By the time Samantha got herself back together, Louis was already injecting a huge syringe full of the greenish liquid into Kyson’s arm. The big man lay there strapped to the inclined rack, showing very little interest in what Louis was doing to him. Instead, his attention was focused on Shaylee, where Nadia was holding her off to the side. Shaylee was crying softly, tears running down her cheeks. The fear on her face tore at Samantha’s heart.
“No need to worry,” Louis said absently, and for a moment, Samantha wasn’t sure if he was talking to Shaylee or himself. “This new serum I’m injecting is a modification to the formula I’ve been using to slow the organ rejection issue. Then again, the modification involves the healing components I’ve extracted from the werewolf’s blood, so truthfully, irreversible septic shock isn’t out of the question. It probably won’t happen, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”
Louis stepped back and waited, monitoring Kyson’s vitals the whole time. After a few minutes, Louis must have decided his test subject wasn’t going to die on him because he moved froward and got back to work.
Samantha had hoped that injecting the greenish liquid into Kyson’s arm was the only thing Louis was going to do to him, but then he shoved Kyson’s head back against the table and strapped that metal band around his forehead, and she knew this wasn’t over.
“You don’t have to do this,” she yelled, pounding on the metal grating of her cage even as Trey threw her a confused, worried look.
“Actually, I do,” Louis said. “The serum I injected requires a certain level of ionization to encourage DNA restructuring and protein bonding. But don’t worry. If any adverse reaction to the injection was going to occur, it would almost certainly have happened already.”
Trey almost lost it when Louis dropped that big black lever, electricity began to hum, and Kyson began to fight against the restraints in obvious pain. If Rogi hadn’t been standing right there in front of the cage with that damn remote in his hand and a demented smile on his face, Samantha had no doubt Trey would have been through the door in seconds.
Having seen the electrocution process once already didn’t make this time any easier. Every muscle in Kyson’s huge body tightened so much Samantha was sure she could hear them tear. But even worse than that was seeing his teeth grind together in an effort to hold in the pain, either because he didn’t want to give Louis the satisfaction or because he didn’t want Shaylee to see him scream.
Samantha had no idea how long the torture lasted. It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like forever. Beside her, Trey let out a loud gasp when Louis flipped the lever, as if he’d been holding his breath the entire time. Which was entirely possible since she’d been doing exactly the same thing.
Louis immediately moved over and started checking Kyson’s vitals and examining his body. But even from across the room, Sam could tell that something had happened. The horrible, thick scars around Kyson’s wrists and upper arms were already visibly fading, become smoother. When Louis opened Kyson’s shirt, she saw that the endless scars crisscrossing Kyson’s chest and abs were likewise fading.
Samantha flinched when Louis picked up a scalpel and sliced Kyson open from the top of the sternum all the way down to his belt line. The amount of blood was extreme and Rogi almost zapped Samantha off her feet to keep Trey from ripping through the cage. As she reached out to grab his arm and steady herself, she caught the venomous yellow-gold glare he gave Rogi. Like he was planning to rip off his face and eat it. Even with the leverage the collar remote gave him, the goon still went pale.
She never thought of herself as a violent person, but she prayed Trey got the chance to make Rogi pay for his part in this before it was over.
By the time Samantha turned her attention back to Kyson, the long, nasty gash was completely sealed and quickly becoming harder to see. She leaned against the door of the cage to get a better look, but within seconds, realized that Kyson’s wounds were healing even faster than Trey’s had. Though how that was possible, she had no idea.
Minutes later, every scar on Kyson’s body had faded to the point where it looked like they’d happened a lifetime ago. She doubted they would ever disappear completely, but they weren’t nearly as horrible as they’d been before.
Louis was practically bouncing on his toes from the excitement as he continued to poke and prod Kyson. Clearly, he was intensely satisfied with the results of his experiment. Unfortunately, while she was thrilled Kyson seemed okay, she wasn’t sure if the outcome would be as good for the rest of them.
“That went better than I could have ever hoped,” Louis said, turning to look at her and Trey after checking Kyson’s vitals one more time. “I’m sure I should wait to period of time to see if any long-term issues develop with the DNA transfer, but I’m impatient to move on to the next step.”
Samantha felt a shiver of dread trickle down her spine at those words, realizing that her previous fear had definitely been warranted.
“Next step?” she asked softly, caught between wanting to know what Louis was planning and wishing she could remain blissfully unaware.
“Yes, the next step,” Louis announced almost eagerly, moving closer to the door of their cage and looking at Trey in a way that had Samantha’s stomach twisting itself into knots. “The one that involves resurrecting my son using my process at the same time I transfer a suitable portion of his very unique DNA into his body.”
Samantha’s stomach started doing cartwheels and barrel rolls then. A split second later, Nadia shoved Shaylee into the cage with her, pulling an unresisting Trey out at the same time. Rogi stood to the side, finger on the collar’s remote the whole time, looking like he hoped Trey would try something so he’d have a reason to fry her.
As Louis strapped Trey down to the operating table, Samantha wanted Trey to struggle, to shove his way off the table in the center of the room and tear these killers apart. But at the same time, Samantha knew exactly why he wouldn’t do that. He loved her and that meant he wouldn’t do anything that might get her hurt, even if that meant giving up without a fight.
Chapter 23
“You might be wondering why I’m not using a serum based on your blood, like I did with your friend,” Louis murmured, motioning casually at Kyson before carefully inserting a second catheter into Trey’s femoral artery, then taping it down with multiple pieces of surgical tape.
The excessive amount of tape the doctor used worried Trey. It was like Louis expected him to jerk around all over the place on the freezing cold steel table at some point very soon.
“But my son has been dead for almost three years now, versus your friend, who’d only been deceased for a few hours before I resurrected him,” Louis said, moving on from the catheter to the thick electrical cables he began to attach to the shackles holding Trey’s wrist down to the table. “Even with the stasis gel I’ve maintained him in that whole time, the amount of healing he’ll require during the process will be significantly greater. I believe transferring the blood straight from your body to his while subjecting you both to high levels of electrical ionization will be the most effective way to overcome the existing cellular damage he’s already sustained.”