LITMIR.BIZ

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Seward strode out of the room, without a backward glance. After a minute or so, Jamie was first to speak.

      “We’re totally screwed,” he said. “I’m never going to see my mother again.”

      Frankenstein looked at him, alarmed at the resignation in the teenager’s voice. It was as though the fire that usually burned inside him had been extinguished.

      Morris spoke nervously.

      “It’s not as bad as—”

      “Tom,” interrupted Jamie. “Don’t try and placate me. I’m not a child.”

      Morris looked down at the table, and the teenager continued. “I want to know what happened in Northumberland. Don’t tell me that Larissa tipped off Alexandru off, because I don’t believe that. I want to know what really happened.”

      Frankenstein looked steadily at him. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “you’re asking the wrong people. I’m sorry if that isn’t what you want to hear.”

      “Fine,” replied Jamie.

      He stood up from the table and walked out of the Ops Room, without a backward glance. In the lift at the end of the corridor he gripped the metal rail until his knuckles turned white. Anger squirmed in his stomach, hot and acidic, and he bore down on it with all his strength, pushing it down as far as he was able. Then the lift door slid open on to the cellblock, and he strode along it, towards Larissa.

      She was waiting for him.

      The vampire girl stood in the middle of her cell, just beyond the UV wall; she smiled at him as he appeared in front of her, a smile that faltered slightly when she saw the thunderous expression on his face.

      “What’s the matter?” she asked.

      “Did you tell Alexandru we were going to come for him?” he asked, his voice straining with the effort it was taking to keep his temper in check. “Did you tell him to run?”

      Larissa’s eyes widened with realisation.

      “He wasn’t there,” she said, “was he?”

      “No,” replied Jamie. “He wasn’t there. Neither was my mother. They were both gone, to God knows where. Only a handful of people in the world knew we’d found him, but by the time we got there, less than ninety minutes later, he was gone. I want to know how that happened.”

      “Ask me,” said Larissa. “Ask me the question again.”

      “Did you tell him we were coming?”

      “No,” she replied. “I didn’t.”

      He sagged before her eyes. His shoulders slumped, and his head tipped forward, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

       It’s over. Oh God, I’m never going to find her. It’s all over.

      “I don’t know what to do,” he said, his voice choked with despair. “I want to believe you, but I don’t know if I can.”

      She took half a step forward, and said his name in a low voice.

      “Jamie.”

      He looked at her, his eyes red, pain etched in every line of his face.

      “You can trust me,” she said, and then she moved.

      Her hand shot through the UV field and grabbed him. Her whole arm burst into flames, purple fire erupting from the skin, but she didn’t even flinch. She pulled him through the barrier, spinning him to the side, and kissed him, as burning skin crackled in his ears and flooded his nostrils.

      He kissed her back, his hands finding her hair. He could feel the heat of her burning arm through his uniform, but it felt as though it was coming from a thousand miles away, felt as though it was coming from another world. He surrendered himself entirely to the kiss, her lips cool and soft against his, her hands on his waist, his entire body trembling.

      Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

      She pulled away from him, and he opened his eyes. Her face was millimetres from his; he could feel the heat of her breath on his mouth, could see the intricate pattern of yellow that traced through the dark brown of her eyes.

      They stared at each other as though they were the only two people alive.

      Pain finally broke across her face, and she fell to the ground, thumping her arm, putting out the flames that were rising from it, until all that was left was grey smoke drifting towards the roof of the cell. The smell was nauseating, and he knelt beside her. The smoke cleared, and his stomach lurched.

      Her arm rested across her knee, burnt almost entirely black. The skin had peeled away in sheets, revealing muscles that had been seared into tough dark ropes. Beneath them he could see the gleaming white of bone, and he looked away, afraid he would be sick.

      “It’s all right,” she gasped. “It’ll grow back. I just need blood.”

      Without thinking, Jamie pulled the collar of his uniform down and turned the uninjured side of his exposed neck towards her. She laughed, despite the agony in her arm.

      “That’s sweet,” she said, through a grimace of pain. “But I don’t think we’re ready for that just yet.”

      Jamie flushed red, then ran down the block to the guard office.

       She could have put her arm through the barrier any time she wanted, if she wanted to hurt me.

       Any time.

      “I need blood,” he said. The guard started to ask him a question, but Jamie was in no mood for it. “Now,” he said. “On Admiral Seward’s authority. Check with him if you like, but I don’t think he’ll appreciate being disturbed.”

      The Operator behind the glass looked at Jamie, his mouth hanging open. After a moment he sighed, rolled his chair back across the office and pulled open a stainless-steel fridge set into the wall. Cold air flooded out, and the guard reached in and pulled out two litre pouches of O negative blood. He pushed the chair back across the tiled floor, the wheels rattling across the shiny surface, and brought himself to a halt in front of Jamie. He shoved the pouches through the slot in the plastic, then rolled back to his desk, without giving Jamie another glance.

      The teenager ran back down the block. Larissa had crawled to her bed and was holding her injured arm against her chest. She smiled at him when he reappeared, but her eyes were full of pain.

      Jamie walked straight through the UV field and went to her. He handed her the blood, and sat on the bed next to her as she tore the first one open with her teeth, holding it in her good left hand.

      “Look away,” she said.

      “No chance,” he replied.

      She didn’t wait to see if he would change his mind; she upended the plastic pouch and squeezed the contents into her mouth. Her eyes turned red as the blood slid down her throat, and she swallowed convulsively, her throat working, her head thrown back. There was a fizzing sound, and Jamie looked down at her arm.

      What he saw astonished him. The charred, blackened skin was bubbling, as though it had been soaked in acid. Before his eyes, the flesh lightened to a dark red, then a bright scarlet, then to the same pale pink of the rest of her. Muscle fibres and thin sheets of skin re-grew, knitting to the revived flesh and filling the holes the fire had burnt. The fizzing lessened, and Jamie gasped. Larissa’s arm looked no worse than if she had been lying in the sun for an afternoon.

      She was breathing hard, her lips thin, her eyes crimson.

      “Does it hurt?” he asked. “When it grows back?”

      She nodded, then opened her trembling mouth. “Not as badly,” she said. “But it hurts.”

      She pulled open the second pouch, and drank it hungrily. A thick stream of blood broke from the corner of her mouth

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