“Yet that’s what you were sent here to do.” Lydia put her hands forward. “I’m not accusing you of—”
“Oh, you’re right. That is what I came to do—but my focus was the lab. And the difference now is that she plugged up the entrances and tunnels on the mountain. Even if somebody were to blast the hatches—which would create a light show and set off some really big boom-booms—they’re just going to face concrete caps and an excavation job that will take days, if not weeks, to get through.” He pointed to the floor. “She’s centralized the access now, which means fewer entry points to defend. You need a lot of firepower and know-how to get into the lab now, and until I know otherwise, this house is still the safest place for us to be.”
“Are we prisoners here, then?”
“It’s safer that way. At least until we know what’s going on.”
Lydia thought about what Xhex had told her, about how she had to go to the mountain, and found herself standing up in a rush. “Well, I’m not going to live in fear. I’m still going to go out.”
“Lydia, be reasonable—”
“I’m not the target and neither are you.”
“Anybody associated with C.P. Phalen is a target.”
Crossing her arms, she tried to imagine not being able to run free, and the panic choked her so badly she had to pace around the table. As she circled, she stared out into the darkness, picturing the meadow, the forest, remembering the smell of the clean air and the feel of the grass under her feet, her paws.
“I’m going to keep living my life.”
Daniel put down his fork. “Be serious here. You don’t know what this type of killer is capable of.”
“I was out there last night by the car. They went after the guard, not me. I walked right out into the darkness. They don’t want us—”
“That is not a reasonable conclusion. Maybe whoever it was knew they’d gotten spotted and backed off in case defensive reinforcements were called. Which in fact they were. You’ve got to trust me on this. I understand you’re frustrated at the thought of—”
“I’m not like you, Daniel. I think you’re forgetting that.”
Daniel opened his mouth. Closed it.
Going around to her chair, she sat back down. “I have instincts and capabilities that humans don’t, and I’ve never hesitated to use them. I’m already living in terror of your disease, I’m not making space for that kind of fear anywhere else.”
“Lydia.” Except then he stared at his plate. As he pushed his half-eaten seconds away, he cursed. “I’m not going to tell you what to do.”
“Good. Thank you.”
After a moment, he put out a hand, palm up. When she covered it with her own, he cursed. A couple of times.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “You can trust me.”
* * *
Eight p.m. Showtime was early, and the fact that Gus had decided not to wait until midnight was just fine with C.P.
As she took the elevator down to what she thought of as the highway to the lab, she was in a trance. And when she started the long walk to the main access point, she was going against the grain—and causing a stir. Many staff were leaving for the night, and a lot of the lab techs and researchers tripped up as they passed her.
She thought of Daniel as she nodded at them regally, like she was dressed as her usual self.
Battle-ax, huh. At the moment, she was feeling more like a thumbtack.
When she got to the checkpoint, she watched from a vast distance as her hand reached out and put her forefinger on the reader. The steel panel retracted to reveal a bald hallway with one-way mirrors running down the long sides, the bulletproof glass obscuring the security detail that would hit the nerve gas if there was any kind of infiltration.
She thought of Rob again.
She was still thinking of him as the panel ahead of her slid back and she stepped through. Out in the lab proper, there were a whole lot of vacancies at the workstations, but a few stragglers remained hard at work in their white coats and their goggles and their computers. She was struck by an absurd desire to go over and hug them, one by one.
“No more battle-ax,” she murmured.
The clinic area, where Gus was going to treat her, was way down the line, the patient rooms and nuclear medicine equipment set away from the open area as well as the negative pressure labs. Gus’s office was also among this lineup, and she stopped at his door first. After her knock wasn’t answered, she went farther along, rounded the corner, and came to the treatment space she was going to be in.
Looking down at her thick socks, she felt as though she were stepping over a barrier, and once she was on the other side, there would be no returning.
She had rolled so many dice over so many years, and this was her final throw.
“Luck be a lady tonight,” she murmured as she pushed the door wide.
Gus was there, sitting at the built-in desk across from the hospital bed, the glow from the computer monitor casting blue light over the face she had come to rely on when she was feeling at loose ends. As usual, there was a lab report up on the screen, and she dreaded more testing.
Maybe he’d changed his mind about the results from the other facility and reversed his decision about not doing any more scans.
At this point, she was prepared to just consent away any risks and move on with it.
“I’m ready,” she said when he didn’t look over at her. “Hello? Gus. Are we starting or what?”
When he just shook his head at his screen, and then rubbed his eyes, a pit bottomed out in her stomach. In a hollow voice, she demanded, “What’s going on.”
“I need you to take a seat.”
“Okay.”
She started in his direction, but he shook his head. “Over there. Please.”
“Okaaaay.” Rerouting, she went across and sidled up onto the hospital bed. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
As her heart started to pound, she put her hand at the base of her throat and reminded herself that as far as bad news went, she’d maxed out on dire straits. There were no more breaking stories that could be worse than what she had already heard.
“I swear to God, St. Claire,” she snapped, “if you don’t start talking right now, I’m going to put my head through the wall.”
He turned around on his swivel chair and almost met her eyes. “You’re pregnant.”
C.P. blinked. Then shifted herself a little farther back on the mattress. “I’m sorry, what did you say.”
“You are pregnant.”
The words were spoken crisply, with enunciation worthy of an English professor. And yet she still didn’t understand them.
“You’re mistaken.” She shrugged. “I’m infertile.”
“Clearly not.” Gus’s eyes lowered to his hands and he cracked his knuckles one by one. “Needless to say, this changes everything.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’m not pregnant.”
“As part of your work-up at MD Anderson, they tested your urine for a variety of things.”
“The test is wrong.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”