Chapter Twenty-Eight

Cassandra

Cass clutched her laptop across her chest. A group of her cohorts and fellow scientists from different fields were gathered in the conference room. All she had to do was open the door. Twist the knob and open the door.

And hope I don’t get thrown in the looney bin. Or lose her job. What would she do then? A tiny, soft, easily ignorable piece of her whispered, I know exactly what I’d do.

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Everyone stood. Cheers and whoops were sent her way. She glanced back at the door, wondering if it was too late to hightail it out of there.

“Dr. Billing!” Mr. Manaham said. For once, the corporate big wig called her by her title. “You’ve really made us proud.” He motioned for everyone to sit. Then he raised his hands in her direction. “Take it away, Doc!”

“Okay.” She winced at her mousy voice and cleared her throat. “Thank you all for your support, and thank you for those kind words, Mr. Manaham. But”—she forced herself to sit, take a drink of water, and open her laptop—“everyone in this room knows better than to say I deserve the credit.” She hopped her gaze around the room, pausing at Ali’s proud smile. “In this room, we have specialists from all different fields. Epidemiologists. Zoologists. Pathologists. Some of you, I have no idea what your field of expertise is, but you stepped forward to offer your help. We did this, together.”

The room nodded, eyes kind, smiles soft. Cass clapped her hands, and the audience followed suit, clapping and smiling at each other.

Here came the iffy part.

“There is a scientist who is not here with us today who deserves far more credit than I do.” The room hushed. “Some of you know I went away to work with another specialist. It was his knowledge that truly put me in this seat.” She squirmed in the rolling chair. “He has worked with some of the most brilliant minds we know of today.”

Everyone still seemed calm, attentive. For the moment. Obviously, she wasn’t about to tell them vampires existed and had literally invented and discovered everything society held near and dear. They’d compromised, deciding people weren’t ready for that truth yet. She would present a watered-down truth, with a sprinkling of some downright lies. Ugh, she hated telling lies. Sometimes they were necessary.

“Qadaire, unlike most of us, has no single field he specializes in. We were very lucky that this case caught his interest.” She opened the voice recording on her screen and hovered the mouse over the play button. “While working on the mutated strand, Qadaire and I noticed the wolves living on his grounds seemed to be immune.” A ripple of awe murmured through the participants. “I have a sound clip from Qadaire ready to play. Once he’s done, I know you will all have questions. I ask that you hold your questions until I provide some follow-up information.”

Everyone agreed. Cassandra clicked play. Qadaire’s voice filled the room. He started with an overview of himself and his more recent works, which earned many raised brows and thoughtful hums. Then he got to the good part.

“Your very own Dr. Billing has encouraged me to speak out about my condition. I have incisors that act much like a snake’s. Think of the neurotoxic venom found in Black Mambas. Mine are similar, except they work as anti-venom, when coaxed to do so.” Despite the unfavorable circumstances,Cassandra’s pussy fluttered at the memory of coaxing his aphrodisiac venom to believe she was being Turned. “I understand this is difficult to believe. I admit it is one of the rare phenomena huma—people love to ponder but will never fully understand. Now you will see why I’ve chosen to be anonymous all this time.

“As I was saying, the excellent doctor in your midst approached me about my venom and anti-venom after observing the wolves on my grounds. I have a habit of leaving my unwanted food out for strays. When Dr. Billing witnessed a canine finishing the meat on a T-bone steak, she convinced me to subject my venom to experimentation. She proceeded to synthesize it on her own and add it as the missing component to the Canine X-3 cure. Therefore, she is duly owed all of the credit you wish to bestow upon her, regardless of her insistence that I share a modicum of credibility. Thank you. That is all.”

The noise level in the room rose from a hushed silence to a low rumble. She stood and raised a hand, but it wasn’t enough. Layla rose and demanded silence, then turned a very serious look toward Cassandra. Beside her boss, Mr. Manaham was pale.

“I’m sure Dr. Billing has more to say. Hopefully, something that will make any of this make sense.”

“Yes.” Cass cleared her throat. “Qadaire’s anti-venom, as I will refer to it, has a strong healing property that has the potential to change modern medicine as we know it. The problem was its inconsistency. Once synthesized, the anti-venom paired perfectly with our treatments, as proven by how fast-acting the recovery time is. It is my belief that this synthesized medicine can be used for many, many other treatments, potentially eradicating previously incurable diseases.”

Silence. Hands clasped over mouths, jaws hung in laps. She took a sideways step closer to the door. “I’ll take questions now.”

“Where is your data from the experiment on his venom?”

“Was he born with this condition?”

“Could you expand on eradicating incurable diseases?”

“Why were your findings not shared?”

“Okay, okay!” Layla stood to rescue her again. “One at a time! Dr. Billing, please start with Jacinda’s question. Where can we find the data from your experiment on this man’s venom?”

There it was. The question she knew she’d face.

“I have a detailed analysis of the synthesized serum. It has already been submitted for peer review and successfully replicated.”

“Okay. That’s great, but what about his, specifically? Surely you tested it before synthesizing it and putting it in a treatment for our dogs. For Zero.” The look of disbelief on her peers’ faces bordered on amusement. They either thought she was nuts or thought she was setting them up for a punch line.

“I did. But in the interest of Qadaire’s safety, I will not be sharing those results.” A collective gasp. “I deemed it safe to synthesize for experimentation.”

She couldn’t share those results. They would cause an upheaval in the scientific field. Qadaire’s true venom would rock the world. Scientists would lose their shit. The craziest of them would hunt the woods of Nebraska until they found him and drove a stake through his heart. So no. She didn’t have any proof. She had a voice recording and her word.

Which clearly wasn’t enough. All hell broke loose. People she’d worked with for years stood, pointing fingers, laughing, shouting their opinions. She snatched her laptop from the table and took another step sideways, feeling the hostility grow.

“Come on,” whispered Ali, suddenly by her side. Cass allowed them to drag her from the room. She followed them dumbly all the way out the front doors and into their truck.

“Thank you,” Cass panted. She took some calming breaths and held her hands in front of her, watching them tremble. A few more breaths and she forced herself to meet Ali’s worried gaze. “I’m not lying.”

Ali scrutinized her. If anyone would believe her, if anyone would let her keep her secrets with faith that there was good reason, it was Ali. So she let them stare at her as long as they needed.

“Okay.”

“You believe me?”

“Obviously.” They rolled their eyes. “Are you okay?”

A tear fell to her lap, the tension in her shoulders easing a bit. She reached over and pulled her best friend in for a hug, her chest a little lighter to have them on her side.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” She sat back. Her phone buzzed in her lap. She knew it was Mark checking if they were still on for lunch. “I think I have to move away now.”

“Where would you go? Sweden?”

“Not exactly.” Cass glanced at Mark’s text. “But I am really glad I’m on speaking terms with Mark.”

“Definitely. Better late than not at all.” Ali gently placed their hand on hers. “You should probably wait for this to settle down. I mean, don’t check your email for a couple days, and maybe come up with a better story. Even if it’s a lie. I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

Cass repressed a smile. What she’d told them was the lie. There would be no more lying her way out of this. She refused to wonder if that’d subconsciously been her plan all along.

The Mexican restaurant the Billing household had always gone to for birthdays and celebrations was not as busy as it’d been in Cassandra’s childhood. She easily spotted her brother, his tall, slender frame stuffed into a plastic-y red booth, knees pressed against the bottom of the table. Cass nodded at the hostess and walked right past, the nerves from her meeting lending to the knots in her belly.

“Cassie!” Mark whisper-shouted. He gathered his limbs and scooted out to greet her. “Cassie.”

Cassandra’s hand flew to her mouth, tears blurring his all-grown-up face. Last time she’d seen him, he was picking a college. Now, he had distinguished gray hairs on his neatly swooped hair and a tasteful amount of facial hair. He reached for her, and she saw his lip quivering. Then she was in his arms, and she slid hers around him, both shaking with the effort to keep from making a scene.

After a few moments had passed and Cass wrested control of her tear ducts again, she leaned away and gave her brother a big, albeit still wobbly, smile.

“Mark. I’m so happy to see you.” She sniffed an ugly sound and left his embrace to grab a napkin from the table. They both scooted their way into the booth and kept smiling at each other with damp cheeks. “I couldn’t believe it was you when you called.”

“I know.” His voice was heavy with a grief she shared in her soul. “I can’t believe I put it off for so long.”

“Don’t worry. I know where you inherited the art of stomping on your feelings,” she joked wryly. They scoffed together. “But seriously, your timing was just fine. I’m in a good place right now.” It was funny how true that statement was, considering the meeting she’d just come from. “Tell me about you.”

Mark’s face lit up. He regaled her with stories of Sweden, from feats of environmental justice to funny moments with friends. It made her heart swell to hear how well he’d been doing, despite some of the harder to listen to moments. She wished they’d been able to talk like this while things were happening, but that couldn’t be changed.

They were so deep in conversation that they hardly noticed the chips and salsa be placed on the table and barely glanced at the menu to pick their orders. Cass ordered the chicken chimichanga, and Mark ordered the steak fajitas. Just like in her memories.

“Enough about me. You said you’re in a good place. Tell me about that!”

Cass almost choked as she huffed a laugh. “Dude, actually, I really am in a great place. But I think I just lost my job. Well, probably.”

Mark gasped, covering his mouthful of peppers with one hand and gesturing her to get on with it with the other.

“I did something highly unethical.” She watched him resume chewing, his brows still in his hairline. “Do you want the real truth, or what I told them? You’re not going to believe me either way.”

“Just tell me!”

Cass chewed the inside of her lip and tapped her fork on her plate. Maybe she was still feeling high from that insane meeting, but she was giddy as a teenager at the chance to talk about her broody genius vampire. Now that she had Q’s blessing, she couldn’t resist bragging about him. It’d been hard enough to lie to her peers, she couldn’t keep her mouth shut now.

She knew it sounded wild. Mark didn’t really know her anymore. He could decide she was a liar, or off her rocker, but she didn’t care. She’d been telling lies for the past hour and desperately needed some truth. Either he would stay in her life long enough to see, or he would become distant again. She had a feeling he would be intrigued enough to stick around and find out. So she told him the increasingly unbelievable tale of the recent months. By the time she was done, their half-eaten plates had been abandoned long enough that the waitress had brought to-go containers and the check.

“Now, after that stunt in the meeting, I don’t know if I want to stay here. I mean, dude, you should see the equipment they’re working with in the kingdom! And the impossible creatures there. I mean, it would be a whole new adventure.” She pursed her lips. “And Qadaire wouldn’t have to face humanity’s nasty side just to come out of hiding. For me.”

Mark gave her an empathetic frown and stilled her fork tapping with a hand on hers. “Hon. I don’t know what to say. Whatever’s really going on, though, I know you should follow your heart. Sounds like it already knows what to do.”

Cass nodded. Now that he mentioned it, her heart had been whispering to her ever since they’d visited the realm of mythical beings.

It was time she listened.