Page 51 of Betrayed Kidnapped Mate

Percy is sitting on his cot now, his head hung down. He’s shaking it slowly, left to right, his long golden curls loose and long away from his face. He looks completely different from the last time we saw him—which makes sense. Even if he hadn’t been under the effects of the serum, living in the woods this whole time, he would look different after a few years.

This Percy looks more than different. He looks like he’s been through something traumatic—there’s a long, thin scar across his left cheek. His eyes are bloodshot, heavy bags weighing under them. More than anything, I want to pull him in for a hug, get him a haircut, and clean him up. But he’s already shown what will happen if anyone tries to get near him.

“He won’t answer to anything,” Byron mutters. “He just alternates between screaming and banging on the walls and going into this…comatose state.”

I put my hand on the glass gently. “Hey, Percy. It’s me, Bigby.”

Percy doesn’t react. Byron and I stand there quietly for a moment, and I know we’re both thinking about the man Percy was once—bright, energetic, always there to help or crack a joke. It’s painful to see him like this now, and to know there’s no end in sight.

“Bigby,” Rosa says softly, “will you come here.”

When I return to the lab, she places something into my hand. A tiny vial of clear liquid.

“What is this?”

“Another antidote. I think it’s an improvement upon the last one.”

I stare at the liquid, then look back into the holding room. When I meet Rosa’s eyes, she’s unsure. I know she’s already tried one antidote on a shifter, and it did nothing but cause them pain.

“You have to keep trying. It’s the only way for us to know if it works.”

Rosa nods, then calls Maisie into the room. She takes the new antidote and pulls a dose into the syringe, and I notice her hands are shaking. A shifter named Colin comes to the front of the cell.

“Hey, again, Colin,” Maisie murmurs. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Someday it’ll work,” he says, “and I’ll be grateful I went through the testing.”

After Maisie disinfects the area and injects the liquid, we all watch quietly, waiting for a reaction. Colin moves to his cot slowly, sitting, then laying back.

“How are you feeling?” Maisie asks.

“Okay,” Colin says, just before his body begins to shake.

“No,” Rosa breathes, stepping toward the class as Colin’s body convulses, sliding off the cot and onto the floor. Maisie starts to unlock the door to the cell, to go in and help, but Byron puts a hand on her arm.

“He could hurt you,” he reminds her, “we’re under strict orders from Aris that nobody goes in these cells with an affected shifter. Not until they can be controlled or cured.”

“I’m aware of that,” Maisie snaps, ripping her arm away. “But he is in pain. And he’s my patient.”

Just as she says that, Colin goes still, his convulsions slowing and stopping. The only sound in our room is our breathing as we watch, waiting to see what happens.

After a minute, Rosa lets out a sob and turns, rushing from the room.

Chapter 28 - Rosa

“Are you staying all night?” Byron asks, his voice rough with lack of sleep. “Because I’m going to need more energy drinks if we’re not leaving in the next hour.”

I don’t bother looking up from my station.

“I’m not leaving until I perfect the antidote,” I say. “How many times are you going to make me repeat myself?”

Byron mutters something under his breath that I can’t make out. Any other time, I might press him to see what he said, throw something clever back at him. But right now, I need every available synapse firing to help me figure out what it is about my antidote that’s not working.

My formula is designed to find and coat the silver molecules, disabling whatever effect they have on the shifter in question. Logically, I know that silver shouldn’t be causing this kind of reaction, as silver has been disproven as a way to hurt shifters for decades now, but nobody has ever worked with it on this scale.

Silver, in its most basic element, might be able to cause this kind of disruption to the shifting process. There just aren’t enough scientists—and paranormal scientists, specifically—to provide materials on the subject. I’m flying blind.

When my legs start to cramp, and my eyes swim from staring at my computer screen, I stand up, popping my back and pacing back and forth, passing by the vials and machines. Byron is asleep in the corner, his head leaned back, his arms folded over his stomach, his laptop screen dark. The lab is eerily quiet at this time of night, and I wonder what Aris might have chemists down here doing if we ever did create a viable antidote.

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