“Sure, but let’s make sure she’s unarmed first. I’d hate to get stabbed with a hunting knife on the trail.”
Carefully, Alik lifted the girl out of the mud that occupied the floor of her nest and held her while Evan and Margo checked her for weapons. They found several and removed them from the meta’s person.
Not wanting to think too much about how beautiful the girl was underneath all that face paint and blood, Alik focused instead on the trail ahead of him. They made quick time back to the house. When they reached the front porch, Dr. Andrews opened the door to let them in.
“You found her?”
“She’s hurt, Theo. I think I shot her in the stomach and she’s been like this for twenty-four hours.” Margo was trying hard to stifle tears of guilt.
“We have to get her to the lab, now!”
“I’ll scrub in,” Theo heard himself say. “She’s going to need surgery.”
62 What Were You Thinking?
The nagging ache in his left arm made him sour.
The painkillers were wearing off, and all he could think about was trying to stop the throbbing.
Just standing up from the living room couch pushed tears into his eyes. Though he planned to go check on Meg and Creed like he said to the others, he couldn’t stand being thought of as weak by Creed. Especially when the meat head was sporting two bullet wounds he received acting as a metashield for Meg, and acted as though they bothered him less than a mosquito bite.
Damn it!
Cole reached the scrub room of the lab and tried to follow the rules by washing his hands before entering the clean room. Trying to tear open the scrub package using his teeth and good hand just brought more tears to his eyes. Angrily, he threw the brush into the trash and walked, with dripping hands, into the lab.
He knew his way around well enough to know where the meds were stored. As he walked to the back of the room toward the cabinet, it occurred to him it may be locked. He was in so much pain he hadn’t even stopped to ask his dad for help.
That’s not true, he admitted to himself.
He hadn’t stopped to talk to anyone because he was sick of needing to ask for help all the time. Watching Creed sweep Meg off her feet, literally, while Cole couldn’t even open a bottle of ibuprofen made him feel more than emasculated; he felt helpless, stupid, useless and unworthy.
These thoughts were swirling around in his head when he reached out to try the cabinet door.
It popped open.
He remembered his dad pulling out an orange bottle with large, oval, green and pink pills. The name of the med escaped his memory, but it started with the letter “M.” Inside the cabinet were dozens of bottles and vials. Cole assumed the one he was looking for would be near the front, considering it was just used a few hours before.
Shuffling through the items, pushing some aside and pulling some to read, Cole began to feel an itch of panic that he couldn’t find the painkiller.
Come on! He spoke to the cabinet as though it had intentionally hidden the pills from him.
And that’s when he saw it.
At first, he thought it was just another vial of some unknown liquid and was already shoving it aside to look behind it before he realized what it was.
The meta serum.
There it was.
Right in his hands.
The vial was labeled “Infinite Serum” and someone, probably Evan, had bothered to draw that symbol they all had etched into the back of their necks: ∞
Evan, in his haste to help Meg, had asked Alik to put the serum he was still holding from the plane trip, into the refrigerated medicine cabinet. In his defense, neither Evan nor Alik had thought anyone in the house a threat to take the serum.
And yet, here was Cole, holding the vial as though he had just found his Holy Grail.
Two thoughts rushed into his still aching mind. One, this was his answer to everything. He would be stronger, smarter, heal more quickly and worthy of running with Meg and the other metas. Finally, he would be an asset and not a liability. He could be a contender.
And two, no one was around to stop him.
He grabbed the vial and closed the cabinet door. His mind was racing. He was trying to remember anything he had overheard when the others spoke of the serum, like how much was a dose and how it was given.
He opened the first two drawers he saw looking for a syringe. He was pretty sure he remembered that much. This was to be given by needle, not swallowed.
What he didn’t remember was how much of the serum he was supposed to take. He looked at the bottle carefully. There was only a small amount of fluid inside to begin with; it looked to be about one teaspoonful.