Page 48 of All Saints Day
“And even if they did manage to gain access to the Penny’s research as we have, the Dottore and I are still working on developing a preventative.” Sébastien’s impatience and frustration with himself and his inability to crack the code of a Zeitnot vaccine, bleeds through into his tone, his painfully rigid posture.
“As far as I can tell, they had no clue about the cure developed by my parents beyond the theory that I was somehow the keystone to the cure,” Louise speaks low and even, her spoon tracing elaborate swirls through dollops of creamy yogurt and juicy purple blueberries. “They took lots of samples to work with, but from what I gathered—they weren’t having much luck.”
“Compton had to know about his guys shooting Q with the dirty darts though,non?” Seb queries as gently as possible.
“Not that I could tell.” She shakes her head. “They didn’t seem surprised that Q hadn’t been infected—and they certainly hadn’t been worried about Frank or the rest of you running all over creation while being a-symptomatic carriers—” Louiseshudders before adding, “—and I don’t think it was because they weren’t worried about a super-spreader situation—I think they genuinely had no idea.”
“It just doesn’t make sense why Frank didn’t give them any information.” The words are out of my mouth before I can take them back, everyone’s eyes snapping to me.
Quentin shoots me an acid look, and I can actually see Seb bite his tongue to keep from escalating the situation by reaming me out for this outburst.
The four of us; Q, Seb, Dennis, and I had all agreed to allow Louise to direct the conversation when it came to her time in captivity—but I couldn’t help myself. I just can’t seem to wrap my head around how we’ve gotten here missing such a large part of the picture.
I’m about to fall on my sword in front of Louise—to apologize for asking, to redirect elsewhere, but her spoon makes a loud clattering noise and suddenly she’s kneeling—halfway to standing on the bed with a wild look in her eyes.
“That’s where we have to start,” she hisses, an accusatory finger pointing to nowhere hanging tremulously in the air as she continues on. “I have an idea of how to make him talk too, but none of you are going to like it.” She wavers slightly, her eyes flickering to Q. “Well, maybe one of you will, on a technicality.” She lets slip a grim laugh as she deflates back to sitting in the blankets.
“Already I do not like this,” Seb grumbles, taking the spoon from the bowl and bringing it to Louise’s mouth.
She takes the bite somewhat reluctantly, swallowing down the yogurt and fruit before continuing.
“While we have a place to be for a few days, you put Q and I in to work him over—bad cop and worse cop.” She thumbs at herself before pointing to Quentin. “We get as much out of him as we can—and if we can’t squeeze what we want out of him the old-fashioned way, we dose him with suppressant melters and use that to break him,” she says coldly.
Seb, who had started shaking his head before Louise could finish—now shook his finger through the air.
“Ah-ah-ah! And what happens if that psycho touches off into rut and triggers a heat in you and Quentin?” he fires back.
“The rest of you have already bonded Dennis—I’m strong enough now, I can secure the mating bond between us too, and between Dennis, you, and Caz—Quentin and I can make it through.”
I roll my lips over my teeth to keep myself from immediately contradicting her. While I would love nothing more than to help Louise and Quentin through their heats alongside Dennis and Seb—with Louise and Quentin with such demanding needs and only one alpha and Louise in her weakened state—I’m not sure just how easy it would be to make it through, out here in the remote wilderness.
Plus, there are other, more delicate matters…
Quentin looks leery, but he says nothing as he reaches for one of Louise’s pale hands to give it a squeeze.
“Loulou, there is still a very serious problem to consider here,” Sébastien says gently, patiently—bless him for having the spine since the rest of us don’t.
Her look of determination falters, and her eyes skitter to and fro before they snap back up to meet Sébastien’s.
I can tell by the look in her eyes—that hedge of the avenues of possibility are still open—of her own suspension of disbelief; that she knows what Sébastien will say next.
“If Frank goes into rut and triggers you and Tin-tin into a heat, with all those alpha body chemicals, and is deprived—he will be in just as much danger of touch starvation and rut sickness as you or Quentin would be for heat sickness going through a heat unattended.”
Louise grinds her teeth, fists balled on her knees as she sits cross-legged and incredibly still.
“Are you ready to absolve or condemn him so quickly—depending on how he behaves in the interrogation?” Seb presses, sweet but firm.
At this, Louise deflates, tears rolling steadily from her eyes.
“Oh,mon amour,Loulou,” Seb sighs, scooting the tray away from her—reaching out to pull Louise into his lap. “I’m so sorry to have to ask these things of you.” He pulls the ball cap from her head and presses it into her hands as he smooths a hand over her hair, tucking her head beneath his chin as he rocks Louise against himself.
After we get breakfast into her, and Q takes Louise for a brief constitutional, Seb taps into Frank duty so that I can bring Dennis up to speed on the morning’s conversation.
While he agrees that nothing about the situation is optimal—it is a very real possibility that this could be our best chance at extracting any information from Frank and all the reflections of his fractured psyche.
Even if it means that we’d be putting Frank’s life in the balance to get the information.
“Quentin and Louise try without the suppressant melters first, hell I’ll take a swing at him too—besides Frank, I’m probably the one who knew Mike the best.” He rolls his shoulders nervously as we stand on the beach, one of the toes of Dennis’ sneakers nudging at stones along the water’s edge to avoid looking directly at one another as we talk.
