I followed Micah into the heart of Genesis, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze. First off, there was the Wolf problem. Mine didn’t like when people I considered adversarial made eye contact with me. It was a challenge. I could temper that with my human side. But I still didn’t like it, particularly when I had any kind of anxiety going on. Second, I’d known a lot of them when things went to hell with Rachel. I didn’t need to stare at their anger, anxiety, discomfort, and whatever else they were fucking feeling when I could smell it just fine.

Swimming through the emotions of large crowds à la my nose sucked big time. It always did. I’d avoided anywhere I could that had more than fifty people in it. That hadn’t always been an option when I’d been pretending to be a human.

Since I’d insisted on coming inside because I wanted to see Margot, I was going to keep my mouth shut about any discomfort I had.

Micah walked next to me. “Changed since last you were here quite a bit, right?”

They’d still been trying to figure out how to make it work after coming up from the underground habitat Icahn had them all living in for years. Now, it looked more like a small tent city with some actual houses being built around the perimeter. That’s what we needed to learn to do, if they agreed on it. The structures would last forever and spoke of permanence. It meant that we really believed it was possible to live out lives here that could last generations.

Not that my pack had a lot of that going on. The women were all too old now to breed. But sometimes I heard rumbles of looking for other Werewolves, of traveling to find them and bringing them in. We couldn’t do that if we had nowhere for them to go.

Genesis had clearly made the same sort of decisions. If the crowds in the center of town were any indication, they’d doubled in size. This was wonderful and dangerous. On one hand, it spoke of security. Large groups of people could defend together. On the other, they were also easily wiped out. With the Werewolf virus gone, I could at least rest assured I wouldn’t be doing the wiping out.

Which was not to say they wouldn’t do that to me.

“How do the Warriors defend such a large number?” Micah was the right person to ask that question to since he certainly seemed to be in charge with his tower on the edge of the town.

He nodded. “When we discovered it was just Icahn’s manipulation that made Warriors to begin with, not some freak gene we were born with, we have come to believe that we can train more than we were doing before. Everyone gets the chance to try out to be a Warrior if they want to. About a quarter of the young population makes the attempt at thirteen and a quarter of that makes it. Still small numbers but more than we had.”

“That’s great.”

We rounded the corner and stopped in a large gathering area. Margot stood in front of Chad, Tiffani, and Deacon. They were listening to her intently although all their gazes quickly shot to me when Micah and I arrived. A smile crossed Margot’s face, and despite the mounting tension of the moment, I returned it. She was who I’d come to see for no other reason than to tell her she wasn’t alone. Internally, I sighed. Maybe that was the dumbest thing ever. In fact, standing there, I couldn’t remember a poorer thought out moment in my entire existence, and I’d once, under the furor of the virus, challenged Rachel to a duel in a Vampire pit.

“He’s here.” Margot swung around to the group again. “So you can tell him yourself.”

Tiffani rose and crossed to me. I had no idea what reception to expect from her. We hadn’t had that much to do with each other. She was married to someone named Keith who trained the Warriors. If they were talking about me, I was surprised to not see him in on the decisions. But maybe he’d stepped down?

She wrapped her arms around me in a hug. “I’m glad to see you. I know this is an unpopular opinion around here, but I always loved your family, Jason. My son wouldn’t be here if your father hadn’t saved me during his delivery. You were always kind when you weren’t sick. Another cloning. Everyone gets cloned back to life but Keith, it feels like. They tell me I shouldn’t wish for it, that sometimes the results are awful. I’m glad to see you’re fine.”

I gave her the slightest squeeze back. As a rule, I wasn’t a hugger. She was being kind, and I’d been raised better than to be rude. Her words banged around in my head. That at least explained where Keith was. Dead…

That must have been a truly devastating loss for this group. They’d all loved him like family. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Tiffani.”

She nodded and stepped back. “It’s a yes for me. Whatever Jason needs to help stabilize things around here, I’m for. Even without trading anything. If he wants to help us, more the better.”

Deacon didn’t move. He looked down at the ground. “I think if Jason can help us with this serious problem I’m all for it. We need to do something about the daywalkers. They scare the crap out of me, and I don’t get afraid. I lived with Vamps for most of my life underground and I have no idea what these new ones are or what to expect of them. Also, if he builds houses, it is my hope that we can keep a stable group of Werewolves nearby that won’t want to attack us. We can all work on the Vamp population together.”

Like Genesis itself, what I proposed doing would make us at risk if Deacon or someone else changed their minds. We’d be easily hunted down. Although killing Werewolves wasn’t so easy; and we would equally be able to monitor them as well. We could play nicely but be ready for each other if it came to that.

My father would never have wanted this. But he was dead and no one cloned him to come back. They chose me. There had to be a reason for that.

Oh, who was I kidding? There was never a reason for anything.

Did the decision have to be unanimous? Chad and I had no love lost between us. Then again, he’d sent Margot to go get me. Maybe he’d become pragmatic somewhere along the line. He leaned forward

“Sure, sounds good.”

I blinked. That was it? They were going to teach my pack how to build houses and all I had to do was get them a daywalking Vampire. In a million years, I’d never have thought it was going to be that easy.

“Great.” I nodded. “Margot, can I see you for a second?”

She brightened up. “Sure. Give me a moment and I’ll…”

A bell sounded, blaring so loudly I had to cover my ears. Margot winced. “Sorry, Jason. That’s for me. There’s a medical emergency of some kind. Can you wait?”

She didn’t pause to answer me but ran out of the room, presumably heading for wherever she would go help whoever was in trouble. I watched her disappear. In the midst of all of this, I’d not given any thought to the fact that Margot was an actual doctor. She wasn’t just smart, beautiful, and lonely—she was a trained professional with an amazing skillset to save lives. Why on earth did I think she needed anything from me at all?

Chad pointed left. “One block that way, big red tent. That’s where you’ll find her. That’s where I would go if I were you.”

I nodded. Why had he done that? I didn’t pause to question it any further, running instead after Margot. She’d asked if I could wait, and I didn’t know if I could or not because I didn’t know how long she needed to do whatever it was she was going to be doing. Sure, that seemed like a great reason to be running and not at all because I hated that she was out of my sight.

This was why I couldn’t have friends. I clearly had obsessive behavior issues I’d never get over.

I found the building Chad directed me to and stuck my head inside. A man groaned on the table. His arm was broken, the bone showing through the skin. Margot examined him quietly while he screamed bloody murder on the bed. Two men tried to hold him down but he twisted with superhuman strength only displayed by non-Wolves when they were in that kind of pain. Adrenaline was really something.

Back in the first time I’d been alive, there would have been hospitals to deal with this, but outside of Icahn or Doubleday, no one had that kind of medicine now. It was like being back in the Civil War. I walked toward her, coming fully into the tent and leaned my elbow over the man’s chest. He cried out but quit moving, which was the point. Margot didn’t look, but she spoke to me. “Thanks.”

“Can you fix this?” I’d seen my father do this a lot in our time in this post-apocalyptic hell. She was going to have to break it again, reset it, all with anesthesia. It was going to be a giant mess.

When she lifted her gaze to mine it was steady, sure, calculating. Margot was a woman sure of her own power right in that moment and it made my breath catch as I watched her. “Yes. Of course.”

She was completely confident in her abilities. That was really something. I’d never been that way, ever. I stayed silent as she worked. Eventually, the patient whose name turned out to be George, passed out. That was probably for the best. I wouldn’t have wanted to be awake doing that and my bones regularly reshaped. I knew just how much that could hurt from the first times it had happened.

Eventually, Margot stepped back, checking her patient’s pulse. She nodded to herself before sending his two friends from the room. She raised her gaze to meet my own.

“Thanks for your help.”

I shook my head. “I did very little.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I have to go do something that I won’t get permission from the board to do. I have to ask forgiveness when I’m done instead of permission. It won’t make them trust me any more than they do, but they’ll say no and I can’t compromise on needing it.”

Well, that had been a truly unexpected response. “What do you have to go do?”

“Would you be willing to break rules with me, Jason? I could use some help.”

I shrugged. “I don’t have to follow their rules. That wasn’t part of the agreement I made. That being said, I’m going to ask you what we have to do first before I agree to it.”

“You’re smart.”

I shook my head. “I didn’t used to be.”

“Well, we all get a chance to do things better. Particularly when they clone us. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself. I need to go sneak into a Doubleday facility and steal antibiotics. George’s skin was open all the way to the bone. It’s not going to set well, not even with what I was able to do. That’s just the sad truth. I need an antibiotic or I might as well have cut off the arm and danced naked hoping that would cure him. He will have infection in the next week if I don’t get some antibiotic. I am bone weary of losing patients to things we’ve long been able to cure.”

“Well then.” I looked around. “Let’s go do that. I’m always up for a good smash and grab.”

She shook her head, a smirk starting to cross her face. “Jason, I should not have asked you to do this with me. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“That’s exactly why you should have asked me. I’m a Werewolf, Margot. We’re friends. I’m more dangerous than almost anyone else out there.”

Her face fell. “If only that were true.”

I wasn’t going to question why the first thing I wanted to do was make her smile again or why my Wolf stood up inside of me, willing to die to make that happen. I wasn’t going to ask myself to examine why I took her hand in mine and squeezed. I cared about this woman and so did my Wolf. We both wanted her happy.

In this world, where that was a near impossibility, I was going to see to it that it happened.

That’s what friends were for.

Getting out of Genesis was not a problem. It never had been for Rachel, too. For all that it was a militaristic existence out of necessity, there were few people keeping the population within its walls if they really wanted to go. A Warrior might strongly suggest a person stay put, but they couldn’t do anything about it. That seemed to not have changed.

Still, Margot wanted to sneak out in the middle of the night, so I waited for her, leaning against a tree just a short distance from where she strode out. I looked up at the moon. I could feel its cycles the way that some people could tell when they were hungry. I knew in my gut when I was going to be called upon to shift and lead the pack through a Full Moon. I was the only one who could resist the call. It hurt like hell to do so, but if they needed me, I could get that done.

I preferred to go Wolf during that time.

But no one was all that interested in what I wanted and didn’t want anymore.

Hell, I was so sick of my own internal thoughts. Poor me. Woe was me. I had to get my shit together if I ever wanted to do whatever it was I had to do next.

As it was, Margot knew right where to go to grab the drugs she needed. It was half a night’s walk. She didn’t try to fill the silence, which I appreciated. We were vulnerable enough being out in the darkness, just the two of us, with no backup. I could handle myself just fine, even if I ended up having to run for my life, but I couldn’t be sure I’d take proper care of Margot in the process.

I didn’t want to fail her in any way.

Silence was better. But when we came onto the lab that she wanted to get into we had to speak. She put her hands on her hips. “Most of the medical facilities are designed similarly inside. But it is possible we’ll have to look around for a few minutes. They don’t expect anyone to break in. There aren’t worried about it. There aren’t roving bands of humans ready to steal. Genesis has been downright easy to deal with as the closest neighbor. They don’t venture. They protect.”

“You just said they. Wouldn’t it be we for you at this point?”

She sighed. “If I ever have a we I’ll let you know. You have pack. That may not make sense to you.”

“Actually, it does. The truth of my pack is something we can get into another time.” I pointed at the medical area. “What should we expect to find in there?”

She shook her head. “It may be as simple as empty rooms and places where medicines are stored. It may be something much more nefarious. Badly formed clones. I don’t know. I’ve sometimes wanted to suggest to Chad that we raid this place but a, I’m not sure they’ll listen to me and b, I think maybe it’s better we leave it alone. If we raid it, they close it and then they stop sending supplies here. There won’t be anywhere to steal from. Genesis is nowhere near ready to create antibiotics.”

How would they even attempt that? How many years away from having those abilities readily available were we? Would I ever see it in my lifetime?

She walked forward and I followed her. This was her show. I was around to help and keep her safe. Besides, I could easily shove her behind me and get her out of the way if anything on the inside of the building set off my Wolf alarms. So far I wasn’t scenting anything alive. Just lots of metallic medical scents inside the building. I wouldn’t know for sure until I was inside.

Margot walked up the door. There was a key code that needed to be entered to open it, and Margot must have known it because she keyed in numbers. I memorized the code and it took me a second to recognize that it was the date readily considered Armageddon day. I sighed. What fucker had made that the code?

Well, the same people who worked for the scientists who put us in this situation to begin with. We stepped inside and the buzz of air conditioning hit me hard before I even felt the cool air. It had been such a long time since I’d felt any. Everything smelled cold and not alive.

“No one alive in here that I can smell.”

She nodded. “Last I heard there weren’t things you couldn’t. But I don’t know anything about daywalking Vampires so let’s be alert anyway.”

“Sound advice.” I liked how Margot thought. A low light lit our way. Maybe our entering the building triggered it. Maybe it was always on. Two thoughts dawned on me almost simultaneously. The first was that Margot’s hips swayed in an almost hypnotic way when she walked and I could hardly take my eyes off of them. And the second was that we were probably being recorded somewhere which meant someone watched me staring at her rear while she moved.

I raised my gaze and forced myself not to check her out. What was going on with me? I had a mate. She rejected me, but that didn’t negate the fact that I’d had her and that meant for the rest of my life I was not going to be sexually interested in anyone else.

Yet, my gaze fell again. I wrenched it up. I needed to focus on important things like the fact that we were being watched meant that whoever did the watching could send someone to get us. Yeah, that mattered more than whatever libido of mine had decided to turn back on right at that second.

Or at least my awareness of my first friend in years, I was so going to fuck this up.

“This is a fairly standard set up so far. I know where they’re going to keep the drugs.”

“When I was in high school that would have been in people’s parents’ bedrooms.” I shrugged. “Never mind, sorry. Bad joke.”

She smiled at me, turning around slightly to do so. “I never lived in that world. It’s one thing the people who they pull out of the Vampire lairs and I have in common. We don’t get the references you all make.”

She swung open a door in front of her, and I followed her inside. It looked like an old doctor’s office. Memories of physicals given to me by my father’s friend who was also a Werewolf rushed through me. We’d had to have the same documents as human children, the same shots, even though they did nothing for us. We’d handled that the way we did everything back then, we’d faked it.

Margot walked to the other side of the room and pulled a key out of a drawer. She was so at home here. “Are these places all really the same?”

“Almost entirely. Icahn liked things to be the same wherever he went. He didn’t want to have to remember where he was. I hoped things were the same. Otherwise I was breaking glass. I’d do it but I prefer simplicity.” She shrugged and then crossed the room again to open a large refrigerator. “Bingo.”

I guessed she found what she needed. While she looked I wondered around. There was a computer with a blinking light in the corner. When was the last time I’d seen one? I couldn’t even remember. I touched the mouse and the screen turned on.

A jolt of joy moved through me. It worked. I bent over it. Someone must have been here not too long ago. I scanned through the desktop, the use of the mouse coming back to me like muscle memory. I could probably still ride a bike, too. I guessed it was true, some things were never forgotten.

“Anything interesting?” Margot called out to me from in front of the fridge.

“I don’t know. There’s a video.” I clicked on it. What did mad scientists bent on keeping the rest of miserable watch on the computer?

A woman I didn’t recognize stood in front of the screen. She spoke in a loud, nasally voice. “I’m Alicia Jabra.”

“Hey,” Margot called out. “I know her. We used to work together.”

“If you’re watching this,” Alicia kept speaking. “Then we’ve abandoned this place and I’m going to suggest you get out, too. We made a mistake. We woke them up. Well, we didn’t know what we were doing. Doubleday did but we didn’t. There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t do but this was too far. I’m sure by now you’ve seen them. If we’ve left then they’ve gotten loose. They can walk in the day time, and as they are loose, they will only get stronger. They’re the original Vampires. They carry the virus, they spread it. They were the ones first made for war. This is how the virus got loose.” She looked over her shoulder. “Whoever you are, run.”

The screen went black. Margot stepped next to me. “Shit.”

My whole body had gotten cold. We’d always wondered how it happened. Vague answers hadn’t provided much information. Scientists. Viruses. Well, now it made sense. They’d tried to make monsters to make war even deadlier. Most of the world had died from it.

I sniffed the air. “I know she said run, but I can’t scent them.”

“She couldn’t have known you’d be with whoever watched this.” She bent over and picked up the hard drive, and then I took it from her. It would be heavy for her. “That’ll have more information on it. I can’t believe it. I never heard that, I mean ever. Original Vampires? What an implication.”

Margot wasn’t thinking about the millions of dead. She’d never have known them. I put my hand on her arm. “Let’s get out of here just the same. Did you get what you needed?”

“I’m going to take all of it. If things are really turning in such a bad direction then I don’t want to risk the antibiotics being destroyed. I might as well tell the others and them raid the place for tech. Thanks for being here with me, Jason.”

“Happy to.” I’d get her home and then I was going to get my pack. If all of this was true Genesis needed me to catch an original Vampire stat. I wouldn’t hesitate. The houses were important, but this fresh hell heading our way was more pivotal.

For all of us.