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“Where are we taking these?” Leah grabbed a large box of snacks.
“We have a table set up inside. Come, I’ll show you,” the orderly said.
She followed Miles to the lobby, which had a vaulted ceiling with a beautiful chandelier and black marble floors that shone in the light. To her right, a curved staircase led up to the second floor. An open pair of French doors on the other side of the lobby gave a view of the manicured garden and a fountain.
Someone had set up three plastic tables in the middle to hold the donations.
“Lucy said everything at the shelter comes from the city’s budget?” Leah asked as she placed the box on the table.
“Yep. Unbelievable, I know.” Miles dropped his boxes next to hers. “The pay is competitive too.” When he saw her disbelief, he chuckled. “Want a tour?”
“Yes, is that possible?”
This was nothing like what she’d imagined as a shelter for VB addicts and vampire throwaways. Not to say that she wanted to ever risk becoming a patient here, but for Vegas to pay for all this… It was a marketing ploy. That was all. The vampires wanted to look good for the press.
Look at us. We help humans. We’re not evil. Let’s forget that the shelters wouldn’t be necessary if not for us.
“Of course. I’ll let Lucy and Dr. Maxwell know.”
A few people passed by, their glances curious. She wasn’t sure if they were patients or employees. They wore regular clothes, no uniforms or name tags like Miles, so maybe patients? If so, they looked healthy, happy, and normal.
Dr. Maxwell returned a minute later. He had what Leah considered a doctor’s smile from TV, gentle and kind to put patients at ease but distant somehow. Nothing like her own experience at the Compound. “You wanted a tour?”
“Yes, if it’s not too much trouble?” She waved her hands around the lobby. “This is so different from the last shelter I visited.”
Dr. Maxwell nodded in understanding. “I see. The Vegas shelters are a class of their own. Why don’t we start with the back?”
Leah followed him through the French doors. There were more people here, reading and picnicking and just relaxing. A few of them waved and greeted Dr. Maxwell. He took her through the grounds, which included a tennis court, a basketball court, an outdoor and indoor pool, a gym, and a recreation center separate from the main building.
The patients each had their own rooms, he explained. New patients stayed in the East Wing, and those who had graduated from the first phase of the program stayed in the West Wing. The facility could house about fifty patients at once.
Leah insisted on touring the East Wing and its common areas. There, she saw the malnourished, glassy-eyed addicts who couldn’t function without VB. Unlike in Miami, where they were abandoned on their filthy cot, orderlies attended each patient. One was feeding a nonresponsive patient while another one read in a soft voice to a man who stared straight ahead.
According to Dr. Maxwell, the main difference contributing to the long-term success of patients in the Vegas shelters was the support system once they graduated. They had a network of businesses and alumni up and down the West Coast and in Nevada that employed the alumni. This ensured the patients formed meaningful connections and found a purpose to prevent them from falling back into old habits.
As with all such programs, no one could claim one hundred percent success. However, the remission rate for the Vegas shelters was the lowest in the States. If a patient relapsed and needed to return, the shelter welcomed them back.
Leah wasn’t any less bewildered when they wrapped up the tour. This was a shelter? And in Vegas, of all places? A long line had formed in the lobby as orderlies distributed the donations. Lucy greeted her with a smile by the car.
“What did you think?”
“It’s… amazing.” But amazing didn’t begin to describe her feelings.
“See, I told you. It’s like a vacation. I want to live here sometimes, not as a patient, of course.”
Leah thanked Dr. Maxwell and got in the car. Lucy informed her that there were three shelters in the greater Las Vegas area. Blackmore and the Treasury Department were working on the budget to build a fourth one.
She tried hard to find the cracks in the facade, but none surfaced. The other facilities were similar to the first one, with the same amenities. The doctors were honest in admitting the rehab’s hardship. The patients seemed content and fit. Even those in the worst phase of their withdrawal weren’t as skeletal and lifeless as the ones in Miami.
Everything she learned today conflicted with the Organization’s teachings about vampires. Maybe because she’d been almost a teenager when the Organization had adopted her, or maybe because she’d never suffered from a vampire attack, but she didn’t hate vampires with a zealousness that bordered on obsession. It was what had made her a perfect candidate for this job.
Everyone who’d hurt her had been human — her parents who had abandoned her, the Organization’s trainers, Dmitri.
What else was the Organization hiding from her? What else had the Organization twisted to suit its purpose?
The sun was low on the horizon when they finished. Leah was exhausted after moving so many boxes, but she didn’t want to go to the office yet. Not until her feelings were less tangled.
Besides, she’d been too busy and confused the last few hours and hadn’t formed a new plan to seduce Blackmore. Her fingers played with the ends of her hair. What kind of man didn’t bat an eye at killing but provided for the most downtrodden in society?
