Page 63 of How to Bite Your Neighbor and Win a Wager
Ahmed, Jarrell.
Wes scrolled down, and down, through D’s and F’s and then to G.
Garcia-Serrano, Jessica.
He sucked in a breath, held it, and popped up the file. It was dated the day before her alleged bus ticket had been purchased. At the very top besidestatusit readdeceasedin big letters, with a death date of three months after they’d taken her. A full four weeks after he’d held her funeral.
She’d been alive. She’d been alive in these labs when he’d buried her coffin.
Wes’s chest seized. It was all he could do not to scream, not to sob himself into another oblivion. He leaned forward instead, pressing his head to the computer box and breathed. And thought of Vincent. Vincent was back in that cell still, waiting for him. There would be time to mourn later. Right now he needed to finish this and save his vampire.
But as Wesley steadied the tablet screen, his gaze slipped down the document. Beneath the status of her death was her age, and beneath that they had another descriptive classification. Another piece of his mother written out like it could define her, scientifically determine who she’d been, and let her be discarded for it. It readpresumed date of turningwith a day that had to have been seven or eight weeks before they took her and the qualifying note ofinformation received from patient under duress.
Date of turning—what did that have to do with his mom?
She wasn’t. She hadn’t been.
Her complaint of feeling sick had started around that time and when they’d talked she’d mentioned how she’d liked the transition to night shifts a lot more now than when she’d worked them in the past and… oh. The pieces had already been there, everything already in place, the light on even if he didn’t want to acknowledge it.
Why would Vitalis-Barron have wanted his mom this badly, if she hadn’t been a vampire?
Wesley felt as though his soul was boiling, and in one fell swoop it turned to ice as he realized what this meant, now, presently, to him and to Vincent and to this company who’d done such harm to the vampiric community without anyone even knowing or caring: this would not be enough to topple them. Maybe if he had a really good lawyer he could force a settlement or if he went to the press he could embarrass them out of a percentage of their profits. Even if the majority of the people living in San Salud were uncomfortable with having vampires as neighbors or employees, most of them would still find outright imprisonment and experimentation offensive if it was shoved in their faces blatantly enough. But there was nothingtechnicallyillegal about the inhumane treatment of people the law didn’t even consider human in the first place.
Wes could barely stop from launching the tablet across the room. Instead, he made himself leave the document, and drag the contents of its entire folder onto his external hard drive. He watched the little completion bar go up and the transfer ping as successful before shoving the drive back into his pocket. Then he did throw the tablet, letting it smack and clank into the server boxes.
It did nothing for his mood.
He wiped his face as he left the server room, smearing blood and tears across his cheeks. With Myers’s ID in one hand and Babcock’s gun in the other, he stormed the empty, sterile hallways heading for the vampire prison room. Someone else already held open the door, her back to him and her shoulders shaking.
“He’s dead!” Babcock’s assistant screamed. “I found his body under a fucking bush.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Deleon,” Myers replied, her voice wary. “This must be difficult for you, but we have protocols in place that need to be followed. Have you informed Dr. Blood?”
“Yeah, and she won’t even let me call the police on it, because some newb we’ve been helping already brought in the vamp who murdered him.” Natalie pulled something long and silver from her jacket. It took Wesley’s brain a moment to process it: Babcock’s metal stick. In its presence, every vampire immediately cringed away. “That vamp, he’s the one. He’s the fucking—”
“Ms. Deleon,” Myers interrupted her. “He will suffer under the research just like all the others. Matthew Babcock’s death is a tragedy but—”
Natalie stormed into the room. “He killed one of ours, he can suffernow.”
“That isn’t what we’re here for, Ms. Deleon.”
Wesley crept after the enraged hunter, catching the door before it could seal. Myers stood between Natalie and Vincent’s cell. The vampire leaned against the back wall, his arms wrapped around himself and his eyes closed, his breathing so shallow that for a moment Wes was scared something had already happened to him. Off to one side, the lab tech quietly inserted a miniature blood bag into the first cell through a wall compartment. The vampire within grimaced and slowly edged toward it.
Myers watched the hunter approach. For a moment, it looked like she would reach for her belt—for a weapon or a radio, Wes didn’t know—but then her lips curled. “I have to find our new recruiter,” she said, stepping aside, but she kept watching Natalie as she passed. Her voice turned to a hiss. “When I come back, I want you gone.”
“Don’t hurry,” Natalie snapped. She hit the button for the sliding glass door of Vincent’s cell. He flinched, but as the barrier rolled up between them, he only huddled further into the corner.
Why didn’t he…?
Waiting. He was waiting.
For Wesley.
Well, Wesley was here, and he was going to set the world on fire before he let anyone hurt his vampire again. “I have dibs on that one, actually,” he shouted, throwing the door wide. “As it stands, I still owe him a daring escape.”
All three of the room’s human occupants turned, confusion on Myer’s face and a vengeful understanding on Natalie’s. With a grin, Wes slammed off every one of the lights, casting the blindingly bright room into darkness.
24
