Page 73 of Land of Shadow

Valen is just playing me. That’s what he’s been doing from the very beginning. I have to remember the stakes, remember who, nowhat, he is. Whatever this was, it can’t happen again.

I slide down under the covers and close my eyes. My bed smells like him now. Or maybeIsmell like him. I turn and aggressively fluff my pillow. Sleep comes eventually. This time it’s free of nightmares. Instead, I dream of feline eyes in a shadowy forest and owls hooting a warning from the trees.

21

I’m hunched over my journal when Wyatt walks in, his hair still wet from a shower.

“Did you try it?” Gretchen asks him.

“Yeah. Nothing.”

“Shit!” Gretchen pinches the bridge of her nose. “All that work for nothing.”

We’ve worked with different viruses for the past week, trying each of them on the blood samples. The most recent was smallpox, something we were surprised to even get from Director Hamberg. It was delivered in a case so heavy and thick it would likely survive a nuclear blast, and Wyatt has been working with it in the high containment lab for two days.

“You destroyed the variola sample?” I ask.

“Yep. It’s toast.” He sinks into his chair, dark circles under his eyes. “Smallpox. Even that bastard of a virus can’t replicate in their blood.”

“What the fuck are they?” Evie asks for what has to be the millionth time. “None of this makes sense.”

“It doesn’t, but it’s all we have. Keep at it.” I dive back into my research and stew in my own disappointment. We’ve thrown so many different infectious agents at the vampire blood, but nothing takes hold. During our teleconference yesterday, Hamberg again threatened to send in an entirely new staff. Pressure is coming from all directions. Time is flowing away, and I feel like I’m losing ground.

“I’ll go back in later.” Wyatt leans his head back, his adam’s apple bobbing as he stares at the ceiling. “I have some bacteria samples I want to try on it.”

“Maybe we should try fungus?” Aang pipes up from the armchair he dragged in from the lobby. He’s made a little nest beside his desk with anime posters. “Maybe we can get a wider variety of pathogens from Atlanta. Not just viral. Widen the net to all the nasties. It has to interact withsomething.”

“Just sunlight,” I say before thinking, exhaustion and frustration loosening my tongue.

“Huh?” Evie grunts, and everyone stops what they’re doing. It’s like the dying whir of an engine that’s been shut down. The final, grinding gasps of power that end in reverberating silence. They all turn to me, their eyes questioning.

Shit.

“What do you mean ‘sunlight’?” Aang asks as he sits up straight.

I’ve kept that information to myself. To keep them safe. The more they know, the more danger they’re in. But as they look at me with first surprise and then distrust, a sick feeling swirls in my gut. I want to protect them, but I’ve been withholding information—it’s not lost on me that Juno has done the same thing to me. So has Valen. I’m in the dark about so much, and I’ve been keeping them in the same shadow, only divulging tiny bits of truth. But it’s the only way to save their lives. Ugh, how am I supposed to keep balancing on the knife’s edge without getting cut?

“Are you saying sunlight interacts with the cells somehow?” Wyatt, his eyes bloodshot, stares at me.

I don’t know what to say. I have zero doubts that there are cameras and listening devices in the lab. We’re being watched. We can’t trust anyone outside of these walls, and I can’t be honest with my team within them. Not if we want to survive.

My gaze bounces from person to person as my mind races. How can I fix this?

“No, that isn’t?—”

Aang stands so abruptly that I jump, then he stomps over to a refrigeration unit and pulls out what’s left of the most recent sample.

“Aang, what are you doing?” Gretchen sounds leery.

“Let’s just see what sunlight does.” He glares as he storms past me.

“Aang, don’t!” I chase him and reach for the vial.

He breaks into a run.

“Aang!” Wyatt shouts from behind me.

Aang bursts through the doors. Heckle and Jeckle don’t even stir as we race past them.

---