“Yes, sir,” Brian replied evenly. “Secure cell, sir?” he added, emphasizing the word “cell” a bit, and I had no doubt he’d done so simply to fuck with her.
“Most definitely,” Dr. Nikas replied.
“No, Ari…oh god. Please! You can’t do this. Pietro will…oh, god.” She was crying for real now, which surprised me. She struck me as the type to go cold and shut down. Maybe the thought of what Pietro would do scared the ice right out of her.
“I made the grievous error of trusting you with my interests,” Dr. Nikas said with undisguised reproach in his voice. “I will not do so again.”
I heard a muffled whimper, and then Brian said, “This way, Dr. Charish.” A few seconds later he came through the doorway, escorting her with a firm grip on her upper arm. Her hands had been secured behind her back with zip-ties, I noted as they passed. I didn’t bother to hide the fact that I openly watched her be escorted out. No one in the room was hiding it, Philip included.
Halfway to the exit, she began to struggle and tried to pull away from Brian. “No. No! This isn’t right!”
Brian visibly tightened his grip, fingers digging in. “Walk or be dragged.”
She let out a low cry. “You’re hurting me,” she said, stumbling forward again. “Ari didn’t say to hurt me.”
“He didn’t have to,” was his utterly calm reply as they exited. A few seconds later the outer door clanged shut.
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer person,” I muttered.
Philip made a low noise. Shifting up onto one elbow, I peered down at him. “Is it getting any better?” I asked quietly.
“Really dizzy…all of a sudden,” he said, voice definitely sounding more clear than earlier.
“Dr. Nikas?” I called.
He stepped into the doorway, and I was shocked to see that he looked anguished. He liked Dr. Charish, I realized with a start. Or at least he had before today.
I had a hard time wrapping my head around the kind and gentle Dr. Nikas finding anything at all appealing about that woman, but obviously there’d been something there. He’d called her brilliant. Had that been it?
Straightening his shoulders, he moved to Philip’s side and crouched. “What is it?”
“He says he’s really dizzy all of a sudden,” I told him.
Dr. Nikas checked the IV and monitoring devices, looked into Philip’s eyes. “Other than the dizziness, better or worse overall?”
“Thinking clearer. Pain’s easing some too, maybe,” Philip said. “Hard to tell, but I don’t think it hurts quite so much.”
“All of your vitals look good,” Dr. Nikas said with an encouraging smile. “I’m going to slow the drip down a bit, and I’ve started a mild sedative. If you can sleep, do so. It will be a few hours until you’re back to your normal level of stability.”
Philip managed a whisper of a smile. “I’m more than ready to sleep. Thanks for having my back.” He took a deeper breath. “I’m sorry, Dr. Nikas. For all this. Two days ago, Saberton cut out all real brains for me…and Tim and Roland. Only gave us their current alternative. I wouldn’t eat them, didn’t dare,” he said. “I used up everything you’d left for me, then was starving. Should have signaled. Wasn’t thinking straight and got desperate.”
“Understandable,” Dr. Nikas said. “We’ll take good care of you now. I’m sorry you didn’t get what you needed when you came here last night.” He gave Philip’s shoulder a light squeeze, then looked over at me. “Angel, may I speak with you a moment?”
I glanced down at Philip. The corner of his mouth twitched in a mild tic, but the general tremors had stopped, and he almost almost looked at peace. I checked in with my zombie-mama intuition, but it seemed to agree and didn’t urge me to stay by his side. Giving a nod to Dr. Nikas, I pulled a blanket over Philip, then stood and followed him as he passed through the doorway, down the hall, and finally into a small office.
He closed the door behind us and opened his mouth to speak, but I beat him to it.
“Why didn’t y’all put a stop to the testing Saberton was doing?” I asked, frowning. “Those people didn’t volunteer. That fake zombie shit really fucked them up. A woman died because of it.”
He let out a low sigh. “We were working on it, Angel. That was part of the reason Philip was undercover with them.”
My eyes narrowed. “Working on it? Really?” I liked Dr. Nikas, but that didn’t mean I was going to let this slide. “It looked more like Philip was undercover to steal their results and pass them to y’all.”
Dr. Nikas exhaled and rubbed at his eyes. “Yes, but part of what he passed to us were details that we hoped would help us undermine their operation as a whole, not merely that small segment.” He dropped his hand, expression pained. “The research was happening whether I liked it or not. To refuse to use the data for some misguided moral reason and leave it to Saberton exclusively would be…irresponsible.”
I fell silent for a moment. The low tick of a clock on the wall seemed to reverberate through the small room while I tried to make everything fit into a pattern I could handle. “Was it useful?” I finally asked, voice low. “The data—was it worth it?”
He gave a grave nod. “Every bit of data, every sample helps. I know the direction they’re going with their research and have projects underway based on it and to counter it. Invaluable.” But then he shook his head, looking suddenly weary. “Was it worth the death of Brenda Barnes? No. She was an innocent.”
Dr. Nikas knew the name of the woman who’d died as part of that horrible research. That, along with everything else I’d seen of him, convinced me that he actually did give a shit. I blew out my breath. “I guess Philip’s meltdown put an end to that project anyway. At least for now.”
A faint smile touched his mouth. “Yes. Not at all in the way I’d hoped to extract him, but they will be disrupted for a time.” His eyes met mine. “He needs much care. You were kind enough to give me a small sample of blood at the main lab the other day,” he said. “Would you consider giving a pint? It could be crucial in developing a more effective stabilizer for Philip.”
He already had samples of my blood; I couldn’t see any harm in giving him more. “Sure thing.”
“I’m not certain yet if it will help,” he cautioned, “but I’d prefer to have it on hand as I work with his issues.”
“If there’s a chance it’ll help Philip, I’ll do it,” I replied, then frowned. “What about the two others—the ones Philip turned? Tim Bell and Roland Westfeld.”
He exhaled. “I haven’t had a chance to fully determine the nature of their condition,” he explained. “How they were converted was…perverse, and I don’t know yet if their damage can be reversed or even stabilized.” His brow creased. “And they are Saberton men.”
“They stood and watched me get strip searched,” I said quietly, looking away. “Maybe it makes me an awful person, but I guess I don’t have much sympathy for them right now.” I sighed and looked back to him. “But I really do hope you can do something good for Philip.”
Dr. Nikas nodded slowly. “Before those two were so poorly converted, their view of zombies was likely much in line with Dr. Charish’s—occasionally useful second-class citizens.” His mouth tightened, and he shook his head. “Pietro will make the final decision on what happens to them based on my assessment. As for Philip, yes, I can help him to at least not be in continuous pain, and to curb the unnatural hunger. In time, I may discover a way to fully reverse the damage. Your blood will help.”
I considered all that in silence for a moment. The two men were seriously damaged. They didn’t seem to have the same degree of pain issues that Philip had, but they were unstable and bitey as hell. I definitely saw how dangerous it was to have them roaming around with such screwed up parasites. Thankfully, it didn’t seem like they’d converted any others into messed up zombies. Maybe the parasite was too damaged to spawn. But isn’t condemning them to death for being “too damaged” treating them like second class citizens and less than human?
There were no easy answers, that much was for sure.
I tugged a hand through my hair, then looked up at Dr. Nikas, brow furrowed. “Why did Philip calm down when I bit him?”
It was his turn to go quiet for a moment. “Technically he shouldn’t have,” he finally said.
That only confused me more. “What does that mean? I don’t even know why I did it. It just felt…right.”
Dr. Nikas drew a breath, hesitated, then shook his head and spread his hands. “It is a characteristic that should not manifest in a young zombie.”
I regarded him as steadily as I could. “And what does that mean?”
He met my eyes with one of those I’m-ancient-as-all-hell gazes that I’d received a time or two from Pietro. “It means that I have never seen a zombie less than five hundred years old with the instinct and ability to inflict a control bite.”
I gaped as I tried to get the implications of this tidbit of info to fit into my world view. First off, that meant there were zombies over five hundred years old, likely including Dr. Nikas. And Pietro. I’d known zombies had the potential to live a long time, but having an actual number from someone who no doubt knew the truth blew my mind.
But even that seemed minor compared to the fact that, somehow, little ol’ not-even-a-year-old zombie me was able to do some zombie judo hold that normally only Grand Poobah Zombies could do. What the hell did that mean for me?
Dr. Nikas pushed off the counter, gave me a sad little smile. “We can talk about this more later. If you’re still willing, I’ll have Jacques take your blood, and then Brian can drive you home.”