Page 56 of The Secrets of Roan Island

“You tried to turn those women. And it killed them.”

His jaw ticks. He nods.

“How many? How many people have you tried to turn? How many have died?”

“Please, Ruby, you have to understand.” He reaches for my hands, but I tug them away. His whole face twists as if in pain. “The Mavarri are a dying race. We’re the last, as far as we know. My father. My brothers. Me. And–” He stops and shakes his head. “My father is obsessed with carrying on our lineage. He forces us–”

“Don’t give me that excuse, Noah!” I stand up, needing to move, to put some distance between us. But I can’t walk away. With one hand clutching the blanket around my shoulders and the other fisted at my side, I fling my accusation, “You knewit would kill them, and you still did it anyway. You murdered them!”

“You’re right.”

I thought he would fight, justify his actions. I didn’t expect him to admit guilt. With his elbows on the table, he drops his head and shoves his hands into his hair, curling his fingers in the dark strands and pulling. He looks so broken, I want to go to him, wrap my arms around him. I dig my nails into my palms to fight the impulse.

“I hate that they died. I’ve done everything I can to find a solution, an answer, to figure out how to get the transition to work—that’s why I’ve kept their bodies, so I can use the tissue samples and test their reactions to the venom. But it’s not enough. Every year, they die. I murder them.” Something in his demeanor shifts, and he looks up at me, gaze hard, sealed off. “And I’ll do it again.”

His words suck the air out of my lungs. My knees give out. If I wasn’t standing in front of my chair, I’d fall to the ground. Instead, my backside hits the hard wood as I stare at Noah. And he stares back.

“Why?” I whisper.

Noah’s laugh isn’t pleasant. “My father won’t be denied. We tried to refuse him. He… isn’t kind. And Mavarri patriarchs have an ability…” He shakes his head. “A sort of mind control.” His chest spasms with another bitter laugh. “A gift my father perverts in the cruelest way. And if I fight against his control, he hurts my siblings. It’s better to comply.”

I grimace, disgusted by a father who could do that to his children.

“Don’t judge me, Professor. You have no idea what I’ve had to endure.”

I narrow my eyes and point back toward the laboratory. “What about what those women endured? The price they paid. What about them, Noah?”

His shoulders sag. “I’ve been trying to find a solution. I just haven’t been fast enough.”

“This is what you wanted help researching.”

“I didn’t ask for your help.” His words are filled with venom.

“Shemaiah did.”

He stands and paces the length of the room and back, tension coming off of him like heat. He’s a captive tiger with nowhere to go, trapped in a cage of his father’s making. His own making too.

As my mind reels with all he’s told me, one question rises to the surface. “Did they know? When you took those women, did they have a choice?”

“Those ones”–his hand swings in the direction of the laboratory–“did.”

Those ones. So others didn’t. They didn’t know the risks or consent to them. I force out what I need to ask. “Who were they, Noah?”

In my gut, I already know the answer. These were the women I’ve been researching. Noah’s family is responsible for the prostitutes who caused an uproar when they went missing fifteen years ago, and the ones who have quietly disappeared more recently.

“Abigail, Iris, Murial, and Jackie. Those are the names of the four women you just saw in the morgue. They were from The Essik Sanitorium and Hospice.”

My mouth drops open. “You abducted poor and sick women?” Rage burns my blood. I charge at him, jabbing my finger into his chest. “You think that makes it okay? That you can just kill those women because no one will miss them? Becauseyou’re stronger and bigger and have some inherent superiority you didn’t earn?”

“No.” He takes my hand, stopping my attack. “It’s not okay. It’s never been okay.” He’s so close I can feel his breath. And even though I want to rage at him for what he’s done, I also want to fall into his arms and cry for those women. All those women.

“My father used to have his men prowl the Crimson District and lure unsuspecting prostitutes to our Solstice ceremonies. But a few years ago, I started going behind his back to the hospice. I would find women with incurable illnesses, ones who could pretend to look healthy for a few hours to fool my father. I gave them the only thing I could. A choice. Die as they were. Or risk the chance to be healed knowing that it might result in death instead. Those women chose this path.”

“Healed? What do you mean?”

“Mavarri DNA repairs itself in ways humans can’t. We don’t get sick. We don’t die from natural causes or old age. We must be killed. And that’s not easy to do.” He looks down at our still joined hands, and I jerk away.

I shouldn’t have gotten so close. I take a step back.

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