Page 71 of Hunted

10

Ellie

I STARED DOWN AT THE SAMPLES in front of me as my eyes blurred. I’d been analyzing all the genetic samples we’d taken from pureblooded vampires, comparing them to Rowan, our only varewolf hybrid. I’d texted Fallon asking if I could take a sample of Jonah’s blood. She’d told me under no circumstances was anyone coming near her son.

Which left me back at square one. I knew I was on the right track with the varewolves. I just needed more time.

Pushing back from the lab bench, I rubbed my eyes. Every time I tried to sleep, the nightmares returned, each one more vivid than the last. Matteo Rossi stalked me as a human. He hunted me as a wolf. He stood over a bound and kneeling River in my dreams, a gun pressed to his forehead. I slept for minutes at a time, waking in a cold sweat, screaming for River. My hands shook so badly during the day, my eyes scratchy from lack of sleep, that it was hard to see through the microscope to run my experiments. But I still came into the lab every morning before dawn, staying until well past dark. I would see my research through to the end, whatever the cost.

I turned back to my bench, preparing to restart where I’d left off. Before I could, a white strobe light exploded overhead in the lab. The deafening siren of the fire evacuation alarm sounded half a second later. I yanked out my earbuds, whirling to Jori.

“Hold position,” she called over the alarm. Relaying orders into her wrist unit, she grabbed my arm and moved me away from the door. “Quinn, can you check it out?”

“On it.” Quinn scented the door before easing out into the hall.

Jori gnawed her bottom lip. I knew from what she and Rowan had told me that Quinn would be outside the protection of the wards once he reached the end of the corridor.

I pulled out my phone, quickly texting River even though it wasn’t protocol.

Ellie: Fire alarm.

“It’s probably just another drill,” someone said crossly.

“It’s six thirty,” I shot back, heart racing. I tried to text Hayden, but couldn’t get my thumbs to stop shaking. Taking a deep breath, I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “It’s dark outside and most people have already gone home for the day. Does this really seem like the time they’d schedule a drill?”

Someone else swore.

Just then, Quinn came hurrying back through the door, out of breath. “There’s smoke spilling into the southwest stairwell. It looks like a fire was started in one of the lecture rooms.”

“So this is an ambush?” One of the postdocs looked like he was going to be sick.

“We don’t know that.” Jori gripped my arm. “We have to evacuate though. Now.”

“What about the rest of us?” Wiley pushed to the front of the group. “You can take more than one person. I’ve seen you do it. I have a daughter and my wife is pregnant. If you’re taking Ellie out, take me with you, too.”

“I want to go, too.” The postdoc demanded.

“You should take all of us,” someone else said.

“No one is going.” Quinn stepped between me and Wiley. “Take a step back, sir.”

“Why, so you can disappear Ellie to safety while our backs are turned? Yeah, screw that.” He turned to me. “And screw you and your entitled attitude like you’re the only one who matters on this research team because of who you’re sleeping with.”

“Hey,” Jori snapped. “Enough.”

My face flamed. “I didn’t ask for any of this. And I’m here working ten- and twelve-hour days like everyone else.”

“Yeah, but you’re the only one getting an elite protection detail when we’re all putting our lives on the line every day coming to work here, when we’re all trying to find a therapy for a devastating disease impacting a population no one cares about. But all anyone can talk about is Ellie Crowe.” Wiley got up in my face. “And now you’re abandoning us to walk out there like lambs to the slaughter.”

“That’s not what’s happening here, mate.” Quinn placed his hand in the center of Wiley’s chest. “And I need you to take a step back.”

My lab mates glared at me, eyes burning with resentment. No one was fooled by what Quinn was saying. The moment they walked out the front door of the microbiology building, it could very well be to a hail of bullets, courtesy of Matteo Rossi, no vampire willing to ghost them to safety. My stomach shriveled. Of course they had every reason to despise me. Wouldn’t I have resented working alongside someone like me in their place, a first-year researcher whose powerful connections placed the entire project at risk? The only one offered a real protection detail when the whole lab was a target. The entire situation was fucked up, and it was hardly a surprise. Rossi had orchestrated this outcome masterfully.

I had no doubt that should I allow Jori to evacuate me while leaving the rest of the group behind, it would spell the end of the ALDD project. Why should any of them continue coming to work on a team where we weren’t equals, where they believed they were perceived as lesser than? I wouldn’t have. River would never forgive me for what I was about to do. But hundreds of thousands of vampire lives hung in the balance.

“They’re right.” I turned to Jori. “We should stay together.”

“Ellie,” Jori warned. “Don’t do this. We have protocols for a reason. Staying won’t make them safer. It only places you at greater risk.”