Blood Moons (22 page)

"Thank you, Mr. Hillcroft," Amelia said to the suit, "I can take it from here." She didn't even look at Tristan. He nudged at her mind to investigate what the hell was going on, but for once, the good doctor was locked down tight.

"As you wish," the suit said. "Welcome to Niren Colony, Mr. Hunt. Dr. Chase, I leave him in your capable hands."

Amelia waited until he was completely gone before she turned on her heels and marched into the house. "Come in,"

she said and her tone was all professional detachment.

Interesting,
he thought as he followed.

The house had a similar layout as those in the other camps. There was a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, even a 196

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sort of living room. Small, but compared to his previous accommodations, a mansion. Right off the bat he noticed the distinct lack of camera feeds. No doubt there would be some in Amelia's lab, but it looked as if every courtesy was being extended to him. For the moment.

So why did Amelia have her panties in such a twist?

"What's going on?" he inquired.

"We need to talk."

He almost groaned. That never boded well. "All right," he said and set everything down in one corner to be unpacked later. He took the groceries to the kitchen to be stored in a refrigerator. Tristan didn't want anything to spoil. His culinary expertise was limited to boiling water, but eating raw food was better than eating spoiled food.

Amelia was staring out the living room window when he met her there. "Have a seat," she said, without facing him.

"I think I'd rather stand," he said, just to be contrary.

Finally, she turned to him, her sharp eyes trained on him.

"You know, it's started occurring to me lately that there should be a biological reason for chem-resistance. I mean, sure, bugs do it all the time. Find a way to kill them and they adapt to be resistant to that poison."

"Makes sense."

"But, you see," she continued, as if she'd caught him in a lie, "mammalian anatomy is much more complicated than an invertebrate's. Our systems are more evolved, each interconnected part serving a specific and precise function.

There's always a reason for everything, and it always has to do with the internal, rather than the external."

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"I'm ... not following."

"You don't adapt one part of your system to deal with one specific external stimulus. You adapt the entire system, to deal differently with a
number
of external stimuli."

"Are we talking human race here, or me specifically?"

Amelia sat on the couch and leaned back, studying him again in that unnerving way of hers, as if she was trying to figure out all his secrets. "Good question," she said.

"All right, you're being cryptic. That's not like you. What's going on?"

"I came into possession of the security feed from the night of your attack."

Fuck.

"I can see from the look on your face you're beginning to follow my train of thought. Perhaps you should take that seat now."

He did. "What did you see on it?"

"I saw that you lied to me. Or, more precisely, misled me.

I was under the impression that, aside from your musculature and sensory perception, nothing had changed after the DNA treatments had been stabilized."

"What the hell was on that feed?"

"To the untrained eye, nothing," she said and Tristan relaxed a little. "Security was already aware of your heightened senses, so the fact that you seemed to be aware of people approaching was taken as a matter of course. They also knew about your speed and strength, so the outcome of the fight had been a foregone conclusion. I only had a hunch, must have noticed something that others would not. And then 198

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I had to slow the feed down to almost frame by frame, and magnify a great deal to see that you had fangs. Big enough to begin altering your facial structure."

"I didn't feel anything at the time." It was true. He'd been so focused on ripping into his prey, he hadn't felt any pain at all. And there must have been pain when bones rearranged themselves. Tristan just hadn't noticed.

"The point is," Amelia said, leaning forward, "that you've just thrown a variable into the equation I thought I'd already disqualified as a participant and I want to know why."

Tristan raised a brow. "You think I did this on purpose?"

She rolled her eyes. "No, that's not what I meant. I meant that your body started changing for a reason. I'll have to do some tests to figure out what triggered it." She chuckled without humor. "Unless you know, and feel like telling me?"

Tristan had a feeling he just might know. But he wasn't about to tell her.

"I didn't think so. So tell me, was that the first time you'd changed?"

He considered the repercussions of the answers he had to give and the possibility of her asking for them. Saw no harm in this one. "No."

"Would you mind being a little more specific?"

"That time with the blood in the sink," he said.

She waved him on.

Tristan shifted in his seat. "My hands changed. I grew claws."

"What were you doing at the time?"

"Sleeping."

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"Dreaming?"

"Yes."

"About what."

"I don't remember."

"You're lying."

"It was some kind of a nightmare. I woke up and punched the wall. My
claws
stabbed into my palms."

He could see the wheels turning in her head as she watched him a while. "Was it fear-or anger-initiated?"

"What's it matter?"

"Just answer the question, please."

"Both."

Again she paused, as if debating what to say next. In an unguarded instant, he caught the direction of her thought.

Fear is triggered externally. Without the trigger, there is no
reaction. Better option—he's safe here. Anger is more
unpredictable. Can't account for internal variables.
"How long did it take your hand to heal?"

He hadn't exactly been timing it. He gave his best estimate. "Hours for the skin to close completely. After a day or two there wasn't even a scar left."

She seemed impressed. As well she should be. An injury like that, one that had damaged muscle, tendon, and bone, should have taken at least a week, if not longer—with extensive medical treatment. Without it, under normal circumstances, he'd probably never have regained full use of his hand.

"I'd like to take some blood for testing."

"I'm at your service, as always."

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"Once I get more information, I'll be able to estimate the progression of the mutation so far, and in the future."

"You think I'll change more?"

"It's too early to tell."

"You're lying."

She sighed in frustration. "You forget, I didn't expect you to change
at all
. I don't know enough about what's happening to you to give you a prognosis at this time."

"But you know enough to judge whether it will get better or worse."

Amelia curled her hands around her knees, clearly not wanting to say too much. "In previous studies, anyone who's gotten to this point progressed rapidly to a full physical change. None of them survived long enough to be studied."

They died in their dreams,
she was thinking.

In her mind, she was putting together case after case of people having died during sleep. A body at rest would not have reacted. The proper catalyst had to be some kind of sensory or emotional stimulus. Ergo, all those people were killed by their dreams. Good or bad, it didn't matter. The change was what ultimately killed them.

And because they'd all been in their beds at night when it had happened, no one had been able to monitor them.

"But none of the previous subjects have been chem-resistant. It could be that that is the difference. Maybe your chemical makeup is slowing this down, giving your body time to adjust, like a child that's still growing."

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She made it sound almost like a good thing, but postponing the inevitable was still not preventing it. He could still die; only the timeline was different.

Thinking out loud now, she continued. "Or maybe it works like a vaccine. We introduced a foreign virus into your body, and your chemical makeup is working to integrate it into your system. With a regular immune system, you'd just create antibodies to fight off the infection. But what if instead of that, the infection becomes a part of your system, and somehow works
with
your body, instead of against it?"

"So what you're saying is, you don't know."

"Not
yet
," she said. "But the equipment here is almost better than back on New Alaska. A few dozen tests should give me plenty of data to analyze. If, of course, you cooperate."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Why indeed," she returned. "Tell me, how is Dara doing?"

Danger! Trick question!
"She's still shaken up," he said, considering his words carefully.

"Of course; I would be too. How is she taking the separation?"

Tristan shifted in his seat a little. "Didn't seem
too
broken up about it. Why?"

"And how are
you
taking it?"

"Okay, what are you up to now?"

Amelia shrugged. "It's merely a psychological phenomenon that occurs sometimes. Prisoners tend to form strong bonds with their cellmates and display some difficulties in coping with change when they are separated."

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"We haven't been cellmates long enough to get psychologically attached." Psychically, though...

"I didn't say it was a psychological bond. I said it was a psychological
reaction
to separation. The bond, by all accounts, is very much emotional. For example, you've been without a cellmate for—how long was it?"

"Ten years," he grated.

"That is a long time without a friend."

"You overestimate my need for social connection."

"Do I? I don't think so. Everyone needs some kind of social connection. Everyone on New Alaska had some sort of friend—and I use that term loosely. But you seem to have purposely alienated yourself from everyone around. Almost as if you're punishing yourself." Again, she gave him that analytical look.

"You've interacted with those people. Tell me, which one of them would you choose to get friendly with?"

"Dara Frost," she said without hesitation. "Which is why I find it difficult to believe that having met someone
normal
, and spent time with her in very close proximity for weeks, you don't feel separation anxiety now that you're not together anymore."

"Are you done with your romantic musings yet?" he snapped, quickly losing patience. "Because there is a private shower just behind that door with my name on it." More likely, he'd be going for a swim in the lake, but she didn't have to know that. Or any of what she was asking about now.

Amelia's brows went up in surprise and she leaned back again, looking at him as if he'd sprouted a second head.

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Which, given his current chemical state—or physiological, whatever the hell it was—might actually be a possibility.

"Interesting," she said. "I never said anything about romance."

Ah, shit.
"Twisting my words now?"

"Come to think of it, on the feed from that night, I saw that you had switched bunks with Dara at some point." She prudently didn't mention what she might have seen on that feed
before
that. "Did you suspect they were coming for her?"

He'd known it. He'd seen it. Tristan said nothing now, just held Amelia's gaze, hoping to make her drop the subject and get the hell out.

Her expression softened. "Your eyes are changing. The same way they did when I told you about the new study."

Tristan looked away, shocked that the mere idea of Dara in any kind of danger could cause such a reaction in him. He hated being so far from her. Anything could happen and he'd never get to her in time. And it pissed him off that he was apparently completely transparent about it.

"I'll leave," Amelia finally said and pushed to her feet. "I just have one last question before I go."

Because she seemed to be waiting for it, he looked at her again.

"Were you dreaming about Dara the night your own claws stabbed through your hands?"

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13th day of the 4th Blood Moon, 3028

He didn't come.
After he'd promised he would come see her, he hadn't shown. Dara didn't really know what to think about that. Or the sharp stab of disappointment she'd felt when she'd woken up this morning, all cramped up from having slept in the armchair.
I fell asleep waiting for him...

I freaking fell asleep there,
waiting
for him!
And the bastard hadn't shown.

No explanation, not even a notice. He'd actually pulled a whole new mental trick Dara might pay big bucks to learn.

Every time she'd tried talking to him across their link, it had felt as if she was talking right through him; and if he'd heard a thing, he'd given no sign of it.

It ...
hurt
. Which surprised Dara, and then it pissed her off.

She knew how attached people could get in intense situations, but she'd thought she was stronger than that.

Oh, who was she kidding? Dara was a wuss. Always had been; running away and hiding was her MO. She'd even been running away from herself, her abilities, before Hunt had forced her to face them.

The one thing she hadn't run away from was this whole mess with Tristan. Possibly the one thing she'd had legitimate reason
to
run from.