Emergence (The Primogenitor Chronicles Book 1) (27 page)

She pushed to her feet. Anger and fear chased across her features. She lunged at him, and he let her get her hands around his throat. This time, her unsteady gait was due to the sedatives and not her injury. He wrapped his hands around her wrists, but she didn’t try and squeeze, just pressed him into the wall.

“Why?” broke from her lips.

“I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to know. They need some tests. And you won’t cooperate…”

A tear slid from the corner of her eye.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She closed her eyes and her hands loosened around his neck. It felt like she tried to turn away, but her knees buckled and he caught her weight before she collapsed to the floor.

“Just leave…,” she slurred.

Instead, he cradled her in his arms and crossed to the cot, where he laid her down. Wet streaks marred her skin, and he brushed her cheek with his thumb and decided today was a really sucky day.

Jays stood with the gurney as Ian swiped his card in the reader outside of Jessica’s cell and pulled the steel door wide, holding it open for him. He swung the back of the gurney around and slid it through the door, then brought it to a halt alongside the cot. Kieran raised troubled eyes to his.

“You said she wouldn’t know. You said she’d just go to sleep.”

He glanced away from Kieran and looked at Ian. His superior lifted her lids and checked her pulse.

“I’m sorry, Kieran. She doesn’t seem to respond to drugs in a normal manner. I would have warned you if I had realized. Jays, let’s get her moved.”

He moved to her feet, and at Ian’s nod, he and Kieran lifted her onto the gurney then secured the Velcro. They slowly wheeled the table out into the Hub.

“Kieran, why don’t you go and get some food. She’s going to be out for some time. I have a lot of tests to catch up on.”

Kieran nodded to Ian then cast a worried look across Jessica as he left.

Resigned to the situation himself, Jays wheeled his best friend’s sister across the Hub and out the doors. Ian kept a guiding hand on the front corner as they made their way through the halls to the testing suite.

They entered the first room, where Ian gestured him to a stop. He locked the wheels and started to get her ready. While Jays brushed her hair back away from her face and pulled the electrode cap on, Ian got the wires laid out. After a few adjustments to make sure the sensors were aligned properly, he joined Ian at the machine as it whirred on.

The pattern on the screen jumped to life. EEG’s were not his specialty, but he knew enough to know that what he was looking at was not normal. Ian grunted next to him and folded his arms as the activity on the monitor continued to scroll by. Her brain appeared to be in super drive, if he understood what he was looking at.

“Is it the sedatives?”

Ian shook his head. “No. They wouldn’t cause this. Her mind is incredibly active. But as to what it’s doing? I haven’t a clue. Even Nickolas didn’t have readings like this.”

The test ended after forty minutes and her brain didn’t slow for even a second of it. Ian shut down the machine while Jays went to remove the electrodes.

“Let’s get her into the MRI. I want to see what’s going on. We’ll come back to the other tests after.”

Jays nodded and carefully wound the wires under the cap then unlocked the wheels and pushed her through into the imaging room. Ian waited next to the MRI table. Together they lifted her over onto the sled. He tucked her hands to her sides and gently brushed her hair away from her face. His fingers lingered a moment, memories of her as a young girl flitting through his mind. He took a deep breath and pushed the slab into the tube, then turned to follow Ian into the control room.

The operations tech tapped away at the keyboard. The machine in the next room started up, and he could hear the loud banging, even through the thick observation glass. Ian winced. He joined him at the monitor when the results started to feed in. The tech had started at her feet. Nothing of interest appeared until he reached her pelvic area.

“What the…”

“Hum.” Ian had leaned forward. “Theo, mark this. I want a more detailed scan of this area after the overall.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The scan moved on. Jays caught a quick glimpse of her growing wing buds, enough to see their prematurely large state, then they were past and moving on toward her head. When the images of her skull started to come through, he stared, transfixed. The activity on the EEG had prepared them to expect something, but…
Wow,
he thought as he watched the image on the screen.

“I want a PET scan on her immediately. Jays, call the lab and get the radiotracer started.” Ian looked down to a clipboard and scribbled notes across, flipping pages to continue. “Finish the primary scan, Theo. We’ll come back for the detail later.”

The image distorted. “Ian?”

The doctor looked up just as the image blurred again. “Theo?”

The tech punched some buttons and moved dials. The image got worse.

“She’s moving,” Theo barked.

“What?” Ian said.

Damn it.
Nickolas scratched out the last line on the sheet he was filling out. His thoughts kept circling in his head, and between that and the mental riot, his concentration was a bust. He took a deep breath. He felt like he was going to fly apart.

I will control this.

He looked back at the form and reread it. Papers rustled. Donald had finished picking up the scattered files and now started the daunting task of sorting them back into order. His and Chris’s voices filled the air. Chris sorted papers into various piles at the other desk. But Nick kept catching the fleeting looks both would turn on him when they thought he wasn’t watching.

His thoughts circled back to the Hub again. The pull was strong, but he still pushed it away.

I am in control.

Donald and Christoff’s banter got under his skin. He crumpled the paper and threw it at Chris with a growl. “What is taking him so long to feed her lunch?”

His brother froze then turned to stare at him. “Um, Nick. He wasn’t just feeding her.”

A chill swept him with those words. Chris threw a glance at Donald, who promptly set down his stack and turned to him as well. He didn’t remember rising, but he found himself leaning on his desk, focused on his Second. Chris slowly rose also.

“What are they doing?” he said in a low voice.

Chris’s eyes darted a look at Donald and back. “Ian needs to do an MRI.”

“He’s sent Kieran in there to drug her? Don’t they have any idea what that’s going to do?”

“She’s just going to fall asleep.”

He pushed away from the desk and stalked around it. “After our capture of her, you should know better…”

Halfway between his desk and the door, he was mentally blindsided. The pain of his knee as it contacted the floor was drowned out by Jessica’s mental scream.

Pure animalistic fear, fight or flight, flooded his system.

The howl ripped from his throat, and he pressed his fists into his temples. He fought the wave back and his sight cleared. He staggered to his feet, focused on the door. It crashed into the wall and he was out it at a run. Chris and Donald shouted behind him, but he ignored them in favor of the line pulling at him.

“She’s moving,” Theo barked.

“What?” Ian said.

Then the faint echo of an animalistic scream reached them through the glass. Jays leapt for the window, his hands braced against the cool surface to stare in shock as Jessica crumpled to the floor at the foot of the pounding machine. Her hands plastered to her ears. She wobbled to her feet and looked around. Her eyes wild. She lurched at the only door in the room.

“What in God’s name…,” he heard Ian breathe. Then she was out the door. Ripping himself out of his shock—the tranquilizers should have kept her out for another six hours at least—he bolted for the door as Ian hit the alarms.

The door resounded on the wall as he surged through and the sirens blared on. He caught sight of Jessica’s form as she staggered around the corner. His lab coat flapped behind him as he put on a burst of speed to catch up to her.
Robin’s going to kill me.

He slid around the corner as her drunken form raced down the corridor ahead. Ian’s voice echoed the halls.

“Code red. Code red. Building in lockdown. Escape from the MRI room. Lockdown initiated.”

Well, isn’t this going to be fun to explain to Kratz.
He timed his breath to match his racing feet, the distance between him and her closing. She took another hall and he slid around the corner, keeping her in sight. Pounding feet approached from behind, then his name was called. He looked away from her in time to catch the trank pistol Jack tossed him without missing a step. Racing shoulder to shoulder, they gained on her. She took another turn, and then he heard the loud bang as she body slammed into the locked door. They skidded around the corner and saw her frantically scrabbling at the sealed exit.

Their steps slowing, he raised his arm to sight down the length of his gun. Jack mirrored his action. But then a blur of motion summersaulted out of the corridor on the right. It resolved itself into Nickolas. His dusky wings spread wide, shielding Jessica from their weapons.

“Nick! Get down.”

The Alpha Valkyrie made eye contact with him and growled. He kept his wings extended, covering Jessica’s body as he flexed his knees.

“Nickolas. What the fuck are you doing?” Chris snapped as he slid to a stop, coming from the same corridor Nick had, Donald beside him. Nickolas shifted his gaze to his brother, and Jays heard an even more menacing growl rumble from him.

More footsteps arrived on the run, and both hallways started to fill as Valkyries crowded in.

“Damn, Jays. He’s feral.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” He didn’t dare look at Jack as he answered the other doctor.

“Should we shoot him?”

“I don’t think we have enough to drop him. Chris?” he called across the hall.

“Don’t, Jays. Give us a moment.”

The rumble of Nick’s menacing growl rolled through the hall. Jays could barely see Jessica, curled into a ball on the floor behind Nick’s legs.