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Kristi batted her eyelashes. “I think your friends might need your help, Angel.”
Kyle took off at a dead sprint toward the main lab.
“Go!” Sorsha told me. “I’ve got this.”
“Don’t let them leave!” I ordered the gators then raced after Kyle and activated a combat mod.
Kyle had likely done the same, besides having a good head start on me. By the time I rounded the corner, he’d already made it to the main lab door. He yanked it open, stepping back as smoke and an odd fog rolled out, then he charged in. Farther down the hall, Reg burst out of the cell culture room and sprinted into the lab after Kyle.
I poured on the speed and followed them in. The fog was already dissipating, and I realized it was a waterless fire suppression system, used in places where water would fuck up sensitive equipment and computers.
Not that it mattered. The computers were twisted, smoking heaps of plastic and metal. Cold nausea gripped me. Kristi had blown them up to destroy data.
I pushed back the sick fear and assessed the scene. Rachel was ripping apart the remains of a computer with her bare hands, blood running down her face from a long gash on her forehead. Brian had his back to me—with a dozen or more bits of shrapnel sticking out of it. He was trying to feed brains to Dr. Nikas, who had numerous gashes on his face and chest.
Dr. Nikas, who was cradling a bleeding Portia.
“Oh god, Portia!” I dropped to my knees beside her.
She coughed, pink foam bubbling at her mouth. “Ari . . .” she wheezed.
“I’m here, Portia,” he said, face contorted in pain and grief.
Brian leaned close to me. “She was right by Kristi’s computer when it blew. The charges were small, but the pressure wave hit her hard.”
I nodded, sick. That was how explosions killed you—a wave of pressure that battered your internal organs. She was going to drown in her own blood.
“You have to save her, Dr. Nikas,” I told him. Begged him.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said, agonized. “The cancer. The injuries. And . . . I will not without her consent.”
“You have to try!” I took her hand, terrified at how light it seemed. “Please, Portia. Let him try and save you.”
She coughed again and brought up blood. “I . . .”
“Portia!” I wanted to squeeze her hand but didn’t dare. “You’d be a zombie, but you’d have a chance to live.”
“Ari . . . ?”
“Yes, dear one?” He touched her cheek.
“Yes . . . give me . . . the chance,” she whispered. “Give us the . . .” Her eyes lost their focus.
Brian shoved two open brain packets at Dr. Nikas. “You have to heal before you do anything else.” He’d probably been trying to get the distraught man to take brains since the explosion.
Dr. Nikas took both packets and devoured the contents, eyes never leaving the dying woman in his arms. He pulled her close and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead then shifted to bite her trapezius. With a low growl, he gave a sharp tug to part the flesh then
went still, breathing softly through his teeth.
What was he doing? Had he changed his mind about turning her? When I’d turned Philip Reinhardt and Andrew Saber, I’d slavered and shredded flesh like, well, a monster.
But when I’d tried to turn Kristi’s next test subject, the instinct never rose. What if that was happening with Dr. Nikas? I clenched my hands together to keep them from shaking. Kang had told me my instinct failed because I’d recently turned Philip. But what if Dr. Nikas was exhausted and depleted from so much work? Or what if something else was wrong, and he couldn’t save her?
Brian set Rachel’s half-full container of fresh brain chunks beside Dr. Nikas. I unclenched my hands and forced myself to breathe. The next stage of turning required brains to help transfer and nourish the parasite. After I’d finished the rending-and-tearing stage with Philip and Andrew, I’d chewed brains then spat and bitten them into the numerous wounds I’d created. But Brian didn’t look at all uncertain, which told me Dr. Nikas’s behavior was normal. Maybe the process simply wasn’t as gruesome for a mature zombie.
Dr. Nikas released his bite-hold on Portia’s shoulder, still cradling her limp form close. He took a hunk of brain, chewed it, then clamped onto the wound again, all neat and tidy and controlled. If I hadn’t known better, a casual glance would have made me think he held her in a lover’s embrace.
But was he cradling a dying woman or one about to start a fresh life? Only time would tell. I looked away to give them a semblance of privacy as well as to distract myself. Kyle helped Rachel dismantle computers, removing hard drives and flash storage in the hopes of salvaging info. Reg gathered and organized scattered files with fierce efficiency.
