The room was a little more spinny than it probably should’ve been, so Cadence decided now was as good a time as ever to go ahead and disconnect herself from Tara. Jamie was out, had been for probably close to ten minutes, and Tara was so still, Cadence had put her hand on her chest twice to make sure she was still breathing.
“Do you need help?” Cassidy asked, leaning over her friend and steadying Cadence’s arm as she pulled the needle out. Cass took the tube and held it up so that the blood that was still in it wouldn’t spill on the floor as Cadence grabbed a cotton ball out of the supplies Jamie had brought and held it against her arm.
“I don’t know if we’re supposed to take it out or leave it in,” Cadence said, eyeing the needle in Tara’s arm.
“Why wouldn’t we take it out?”
“What if they need a line or something later?”
Cassidy shrugged, still holding up the tubing as Cadence struggled to open a bandage with only one hand.
“Here,” Dax said, seeing the struggle and crossing from where he’d been pacing next to the now empty, bloodied sofa Faye had been lying on before Shane and a few others came in and moved her about five minutes ago. He’d wanted to take Tara, too, but Cadence had ordered him to back off. Even though Jamie was passed out, his touch had to be better than nothing at all. Moving her could still be fatal.
Dax ripped the paper open and helped Cadence secure the cotton ball to her arm.
“Thanks,” she said, wishing she had something sugary to make her head stop spinning, but she knew what was in the little refrigerator, and she’d had enough blood for one day. She was just about to ask Dax to go find her something to eat when the sound of quickly approaching footsteps had her reaching for her weapon, even though Cassidy had assured them all that Vern was the last threat in a ten mile radius, and he had been contained.
Christian rushed into the room carrying Jamie’s medical bag, still dressed in his fancy outfit from earlier. He sprinted over to where they were all kneeling on the ground without a word and unzipped the black bag.
“What the hell?” Cadence asked.
“Hey. Sorry. No time to explain,” the tech guy said, pulling out two familiar vials and a syringe. “Oh, good. You’ve got a line.”
Cassidy slid backward on her seat out of the way as Christian took the tubing out of her hand and yanked it off, leaving only the needle in Tara’s arm. Cadence jumped back as a spray of her own blood rippled across her shirt, mingling with who knows who else’s.
“Christian, do you mind telling me what you’re doing?” she asked, trying to stay calm as he filled the syringe with what she was now certain was Transformation serum and attached it to the needle in Tara’s arm. He pressed down the plunger, and the young woman began to shake violently.
“What are you doing?” Cassidy screamed as Tara continued to vibrate on the floor. She reached over and placed her hands on her friend’s legs as they spasmed uncontrollably. “You’re killing her!”
“No, I’m saving her,” he insisted, repeating the action with the second bottle of serum.
“Christian….” Cadence said, knowing more about why Christian was performing this task than her sister, “who told you to do this?”
He didn’t answer, and Tara continued to thrash around, shaking so badly that Jamie’s hand came off of her, and her shoulder began to hit him in the head with each shudder. Christian, who appeared to be done with his mission, slid Jamie’s unresponsive body a good two feet away, zipped up the bag, and then took the vials and the needles over to a receptacle on the wall that was marked as a biohazardous waste container.
“Tara!” Cassidy shouted, moving back to where she’d been sitting before Christian barged in. She had both hands on her friend, trying to still her.
“Christian!” Cadence called, unsteadily getting to her feet. “What…? Who…?”
He let out a long sigh. “Jamie called me a few minutes ago, told me to do it. He said he thought it was the only way to save her.”
“What about the sleeping medicine?” Cassidy asked as Tara’s eyes rolled back in her head and saliva started to drip down the side of her face.
“Can’t risk it,” he replied, nonchalantly. “He said this might last a few minutes.”
Cadence remembered this situation all too well from when she’d given Transformation serum to Aaron in Ireland to save his life, though it seemed like he’d stilled a bit more quickly than this young lady. As Cadence was recalling the most horrific night of her life, Tara began to calm down.
“How will we know if it worked?” Cassidy asked, using the hem of her shirt to wipe the spit from Tara’s mouth now that she had stopped shaking so violently.
“Well, if she dies, it didn’t work,” he said, unemotionally.
Cadence was just about to put him in his place when Cassidy began to hiss. She turned to look at her little sister and saw her fangs protruding from her mouth, her lips curled back. “Cass! He didn’t mean to be so insensitive. He’s an ass, remember? He can’t help it.”
Cassidy continued to glare at him, but she closed her mouth.
“What the hell?” Christian mumbled.
Running a hand through her hair, Cadence said, “It’s been a long night.”
“Yeah, so I heard. Ashley and I were all the way across town having dinner. I figured there was nothing on my IAC because you guys were leaving us alone, and then as we pulled into the drive in front of our apartment building, a million messages came through. I had no idea….” Christian’s voice trailed off, and Cadence assumed he was going to say he had no idea his baby, the IAC, was at all vulnerable to attacks of this sort.
