AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She didn’t want you to worry, to blame yourself, after everything you’d already endured.”
“You took me off Nightfall right after her disappearance. I lost my security access to the eighteenth floor. I assumed you wanted me to focus on other research instead of the breeding program. I never...I never questioned it, not even for a moment.”
“Yes,” Dr. Reynolds replied. “It was best that way.”
I listened to this exchange with growing alarm. A vampire father and a human mother rarely conceived a baby, but when it did happen, that child was always a dhampyr.
The monstrous kind literally clawed its way out of its mother’s womb, leading inevitably to the mother’s horrific death. Births of the more human dhampyrs like Declan were apparently a minuscule percentage.
I didn’t claim to be an expert on the subject, but I knew just enough to make me feel sick to my stomach about what Lawrence’s wife would have had to face.
Dr. Gray had her breeding program and that hadn’t ended well for her. But a whole lot of innocent women had died in her pursuit of research. To think that Dr. Reynolds had something similar in play here made me sick to my stomach.
“Tell me more, Victor,” Lawrence demanded.
“When I explained to Stacy that there was a potential for a normal child—that it’s impossible to tell the outcome until late in the third trimester—she was willing to wait. To see. She agreed to stay here under my care and be carefully monitored.”
“Without telling me.”
“That was her request. Her demand. I honored it.”
“Why would she do such a thing?” Lawrence muttered. “The Nightfall project...I didn’t even realize it was still ongoing. How many human women do you have downstairs that I’m not aware of?”
“Only one other subject currently remains under observation. She and Stacy became very good friends over the last few weeks.”
“I’ve been beside myself with worry, searching for her in every spare moment I’ve had, and she’s been here, under my nose, this whole damn time,” Lawrence hissed. “The very same place I come to every day, working by your side. And you never said a damn word to me about it. You let me suffer.”
“I made my promise. I always keep my promises. You know that better than most.”
A shimmer of hope finally crossed Lawrence’s pale expression. “Is Stacy on level eighteen right now?”
There was silence for a few very long moments.
“She was,” Dr. Reynolds finally replied.
Lawrence frowned. “What do you mean, she was?”
“I’m sorry but...we lost her late last night.”
My blood ran cold.
Lawrence’s expression shattered, and he took a shaky step backward. “No,” he whispered.
Dr. Reynolds studied the shiny white floor by his feet. “She went into labor,” he explained. “I tried everything in my power I could to save her, but it was impossible. My other patient was with her until the end, doing whatever she could to help us. She held Stacy’s hand the whole time until it was...too late.”
“What about the baby?” Lawrence asked, his voice ragged.
Dr. Reynolds shook his head. “I’m afraid it was far too vicious to keep for further testing.”
“You let her go into labor knowing what she had inside of her?”
“It was the first such pregnancy I’d been able to observe and chart, since returning to this location. To end it prematurely would have been a loss to science. I fully believed I would be able to save her in the end, but it didn’t turn out that way. I’m truly sorry, Lawrence. I hope you know I never wanted it to end like this.”
Lawrence slowly raised his tear-filled black eyes to Dr. Reynolds. “I know that.”
“Good.”
“But,” the vampire whispered, his voice hoarse, “I’m still going to kill you now.”
