Breaking Danger (33 page)

That face disappeared, too, the head simply dissipating in a cloud of pink mist.

“Sophie!” Jon held her with one arm, the other holding his gun up as he looked around them. There were four bodies on the ground. She hadn't even realized they'd been attacked by several infected until she saw them lying bonelessly, red spattering the ground. “God! Are you okay?”

Was she okay?

Sophie patted herself down fast, checking herself. She'd been so overwhelmed she hadn't even heard the shot that killed her attacker. She could easily have been bitten without realizing it. But she was intact. There wasn't even any blood on her. Somehow Jon had shot in such a way that there'd been no spatter on her.

“How did we not see them on scanners?” Sophie's voice was tight. “How could they get past us?” She'd carried the scanner out with her from the car wreck. She checked it, moving it over the four dead bodies, but the scanner was blank. “God, they must have been freshly infected. They'd turned before their body temperature rose. Are there any more around?” She tapped frantically on the scanner, bringing the temperature threshold down to 97 degrees, where even uninfected would show up. She extended the range of the scan and there were no sources of life within a radius of 500 meters, and after she extended the range even further, they were clear out to a kilometer.

She turned to Jon. “Man, that was close. It's a good thing you were so fast—”

She stopped. Brought a hand to her mouth.

“What, honey?” Jon asked, holstering the gun. He wouldn't have used the stunner for fear of hurting her. Something about her stillness caught his attention. His gaze sharpened. “Honey? What's wrong?”

Sophie lifted her shaking hand and pointed.

He looked down at himself and froze. Right there, on the back of his hand, was a bite mark. Unmistakably human.

He was infected.

Jon's face turned to stone. He handed his gun to her, butt first.

“Here,” he said, tapping the bridge of his nose. “Aim here. Take the cortex out. Do it now.”

Sophie was white as the scattered snow on the ground. Crazily, when he handed his gun to her, she put her hands behind her back and shook her head.

No? She was saying fucking
no
?

Jon hardened his heart. He had to. Because not half an hour ago he'd been daydreaming about him and Sophie working hard the rest of their lives to build up Haven, raising their kids in a tight circle of people who were dedicated to creating a community.

Every single objection he'd had to even thinking of settling down was gone. Sophie was his future and he'd embraced it.

Now all that was gone, gone. Due to a bite he hadn't even felt.

He looked down at his hand, at the elliptical oval marks the human mouth left. Whichever monster had bitten him had broken skin, and now he was a heartbeat away from becoming a monster himself.

“Take the gun, goddammit.” His voice was harsh, angry.

Ghost Ops soldiers always had a discreet method of suicide on them. His had been a vial of dimethylmercury. He carried it around his neck on a chain. Which was in his bedroom back in Haven, of no use to him whatsoever.

Sophie had to do it.
Now.

But she was shaking her head.

Now he was really mad. “Fuck this, Sophie. I don't know how long I've got. I'll bet you don't know either. Take me out before I turn.”

“No,” she pleaded. “Listen to me. I—”

“No, goddammit! You listen to
me
!” He was furious, and the feeling of being angry at Sophie—at lovely, gentle Sophie—was so strange he wondered if he was already turning. “I will not be responsible for your death. You've seen these creatures, Sophie. If you think that somehow I'll turn but recognize you, that you're
you,
and not hurt you—you're wrong. You've seen them—you've seen mothers kill their kids, children kill their grandparents. In I don't know how many minutes, I'm going to turn into a homicidal maniac and will rip you to shreds, and I can't live with the thought. Not for one second.” He tapped the bridge of his nose again. “So do it. Right now. Because death is nothing. We all die. At least let me die knowing I won't hurt you.”

His voice broke. It was pointless pretending to be mad at her when his heart was pounding with fear. Fear that he'd hurt her.

He'd spent all his adult life training to kill. He was good at it. He had killed often and he knew precisely what to do. Though he wouldn't be aware of tearing Sophie to pieces, he'd do it. He could see it clearly, what he'd do to her. Death was a precious gift in comparison, if it could stop him.

If she shot him now, someone from Haven would be coming soon. They'd see the bite marks, his dead body, and understand completely. And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that for the rest of her life, Mac and Nick would look after Sophie as if she were their own. She'd be safe. That was all that counted.

“Sophie,” he said evenly. “Now. Please.”

She took the gun from his hand, watching him out of those beautiful eyes, sad and sober.

Jon braced.

And Sophie threw the gun into the bushes.

Before Jon could run to see if he could find it, she leaped forward and put her hand on his forearm. Even through his clothes he could feel the warmth.

“Jon,” she said urgently, “listen to me.”

The anger was back. “Fuck that. We don't have time for farewells, Sophie. I might be turning right now.”

“I'm a healer,” she answered and he frowned.

“You're a what?”

“A healer. I didn't tell you because—because I don't tell people. It's complicated and I can't use it to clear up colds, but I can heal people who are really sick.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

She gently closed her good hand around his and led him to the foot of a huge pine tree. “Sit.” And just like that, he sat. Nervous energy was humming in him, he knew he had to find a way to kill himself fast, but somehow Sophie was overriding his system. He sat and she sat next to him, close enough for him to feel the warmth radiating off her.

She lifted the sleeve of the arm that had been bitten, pulling it up over his elbows, and put both hands on his hand, right above the bite. One hand was already becoming purple and swollen from the broken wrist but she paid no attention to that at all. Where she curled her hands around his forearm there was an enormous sensation of heat. Painless, enveloping.

“I've healed you already.” She absorbed the jolt his hand made.

“What?”

Sophie nodded. “Do you remember feeling heat when you landed on me? You'd just made a run for your life and you'd seen the horrors on the street and you were heartsick. And when—when you told me about your parents. It was like a grievous wound, I could tell. I don't know exactly how it works—it's actually scary to me—but you felt better afterward, didn't you?”

Jon kept his stone face on, though he mind was whirling.

Sophie shook his arm. “Answer me, damn it! You felt better afterward, didn't you?”

He felt like his lips were made of stone. He had trouble formulating the words. “Everyone feels better after talking about something painful. Psychology 101.”

She looked him in the eyes. “I am absolutely convinced I can cure this, Jon. I wouldn't be playing with my safety like this if I weren't. I can do this and I will. I am not going to go back to Haven with your dead body. We are going to go back together, we are going to work hard with the others to heal the world, and we are going to get married and have wonderful children who will be brought up to be smart, loving, and kind. That is not a wish, that is the truth. Do you believe me?”

No, of course not
. The words were there, on his lips, but somehow they wouldn't come out.

She looked smart and strong and very capable. Not crazy at all. The furthest thing from crazy, as a matter of fact.

And—he'd seen this before. Catherine and Elle. Both scientists, both women of reason, with unusual gifts. Catherine could feel emotions—and lately thoughts—through touch. And Elle—Elle could project herself out of her body thousands and thousands of miles away.

He'd have scoffed at even the hint of any of this before last year, but he'd seen it with his own eyes. Catherine had found them in their secret lair, where the entire U.S. military had failed to find them, simply because she'd touched Lucius Ward.

She'd touched
him
and uncovered secrets he'd never told another human being. And Elle—Elle's body had been back at Haven, but she'd been with him and Nick when they broke into Arka's headquarters in San Francisco. There was no doubt about that.

So . . . maybe . . .

Sophie's good hand clutched his more tightly and the heat was like a painless fire. She leaned forward toward him, toward a man who could be turning into a monster right now. “Give me a chance, Jon. Give
us
a chance. Please. I don't want to live without you.”

It was nuts. It went against every single instinct he had.

Jon reached to his boot, pulled out his combat knife, placed it in her lap. One good thing—if he turned, he wouldn't know what it was for.

“At the first sign, and I mean the very first sign, that I am turning, you slash me across the throat with that Sophie, and jump away. If we're going to try this, I need your promise.”

“I promise,” she said, her voice low, gaze unwavering.

Nail it down.
“Promise what? Say it out loud.”

“I promise that if I can't heal you, if you show signs of turning, that I will take the knife, slash you across the throat, and run.”

He nodded. “They're coming for you from Haven. They'll find you. And they'll protect you. If I go, I want to know you'll live.”

She swallowed heavily. “I know.”

Jon couldn't believe he was doing this, but he was. “Okay. What do we do?”

“I touch you. And I heal you.”

Jon frowned. “That's it? That's your strategy? You touch me? You're touching me now.”

She nodded. “Do you trust me?”

“Well . . . yeah. But—”

“Close your eyes.”

He closed them, hoping she was right, terrified she was wrong. Would she be able to slit his throat in time? They had no way to know how the infected turned. No one had observed it. Or at least no one had observed it and lived. Was it a slow gradual process? Was it sudden? If it was like throwing a switch, Sophie'd have no chance. The only way she had any chance at all was if she could see him turning, and decide to put an end to it. To him. He wouldn't block her in any way. In fact, he hoped to be aware enough to tilt his head back and offer his throat.

His life was, in every sense of the words, in her hands.

“So how—” he began, then stopped. Suddenly the heat became even more intense, like a sun blooming in his arm, the heat spreading up through his arm, through his chest. He could feel his heart heating up, the strangest sensation he'd ever had.

At the same time, he could feel a nasty chill inside him, ice prickling in his veins, horrible and painful. With a lurch to his heart, he realized that the sensation of cold was the virus. He was turning.

God, he was turning.

Black cold ice eating him up, pushing away the heat. His body was a battlefield, like a cold dead planet approaching the sun.

Pain wrenched through his muscles, and he felt his heart contract from the cold that gripped it. Something freezing cold, like Satan's hand, was squeezing his heart.

Jon gasped for breath but breathing hurt. His lungs were on fire but encased in ice. He couldn't move his lungs, he couldn't breathe, his heart tried to beat its way through his chest as it fought the cold. The cold swam through his system like black smoke, infiltrating every cell, eagerly seeking out the warm places so it could squeeze them in its cold dead embrace.

It wasn't working. Jon could feel himself start to go under. To his horror, visions of blood and violence started filling his head. The
pleasure
of biting and tearing and maiming. A deep satisfactory bloodlust in a rising tide, like sexual desire. He fought it, he fought it as hard as he could. Sweat broke out all over his body. It felt like he was sweating blood.

“Sophie.” He could barely get the words out. “The knife. Now.” He clenched his fists, willing them not to move, but he could feel control slipping away, cold and elusive like smoke. Inside his clenched fists it was as if he could feel Sophie's soft neck, how good it would feel when he had his hands around it, squeezing . . . “Sophie!”

He opened his eyes, the lids as heavy as lead.
Fuck.
Sophie wasn't reaching for the knife. Both hands were on his arm and her eyes glowed as if a firebomb had been lit behind them. An eerie light, almost supernatural, the glow so bright he couldn't look away.

His hands opened, closed. Heat was pouring into him from Sophie, heat and light. Light he could feel under his skin. Now her entire face glowed, as if the sun had just risen inside her. She was trembling with the force of the power inside her. For it was a power, no question about it. Something more powerful than her, some outside force. A force she was transmitting to him.

His entire body was a battleground, ice and fire. Ice wanted him to turn on her, tear her, bite her, feel her blood in his mouth. He could taste it, the blood rich and fine, a need so strong he was shaking with it. But fire—fire was love and life, Sophie beside him for all his days.

The trembling grew, both of them were shaking hard, sweat pouring out of them. Jon's jaw had locked, he couldn't speak, could barely breathe. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to kill her while the fire and ice fought in his blood, bringing the bloody battlefield to his veins and bones.

Sophie tightened her hold on him even more, that glow so bright it blinded him. With a sudden blast, the ice around his heart exploded and heat suffused his body, running through him, filling him like hot honey down to his fingertips. Every inch of him was filled with heat, even the memory of ice gone.