CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“WE CAN’T DO it out here or in our lab.” June’s eyes darted across the quad of the University. “I have the key to my professor’s office—it’s one of the few places where they can’t spy on us.”
“We should get going,” I said, feeling anxious.
“We should.” Together we strolled toward a massive building in the center of the campus. “I’m surprised you didn’t cancel. I half expected you would. Thought Jake would give you the answers. He knows more than he lets on. I think he—” she leaned in toward my ear and whispered, “got into something last semester. He had to go away for a while. When he came back, he was different, acted strange. Disappearing, missing classes, but never got kicked out. There’s a corporation that isn’t a company—it’s a cover. I think he’s either working for them or involved with them somehow. Maybe was once involved with them.”
“Is that corporation Executive Suites?” I asked.
She put a finger to her lips and remained silent until we reached her professor’s office.
She prepped the syringe to take my blood. “You sound desperate for information. What’s going on?”
“Anything you can share is fine.” I couldn’t just tell her, ‘Hey I think another Vorarei killed my mother for a project I can’t find out anything about. And, oh yeah, I think she was a Vorarei herself, making me half, but, hey, let’s not get caught up in formalities.’
It was creepy to think I could be half Vorarei. I never felt different from anyone else. It made little sense. My skepticism circled back around, compelling to reignite my belief that it was fiction, meant to entertain.
“What I know is unfounded,” June said. “Only stuff I found on the Internet. I don’t know enough compounding facts. There’s no clear data I could discover on it without tripping some serious security measures and putting my life at risk. I found out about the origins of the virus. Like I was telling you before, it’s old. Very old. Ancient. The Vorarei’s powers—”
“They can read minds and have a damned strong power of suggestion,” I finished her statement.
“I’ve read that somewhere, too. You think it’s true?”
“I do,” I said, questioning why I was even there, because I clearly knew more than she did. “Tell me about what you read, June. Not what you do and don’t think is true.”
“Well, you could stab or shoot a Vorarei and nothing would happen to them. I read somewhere that light is a hindrance to their healing. It makes them take longer to regenerate tissue. The way to kill them is to cut off the head and burn the body separate from the head. If you don’t, they can heal from the wound. It will take a while, but they will heal. Well—”
She gave me an uncomfortable smile.
“What, June?”
“You said no more of what I think is true. Only what I know, right?”
I’m seriously going to fucking choke her. “Spit it out.”
“There’s a doctor. He claims the virus wasn’t self-contained, but derived from a single, alien being. He thinks the alien being is indomitable, and when the virus spread to humans, it didn’t mirror and caused a lot of issues.”
“Meaning?”
“He thinks the alien being only needs blood to survive, and it’s more powerful than the humans it contaminated. He also thinks the original being doesn’t know the full extent of their power. At least, not yet. Because if it had, we’d all have a reason to be scared.”
“Maybe not,” I replied. “Maybe not every nonhuman being is bent on world domination and destruction. Maybe he, she, or they want to be normal, seen as normal, and live like they are normal.”
She nodded in agreement. “Never thought about that.”
“What else did this doctor have to say?”
“There’s something about a hybridizing—a way to make an indomitable Vorarei from a human host. Not a lot of information on it. Theories and research suggest it hasn’t been a success. Most of the test subjects were monsters or mutations wrought with painful diseases. Their bodies treated the mix of DNA as a disease, resulting in tragic circumstances. Overgrowth of cells…”
“Cancer,” I answered. “Probably wasn’t successful because they would have to make it using organic material from the source,” I surmised. “If that makes any damn sense.”
“Right,” she confirmed. “If it was a success, it would have all the characteristics of the original, the alien Vorarei.”
“The project,” I muttered. “The hybridization you spoke about? Were you talking about the project?”
“I used to date an intern from Hawkins Pharmaceuticals,” she divulged. “He told me things he shouldn’t. I haven’t seen him since we broke up.”
Hawkins Pharmaceuticals was Claudette’s cover business for her illegal operations. She made legal and illegal drugs there before the Feds attempted to close it down. Something would always make sure they didn’t succeed.
“Hawkins Pharma and Barcel were in bed together to create the project?” I couldn’t recall finding any association with Hawkins in Barcel’s books, unless it had been listed under an alias.
June scanned the block of words on her computer screen. “Here. I got the information I was waiting on. I contacted the person who ran the sites I told you about.” She skimmed over the message in silence.
“Well? Don’t keep me in fucking suspense.”
She nodded to herself for a moment before opening her mouth. “Gist is, the doctor I told you about—his name is Dr. Ronald Kraye.”
“Get the fuck out!” I hit her in excitement.
“What?” She rubbed her arm and winced.
“He is—was my oncologist.”
“Dr. Kraye isn’t an oncologist. He’s a geneticist—amongst other things.”
“Fuck me twice.”
“Good grief, Regan. Do you have to curse so much?”
I rolled my eyes at her and then froze. I could be the project.
“Are you all right?” she asked. “You look a little gray.”
“H-how long before you have the results of my blood work?”
“Depends on how complex what I see is. I’ll try not to get my professor involved. Again, if it’s complicated, I’ll have to. Give me a day, and I’ll call you, okay?” She scrutinized me with her weighty stare. “Do you think you’re involved with the project?”
Sitting on the stool, I whispered, “I can’t tell you.”
After fiddling with my own thoughts in silence while I tried to piece it all together, June probed me with her eyes.
“Can the project work like any other human, killing its human side?” I wondered. “What happens to the subject if it’s turned by an alien Vorarei?”
“If Dr. Kraye’s theory is right, it can only be turned by the original alien being, not a human Vorarei.” She looked at her phone again. “Its blood is toxic to human Vorarei and will kill them within minutes. If he or she is turned by an alien Vorarei, the human side will die and it will rival the alien Vorarei with one exception—it will ultimately be controlled by whoever changes him or her. Could you imagine if someone took possession of them? Brutal.”
Singapore and the people who fed on me popped into my head. Were the piles of ashes their remains? And if they were, why would Calind tell them to feed on me? “And Executive Suites?”
“Obviously, we both know they use human Vorarei for their purposes. It’s either to change people into Vorarei, or to get more money for whatever it is they want to do.” She looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. “I hope I can help you find whatever you’re looking for.”
“Reality,” I whispered.
“Oh, no. You didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“Sign your life away to Executive Suites. I heard no one signs the contract and comes out alive. They disappear.”
“Thank you, June. You’re the most forthcoming person I’ve ever met.”
“Be careful out there. Whatever you are, whatever you think you are, you were made to feel that way. Maybe because you’re something special, maybe a bargaining chip.”
“How would you know?”
“Something Jake said once.”
“Which was?”
She gave me a smile. “You should go. The longer you stay, the more attention it draws.”