Page 107 of Tainted Gifts
"What's going on?"
Simone checks the windows, and then she draws the shades, as though she's worried someone will be reading my lips.
"The hounds," she murmurs while turning back toward us, "we know they were fused with emergents, and I think I know how."
She pulls out a small screen from her purse and connects it with the larger one on the wall of Rex's room. It pops on to show us an assortment of internal icky stuff, which means absolutely nothing to me.
"What're we looking at?" Melania asks.
"This is the blood of an infected. You can see all the damaged cells and the destroyed membranes that should never grow back. All hair follicles are destroyed, and their retinas are discolored to the point it changes the color of the iris to red. If, however, you fuse it with emergent hybrid blood, some repairs start. If you fuse it with both emergent hybrid and full blood hybrid blood, then the process deepens, healing the damage caused by the infection."
Everyone gasps, and Jase's hand tightens on mine. Simone lets it sink in for a second before continuing.
"This is something I think they were hoping to do to humans. The problem lies in the makeup of the human evolution. The human body is far more complex than that of an animal. They lack certain variables that make this process simple, and they have several different variables that make this process even more complicated. That's why they need Aria's blood. It's the missing component that will complete the code and turn infected humans into... well, something immortal. I don't know what to call them.
"They will be more like actual emergents than emergent hybrids, that much I know. The gory part, it took me the full sample of Jase's blood, along with the sample of blood I had from Kellan to complete this process on just a small amount of blood I took from the hounds. In order to do this to a human or an animal, it would take all the blood inside the body of both breeds in order to change just one infected human."
Jase grips his head and sits down in a chair as he tries to process this. His voice is low when he finally attempts to speak.
"That explains why they had that girl strapped down and draining her. Then they fed her blood so they could bleed her again. If they wait two hours, the blood she drinks turns into her own blood. They're bleeding them like cattle. That's what they were going to do to those children too. They were grooming them to survive the process so they could turn them into cattle for their twisted science experiment."
"Imagine how many cycles they had to complete to change that army of mutts," Rex murmurs softly, his voice as frail as his ashen face.
"Fuck!" Jase shouts while standing up and flinging his chair against the wall, turning the small wooden thing to splinters. "From this point on, Aria is not allowed out of sight. She's to be guarded at every point of the day by no one less than a level seven. Got it?"
"Jase," I murmur in exasperation, "they haven't gotten to me yet. Don't freak out. We have to worry about the United as a whole, not just me."
The look he gives me is incredulous, and he pulls me to him in a grip so tight that I'm worried he'll never let me go.
"They're not after the whole United. They're after you. They need you. I'll be damned if I don't do everything in my power to keep that from happening. I can't and won't lose you."
I sigh out, understanding his emotional outburst since I can feel the depth of his desire to keep me safe. I don't bother arguing since it's pointless.
"There's something else," Simone says, her eyes apologizing to me.
"What?" I prompt, my own anxiety matching everyone else's.
She turns to face my brother and Melania, sitting down in a chair as she devotes her attention to them completely.
"Melania has a span. It matches yours exactly. Another thousand years," she says to my brother, making everyone gasp.
"What?" Jase asks. "That's impossible. We had our blood checked for spans when we children. We're immortal. That's why we went full blood instead of hybrid."
Rex seems saddened, but Melania seems to be incredibly fine with the revelation.
"Apparently you're immortal until you find your counter," Simone says while sitting back. "Also, I've learned that not all full blood hybrids are immortal at all. Some of the children seem to already be showing signs of spans, though their lines read as immortal. It's complex and hard to find. You have to know you're looking for something to find it. The only reason I knew to look was because of Melania's change."
"That's fine," Melania interjects, cancelling out whatever Jase was about to say. "I don't want to be here when Rex is gone. I love knowing we'll have the same time and I won't have to feel the pain my mother did when her counter died. I doubt I have a perfect soul mate out there for me. Nothing has ever felt as strong to me as the love I have for Rex. Watching him die would destroy me."
I swallow hard, knowing how destroyed I felt just hours ago when I watched Jase die. I can understand her reasoning behind her words. She went from immortal to having a span, and she's relieved to hear such a thing.
"Jase's blood?" I ask, feeling sick and worried suddenly. "Is it going to change?"
She shakes her head, her lips tightening as I await the answer about the eternity we just promised each other.
"I don't know. Jase's blood is much more complex than the children's or Melania's. Right now it reads immortal, and I can't find the lines that showed the change the children might experience. I think it's because of his age and his lineage. Unlike Mel, he has a level seven hybrid father and a full blood mother whose blood was pure and infected with an injection back in the early days of inducing the change. Like Nicholas Hawkins. It makes him stronger in more ways, and it makes reading his blood nearly impossible past the point of the basics."
I swallow hard, looking at him and feeling the dread growing in the pit of my stomach.
