Page 108 of Land of Shadow

Evie barrels up to me. “Wyatt said we’re evacuating?”

“Yeah.” I open my laptop as soldiers load stacks of journals into moving boxes. “It’s not safe here anymore.”

“But we were close!” She shakes her head. “The samples you—” She cuts herself short. “Thosesamples.”

“I already ran a vial through. Want to look at results with me? It’s going to take them all day and night to move all the stuff we need.”

“Yes!” She follows me to my desk and pulls up a rolling chair.

“Did you see Aang?” I ask as I fire up my laptop.

“I went back in the wee hours and listened at his door. He and Wyatt were talking, and he sounded relatively okay. I didn’t knock. I?—”

“Whoa there, partner.” Wyatt adopts a cowboy accent as he steps between two soldiers and his record collection. “Let’s save those babies for last, okay? They’re pretty darn tootin’ special.”

The soldiers simply look at each other and then move along down the row.

“Doctor?” Major Barker is at the doors.

“Yes?” All three of us answer.

“Dr. Clark,” he corrects.

“I knew it,” I grumble and tell Evie not to open the imaging until I get back. I don’t want to miss a thing.

“You don’t waste time.” I press myself against the wall as soldiers carry some boxes past me.

“Not in the habit of it, no.” He gestures toward the same spot where we talked before.

“What’s going on now?” I say it more snappily than I mean to, but I guess all the stress is getting to me. There’s no way it couldn’t.

“We’ll have the lab cleaned out by end of day, then we’ll work on the individual living quarters. Please make everyone aware that they should take what they need, nothing more. The road to Atlanta isn’t without its pitfalls. If we come across any trouble, we may have to divert to rail travel. Best to be prepared to move and move quickly if any sort of situation arises.”

“In regular human speak, you’re saying the trip is dangerous, right?”

He nods brusquely. “But far safer than staying here.”

“Okay. Well, you already sold me. No need to sweeten the deal.” I frown at the pretty day outside, the trees fluttering with greenery.

“I just want to keep you apprised. I hope you’ll do me the same courtesy should anything change.”

“Yeah, sorry I’m bitchy. There’s a lot going on.”

“I understand.” His voice drops to a level of quiet I didn’t know he was capable of. “I’ve been in contact with Captain Howard.”

I keep my gaze on the street, trying not to react to what he’s saying.

“I hope you haven’t given him any false hope about ways to counteract the threat we’re under.” He continues, “Because using something new against this problem—if the something new doesn’t work—will be a death sentence for anyone who tries it. There could also be retaliation.Harshretaliation.”

He says plenty without saying the actual words: he knows about the vampires. My stomach sinks as I untangle his meaning. It’s not like I had the opportunity to do trials with the proteins Gretchen and I worked up. I assumed Gage would know better than to go spouting off about it?

“I gave him a heads up on somepossibleknowledge. How he uses it is up to him.” I don’t know if I should say more, not to mention I have no clue how Gage fits into both the military and the Saints. I wasn’t imagining the patch I saw on his arm last night. Is he a double agent, too? Playing both sides against the middle as he called it?

“Georgia!” Evie bursts through the lab doors.

I’m grateful for any excuse to escape Major Barker. “Yeah?”

“Hurry!” She ducks through the doors.

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