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Back to business. “So, you’re saying no one else is here on borrowed time? Adam, we all die. We’re all only temporarily visiting this world. Be glad that you believe in God. I don’t have the comfort of—”
“You’re misunderstanding me. I’m not having a philosophical debate about life. I’m telling you that if you don’t help me, I will have no choice but to go to the Council and ... surrender my life. What you witnessed today was only a glimpse of what will become of me. There’s something inside of me, Annalise, and only you can tame it.”
She pressed a hand to her head, overwhelmed and... She thought of his siblings and parents. “How old is your oldest sister?”
“Larissa’s forty-nine.”
Her brow tightened. “That’s impossible, unless she has different birth parents.”
“It’s very possible.”
“Your mother—”
“My mother is in her seventies.”
Her expression dropped. “No.” His mother—Abilene—couldn’t be that old. But if Adam was thirty-seven, she’d have to be at least close to eighteen years older than him...
“You can ask her. I can show you her birth records. Whatever you need to trust that I only speak the truth, I’ll do it. She’ll be eighty in less than a decade.”
She shook her head. Impossible. The woman had the skin of a twenty year old. Her eyes were bright, her hands unmarked by time.
“You have a cynical mind and don’t trust easily. But, I swear, I speak the truth. My mother is actually quite young for our kind.”
“Your kind?”
She stared at the braided rug on the floor, her eyes unblinking as her mind replayed a slideshow of Adam’s family. Their youthful faces scraping with reality until the friction of truth and lies seemed impossible to bear.
“I want to tell you a story, but I want your word you will not leave this room until I’ve finished.”
She glanced at the door and then to him. “But if I want to leave after?”
“You’ll be free to go.”
She shouldn’t trust him. She didn’t want to trust him. It didn’t make sense for her to trust him. But she did trust him. Somehow, over the last forty-eight hours, he’d wormed his way under her skin and earned a tiny chip of her heart. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.
“Okay.”
He scooted closer so he sat across from her chair, but remained on the bed. “Our ancestors traveled here from Europe on a ship called The Charming Nancy. Puritans seeking a simpler lifestyle. They called themselves Amish.
“My great uncle and the bishop purchased this land. Several generations have lived here since. Living as we do, isolated as we are, we’re exempt from English law, politics, and wars. Our people are governed by the Ordnung, or Order. The Ordnung protects us. It provides the privacy we need to live comfortably by our values and be as God created us.”
“Amish?”
He looked down at his chest. Dried blood, a mix of his and his brother’s, stained his skin. “You saw my wounds. My blood has healing properties that yours doesn’t. Our cells regenerate at such a rapid speed, we have no need for modern medicine.”
“That’s impossible. If that were true, people would know.”
“Why? So they could probe and dissect us like lab rats? Our people go back a long time, Annalise. The human race has a history of exploiting certain subsets to advance their personal needs. The Nazis practiced cruel experiments on the Jews. Portugal invaded Africa to start a slave trade. What do you think would happen if the world knew our secrets?”
He was right. It took only seconds for her to question if his blood could have saved her mother. “People can donate blood every fifty-six days. Platelets every seven and plasma once a month. If your cells really regenerate that fast, you could—”
“You’re not listening.”
“It doesn’t hurt. I could show you. It’s just a needle—”
He bolted off the bed, suddenly leaning over her and glaring in her face with unnatural eyes. “This is why we hide.”
He shoved away from the chair, leaving her shaken and swallowing back the panic that choked her. He paced by the foot of the bed. Her eyes followed him, frequently slanting to the door.
When he spoke again, his voice had calmed. “There are reasons we cannot share our blood with just anyone. In the wrong hands, under the wrong circumstances, there could be severe outcomes. Outbreaks that would be uncontainable. It would be dangerous.” He paused and looked at her. “But when the circumstances are right, the outcome can be profound and divine.”
He always returned to the same cosmic mumbo jumbo and she just couldn’t accept that people in this world were predestined. If she gave the universe that much authority, she’d flounder more than she already was, trying to explain away her mother’s death.
People lived and then they died. Same with all species. There was no superior race and there was no such thing as superhuman healing blood cells.
