Amplified (6 page)

Soot and Ashes

“You look like your mother.” Rick’s beady eyes focused on me as I inched closer. I wondered what was running through that huge brain of his. If he knew what was good for him, he’d answer everything I asked, thoroughly and without any fancy riddles or avoidance. I hoped he knew this.

“I need to know what you did to her.”

“She was an excellent patient. Very tolerant for the most part. Patient, too.”

“Her name was Helen.”

At those words he tilted his head, his eyes shifting to a faraway look. “I’m very sorry to hear she’s gone. My condolences. Helen was an amazing woman.”

“She was. Until you did something to her. I need to know what you did.” I leaned forward. “And I suggest you don
’t leave any minor details out.”

This didn
’t make him shiver or cower away from me as I would’ve expected, but instead, he lifted his chin to look at me straight on. He was cradling his injured arm but didn’t flinch as I rolled my chair closer.

“When
Christian brought her to me, I was very impressed by how strong-willed and tough she was. I wanted to break her down, make her mine in every way. By that, I mean I wanted to know exactly what made her immune to the virus. There are more strains of this disease than what you’ve seen. It’s such an amazing entity in how it has developed, morphed and mutated as time has gone on. Zompires, hybrid vampires… they were just the beginning of the phenomenon which happened when it was released into the world.”

“Get to the point.” I could tell how
much the subject fascinated him. My remark made his enthusiasm waver just that little bit. Still, he continued, ignoring my interruption.

“However, the human strains were what interested me the most.
How is it that of all the living humans that I’ve encountered above ground, only you and your family remained immune to the virus? The people in Vida did well to quarantine themselves against any outside contamination during the time the virus was alive and actively changing people via airborne infection. Now the virus is no longer airborne but bloodborne. There’s a good chance those humans who survived will never be exposed to it.

“
So you see, your family is quite rare. Even the hybrid humans of the city of Vida acquired their particular mutations from exposure prior to going underground. I believe that you were immune even before the breakout occurred. Some strange genetic mutation that triggered your superhuman powers also kept you from turning into a vampire. I wanted to force a vampire mutation onto your mother, see if it could somehow still manifest and hopefully create a super hybrid vampire.”

“So she was right, she was turning in
to one of them.” I felt my heart breaking as he spoke.

“Yes. She fought it
, though. She refused to drink blood, no matter how hard we pushed or starved her.” He shoved his glasses up his nose, looking somewhat ashamed for a flicker of a moment. Damn right he should be.

“Well, I tested her blood over and over
, and it looked like she was morphing as expected. I couldn’t wait to see what abilities she would have. At that time, she’d stopped eating and become withdrawn. She stopped speaking, too. I think she knew what she’d become, before even we did.”

“Of course she knew! She even thoug
ht she might be turning into a feral, a fucking Zompire! It made her lose her mind!” I seethed, ready to shake Rick into oblivion, but forced myself to calm down. I had to hear it all, no matter how much it was going to sting. I had to.

“Yes, well. I transferred her to the Stratosphere tower lab to start testing her tolerance to th
ings that most vampires shunned. She passed all the tests with flying colors, but she was starting to wither away, either from her own doing or due to the changes. I couldn’t be sure. I had returned here with a sample of her blood to figure out what was going on with her. If it was the virus causing her deterioration, then I had to discover how to counter it as quickly as possible. If it was her own doing, well, I thought maybe some antipsychotic meds might do the trick, because she was still utterly human.”

“Did you give them to her?”

He gulped, looking outwardly distressed as his memories flooded across his vision. “No. Your hive retrieved her before I could return to try the meds. I also came up with the antidote when the tower was attacked. I had Christian’s antidote for the withering sickness finished at the same time and came to give it to him when I found him barely alive. I had the medicines and antidote for vampirism for your mother, but….”

“We
’d already taken her back.”

He nodded,
no longer looking at me. “Yes. You’d taken her from me before I could fix what I’d done.”

“W
ould you have?”

He flicked his eyes back up to me, confusion
swimming in them. “Would I have what?”

“Fixed her.
”

He licked his dry lips and let his head fall as he stared hard at the tiles at our feet. “I would
’ve done anything to save her.”

“Why? You didn
’t even know her. You did this to her. Why would you care if she died or not?”

He shook his head, closing his eyes and rubbing his face as he sighed. Why did he seem to care? Maybe he was so
caught up with making super vampires he’d forgotten about the human aspect of it all.

“I
knew her. I knew her before all of this.” He waved his hand around the lab, letting out a slow, tired breath. His eyes met mine again, and the ocean of confusion had been replaced by a sea of loss and pain. “I knew her very well. I would never allow anyone to hurt her. She had agreed to help me until the vampirism took hold of her brain functions. Then I couldn’t get her to respond to me properly. I never wanted to hurt her. I… I….”

“Knew her? What are you ta
lking about?” Now I was totally thrown a curve ball.

“Before the
outbreak, I knew her. She was a teacher at the same school I taught at. She turned me down for a date a few times after your father died, but we remained friends. That was before she left to do some internet business.”

Shocker. Of course. Before her successful internet business, she
’d been an English teacher. “So you knew her when they dragged her in? I bet you were happy to have her under your command.”

“No, I knew about her, about you and your brother
, for a while before they were taken. You guys were so thorough, this hive was unable to find you for a while. It wasn’t until they tracked you to the city that day that they got her and your brother alone, without you. It was the only way to get her without a full on battle. If you weren’t there.”

“You had them take her?” My voice quivered
, and I refrained from putting my shaking hands to his neck.

“Yes, April. I
’m sorry. They had reports of your family, and when I found out it was her, I had to have her. One way or another. If I could show her what I was working on, then maybe she’d look at me as more than a microbiology teacher. I’d be more than just a smart guy to her. She’d have a reason to love me back.”

“You stole my mother because she
rejected you?” The rage was spilling over, and I could tell he felt every ounce of it as he sat up, his eyes widening at my rising fury.

“She was immune, unlike any of us.
We had to have her help us. It was a coincidence that she was the one we needed. I would’ve never allowed them to take her if there were others to help us. Your family was the only one. Get it, April? No one else has survived this epidemic like your family did. No one.”

“What about the twelve fro
m Vida? You could’ve taken them.”

“They didn
’t emerge from the underground until after the Stratosphere event. Otherwise I would’ve focused on one of them, April. I swear. I would’ve never hurt her, I couldn’t have known she’d lose her mind and do what she did.”

“But she did. She killed herself! You did that to her. It
’s all your fault!” I was on my feet, but Rye’s arms were already around me, pinning me to his chest. “Let me go! I’m going to kill this motherfucker!”

“April…
.”

“Let me go!”

“Stop. That’s enough. Nothing will change what happened. Nothing will bring her back.”

“
I know. I know that! I have to do this… let me do this.” I continued to fight to no avail against him. He’d fed before he’d left our hive earlier, and I’d had no vampire blood in ages, nothing. Hell, I hadn’t even eaten dinner, and I was paying for it now. That protein bar was sitting on the counter, only a bite nibbled from it. How dumb could I be? “Please,” I begged, but slumped in his grip. He wasn’t going to budge until my rage had dissipated. I knew that and let it morph into complete and utter despair. My sobs and tears spilled over, and he turned me around to hug me tighter.

“It
’s okay to be mad, it’s okay,” he whispered. I let my anger pour out into his chest, wetting his shirt, but I didn’t care. It’d been so pent up for so long, I had no idea how strong it had grown. I did want to kill Rick. It’d been the only thing I had thought about since I’d watched the sputtering embers burn out at our bunker. Just like that, my world had collapsed. My mother Helen had been my anchor to sanity in this hell the world had turned into. With her gone, how was I supposed to care for my brother Jeremy and keep my wits intact? How was I supposed to do it? The world had turned into something I wasn’t prepared for. No one could have prepared for this. How was I supposed to do this without her?

And it was all his fault. All Rick
’s fault.

~~~~~

The humming of the machines whirring in the background kept me in a daze as I stared off into space and let the others shuffle about as they worked to take supplies from the lab, the cafeteria below and finish off the few hybrid vampires which had escaped from being quarantined when the walls had come down. Mercer had not figured out how to lift them yet, and by the way we could see him yelling at his troops on the cameras we’d managed to reroute so we could watch their movements, he was no closer to escaping than we were.

My fury had been expended
, and I felt lighter, but as empty as a gas tank. It wasn’t a good empty either. I felt hollow more than anything, as if a piece of my own machinery humming under my skin and keeping me alive and going had been ripped out and taken apart, piece by mechanical piece. I’d let the madness, the hate and the anger take over and had let it fuel each and every thought and movement I had made in the last few months. Now, without it, I was left vulnerable and weaker than I had ever been before. I had to fill it with something, some purpose or goal, and I didn’t have any idea what that could be. How quickly vengeance ate away at one’s soul without remorse, leaving nothing but a carcass of what we were before we let it overtake us.

Well,
I had crashed and burned without even a thought on how to recover.

Hands slipped over my shoulder
s, warm and cold at the same time. I knew it was Rye. His scent wafted into my nostrils. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he wasn’t going to let me wallow in misery for long. He knew I would hate myself for it later. At least someone cared to know me nowadays. It did perk me up enough to make me snap out of it and look up to meet his eyes. A small smile attempted to form on my lips.

“Hungry?”

I shook my head.

“Here.” He handed me a canteen filled with fresh, cool water. I
accepted it and sipped on it slowly, still afraid to eat or drink. I just didn’t have any desire to do so.

“Where
’s Rick?” I asked.

Rye studied me for a moment, and I knew he was searching for any deadly intentions in my qu
estion. “He’s resting in one of the bunk rooms nearby. The morphine really knocked him out.”

“At least one person
is enjoying their beauty sleep,” I muttered. I rubbed at my temples. The headache hovering behind my eyelids and forehead was throbbing, and I knew I had to lie down soon or drop from sheer exhaustion. The night had been extra-long, but dawn was just a few hours away.

“Come on.” Rye slipped his fingers around my wrist and tugged.

“What?”

“We need to rest. Nothing is going on with the quarantine doors
, so we have some time to regroup. You need to sleep.”

I pulled away, shaking my head. “No way in bloody hell am I sleeping here. Their hospitality isn
’t really conducive to that.”

Rye chuckled but grabbed my wrist again. “You
’re coming to lie down with me, or I’m throwing you over my shoulder after I hog tie you.”

“You
’d like that,” I groaned and got to my feet. He was right, though.

“You bet I would.”
His devious grin had me shaking my head and chuckling. I wondered how he did that, how he could lighten my mood when I was so intent on soaking in my mellow blues.