Page 21 of Venomous Heart
“He is sick.” It wasn’t a question, and Ava didn’t answer it. “What is it?”
She stared at him, this stranger who had come into her life just a few days ago. So much had happened, yet so little. Could she trust him with this? Then again, there was no point in trying to hide Uril’s sickness anymore.
“It’s his heart. He’s got holes the size of grapes in all the muscles of his heart, and they’re getting bigger.” Now that the words came, it felt good. Good to voice her fears, to share them with someone else—an equal, and not a wide-eyed girl or a dying boy. “The gene editing that mixed the Cattelan and human genetics to create him screwed up his heart.”
“Can’t a simple myocardic nanite treatment fix it?”
Ava looked sharply at Arlen. She’d never suspected he had medical knowledge beyond how to kill his enemy in the most efficient way, but then again, the Eok was nothing like what she expected him to be.
“It’s the very fabric of his cardiac muscle that is the problem.” As she spoke, the horror of Uril’s birth defect felt like a renewed slap to the face. “As soon as we fix one hole with the myocardic nanites, another one appears. He barely has intact tissue for myocardic nanites to fix.”
Arlen frowned, then nodded with a somber expression. “What does he need to get better?”
The softness in his tone surprised her, and Ava decided to tell him. Tell him all of it.
“He needs another heart, there’s no way around it. An Exo-Heart tailored to his specific genes.” At Arlen’s sober expression, she added, “But that is not the problem. Knut knew Uril’s heart wouldn’t be viable for long, so he made Uril’s buyer order an Exo-Heart months ago. He kept it all hush-hush, paid off people at the bioengineering company to keep it a secret, but I never got around to doing the surgery. It’s still out there, in the Vault. All I have to do is retrieve it.”
“What is this Vault” Arlen eyed her with shock, but also suspicion. It reminded Ava of his accusation the last time they’d spoken. A stab of pain accompanied the memory, but she didn’t have time to think about it.
Whether Arlen thought she had been Knut’s lover or not, it changed nothing.
“It’s where Knut keeps all his most valuable possessions,” she explained. “I’m sure there are enough jewels and gold to keep a small army afloat for years in there. But there’s also the Exo-Heart. It’s worth so much, Knut had to keep it safe. He told me so.”
Arlen’s pale eyes became sharp and dangerous. “Where is it?”
“I can’t be sure, but I think it’s in the Southern Hemisphere.” Hope reared its head inside her heart as she spoke to Arlen. “I’ve been looking for the Vault ever since we were freed, but I can’t find any clues as to its location. Knut hid it too well. All I know is the Southern Hemisphere is the best place on Aveyn to hide it.”
“Southern Hemisphere?” A cloud passed over his face and Arlen’s lips flattened into a straight line. “What Quadrant?”
“Maybe the Fourth, that’s my best guess. Somewhere past Facility Twenty-One.” Ava smiled, buoyed by the prospect of finally freeing Uril of the curse that had plagued him since his birth. “The magnetic storms are powerful down there. Anything south of Facility Twenty-One risks being destroyed by them. It’s a perfect place to hide a signal.”
Arlen looked up and away from her. His eyes lost their focus as he thought about something, then he looked back down at her. His full focus was on her, but she wasn’t scared.
“The Exo-Heart Knut ordered for Uril is worth millions of Ring Credits and it takes almost a year to grow…” She didn’t finish what she was about to say: that there was no time or money left to save Uril. The Exo-Heart that was waiting in Knut’s vault was his only chance.
“How long does he have?” The question was blunt, and it hurt to hear it, but it was necessary. She had been deliberately ignoring the answer for too long.
“A few months at best.” Ava shook her head, forcing the emotions that welled up in her throat back down where they belonged. “But after what happened today, maybe less. I still have to see what damage all that excitement did to the membrane of his heart.” She spoke faster now, the familiarity of the scientific facts giving her confidence. “Cattelans have twin hearts, with the complex circulatory system that goes with that. It’s one of the many reasons the genetic engineers had problems when they made Uril. The embryos weren’t viable with twin hearts and a human’s circulatory system. It just didn’t work. This is one of the many reasons why humans and Cattelans can’t naturally breed together. There are too many differences…”
Her voice trailed off as she was engulfed by thoughts of a past filled with pain and fear.
“Knut isn’t one to shy away from a challenge.” Arlen spoke softly, encouraging her to continue. “He wouldn’t let a little thing like genetic compatibility get in his way.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Ava smiled sadly. “I was sixteen when Uril was born. It was no surprise when his heart turned out to be so full of holes, he needed myocardic nanites on his first day. No surprise and no heartbreak, either. Knut made sure all Uril’s needs were fulfilled from his first breath, but he nevercaredabout him. Uril was just another specimen to him and it didn’t matter that he was raised under Knut’s own roof.”
Silence descended between Ava and Arlen, wiping away the intimacy of the seconds before. There was no place in her life for comfort, or for closeness to anyone else other than Uril.
“Knut was a monster, but that doesn’t explain what happened this morning.” Arlen shook his head. “Why did those men attack you and Uril?”
“They’ve always hated us. They hated us for being different, for living in the mansion with Knut while the rest of them were kept in the residential buildings like lab animals. They hated everything about us.” Sadness wrapped itself around Ava. She could take the insults and the barely veiled disgust, but things had never escalated to violence before. “It was an ambush. They must have known I take Uril to the clearing whenever I can. He does love to see the flowers.” She stopped as her voice faltered and took long, deep breaths.
“He’s not safe in the medical facility anymore,” she added when she was sure her voice wouldn’t betray just how distressed she was by what had happened. She took a step toward Arlen, looking up at him with what she hoped he would read as sincere gratitude.
As she got nearer, Arlen’s face changed; the corners of his mouth lifted just a tad, enough to reveal the sharp tips of his fangs. His eyes took on a feral look and for the second time that day, she was afraid of him.
Then it was gone and the Commander was back, all ice and authority.
“Neither are you.” Arlen shook his head slowly. “I should have known your status as a hybrid would foster hostility within parts of the human population. I cannot allow you to go back there now. Another doctor will arrive in a few days to replace you.”
