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There was tape wrapped around the crook of Nox’s arm.
“What did they give Nox?” Reese said.
“They had him hooked up to a bag of fluid. It was mostly lactated ringers, but there was Rakta in it too.”
“None of that matters,” Seung said.
“What if you’re wrong? What if Isaiah’s blood did something to mine and I make Nox sicker?”
“You’re a Cana. The only person whose blood can change anyone else’s is yours.”
Nash exhaled a whine. Black leaked from the corners of his eyes and broke through tears in his skin.
“The ichor is trying to purge.” Reese had watched the substance abandon plenty of lesser mammals and even a few people when they went against the genetic sequencing on the wall. They’d died from mutilating themselves within days. But Nash had shared the ichor for years with his team.
Which meant he’d been dead for years.
“I need an answer, Luca,” Seung said. “I can’t do this without your permission.”
Again, he looked at Reese. “What do I do?”
Never in his life had Reese felt so powerless. If he told Luca to do it and it killed Nash, it would be his fault. If he told him no and Nash died, he was still responsible.
But what was one more burden to bear if it could keep Luca from blaming himself, if only a little?
“Do it,” Reese said.
Seung put her hand on Luca’s shoulder. “Now, I need you to stay calm. We have to get the blood into his body as fast as possible.”
“Okay. Okay.” Luca nodded.
To Seung, Reese said, “What are you—”
She drove the knife into Nash’s chest, cracking his sternum. Black threads poured from the opening, spreading Nash’s ribs.
Luca screamed, and Seung grabbed him by the wrist. In one fluid move, she opened his hand with the blade.
The horrified look on Luca’s face sent Reese stumbling back.
Crimson poured from the wound in Luca’s palm, coating Nox’s chest. Seung pushed Luca’s hand closer.
“Keep it there.”
Tears soaked Luca’s cheeks.
Reese got to his knees.
In the Utah Facility, the bodies they’d received had come in various states. Some were barely recognizable as what had passed for humans. But as long as the head remained attached to the spinal cord and there was enough tissue for the ichor to use, it could rebuild the body. The exponential cellular replication could produce temperatures as high as a hundred and thirty degrees. Even brain damage, neurological degradation, even decomposition couldn’t stop the ichor from working.
After Nash, they learned injecting the ichor wasn’t required as long as it could penetrate the skin.
That knowledge was the only reason Reese didn’t try to stop Seung.
Luca struggled.
Reese crawled back over. “Look at him, Luca.”
He wouldn’t.
