“Yeah.” I pat my pocket.
“All right. My team is at the helo. We’ve got another 15 minutes or so before sunrise.” He leads me away from the lab and into the network of tunnels that crisscross the base.
Come to me. My feet tangle with each other, black spots flaring at the edges of my vision.
“Whoa.” Gage grabs my elbow and pulls me upright.
I lean on him, a sheen of cold sweat all over my body.
“He’s calling me. Gregor.” I wipe my forehead with my sleeve. “It hurts.”
“You should stay.” Gage holds me up while I catch my breath. “Please, just stay. We can fix this. We can find a way to hold him off.”
Gregor’s voice is a cold knife, a blunt one that does more damage each time I feel it penetrating my mind, and there’s no stopping it.
“We made a deal.” I pull myself up and start walking again.
“No, you made a deal with General Lopez. Not me. I would’ve never accepted.” He grits his teeth, his grip on my arm tightening. “Valen can’t save you, not when Gregor is in your blood somehow. You can’t go running to him when you should stay here with your own kind. Whatever you’re planning, it’s suicide.”
“I’m stronger than you think.”
“It’s not a question of strength.” He looks over at me.
I keep staring straight ahead.
“Whyare you doing this?” He pulls me up short, pushing me against the cold wall and holding me there. “Gregor is going to die. It’s just a matter of time. My sources say he may have a month left, if that. You?—”
“Your sources? You mean Valen. You mean the one vampire who’s risked his life again and again to help the humans, right?” I’d push to keep going but this little respite might be what keeps me from vomiting at the moment.
His eyes flash. “He’s still one of them, Georgia. What part of that are you not getting?”
“He’s half human. Why do you always leave that part out?”
“Whatever humanity he may have had is long gone. Let him go, Georgia. He’s a monster. Let him die with the rest of them.”
“‘Die with the rest of them.’” I shake my head. “And you sayhe’sthe monster. Your General Lopez would’ve given meanythingto secure the formula for the poison. I could’ve asked for all the gold in the treasury, an entire state to make my own, and he would’ve given it to secure one vial of it. Not once did he offer a single fucking thing for the plague vaccine. Not once. Are you sure you know who the monsters are?”
“The vampires!” He slams his fist into the wall beside me. “They’re the ones killing us, Georgia. Why can’t you face that?”
“I have faced it!” I yell back. “I know what they’ve done, what they’re capable of. But saying they’re the only evil in the world is a lie, and you know it.”
“We didn’t start this?—”
“And that makes it okay to end it the way General Lopez plans? To erase their existence? How are we the good guys in that scenario, Gage? Wearen’t. There is good in them just like there’s good in us. I’ve seen it just like I’ve seen the depth of their depravity.”
“This is war. Do you understand that?” He takes my shoulders and shakes me. “A war for survival, and I’m making damn sure thatwesurvive!”
I shrug out of his hold. “It’s not a zero-sum game!”
“Maybe not to you, but to the rest of us, it is. It always will be. No matter what you’re trying to accomplish with this insane plan, it won’t work. You don’t stand a chance against Gregor, against any of them. And no matter what you do, we aren’t going to live and work beside killers and pretend they’re like us.”
“We do it all the time, Gage.All the time. Your Saints killed me once upon a time. Before the plague, soldiers like you killed other humans as part of your job description. Or haveyou forgotten about all that? Taken our atrocities and somehow chalked them up to the vampires?”
“It’s not a competition of who’s worse,” he snaps.
“No, it’s not, but pretending we’re all good and they’re all bad is part of the problem. We know enough about them to know that isn’t true.Youknow it isn’t true. Their blood can save us! We need them as much as they need us.”
“All right. If you really believe that—” He sucks a tooth. “—then why did you make a deal with Lopez for the poison? Hm? Why would you agree to give him what he needs to kill all of them?”
