Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)(44)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“Helping . . . him?” Jamie’s voice was shaky as he rose to his feet. “You didn’t help my brother.”

“He took my blood,” she whispered. “There wasn’t a chance for me to help—”

“You let my brother die, when there could be some kind of—of cure?” Jamie’s face darkened. “There’s a cure?”

They needed to get out of that room. She wanted to make sure Jamie was safe, and if she was wrong about the drug’s effects on Vaughn, she didn’t want the boy getting attacked again.

She reached for Jamie’s hand.

He jerked away from her. “I saw him die”—his voice thickened with pain and fury—“when there was a cure?”

Dante grabbed the boy and hauled him from the room.

“Wait, jerk! Let me go! You need to let—”

Dante dropped Jamie in the hallway.

Cassie secured the door shut once more. How had it even opened? How had Jamie gotten in there?

“There’s no cure yet,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm. “I’m working on it, hoping—”

“Tim didn’t have to die!”

He had. The instant he took her blood his fate had been sealed. “There’s something different about me,” she confessed to Jamie. “Vampires—all vampires—have a terrible reaction to my blood.”

Jamie had stomped toward the right wall. “Reaction?”

“It kills them,” Dante said bluntly. “Your brother was dead the instant he put his mouth on her.”

The bright color leached from Jamie’s face.

“What were you doing in there?” Cassie asked, shaking her head. “How did you get in there?”

Jamie opened his fist. She saw Charles’s access card in his hand. One swipe of that card, and Jamie would have been able to get inside any room in the place.

“Charles . . .” Jamie rasped. “He asked how I hooked up with you. I told him about my brother . . .”

“And Charles told you about the primal here.” Dammit. She’d been so rushed to get back to her research that she hadn’t taken time for detailed instructions. She should have been more clear with Charles about the boy.

“He told me . . . to stay away from this room because of the guy in there.”

So Charles had been trying to protect Jamie.

It looked like Jamie hadn’t wanted protecting. She remembered the stake that had rolled across the floor.

“I swiped the access card after I saw Charles open a few doors with it.”

“And you came inside to kill the primal.”

“My brother is dead! All of them should be dead, too!” Jamie swiped a hand over his eyes. “Tim was all I had! We were going out to LA! Going to start a life . . . His life is gone! It’s all gone! Because of those fanged freaks.”

No, it was gone because of her father and his experiments. More lives destroyed, all in the name of science.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie whispered.

“If you’re really sorry, you’ll go back in there and stake that bastard.” Jamie spun on his heel and stalked away. “Send him to rot with my brother.”

Cassie watched him storm out of sight.

“Are there . . .” Dante began quietly, “any more . . . experiments . . . here that the boy needs to watch out for? I’d sure hate for him to stumble onto something that might feel the urge to eat him.”

Cassie shook her head. “Only Trace and Vaughn are here. The rest of the place is empty.” Cassie tried to brush by Dante. “I need to get back to work—”

He caught her, caged her between his body and the wall. “What happens if you can’t cure them?”

Cure . . . or kill . . .

She didn’t want to think about Trace’s words then. “I told you, I will cure them.”

“If you can’t? Will you kill the werewolf?”

Her chest ached. “Why does it always have to be about killing? Can’t I save someone?” She pushed against Dante’s chest.

He didn’t back away. “Still trying to atone for the sins of others, aren’t you?”

“No. It’s my own sins I’m atoning for.”

Trying to, anyway.

Failing.

“Fine.” He bit out the word, and finally—thank you!—backed away. “You want to cure ’em? You want your shot at this? Then let’s go.”

What?

The guy was half-dragging her down the hallway and back toward her office. Apparently, they were going.

“You think a phoenix is the key, then go ahead, slice me. See if you can find the key in me.”

They were in her workroom. He walked to a tray of instruments near the left wall and picked up a scalpel.

She tried not to remember the feel of a scalpel slicing into her own skin.

“Where should I get?” Dante sat on the gurney in the office. “Will this work? And don’t worry about strapping me down. I won’t fight.”

As he’d fought before, when the Genesis scientists had spent years slicing him open. Dissecting him while he’d still been alive.

“Dante . . .”

“That was the point of me coming here, right? So you could use me? To save them?”

Cassie swallowed. Took the scalpel from him. Put it away.

“You’re gonna have a hard time getting your samples with your bare hands,” he muttered.

Her lips wanted to tremble. How had everything gotten so messed up? “I just want to help.”

“No, sweetheart, you’re trying to take the stains off your hands. But that blood isn’t there because of you.” He was definite.

“Yes, it is!” Why doesn’t he see that? “I was there, Dante. For years. I should have stopped it. I should have helped those people.”

But she’d been afraid.

Trapped.

“You helped me.”

He was still on the table.

As he’d been so many times.

As I was.

Cassie pulled in a deep breath. “You escaped when I was twenty-two . . . because I killed you.”

A death that the guards and doctors at Genesis hadn’t been expecting, so they hadn’t been prepared to deal with him as he rose.

She’d cleared the exits. Even drugged a few of the men on patrol outside so Dante could get away scot free.

He’d come back. Years later, but . . . he came back.

“I thought about burning the building to the ground that night.”

His confession.