The Lair

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Carter

I expected him to take me right out into the hall. Instead, the guards escorted us down two hallways and up an elevator. He led me into an office—his office, if I had to guess—with a sleek, modern desk, a ton of bookshelves, and a sweeping view overlooking the town.

We were at least five stories up, which meant we weren’t in the clinic anymore. One of those hallways must have been a walkway into the command building. I didn’t like all the time we’d burned walking here, close to ten minutes. Lily was dying by increments and I wanted to be with her when she got treatment. On the other hand, the fact that Price had wasted the time it took to bring me to his office told me something else: he planned to intimidate me.

I knew that tactic from watching my own father do business. You want to lord over someone, you make them feel small. You show them just how powerful you are.

But I didn’t doubt Jonathan Price was an extremely powerful man. And he wouldn’t have needed to drive that point home if he thought I was just some punk kid beneath his notice. He’d brought me here not only to intimidate me, but because something about me intimidated him.

And that was something I could use.

He gestured me into a seat, but didn’t sit down himself. Instead, he leaned against his desk, stretching his legs out in front of him.

“I’m sure you have many questions—” he began in a condescending tone.

I didn’t give him a chance to finish. “Yeah, I do. For starters, the medic was in full hazmat. So were the guards. But you’re not, and you’re letting me wander all over. Why?”

If he was taken aback by the way I took control of the conversation, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled benignly. “Because I’ve been vaccinated.”

“There’s a vaccine?” I couldn’t help but sag against the chair. A vaccine. All these deaths. All these millions who had died due to this crazy virus. And there was a vaccine?

I was flooded with questions and they were nearly out of my mouth before I realized what he’d done. He’d distracted me and I’d eaten up too much of my ten minutes by gaping at him in shock.

“So you’re safe?” I asked. “But the health of anyone else in this building doesn’t matter to you?”

He shrugged like the question barely bothered him. “The vaccine is costly and rare. In due time, everyone at El Corazon will have it . . . until then, we are as careful as we can be.”

“Next question,” I said.

“I didn’t realize I was being interviewed.”

I ignored that. “Do your daughters know you’re an abductura?” I was just making a guess, but if Price’s expression was any indication, it was a good one. Why else would Price be here?

His smile practically oozed across his face. “I prefer the term leader.”

“So did Hitler.”

The charming smile froze as something like hatred flickered across his face, but he hid it quickly. “Not all of those with the gift use it to benefit mankind. Such a shame. That power, ignored or misused, it’s a tragedy, when a properly trained abductura is capable of such greatness.”

“Wow.” I didn’t bother to hide the derision in my voice. “When you say it like that, manipulating and controlling all of humankind to bring about the apocalypse almost sounds like a good thing.”

He looked at me for a second, his expression almost baffled. Then he smiled. “You give me too much credit. I did not end the world.”

“But your master did.”

“Roberto?”

“Yeah, Roberto.” I was tired of him being so damn coy. I wanted to wring this guy’s neck. I didn’t even care if he was Lily’s dad. Except I did care whether or not she got the cure, so instead, I clenched my hands tightly in my lap. I was tired of sugarcoating this crap. “The vampire who created the Tick virus that brought about the end of civilization as we know it. Sound familiar?”

But Jonathan was frowning. “It sounds like Roberto has been getting some very bad press. He is hardly the evil genius you think he is.”

“And what about you? Am I supposed to believe you’re a nice guy?”

“I suppose Lily’s told you all sorts of horrible things about how I abandoned them when they were ten. How I disappeared from their lives without a backward glance.”

Okay, sure. We would start small and work our way up to genocide.

“There are two sides to every story. Sometimes even more. Do I regret leaving them? Of course I do. Do I regret the great things I’ve been able to do since leaving them? No. I am sorrier than I can say that their mother didn’t trust me when I asked her to send the girls to me last summer. I regret that I didn’t go get them myself when the plague broke out. But at the time the vaccine hadn’t been perfected yet and travel was too risky.

“And of course that Dean in Sherman was supposed to be keeping an eye on them, but he screwed that up. We’ve been looking for them ever since. Then a colleague of Roberto’s called and said he’d found them and was sending them our way.” Price’s facade of easygoing charm gave way to anger. It hit me so fast and strong that I wondered how he’d kept it bottled up, but he quickly got it under control. He shook his head. “You can blame me for being too trusting. Too optimistic in my belief that other people would keep them safe, but you can’t say that I never tried. I just didn’t try hard enough.”

Was all of that true? Had he searched for them? The Dean certainly had tried to get them back. We had assumed at the time that it was because he had guessed Lily was an abductura, but what if we’d read it wrong? Maybe they’d been safe all along. Maybe I hadn’t saved them at all. Maybe if I’d just left them on that Farm, their father would have come for them and brought them here. To safety. To a vaccine. Maybe if I’d just minded my own damn business, Mel would never have been turned into a vampire and Lily wouldn’t be slowly transforming into a Tick.

Kudos to me for being the worst boyfriend ever.

This sucked. It just effing sucked. Despair washed over me.

How many times was Lily going to be in danger because of me?

Except she wasn’t in danger because of me this time. She was dying. I dropped my head into my hands. And it was my fault. All my own damn fault.

Jesus, if I’d just . . .

Before I could finish the thought, my mind sent up a warning bell. I made myself stop thinking for a moment. I just sucked air into my lungs and pushed it back out again. Slow and easy.

I took a step back, emotionally. I hit the pause button.

And I made myself think.

Yeah. I’d screwed up. A lot. But I’d have plenty of time to beat myself up about that later. When I wasn’t sitting in the same room with an abductura powerful enough to short-circuit the emotions of the entire damn state.

I pushed myself to my feet. “Jesus, how can you even live with yourself?”

“Lily and Mel—”

“Forget Lily and Mel. Forget what you’ve done to them. Have you been outside these fences? Have you seen the devastation you’ve caused?”

“I will not be talked to like that by a child.”

“I am not—”

“Whatever you are now, you were a child when this started. The world you grew up in, that’s the world you need to be looking at. Do you really think that world was so great? So perfect? The American government fought wars no one could win to secure global resources to feed the economy. American consumerism was destroying the planet. Mass shootings on the rise. Social media contributing to the highest teenage suicide rates in history. We were doing everything wrong. And it was only getting worse. You think I wanted to raise my girls in that world?

“So, yes, when I had a chance to make a difference, I grabbed it. The greatest leaps in civilization that humanity has ever known have happened when a powerful abductura worked under the guidance of a vampire.”

Shock rocked me back in my seat. Holy crap. Price wasn’t just a jerk, he was a certifiable megalomaniac. “And you think that’s what’s happening here? A great leap in civilization? Have you seen the wrecked cities? The vacant towns? The mass graves? Have you seen any of it?”

“Yes! I have. But where you see destruction, I see a blank canvas. I see a world reborn. I see an opportunity for humanity to start afresh.”

“Sure,” I said. “That would be great. If there was enough humanity left. Because right now, there are a hell of a lot of Ticks, and not a hell of a lot of people.”

“But here, in this compound, there are plenty of people. Individually chosen people, highly intelligent, highly educated people. More than enough to reboot humanity.”

Right. I was pretty sure that if these people had been individually selected for anything it was for their susceptibility to Price’s powers. Or maybe their blood type. Price was still talking with that gleam of delight in his eyes. Like this plan of his—the plan to reboot civilization—was exciting and thrilling rather than repugnant. “Surely you can see that this was the only way.”

I could only shake my head. “You wanted to make the world a better place, so you decided to destroy civilization instead of just, oh I don’t know, making a donation to the United Way like a normal person?”

Price leaned forward then until he and I were almost eye to eye. He smiled slowly. “But that’s the point, isn’t it? You and I, we’re not normal people, are we?”

Something like fear skittered across my nerves and I fought the sudden urge to bolt from the room. I had nothing in common with Jonathan Price. The only thing connecting us was Lily.

But before I could ask him what he meant, the air was filled with the high pitched whine that got louder and louder. Then an explosion rent the air. The whole building shook.

Price started for the door. “Wait here,” he barked.

But I was right behind him. “Yeah, right.”

He whirled to face me. “Sit back down and wait right here.”

I stepped toward him. He was about my height, but I had him on sheer muscle. He’d obviously spent the past eight months of the apocalypse hiding out at El Corazon, letting the guards do all the hard work, whereas I’d been out fighting Ticks. I smiled. “You want to make an issue of this now?”

“Fine,” he muttered, turning to stalk down the hall. “But stay where I can see you.”

“I was about to say the same thing to you.”