Heather looked up at Brian, gave Kyle’s arm a little squeeze. “He’s still not able to move much, though it does seem to be wearing off.”
Brian’s head dipped in a small nod. “We don’t know what was used or how it interacts with Kyle’s mods,” he said, “so it may simply take more time. I can’t see Saberton using anything that would permanently harm a useful zombie.”
Philip shuddered beside me. “Charish…would…did,” he rasped out, voice thick with pain.
I looked back to him. “She’s a fucking bitch,” I muttered.
His nostrils suddenly flared, and he let out a low ominous growl. He shifted, pushing up on his arms, half-twisting to face the open doorway. He knew she was there. Could smell her or something. I felt the fury roiling through him and had no doubt that, despite the pain, he’d rip her to pieces if he could get his hands on her.
I wrapped my arms around him from behind and sank my teeth into his shoulder again, though there was a nasty part of me that wanted to leave him be and wish him good hunting. Oops, couldn’t control him. Sorry! However, the practical side of me knew I might not be able to bring him back down after he rage-shredded Charish, and I didn’t want to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt.
But Philip wasn’t as easily subdued this time. He managed to push up to his knees while I clung to his back and bit harder. I sensed Brian near and ready to act in case I couldn’t bring Philip under control, but to my relief, after a few seconds, Philip let out a low moan and sank down to lie on his belly.
“Was fine,” he rasped, breathing harshly. “Was good. Strong after you turned me. She did this…to me.”
I let out a low growl of understanding, then released the bite and licked at the sluggishly bleeding wound. Still not gross, I thought idly. Too weird. I remained partially atop him—not that my piddling weight would slow him down if he went off again, but the physical contact seemed to keep him a bit calmer, though he still jerked and twitched.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dr. Nikas enter followed by Jacques, the pale tech who’d taken my blood at the other lab. Dr. Nikas paused as he took in the sights, and probably scents and sounds as well. He went to Kyle first, knelt by the mattress and placed a hand in the center of the stricken man’s chest. “How is it?” he asked. “Movement returning?”
“Slowly,” Kyle replied. “Very slowly.”
Dr. Nikas gave a small nod. “I suspect they hit you with the new tranq, but if you feel stable, I’m going to go take care of Philip.”
“I’m stable enough,” Kyle said, to my relief. “Tend to him.”
Dr. Nikas stood and moved to us, eyes going first to the deep bite marks on Philip’s shoulder as he knelt. I shifted off to Philip’s other side, and Dr. Nikas placed a hand in the center of his back. “Philip, can you hear me?” he asked.
“I can…hear you, Dr. Nikas,” he gasped out, then squeezed his eyes shut. “Please. End this. Please.” His voice cracked horribly on the last word.
“I will,” Dr. Nikas replied, calmly and firmly. He met my eyes, and to my relief I saw full confidence that he could help Philip, and that he intended Philip’s death to be an utter last resort. “Let’s get you to your back first,” he told Philip, and with my help we got him turned over on the mattress. Dr. Nikas looked at Jacques and rattled off some instructions that included words like “red-topped stabilizers” and “large bore eye-vee” and “five hundred mill normal saline.”
Jacques hurried off to comply with the instructions, and Dr. Nikas returned his gaze to me. “Angel, are you willing to stay with Philip for a short time?”
“Totally,” I said. “But can someone call Marcus and let him and my dad know I’m okay and might be a while?”
Dr. Nikas glanced at Brian, who gave a nod.
“I’m on it,” he said, pulling out his phone as he stepped into the hallway to make the call.
Jacques returned and set up an IV with several bags flowing into the tube thingy in Philip’s arm.
I frowned. “How do you keep his body from healing up around the IV?”
Jacques didn’t look up from his adjustments. “Needle and catheter have a camouflaging coating that keeps the parasite from reacting to it. Dr. Nikas’s development.” He stuck three patches on Philip’s chest and switched on the heart monitor, then stood and retreated to the computer workstation.
Dr. Nikas filled a syringe from a vial and injected it into the saline bag. “Philip, as soon as this bag finishes, I’m going to set up a drip of a new formulation. It’ll take a couple of hours, but let me know immediately if it makes anything worse.”
“Yes, sir,” Philip murmured, eyes already drifting closed. “Thank you.” He already seemed to be better, and I had to hope it wasn’t simply my wishful thinking.
Dr. Nikas stood and returned to Kyle. Carefully, he picked up the container holding the dart that had struck him. “Excellent, Kyle,” he said. “This will give us a cleaner sample to analyze and hopefully a better idea of how this tranquilizer operates.”
Heather’s lips twitched. “Way to take one for the team, Kyle. We can tell everyone you got tranqed on purpose.”
Kyle muttered something I couldn’t hear, but I had no doubt the gist of it involved curse words.
Dr. Nikas gave Kyle’s shoulder an absent pat, then turned and headed toward the doorway, expression hardening.
I had no shame, and I quickly grabbed one of the packets of brains Dan had left for me and sucked it down. I was pretty sure Dr. Nikas was about to confront Charish, and I wanted some super zombie hearing right about now.
It kicked in barely in time.
“Tell me what happened to Philip,” I heard Dr. Nikas say in a calm, even voice. Lucky for me, Charish had apparently been lurking just beyond the doorway. No wonder Philip had nearly lost it.
“I don’t know. He’s always been unstable,” Charish replied, and even though I couldn’t see her I had no trouble picturing the frown laced with the perfect amount of professional concern.
“What happened when he came here last night?” Dr. Nikas asked.
“Oh my god! Can you believe he showed up here?” she said, outrage thick in her voice. She huffed out a breath. “Begging, no less. He wasted all the supplies you’d left for him and claimed he was starving. I gave him some simply to get him to leave and keep from totally compromising us.”
Dr. Nikas remained quiet for a few seconds before asking, “Why in god’s name did you not give him more?” My zombie super-hearing picked up footfalls, and I easily pictured him stepping closer to her. “Did you think he was lying about being hungry? That perhaps he sold the brains I gave him on the street like pain meds?”
He didn’t sound so calm anymore.
“No!” Charish said. “He obviously wasn’t rationing properly. I gave him two, and Saberton fed him as well. He simply had to hold it together for a couple of days, that’s all.” She made an aggrieved sound. “Why would I waste valuable resources on a stupid zombie grunt, and an expendable one at that?”
Holy fucking shit, I thought, stunned, She did NOT just say that!
“Stupid…zombie…grunt?” Dr. Nikas bit the words out, and the anger in his voice sounded utterly foreign coming from him. “You call a highly skilled man who volunteered for extremely hazardous duty, suffered your botched efforts, and who managed to endure agony and extreme hunger without undue complaint a stupid zombie grunt?”
I heard a clatter, and I figured Dr. Nikas had backed her into a counter or something.
“I…I don’t understand,” Charish said, for the first time sounding a little afraid and genuinely perplexed. “You were going to terminate him tomorrow. And…volunteered? What do you mean? For what?”
“Terminate?” Utter astonishment laced the word. “I never had any intention of terminating him! You don’t terminate your own people!” Dr. Nikas drew a shaking breath, obviously struggling for calm. “Why did you give the accelerant instead of stabilizer?”
“I didn’t!” she cried.
“You are lying,” he said through clenched teeth. “The two are kept in separate locations, look completely different from each other. Tell me why you sent an operative back into the field with a substance that could damage him and his mission.”
“I thought he was just a mule,” she replied, voice cracking in a way that told me she had tears going on now. Bitch. I glanced around the room to see that I wasn’t the only one carefully eavesdropping. Brian stood by the wall, arms folded over his chest and eyes closed, but his jaw was clenched so tightly I thought he might break a tooth. Kyle’s eyes were on the doorway, brow ever so slightly furrowed. He probably wasn’t tanked up to where he could hear it all, but enough to get the gist.
“I didn’t know he was an operative, I swear,” Charish continued, crying now. “You said you were going to ‘take care of him,’ and I thought you meant kill him.” She sniffled. “Ari, I was so tired that night, and upset that he’d come to the lab. Anyone could have followed him!”
Like me. Bitch.
“Because you thought him to be an expendable grunt, you chose to punish him. For a brilliant woman, you are remarkably stupid,” Dr. Nikas said, voice tight. “Brian,” he called.
Brian pushed off the wall, face instantly composed into a neutral mask that completely hid that he’d heard everything and how pissed he was. He moved to the doorway. “Yes, sir?”
“Remove Dr. Charish from these premises until a decision can be made as to her…disposition.” He paused, and I heard Charish suck in a shocked breath. “And in the meantime,” he continued, “she is to have no more than three hundred calories a day.”
“Ari! No!” Charish gasped while I silently cheered. Three hundred calories a day? I knew damn well Dr. Nikas ordered that so Charish would get a hint of what real hunger felt like.