“You going to tag me like a biologist on the Discovery Channel?”
He laughs, and I hold my finger to my lips to quiet him. He steps forward and I suddenly feel shy. It must be the broad, comfy bed sitting right behind me. My blush doesn't stop him. He pulls out a small velvet pouch and grabs my hand. He dumps cool silver into my palm. “For you. A little prettier than one of those ear tags they use on moose.”
I catch the clasp and hold it up. A delicate chain ends in a silver dragonfly inlaid with a green stone, with small veins running through it. “It's beautiful.”
“It's not as beautiful as your birthmark, but it reminds me of you.”
My hand moves across my heart where my birthmark sits. Has he seen it? Of course he has, in his dreams.
“Thank you,” I say and go to the mirror to fasten it around my neck. He glides up behind me without a sound. I shiver slightly as he moves my hair away from my nape, his fingers tickling along my warm skin there as he fastens it the old-fashioned way, without magic. For a long moment Luke stands like a shadow over my shoulder in the full-length mirror. Our eyes meet in the reflection and the world feels suddenly just like an illusion, like we truly have stepped into the looking glass, past reality into dreams and nightmares. The whisper of his breath against my hair is the only thing that feels real.
“You smell so good here,” he says, and I feel his nose brush the skin at the back of my neck. “Warm, some type of berry, and then a bit of coconut lotion all mixed in with that special aroma that is all you.”
I close my eyes at his words. He's barely touching me, but my heart rattles a frantic beat and my pulse starts to thrum with sensations. The blush I felt in my cheeks has spread like fire across and down my body. I am super-sensitive to his touch, to the sound of his inhale, the sound of my exhale, the smell of his leather jacket and faint under-scent of pine soap. My body relaxes back into him and his arms envelop me, hugging me back into his chest.
And thenâ¦he curses softly and drops his hold around me. I blink my eyes open and turn toward him.
“I'm sorry,” I say automatically. Luke's eyes glow softly, as if the light shines up through dark blue waters.
“For what? Being all too delicious?” His voice comes gruff past his lopsided grin.
“Uhâ¦yeah.”
The grin hardens into a grimace. “I'm going. It was dangerous to come here.” He glances around my room. “This place is all you. Your smell, your personality.” He spots the dragonfly picture my mom gave me. “Fragile in form, resilient in spirit,” he quotes. Luke nods gravely and looks at me. His eyes shift to the dragonfly lying on my chest. “The jade has protective powers. I had Taylin help strengthen them with me. If your heart starts to pound,” a slightly sinister grin curls his lips, “like now, I will come running, but hopefully not out of control.”
I nod, still staring at his eyes. “Will it tell you where I am?”
“It has a binding spell. I will always know where you areâ¦if you wear it.” He pauses. “You can always take it off if â”
“I'll wear it always,” I cut in.
He gives one curt nod and turns. “I'll be watching.” He glances back quickly, and in the flat darkness of the hall his eyes shine a warning from within. “I love you.” Before I can return a word, he merges with the shadows. I go to the window and pull back the curtain.
“I forgot to tell you.” I gasp and jump, twisting quickly toward the door. Dad stands there, the darkness framing his silhouette. “Sorry, didn't mean to startle you.”
A movement outside my window catapults my heart once again into a frantic flight. I glance sideways and see Luke's face just outside the glass. The necklace. I place my hand over it and will my heart to slow down.
“It's okay, Dad,” I say loudly. “I'm just a bit jumpy.” Luke's face fades back into the darkness.
Tension exacerbates the lines in Dad's features, making him look twenty years older than he did this morning. “You and your mother.” He shakes his head with a big sigh. “Tomorrow, I'm going in to the lab. Not many people will be there since it's Sunday. You and your classmate can come along if you want a private tour. I just have to move some melanoma cells to another medium. My tech called earlier today to say she's too sick to go in.”
Yes! Something to do tomorrow, something potentially useful. “Great, Dad. Thanks. I'll call Taylin. Carly might want to come, too.”
Dad lifts his hands up in mock surrender. “Sure, the more the merrier.” Then he looks at me. “But no boys, not right now.”
I try to keep the casual smile on my lips. My fingers toy with the jade dragonfly. I've never been comfortable with sneakiness or anything close to being illegal. I'm sure my heart will pound. “Just Taylin and Carly.” As long as I can keep my pulse below a stampede.
* * *
Gentec sits at the back of a deep parking lot, a huge boxy gray monster flanked by brilliant red and yellow fall trees. Dad parks up front in the nearly deserted lot.
“It's epic of you, Dr. Welsh, to let us come,” Taylin says with a smile. I have to give Dad credit for not blinking at her eyebrow and nose piercings.
“Yeah, thanks, Uncle Max,” Carly says, smiling her girl-scout angelic grin.
“I'm glad to see you young ladies taking an interest in science. Although I think Julietta may still follow in her mother's footsteps instead of mine.” He smiles. We climb the steps and Dad unlocks the side door with a swipe of his badge. Inside, he uses his badge again to activate the elevator. I notice Taylin watching his every move.
“Jule says you work with blood,” Taylin says. “Cool!”
Dad laughs. “Well, I do work with blood, but mostly with oxygen therapeutics or more specifically, hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers.” He chuckles at our blank faces. “Artificial blood.” The elevator dings on the fifth floor and we follow Dad to his lab. He unlocks it with a hand scan.
“There's a lot of security,” I mention and feel my pulse starting to pick up at the thought of getting past all of it.
“Yep,” Dad says. “There's a lot of competition in this area of research. What with HIV and hepatitis contaminating a lot of the world's blood supply, HBOCsâ¦artificial blood is in high demand.”
“Is it red?” Carly asks. “The fake blood?”
“Darker than real blood, like a burgundy,” Dad answers. He walks to a white, air-tight cabinet with a lock. He slides his badge across a sensor and then punches in a combination. Rows of dark blood-looking bags are inside. “See, darker.”
“Wow,” Taylin says with a side glance to me.
“Are you the only one working on this, Dad?”
“Oh no, there are several labs here working on different components. I'm working on cross-linking parts of the hemoglobin molecule with diaspirin, which is an oxygen-carrying hemoglobin derivative.”
“So cool,” Carly says, and her eyes look genuinely interested. Yeah, she should be pre-med. The sight of all that blood just makes me queasy.
Dad turns to lead us out after he closes the doors and checks to make sure they are secure.
Find another one
, I mouth to Taylin, and shake my head as I glance knowingly at Dad's lab. She rolls her coal-lined eyes. “Um, Dr. Welsh,” she says, shifting from foot to foot. “I had way too much joe this morning. Is there a loo around here?”
“Bathroom, Dad,” I supply.
“Uh, sure,” he points. “Around the corner.”
“Thanks,” she skips off down the long sterile corridor.
“She marches to her own drummer, doesn't she?” Dad comments.
I chuckle. “You could say that.”
“Well, I think you girls can be a great influence on her.”
Carly and I exchange a knowing glance, and I can't help but smile. “I think it would take a much more powerful force to influence Taylin,” I joke. Carly giggles and we follow Dad toward his office.
“I need to veer off and change that medium on some cells. I'll be back in about ten minutes. Just hang out in here. There are sodas and waters in the mini fridge.”
I lean against Dad's faux-wood desk. There's only a small cleared area for him to work, flanked by papers and sticky notes. I pick up the picture of me and Mom hugging last Mother's day. We're smiling and the resemblance is almost eerie. I set it back in the dark lines left in the dust. Carly pops the lid of a Mountain Dew. The snap is sharp in the muffled waiting.
“Sorry,” she murmurs, and takes a sip.
I haven't had a chance to talk with her alone yet today. “Did Eric go back to State?”
“Yeah,” Carly says and peeks out into the hall. “I think Dad had a talk with him. Maybe he'll leave you alone now.”
“I don't think it's that easy,” I say and Carly nods, glumly. Her face pinches in that itchy look, and I know she's trying to remember. “Let's ask Taylin if she knows a way to pull back your memories.”
Carly's face relaxes. “That would be nice. It's like having a tune playing in my head, but I can't remember the words.”
Time stretches, measured by my fast heartbeats. Luke must be picking up on my anxiety. But he knows what's going on. I fill my lungs with the antiseptic, white-linoleum office air and exhale. My shoulders relax a notch as I imagine Luke close, probably outside in the woods behind the building. I touch the dragonfly and wonder if maybe the binding spell works both ways. I smile at the thought.
Taylin slides through the door, making Carly jump and grab her chest. “God, Taylin.” Carly breathes and smiles. “Got the stuff?” she whispers conspiratorially to Taylin and giggles. We both look at her like she's nuts. Carly just shrugs. “Hey, I'm nervous. I giggle when I'm nervous.”
“Okay, Nancy Drew and sidekick,” Taylin rolls her eyes at Carly. “We've got a problem.”
“Problem?” My pulse responds to the casually spoken word.
“I can't get in the other labs.”
“I thought you could⦔ I flit my fingers around.
“That would be Luke,” she frowns. “I'm all about potions and antidotes, not mechanical movement.” She mimics my finger dance but with a sneer. She glances around the room as if her brother might miraculously appear. “We need Luke.”
“Well, you could have mentioned that earlier,” Carly says with hugely wide eyes and more than a hint of exasperation.
“Luke gave me some pointers,” Taylin mumbles and punches numbers into her cell. “Hey,” she says into the phone. “I couldn't get in. Yeah,” she rolls her eyes, “she's fine. But we're going to need you in here. Fifth floor, west side of the building. There's a lab number 3718 with white locked cabinets in it toward the back of the room.” She pauses. “No, I haven't seen any,” she glances up at the ceiling and Carly and I follow her gaze. “But watch out.” She slides the phone shut.
“There aren't any cameras set up in here, are there?” Taylin asks.
“This isn't a prison,” I say, but glance down the hall anyway. I don't see any obvious cameras hanging from the ceiling. My breath hitches. Luke strides casually down the hall toward us like a lean, powerful cougar in his dark leather jacket. My pulse jumps again and he grins. I look in the opposite direction and then wave him in quickly. He's in front of me amazingly fast, almost as if he just materialized there. “God, you're getting faster, aren't you?”
“I was already in the building.” Luke steps closer so that I have to tilt my head back to meet his gaze. His grin skews into a lopsided smirk, and I try to ignore the spark at the back of his dark eyes. I watch as he inhales, his eyes shutting for the briefest moment as he breathes in my scent. “And yes, I'm getting faster. The curse has its advantages.”
Yeah, advantages so he can hunt and kill his Siren more efficiently
. I pitch the thought from me as if it is on fire. “Dad's going to be back any minute.”
Luke peers closely at me. “Your heartrate's been accelerating.”
“I don't like stealing, especially from my Dad. If he finds out,” I shake my head, “I'll be beyond trouble. And I don't want him to get blamed.”
Luke slides two bags of artificial blood from his jacket. “I pulled them from the biohazard bag. I think they are considered expired.” He looks at Taylin. “Can you still transform them, or does it need to be super-fresh?”
Taylin grabs a bag and holds it up to the fluorescent light. “Should work.” She squeezes it, and the sight, although darker than real blood, sends a rogue wave of queasiness through my stomach. “It still moves like blood.” She looks at me. “Geesh, sit down or something.”
Before I can even register that she's talking to me, I'm seated in my father's chair, Luke beside me. “Thanks,” I mumble. He stares down, his eyes searching my face.
“Don't look at it.”
“Got it.”
“He's coming!” Carly screeches in a hissed whisper near the door.
I feel the feather of a kiss along my parted lips and then Luke's gone.
“Oh, my God,” Carly says, scanning the office. “Did he justâ¦disappear?”
Taylin chuckles as she hides the blood bags in her oversized purse. “He's just super-fast these days.” She jerks her thumb towards me. “Thanks to Siren Sally over there.”
“Julietta, are you okay?” Dad asks as he walks in through the door. “You look pale.”
I stand up and force a smile. “I didn't eat enough this morning, I think. I just feel a bit queasy.”
“I wonder if you're anemic,” he says peering closer at my face. “Well, I'm done here.” He straightens up. “Would you like to see the melanoma lab?”
“Not today, Dr. Welsh,” Taylin says and gestures toward me. “We should probably get Jule home. Thanks for showing us around. It's fascinating work.” I've never heard Taylin talk so much without throwing in a sneer or sarcastic remark. “I should introduce you to my dad. He's a cardiologist. Loves this stuff.”