Until It's You (27 page)

She tried nodding again. The jitter grew stronger. Ms. Dunn was in danger!

And yet, the panic she expected wasn't there. It was like it had been edited out from her mind.

"The Phobos hijacks the human equivalent of pheromone pathways and throws them into overdrive until your brain has basically been tricked into developing the kind of pathways that are typically associated with intense, long-standing relationships. In parallel, it creates a messianic power dynamic that plays on the authority structures developed in the social frameworks someone creates in early childhood."

He took a deep breath.

She didn't trust herself to nod again. Her head spun. What was he even talking about? What was he ever talking about? He had dragged her into this thing and now she was...what was even happening to her? Her life had been so
normal
last week.

"All this is tied via the pheromone pathways to a particular person after the pharm's creation," he continued. "But that same mechanism can tag any counteracting measures."

Another deep breath. He held up a vial between his fingers. She was barely following.

"So I put something together. An antidote. Tested it on the simulation for your vitals and DNA makeup. Checked everything. I am as confident as I could possibly be that it will work." He pressed his lips together. "Except I haven't gone through the testing process of actually using it on anyone. You would be the first."

Her eyes opened wide. The buzz in her skull felt like a piano string pounded over and over. His words began to sink in...along with concern. Was he seriously asking her to take yet another experimental pharm?

She opened her mouth to talk, to tell him this was ridiculous, but the pain in her head was too much. Her head had become a bee hive. A killer bee hive, maybe.

Landon breathed out heavily. His shoulders were bunched up around his neck, and his jaw was clamped tight. This was the most anxious she had ever seen him.

"Basically, I'm asking you to trust me," he said at last. "The Phobos is going to be in your system for months if it's not counteracted. The parts of the brain it works on...once someone gets in there you can never truly get them out. Unless the way they got there in the first place was a fraud."

He swallowed and looked deep into her eyes. The shuddering in her skull made her want to explode.

"That's what this does," he said, showing her the vial in his hand. "I'm going to set it on the table next to you. I know I've already asked way too much of you, but I want you think about taking it. It's a liquid you can drink."

He set the vial down. Her chest twisted into a tiny ball over and over with every beat of her heart.

"If you don't want to risk it, you can wait while we do more thorough testing on live subjects. We'll get you the best care we can. Whatever it takes. It's the safer option." He grimaced. "It's just...it kills me to see you like this. This is my fault. I'm trying to make it right, but I understand if you don't quite trust me this much. So I'm going to put this down and give you some space. Tom will be in to see you in a few minutes and take the vial away if you want. I know you seeing me right now is making your symptoms worse. I'm sorry for that."

He turned and walked away from the bed, headed back for the door he'd come in. She watched him go in a daze for a moment, processing everything he'd said. The concentration it took to track him was at the edge of what she could do.

The buzzing in her head lessened with every step he took away from her. It was like she was inhabited by something that was not herself.

Automatically, she reached for the vial on the table and took it in her hand. It was so slim, like a sample of perfume she might get in the mail. Such thin glass, with a black cap on one end. Inside, a pharm the world's richest pharmaceutical scientist had synthesized just for her. Never before consumed.

He said it was safe. If there was anything he would know about, it was this. Right?

By the time she looked up he was almost to the door.

"Wait!" she yelled, surprising herself with the strength of her voice.

He froze and looked back at her. His lips were parted slightly, his eyes narrowed with concern. They locked eyes, and from there he didn't move a muscle.

The buzz just above her spine felt like the reverberations from drilling into a wall. Her heart jumped into her throat. This was it, now. If she swallowed this and he had screwed something up, it would probably fry her brain. And yet, even past the haze of all the pharms in her system, there was a tiny part of her that kept whispering the same thing it had been whispering for the last two days.

Trust him.

This was it.

She brought the vial down to her other hand, still attached to the IV, and gripped the cap. As she twisted it off, her hands began to shake. She fought hard to keep it steady so it wouldn't slosh around. With her free arm, she brought it up to her lips, the cool glass like ice in her fingers as she brought it closer. Then she looked up to see where he was.

He hadn't moved a muscle.

She locked her eyes with his and tipped the pharm into her mouth. The cool liquid touched her tongue, incredibly bitter.

Her stomach retched and a cough bubbled up in her chest. She fought it down.

Heat exploded onto her cheeks and her throat twisted in knots. The air in her lungs froze like smoke in a snapshot.

Her eyes on his, she choked the liquid down. There went nothing.

She waited as the liquid worked its way down her chest. The beating of her heart became the buzz in her head.

One. One. One.

Like a wave just starting to crest out on the lake, the symptoms of the Phobos began to lighten. The buzz in her head rung out like the end of a church bell's ringing on a winter day. She breathed in without even realizing she was doing it.

A gauze from her vision was gone. Landon looked sharper, more alive.
The whole world
was more alive. She breathed in another delicious breath. Why was she still connected to this machine, even? She looked down at the crook of her elbow, where the IV had been inserted. Surely she could figure out how to get herself free of this needle.

Footsteps rushed toward her and by the time she looked up he was there. All of him. His hand came down on her arm, stopping her from taking the needle out.

The look on his face was apprehensive but hopeful. "How do you feel?" he asked.

She opened her mouth and flinched reflexively, waiting for the pain to come. But nothing came.

"Okay . . ." she said slowly. "I think?"

He nodded and his shoulders relaxed a little bit. "If there were going to be a bad reaction, it would probably be close to immediate with this class of pharm. You're going to be okay."

She didn't know what to say to that, so she just shrugged and gave him a small smile. He looked down at her happily.

"When can I get unplugged from all this equipment?" she asked, moving on to the next thing in her mind.

He took his hand off her arm. "Soon. I'll get a tech in here to do it properly. Can't just go ripping everything out at once, much as you might want to."

She took another breath of wonderfully pure air. Unaffected air. Relatively speaking, anyway.

"We'll have things back to normal fast," he said, his eyes so much more relaxed than they had been just minutes before.

Air exploded from her lungs in a harsh laugh. "I doubt that."

His dark brows shot up. "What do you mean?"

She thought of Brantley and his step brother. Of whatever Bruman had been hiding on her comm. Of what the hell was going to happen to the firm with Dunn gone.

Then she pushed it all aside and tugged on his arm. "Come down here. I want to kiss you.”

Sign up at
www.cbsalem.com
to get the latest updates on new books!

Please, please, please, if you like the book, leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads! It’s the most helpful thing you can do for me as an author.

Finally, check me out on social media!

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/cbsalem

C.B. Salem lives, writes, and dreams in Chicago. When not reading or plotting the next scene, C.B. enjoys cooking and having quality cuddles with two dogs: Murphy and Oliver.