The Beast In Us (The Beast And Me Book 3) Read online

  “He would definitely not reunite me with Jay, would he?” I asked, looking at Valerie straightly and keenly.

  “You would be invaluable to him,” Valerie answered. “Giving you back to Jay would be like tainting you, like throwing you to the animals. Because that’s what he regards them as, as nothing more than beasts needing to be trained. He thinks that Ten can lead these chaotic creatures now, because you brought his humanity back. But if he knew that you’re carrying the virus and still talking to me civilly as you are doing now...I don’t know what he would do.”

  “He would try to harvest the virus from my blood to make a new serum, because that’s what he wanted from our offspring,” I concluded with my eyes trailing off into the distance. “Would the anti-virus created from my blood be able to heal everyone else?” I asked trying to lock with her glance again, but somehow I couldn’t look into her eyes anymore.

  “That’s what I’m trying to achieve, and why I need you here in this hospital room pretending to be sick and pregnant,” Valerie explained.

  “I can’t do that.” I shook my head. “Not for long at least. Jay and Peter are going to sense the truth, but that’s not really the problem.”

  When I spoke about Peter having advanced senses, Valerie didn’t flinch. So it was true. She knew about him being an altered human, too. But did she know the whole story? Did she know that Peter and White were related? Half-brothers?

  “If you want me to trust you, Val, I need to know that I can,” I said calmly. “You need to be completely honest with me. Don’t treat me like some fragile thing. I’m way past that now. You should know.”

  Valerie nodded stroking across her head to check her reddish hair for unruly strands, but there weren’t any. She always wore a tight high ponytail, probably in order to appear more dominant among her coworkers. Apparently her tall stature of maybe 5’8” wasn’t enough.

  I don’t know why, but I guess it was because I just read the part about her bright blue eyes in Jay’s diary, that I realized how intense the color was. That was when I realized something, and I got up from the bed where I was sitting.

  Although Val had given me the time slots where we could speak openly, I could sense that we are alone. Maybe I can even sense if someone is watching me on camera, but that’s something to figure out later.

  What I needed to do was to look at the large mirror. I needed to see my eyes. Unintentionally, my steps became slower and more hesitant, which was completely unnecessary, since I already knew what I was about to see.

  “Meghan,” Valerie spoke apprehensively.

  She knew that what I was about to see was even worse than I had expected. My eye color had changed. They were a mixture of hazelnut and dark honey gold, around my pupils there was this far too familiar circle of corroded copper. Someone who didn’t know what to look for probably wouldn’t see the difference, thanks to that circle, especially if they weren’t standing close enough.

  “Is that why White...I mean Severin, wasn’t here yet? Because you lied to him so he can’t look closely into my eyes?” I turned around to face Valerie again, clenching my hands into fists.

  I could feel my fingernails dig painfully into my palms, but I didn’t care. As a matter of fact it kept me calm, calm enough not to snap, calm enough to stop the creature inside of me from stirring.

  “I doubt that studying your eyes would be the first thing he would do after meeting you,” Val shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her chest and leaning against the edge of my bed.

  She stood up straight, probably ready to come to my aid, when the simple glare at my own reflection with the alien eyes overwhelmed me. Valerie Winters obviously had not the slightest idea what I have been through, and what memories were crashing down on me non-stop.

  “It would have been a bigger shock to see myself nine months pregnant,” I commented my thoughts dryly, but Val got the message.

  Slowly, and wobblier than I expected, I stepped back towards my bed, keeping my fists tight and a fair distance from my doctor.

  “Jay wrote that I can’t trust you.” The words just came out of my mouth by themselves, but I didn’t mind.

  “Things have changed.” Valerie didn’t deny it. Her arms slumped down and she folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve seen too much. I can’t pretend to not know what Severin has done to these poor soldiers, what he has done to you. I watched them change. I watched them turn into these untamable wild animals with nothing turning them back. That wasn’t the work Severin had promised me. Not to this extent. And as he brought you in after testing his theory on Ten with pictures of you. I couldn’t...”

  “Jay,” I cut her off, gritting my teeth. “His name is Jay Flynn. Lieutenant Jay Flynn. Not Ten.”

  “If I start calling him Jay instead of Ten, and I accidentally do so in front of Severin, he will know.” Val stood up straight mirroring my posture, clenching her hands into fists.

  She was taller than me, more slender, longer legs. I still knew with every fiber that I was stronger and faster than her. It would be easy to catch her and snap her neck.

  I shook my head, trying to get rid of these thoughts. There was no blaze, no flame, no searing coal filling that hole inside of me, claiming a spot I didn’t know had been vacant before I went into that coma. No. I already wrote it. I already know. It’s my beast waiting for its’ chance to take over. Slowly I eased open my hands and looked at my palms, the imprints my fingernails had left on my skin. I hadn’t drawn any blood.

  “You are right,” I agreed and nodded, looking back up. “So, you are keeping me safe, testing my blood, because you want to make amends?”

  “I want to correct my mistake, I want to cure you and the others, make them humans again.” She spoke with such determination in her voice, with her strangely loud heartbeat, that I could do nothing else but believe her.

  “Why do you think that my blood could be the cure?” I asked her, steadying my breathing.

  Inquiring like that, bringing my mind to work, was way better than wrecking my head over my memories and everything else that I have learned about me so far; and about Jay.

  “I can compare the virus in your blood with the samples of the first generation,” Doctor Valerie Winters went into science mode; yet hearing her addressing Jay and his comrades as first generation, which implied that I was the second generation, made me shudder. “So that I can study how it has changed, and how the two viruses react to each other. But I have to be careful, because I’m not a virologist.”

  “Heard that part already,” I responded.

  “The virus adapts to its host,” Val continued to explain. “So every virus, once injected into the body, is unique. I have to find the weak spot that they all share. The original virus, and the altered ones.”

  “And then you can create a virus that attacks that weak spot?” I asked, trying to somehow understand her rambling. “But how will that change everyone back?”

  “It won’t,” Val answered and her eyes lit up a bit, being encouraged by my interest. “We have to eliminate the dormant virus first, before we can inject a virus that will reverse the effects of the first.”

  “Why not tell the dormant virus to reverse its own effects?” I frowned. “Wouldn’t it be easier to attack and recode the existing virus? Wouldn’t that be safer, too?”

  Valerie looked at me with a blank expression for more than just a second, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have worried that I broke her.

  “You are absolutely right,” she said slowly and I could see how her mind was working intensely. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “You just wanted to take one step at a time.” I figured.

  “You are right,” Val agreed with me again and her sudden silence made me look at her straight, meeting her studying glare.

  “How do you feel?” She inquired after realizing that I had nothing more to say. But I had no idea how to answer that question.

  “You seem to be more gathered, more yours
elf,” Val added, again waiting for my response, to no avail.

  “My memories still are a bit jumbled and foggy, but you are right,” I eventually answered. “And I feel a bit weak on my feet.”

  She nodded, her expression showed that she wasn’t surprised, but didn’t seem too worried either, much to my relief. Valerie believed me and I hadn’t lied. I simply hadn’t told her the entire truth.

  Suppressing a sigh that would have given me away, I slowly walked to my bed to sit on it. Here I was demanding for Valerie to prove to me that I could trust her without revealing something of importance. But she didn’t oblige. And I needed to understand what was happening to me first, before I could entrust her with how it worked...this creature inside me.

  Day 143

  I’m pretending to be weak, to be absolutely careful with my movement, because they don’t know that I’m not pregnant anymore, because Valerie says the only way I am safe is to lie. I am playing this charade because I need time. Time to read Jay’s diary, to understand how his beast works, because it’s not a switch you simply flip to go berserk. As long as my beast is sleeping, I have time to probe it, to learn about it, and maybe master it. I will have to use it for my own benefit, even if Valerie doesn’t want to go there. I have to. Because Jay needs me, because once my beast is awake, I will need him.

  The only thing I didn’t understand is why it was sleeping at all, and why it didn’t wake up when I did. Maybe that’s the difference between the first and second generation – as Valerie calls them. Maybe my beast won’t wake at all? No, that’s nothing I can hope for, but maybe I’m simply more aware of it.

  Maybe I’m different because having sex with Jay infected me. Maybe the difference is that I was exposed to a lower dose through that infection, as I would have not been through an injection.

  It would make sense, wouldn’t it? My body wasn’t overwhelmed by the virus.

  Maybe if White simply would have had more patience, none of the chaos he was now facing would happen. There is a certain irony to that thought. But I believe the human side of them is important. That is something White definitely forgot. We need something human to cling to in order to be human. If you wake up completely detached to what you once were, with the same jumbled mind I had, maybe enduring pain for weeks before it ends, how would you even know, even remember, that you are human?

  He thinks giving them a leader, an alpha, will solve his problem. Like Val, he doesn’t get the whole picture. He sees the world in black and white when there is a full scale of colors he cannot even grasp.

  I think I know how to help them. They need to be reminded of who they once were. Locking them away, letting them out to be trained and drilled, won’t achieve that. I can’t actually believe that no one came up with these theories before me. But when you have nothing but a crew of virologists, biologists, neuroscientists and whatever else, and not one single psychologist or at least therapist, you end up like this. I can’t believe that White simply thought that they would wake up and still be soldiers, that he didn’t think of the possibility that it would overwhelm them.

  I know that Val is right and he should never learn about me. She would have told me if my body would have had the chance to fight the virus off on its own. Was that why she kept me in a coma for so long? Did she hope my blood would become the carrier of her anti-virus?

  Remembering what Jay wrote about her. That would be the logical explanation.

  Maybe she hoped that my body would fight the virus, just as it had the fetus it rejected.

  What if it did? What if locking away the beast in this searing sphere was the only way my body knew how to fight it? Maybe that’s what happened to the others? That the beast is something like an ulcer, breaking open when emotionally triggered?

  How the hell do I come up with all this? When did I learn that? When did all of this somehow start to make sense?

  What if once the beast breaks free, its’ fury is nothing more than a result of the human body attacking itself? Because they are still in pain, because the DNA still is being recoded, while the body tries to stop it. What if all the beasts are in truth failures? And White has no idea?

  I can’t believe that I might be right, that I might have found the real problem, when no one else did.

  ...But if I’m right, what about Jay?

  What’s different about him? Did his body find a way to live in symbiosis with the virus? Does he need to become a beast in order to weaken the virus? Could that be possible? If yes, that means he’s a ticking time bomb. If yes, and there are really creatures out there in the world like werewolves, them having to turn into a beast once a month would make so much sense.

  Has Jay changed during our separation? I don’t think he has. I have to warn him.

  ...If he’s not feeling it already.

  XXX

  There was only one other choice than to tell Valerie all about my conclusions. After all, I am her charge, or prisoner, and I can’t just waltz out of my room to find and warn Jay. I’m not sure if she would comprehend if I tried to explain. She has no idea how it feels to have a snake of fire slumbering right below your heart. Jay does. I’m more and more grateful about what he did for me, writing this diary, opening up, accepting that White would read it before he handed it over to me.

  How horrible it has to be for him to not know for certain what’s wrong with me? I’m not sure if he still believes that I am pregnant, or if he has realized that I went through the same change he did. It seems as if he feared that during my slumber, that I must have went through the same torture as he did. But I can’t remember, maybe it didn’t happen to me like that at all, because I’m different.

  What I did was taking a risk, a chance that fate offered me, if there is such a thing. I think I know visiting times now, or should I call them ‘watching times’ because that’s what they do, on the other side of the mirror.

  Like that day, one week ago, when he came and woke me up, because I could sense him. I could sense him again. It was like the air just before a thunderstorm. There was something like electricity, a thickness to the air, waves radiating through it. And this time, it didn’t wake me up, it electrified me. I was sitting up straight, almost jumped from my bed right then and there when I sensed it.

  I never have felt or sensed something like this before, and I doubt that I ever will anyone else. My entire body was alerted and drunken with desperate need and longing. My eyes burned, and I had to blink to prevent them from filling with tears. My skin was hurting, my heart was aching, and I wanted to roar, to tear that wall down; that wall that separated us.

  And I knew, as certain as the skies are blue and the sun is yellow that he felt the same. That it was so very different to see me on my feet, being self-aware, instead of watching me wither half asleep in that bed.

  I kept pretending to be weak, even though I know he could hear my heart beating steady and strong as I slowly walked towards that mirror.

  It was so strange, so exciting, so electrifying to sense him sensing me, to know that he was aware of me faking weakness, as I limped towards that fake mirror. I knew that he knew, and that just made that invisible bond between us ironclad.

  As I reached that mirror I pressed my hand against his, hoping that Jay would respond; and although I couldn’t see it and couldn’t hear it, I knew that it took him only two seconds to mirror me, to press his palm against mine, only separated by this thin glass. I almost jumped through that window, and I knew that I was capable of it.

  “You need to let it out,” I whispered, keeping my eyes locked to the ground, my lips barely moving. “If you keep it locked away for too long, it’s going to overwhelm you.”

  Strangely enough, I had no doubts that he got my message. Yet, that wasn’t what left me troubled, it was his reaction, and that wasn’t something I had thought of. Him sensing my words, him feeling me talking to him, it was the very proof that I had changed, and it almost killed him.

  In all my troubles I had forgotten how
much he tormented himself about my fate. He still felt responsible about what happened to me. And because of that he was changing right then and there. I couldn’t stop my reaction. And I wouldn’t be surprised if I left scratch marks on that mirror as I felt him losing it. For me it felt as if he had slashed my chest open, leaving me to bleed dry, and I knew he felt the same at the moment. All I wanted, all I needed, was to hold him and tell him that I was there with him, that I was close, that he didn’t need to worry, to fear, to rage for me.

  All I knew for sure was that he was alone in the room, that he didn’t hurt anyone, that he had no reason for remorse, and that the hand that touched mine through that thin layer of glass was still there, still connected to me. And that was the very moment I knew that I never wanted to be human again. Why be so inadequate if you could be that close, and that connected? And still, he lost it. For me it felt as if he had clawed right into my heart, and I couldn’t understand how he was incapable of controlling himself, until I reminded myself that he already had waited too long to shift.

  It was so strange, so eerily strange to be the only one really understanding the state he and I were in. And yet, did I really know, did I really understand all of it?

  But I stayed there, my palm pressed against the same spot, hoping that he would find it and the way back to his humanity. And he did.

  And I knew for sure that it would only be a matter of days until White would show up and demand explanations. What this despicable excuse of a man didn’t know was that I was finally superior to him, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use that position.

  Day 144

  With all the plans I had, I didn’t expect White to show up so fast. I had to hold back my gag reflex, and even worse, the moment I saw him enter my room the snake of fire, the soul of the beast in me came to life. I had to use all my strength to force it down, to nail it to the ground; because I doubted that mauling him into a bloody dices of meat would have helped me right then and there.