She reached up and touched his face. “I’m okay.”
The revenants seemed intrigued, also reaching forward to touch him. Again, he slapped them off. “Stop.”
“Mother,” they whispered and reached for her.
“They’re evolving,” she whispered.
Her interest was suddenly consumed by the unnatural creatures before them, and it was if she’d never been in any danger.
Adam felt a sudden sharpness at his leg and saw one of them trying to bite him, so he crushed it like a bug.
The rest of them shied away from him now. She was right, they were learning. They were evolving past their hunger. Or perhaps, they’d only become more efficient hunters? Why had they called her mother? He supposed she’d had a hand in their birth, but how would they know that?
Perhaps the same way he knew without even looking at her that she was of the Wollstonecraft bloodline.
“Do you think they’d go with me to the lab?”
“Elizabeth—”
“I need to get all the information I can. There’s a SWAT team on the way to help put them down, but if X has the prion, they could unleash this anywhere.”
Adam sighed. “You’re right.”
He stood and followed behind the group as they moved through the bloody halls toward the lab.
Not all of the revenants were evolving, only the few that walked with them. They picked up two others as they made their way through the labyrinthine halls. Some watched them warily while they continued their grisly meals, but it was as if the ones who knew they were different, knew to join their motley group.
If one tried that wasn’t like them, they quickly ripped him to pieces. They protected their small tribe, and Elizabeth, even though they gave him the side-eye.
Once they got to the lab, Elizabeth took samples from everyone, except him. She loaded them into the centrifuge and led them into a holding area. They did everything she asked. As the minutes ticked by, it seemed they became more familiar. They lost the white film over their eyes, they began speaking in coherent sentences. With every change, they seemed more and more human.
“Adam, look!” She pointed. “They all have a bite mark, just like mine.”
They were all scarred in the same place.
Except for one. One he’d seen start on Elizabeth’s friend, the one who’d bitten her.
“It’s in your blood, Elizabeth. The cure for this disease, is in your blood.”
She ran to the data terminal and began typing furiously. “I need to upload all of this information. Hey, I have a jump drive in the second drawer. I’m making copies.”
He handed her the jump drive and in truth, had never felt more worthless. He didn’t know how else to help her. Killing, he could do. Fighting, he could do. Science… He could hand her a jump drive.
She laughed. “Oh my god. I look like the Bride of Frankenstein. Have you seen my hair?” Elizabeth ran her fingers through the white streaks that had appeared at her temples.
“Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster,” he corrected with a smirk.
Her mouth curved into a smile that reached her eyes. Even soaked in blood, that smile was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“I never date other scientists.” She moved her fingers over the keyboard, and it looked for all the world like she was weaving some magic spell.
Adam still thought technology was a kind of magic, anyway.
She stopped, hit a few more buttons before she looked at him. “But I find that I might have a penchant for monsters.”
“This monster?” he teased. “Or those?” He indicated to the holding area where the zombies seemed to be recovering their senses.
“Both of you, actually. They feel like my children, so I’m going to go with it.”
“I used to dream of a big family.”
“There’s not enough Turducken in the world for that holiday dinner.”
The comm buzzed. “Attention in the compound. Attention in the compound. This is Commander Whitman. Stay where you are. Do not activate the failsafe. I repeat, this is Commander Whitman with Bureau 7 SWAT. Stay where you are. Do not activate the failsafe. We will come to you.”
All the playfulness was gone from Elizabeth’s face. Her face had gone chalk white. “You can’t let them catch you.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” he said, knowing that he had to. For now.
“Find me. You can, right? Even though you’re free?”
“I’ll never be free of you.” He wrapped his arms around her. “And I don’t want to be.”
“That’s so the right answer.” She looked up at him. “Kiss me.”
He didn’t hold back—not his strength, not the electric current that lived inside of him, and not everything that he felt for this woman.
His woman.
She kissed him back. “Don’t be gone too long.”