as if in slow motion, Sam pounced. He leapt into the room as if he were a lion after his prey. He pushed away my father who landed against the left wall. Then he tackled Ben. Both skidded across the bed to the other side of the room, landing on the floor up against the back wall. Sam bared his fangs, ready to pierce Ben’s neck. As he dipped his head down, his fangs brushed Ben’s beating pulse.

I screamed.

“Sam, get off him,” my father shouted as he tore away pieces of drywall, trying to get out of the hole his body was stuck in.

Dr. Vieira came running back in with a syringe.

But it was too late. Sam had clamped onto Ben’s neck, sucking like a newborn on his mother’s breast. Ben wailed, throwing back his head, then he stopped.

I ran over to the gruesome scene. Ben eyes were closed and his body was limp. I stood over Sam, beating on him to stop.

“Son, let go. You need to let go.” My father wrapped his hand around Sam’s arm.

Dr. Vieira pulled off the cap from the needle with his mouth and stuck it into Sam’s shoulder. Within seconds, Sam’s knees wobbled and he slumped to the floor. My father carried him back to the other room.

I bent down, but Dr. Vieira stopped me. “No. Go with your father and close the door when you leave,” he ordered.

I didn’t move. Ben’s body looked as if Sam had drained all the blood out of him. Dr. Vieira picked him up and placed him on the bed. He wasn’t dead. His heartbeat thudded in my ears, although at very slow pace.

“I’m not going to bite.”

“You want his blood as badly as Sam does,” Dr. Vieira snapped.

“That doesn’t mean I’m going to hurt him. I just want to make sure he’s okay,” I pleaded.

The doctor gave me a long look, then turned back to Ben. Blood dribbled from his neck as Dr. Vieira placed him on the bed. Then he pulled a bottle off the side table, opened the cap and tipped the opaque bottle over onto the gauze. Whatever solution was in that container was now healing Ben instantly. The puncture holes disappeared right before my eyes. What the heck? Was that a magic potion? Why wasn’t it healing the incision on his neck, though?

“Well?” I asked.

“He’ll be fine. But you need to get out of here,” Dr. Vieira said.

“No. How did those holes heal like that?”

Dr. Vieira’s head spun around, his eyes a penetrating black. “Did you just tell me no?”

“I’m not leaving.” I glared back.

He stalked over to me. “Young lady, I told you that when you’re in my medical facility, you will obey me. I wasn’t kidding.” He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me back to my father in the other room. “Steven, keep your daughter in here. I don’t want her anywhere near Ben.”

My father stood up. “We’re leaving anyway. We’ll be in my apartment. Inform the team that I don’t want to be disturbed for the next few hours unless it’s urgent. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Dr. Vieira replied. “It’s better for me. I can tend to Ben without being interrupted,” he said as he glared daggers at me.

“Both of you come with me,” my father said as he stepped over the threshold.

Sam sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at the floor as if he were in shock. I didn’t know if it was from the needle and its contents, or he was horrified with himself for attacking his best friend. Did he now know it was Ben? Had he known at the time who he was attacking? But then again, Sam was probably busy struggling with the whole vampire thing. I struggled with it when I first realized what I had become, and I’d made the choice. Sam hadn’t. Shit, I was still struggling with it. Whatever was tormenting Sam, I hoped that he could rise above it. Maybe this was a chance for both of us to start over without all the human drama we had in our life...though I had a sneaking suspicion that the vampire drama was just beginning.

Sam and I stood in front of the expansive wall of windows in my father’s apartment. Neither one of us said a word and the tension built. We hadn’t spoken on our trek here from the medical facility. All I kept thinking about was Ben, worrying if he was going to be okay. I couldn’t get the image of Sam attacking him out of mind.

Poor Ben. What were we going to tell Mr. Jackson?
Your son was attacked by a horde of vampires, and Sam and I became vampires overnight. Oh and by the way, Sam tried to suck your son dry.
I hoped Ben would heal fast, so we didn’t have to lie to Mr. Jackson, but I had an inkling we were probably going to have to start telling more white lies now that we were vampires.

“Why did you attack Ben?” I asked, staring at the prison building in front of me.

“I don’t know. I could smell him, his blood, his fear, and I was still thirsty,” he whispered.

“He’s your best friend. You can’t do that again.”

“You can’t tell me you didn’t want to do the same thing. I saw your fangs descend. I know you wanted his blood.”

Busted.

“So? Ben has been through a lot in the past week.”

“He knows about us?” Sam asked.

“He does now. He didn’t want me to change. He hated the idea.”

“How much does he know?”

“He found out about vampires when one was attacking me.”

I blinked and when I opened my eyes, Sam was standing in front of me, invading my personal space.

“Attacked you?” he asked.

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I said.

Sam’s eyes bled to black as his face turned crimson. Then he let out a sigh, walked over to the window and sat down in a chaise lounge. He might be a vampire, but it seemed his anger issues had followed him into the immortal world.

“That building over there,” I pointed to the prison wing, “is where they keep prisoners.”

“What prisoners? Is there a war going on?” he asked innocently.

I couldn’t blame him for asking. After all, we were in a military compound, so for all he knew, we were now living on a different planet, in a different time.

“No war. Just some humans and vampires who were trying to kill us.”

He cocked his head to one side. “Is Neil over there?”

I shrugged. I didn’t know for sure where Neil was, but I knew my father didn’t want to talk about him.

“The last time I saw Neil was in a room downstairs. I’ve asked Dad about him, but he keeps telling me Neil is not up for discussion.”

“Stop. You called that man in the back room Dad.” He flicked his thumb toward the kitchen. “Why? How do you know for sure he’s our father?”

“Have you looked at the man? He looks just like you.”

“That doesn’t mean shit. He could be one of those bad guys.”

“Now there’s the brother I know. Paranoid as ever. It’s good to see you’re still the same person.”

“Jo?”

“Chill. He’s our father.”

“And how do you know that?” Sam asked. His eyebrows were knitted together.

“I wouldn’t have been able to turn into a vampire if Dad wasn’t our father. I needed his blood to change. Too complicated to go into detail right now, but it has to do with genetics. Now deal with it.”

He raked his hands through his hair and let out a sigh. I didn’t think my explanation or lack thereof convinced Sam. I had a feeling the topic would surface again.

“So, back to Neil, I said. “You asked if Neil was over in that building. Why would you ask that? The last you knew he was dead.”

“Sure, but I saw him outside some glass room. I was on a table and I kept waking up, but there was never anyone there to help me. Then the last time I remember waking up, I looked around and Neil was outside the glass wall with a camera in his hand. Then a flash went off and I passed out.”

My mouth fell open.

If Neil was there, then that meant he was a Plutarium, which would make sense because of the tattoo on his neck. It would also mean, though, that Neil was a mole. That was how my father got the picture of Sam and how he knew where Sam was. Bloody hell. Neil
was
actually trying to help us.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.

“Neil is Dad’s mole.”

“Mole? He’s the janitor at our school,” Sam said.

“I don’t think so. As far as I know, Neil is a Plutarium, which are a group of ex-Navy SEALs who used to work for Dad. They went over to the dark side. They’re trying to take down the government or some type of military coup—big stuff. But it seems Neil has been secretly helping Dad, feeding him information about you and where you were.”

“So, why is he in that building?” Sam asked as he gazed out the window into the cloudy afternoon.

“Well, to make a long story short—”

A knock sounded at the door. Sam and I both jerked our heads toward it. Then we looked at each other.

My father wasn’t in the room. He had headed straight into his bedroom when we walked in earlier. He had told Dr. Vieira he didn’t want to be disturbed unless it was necessary. So whoever was standing on the other side of the door better pray it was important. I wasn’t sure what type of mood my father was in now, but when we’d left the medical wing, he had been foul, with him muttering while he walked behind us all the way here.

Another rap of knuckles pounded against the door, only this time it was louder. Suddenly, I remembered my dad’s comment about not waking up a sleeping vampire. I didn’t know if he was sleeping, but I didn’t want to find out what would happen. But before I could take two steps to answer the door, Sam jumped in front of me. I was pleased to see he was still the protective brother.

His eyes were wide, shifting his gaze from me back to the door. It was as if he was ready to attack or knew who was standing on the other side of it. Maybe I spooked him about the prisoners.

“Sam, it’s okay. We’re in a military compound,” I whispered.

What was I saying? I was just as worried, hoping the vampire on the other side of the door wasn’t one of the goons the Sentinels had locked up in the building across from us.

The bedroom door opened and my father walked out. “What’s wrong?” he asked, eyebrows pinched together.

“There’s someone at the door,” I added.

“Well, why don’t you answer it?” he asked as he pulled it open.