You have to go on, man. Layla would want you to.
I didn’t know how. I couldn’t think straight, and the pain in my heart would never go away.
Get your ass up and go see your kids.
I swallowed thickly as I rose, blinking the tears away. I needed air. As I started to leave, I turned and walked back to Layla’s room. I had to see her one last time. The second I laid eyes on her from the doorway, I bawled once again.
“I love you, baby doll,” I whispered.
Then I ran until I was pushing through the doors and into the lab where Dr. Vieira was softly crying as he slipped a slide under his microscope.
I went over to him and yanked him to me. “I don’t blame you.” He needed to hear those words from me, and I needed to hold on to someone.
A loud sigh escaped him. “You don’t know how relieved that makes me feel.”
I anchored my hip to the lab bench. “Everything has happened at the speed of light.”
He picked up a glass beaker that had blood in it and took a sip. “There’s more of this in the fridge. You look like you can use some.”
Doc liked his blood warm, and he usually drank it in a mug, but I guessed a beaker was all he had.
I went over to the fridge and had stuck my head in when two things happened. Doors groaned open followed by glass shattering.
I pivoted to find Doc with his eyebrows pushed up into his hairline, looking at the entrance to the new wing.
I couldn’t see what had him as white as a ghost. As I stepped into Doc’s line of sight, a woman with a sheet wrapped around her was walking down the center aisle between the lab benches. She stopped across from Doc, then shot her electric-blue gaze toward me.
I stumbled back into the fridge. “Layla?”
26
LAYLA
The harsh fluorescent lights overhead shone down on me like an intrusive spotlight, blinding and burning. The noises in the lab clamored in my ears like a cacophony of an unpracticed orchestra, extremely loud and earsplitting, and the sensation of the cold tile under my feet felt oddly ticklish.
Unease snaked through me like a rushing river after a torrential rain. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The fact that both Doc and Sam were pale, with their jaws on the floor, told me I shouldn’t be standing there.
My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders until the tangy, metallic scent of blood wafted in the air. Suddenly, my gums throbbed violently, my throat burned, and as if in slow motion, I could feel my eyeteeth growing from my gums, painful and jarring. As the soft click of them locking into place resonated, I ran my tongue along one canine, then the other, sharp and pointy.
The color in Sam’s face brightened even further to a blazing white. Dr. Vieira’s did as well.
I scrambled to understand how I was now a vampire or… I felt extremely ill all of a sudden. Was I a monster like Rianne?
I touched my right ear—the one that Rianne had mangled. It seemed to be in perfect condition. I felt along my face. No wounds. I examined my arms. No deep gouges.
“Holy fuck. What am I? Do I look like Rianne? Or am I a vampire?” My voice was barely audible.
I wanted to be by Sam’s side for eternity, but I could never achieve a transformation without succumbing to a serum like Rianne had. Yet, if I had turned into a lab-born creature, there was still no such thing as eternal life. But if I was a true vampire, then maybe.
Oh, the irony of my life. A vampire hunter turned into a bloodsucker would have every Aberdeen in my family—dead or alive—rolling over in their graves or burning me over their infamous firepit if I had become a full-fledged vampire.
Doc and Sam still hadn’t broken from their traumatized zombie states.
The groan of the doors opening pierced my eardrums, sounding almost like a sonic boom.
Dane staggered in when he saw me, then blessed himself. “What the fuck?” He sniffed the air. I doubted he had to smell me since my fangs were sparkling from my gums. “She’s a bloodsucker? How? That doesn’t happen in your world.” I’d never heard Dane’s voice rise so high.
Sam finally rushed over to me. “You died.” His hands were trembling as he studied me, not sure if I was real or not. “You’ve been dead for over twelve hours.” He ran a finger over the tip of my canine. “Holy fuck.” He gently stroked my face. “Is it really you, baby doll?”
