“What is it that I’m not getting?”
“I think this blood is yours. The P is for Peony. I think they were studying it because, aside from the obvious, something in you is quite extraordinary.”
She had to get past the “aside from the obvious.” In the middle of a discussion on why three maniacs considered her blood worth spending copious amounts of time studying, she couldn’t very well encourage him to tell her what about her was so obviously extraordinary.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” She didn’t want to know. Her breath felt as though it was trapped in her lungs and she couldn’t reach the air.
For the first time, when he was discussing anything to do with the virus, his expressionless mask slipped and excitement and interest slid over his perfect masculine features, enhancing them even more. “Joe will be picking all this up and taking it to Trap. He’ll be able to make sense of this. He’ll have their notes, but it looks to me like they began developing stronger and stronger viruses in order to infect you. The viruses they designed were specifically targeting each individual. Bellisia and Zara could be infected. You couldn’t. At least the viruses they tried in those samples didn’t work.”
Shylah frowned at him. “I was aware Whitney had the Williams brothers and Orucov design viruses to kill each of us. That’s the reason he hired them. He made us very aware of that.” Silently she was chanting, trying to change what she knew was coming. Was she responsible in some way? Had those three men created something to kill her and in doing so killed an entire village of people?
“Not just the three of you. He had other girls or women in other facilities that he needed to control. He did that through creating viruses and planting the capsules in the women. The viruses had to be ones the women could fight off, if necessary, at least for a short period of time. I’ve only looked at two samples, but I’m sending them all to Trap,” he reiterated. “He’ll share with anyone he needs to share with. Bellisia was in China too long, she was trapped through no fault of her own. The capsule dissolved, and she got sick. Her handlers gave her an injection to counter the effects of the virus.”
A small burst of anger radiated out of her. “Whitney is such a bastard. Is Bellisia all right? No lasting effects?”
“She’s fine. You saw her. She’s very happy.”
For a minute, Shylah lost her resolve. Bellisia and Zara were going to live long and happy lives. They’d probably have children. She was going to die a horrible death, right here in this place with a man she barely knew.
“Shylah.”
He said her name softly and she heard the whisper of caring. Of affection. The sound slipped over her skin, stroking and caressing. She raised her head and forced a smile. If she had to die, she’d chosen this man to die with. She had made that choice. Not Whitney. And she was still resolved. Draden was a good man. The best as far as she was concerned. She would not regret her choice.
“I’m good, Draden. Keep going. Tell me everything you think.” She meant it, and the ring of sincerity was in her tone.
For a moment his eyes searched hers, and then he nodded, seeing she was telling the truth. She could have loved him for just that moment when he looked as if he would have taken her into his arms and comforted her if she needed it.
“I think the Williams brothers and Orucov had a difficult time creating a virus that would kill you, so they began to experiment in places they shouldn’t. They created a simplistic filovirus, one they thought they could reverse. If the virus wasn’t able to attach, they would continue constructing one until they got the results they wanted. I think they developed this virus, but before they could test it and find a counter, they had a falling-out with Whitney. The point is, if the three creators of the virus think there’s a chance to find a therapy against this virus with your blood, there’s a chance for you.”
Draden rubbed at his temples and she knew immediately that his head was pounding. He hadn’t had any sleep and he’d been shot, although the bullet just grazed him. The fall into the water where he’d hit his head very hard had caused the most damage. In any case, she’d heard enough and wanted out of that lab. She didn’t want to think that the virus in any way had anything to do with her, but deep down, she knew his conjecture could be right.
She laid her hand on his arm. “You’re exhausted, Draden. You can sleep for a couple of hours and get back to this. I mean it. You’re not going to do either of us any good if you’re so run-down the virus takes hold too fast. You know that. You spent all night wreaking havoc with the MSS. You’ve talked to your team and they’re on it.”
“Whose satellite are we using? It doesn’t appear to be geosynchronous. When I pulled it up, there was a time schedule.”
“I don’t know if Whitney’s virologists were using something different, but we’re using a military one. Whitney had it moved into place, but we can only have it at various times. I have a satellite phone to contact him if I need data or aid, but there’s only certain times I can do that.”
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t think it mattered. We’re both infected and we’re not leaving this area or coming into contact with any other human we can infect.”
“I’m killing terrorists,” he pointed out.
“I realize that. I will be too.” She pointed toward the freezer.
He ignored her and paced across the room to another machine. She just managed not to roll her eyes when he inserted a tube of blood.
“We’re going to have to kill them from a distance or make certain our mouths and noses are covered and we’re wearing gloves the next time we go after them. Not just any gloves, the gloves from this lab. And that has to be after we get a little sleep. I want to make certain they don’t have any more of that virus on hand.”
“Did you expect to find antibodies in the blood you were examining?” Clearly, he was going to work a little longer. If he needed to bounce his ideas off her, she had to have a clearer understanding of what he was looking for.
“They did. The Williams brothers and Orucov. The three of them. Why do you suppose they left in such a hurry? They didn’t even try to cover their tracks. Could they have spotted you?”
“That’s just insulting. I was trained in the military. They are civilians and have no real idea of self-defense. They lived in their lab. They stuck together and didn’t have outside friends. No way did they spot me. They were gone just before I got here. Maybe even the same day.”
“Why do you think that?”
She watched him as he went from his machine back to the computer and entered information. He was fast on a keyboard, she noted. Very fast. His hands fascinated her. He glanced at her over his shoulder, reminding her she’d been asked a question.
“When I looked through the window, it appeared as if they were coming right back, not as if they’d made a hasty departure. I spent a day setting up in the ranger station and watching the hut through my binoculars. That night I set up a blind in two different trees on either side of the hut, but they hadn’t come back to the hut and it looked as if they were gone. In the morning I tracked them to the village where the terrorists are located. The tracks were fresh and led directly to the village. That was why I was doing surveillance there when you decided to strike.”
“You’re fearless, aren’t you?” He hesitated a minute. “You’re very good, Shylah. I ran right at you, and very few things get past me when I’m in hunting mode. I didn’t see you until I was practically on top of you.”
“You thought about killing me. I saw it on your face.”
“Then why didn’t you kill me immediately?” He looked as if he might shake her.
“We clearly were on the same team. You killed over a dozen of the bastards and I wasn’t about to reward you by killing you. They deserved it.” She kept her voice mild, but she felt very strongly about it. The moment she had spotted him, moving like a deadly shadow from guard to guard, to the commander’s house, the little infirmary, everything in he
r rose up to protect him. He had been magnificent. He had done what she wanted to do.
Her orders were clear. Find her targets and take them out. She couldn’t deviate from that, not even to retaliate against the Milisi Separatis Sumatra, no matter how much she wanted to. Personal retribution wasn’t allowed, not when the stakes were so high. “Why didn’t you? You could have killed me. You jumped right over me.”
He’d cleared her by several feet and had done it with ease. He hadn’t even been breathing that hard. She could run, not like Zara had been able to, but she could run when she had to. He’d made it look easy.
Draden turned away from her, staring down at his machine. “You were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.”
When he said things like that so casually, he stole little pieces of her heart. No one had ever talked to her like that. She had freckles. That was girl-next-door, not beautiful. She wasn’t exotic, a real beauty, like Zara, or tiny and perfect like Bellisia. She thought of herself as gangly, all arms and legs. For the longest time she was a string, thin and long with a mop of wild, untamable hair and eyes too big for her face. Her skin was so white she probably blinded people if she showed her tummy, and then there was always the freckles. No amount of makeup was going to cover them up completely, so she didn’t bother trying.