“Yeah?”
“Samantha? Doctor O’Hearn here.”
O’Hearn was the nonhuman and rare species specialist she’d been sent to by Gabriel and Stephan. Apparently, if anyone could sort out precisely what she was, it would be this woman. A sliver of tension ran through her. Surely it was too soon to have reliable results back? She’d been told it could take months of checking and cross-checking. “Hi, Doc. What can I do for you?”
“I want your permission to discuss your case with Karl Morgan.”
Karl? Gabriel’s friend? “Sure, but why? Karl’s an herbalist healer. How would he be able to help?”
“He also happens to be the Federation’s resident expert when it comes to extinct races. I think he might be able to help make sense of some of these results.”
Obviously, O’Hearn had been unable to match the gene coding in the test samples with any known races if she was now considering extinct ones. Walkers were, apparently, a very rare race who were vaguely related to the vampires, without possessing their need for blood to survive. A race who could completely disappear into shadows.
Become
shadows, in fact. They also apparently had eyes just like hers—eyes that wavered between blue and gray. “Karl did say he suspected there might be walker blood in me, but he never got around to doing the tests.”
Mainly because he’d been blackmailed into handing her over to Jack, who’d wanted to use her emerging abilities to overthrow Sethanon.
“Yes,” O’Hearn said. “Gabriel mentioned Karl’s suspicions, which is why I want your permission to talk to him.”
“If it helps uncover what I might be, then sure, go ahead.” Sam hesitated. “Was there any match to what’s supposedly on my birth certificate?”
“Oh, yes. There are traces of shifter and changer, as I mentioned earlier. We’ve also pinpointed the partial code of the were-people. But there’s something else, something I’ve never seen before.”
If she
had
come from Hopeworth, that wasn’t altogether surprising. “I want to know the minute you come up with anything.”
“Of course.”
Sam hung up and yawned. What she needed was an early night. She shoved the folders to one side and got ready for bed.
Sleep came. So, too, did the dreams.
She was in a large, white room. Lights glared above her, their brightness as warm as the sun and almost as blinding. Sweat trickled down her face and her back. She was standing alone in that room, but she was being watched. Down at the far end was another room. Men in white stared at her from behind the safety of shatterproof glass.
Joshua was with them, his small form dwarfed by the doctors. Silent but not afraid. Josh was never truly afraid.
“Feel the heat. Draw it in,” the man with the dead gray eyes commanded.
Just hearing him speak made her shudder. Not because of the threat in his tone—though she knew from experience that threat all too often became reality—but because of what lay underneath his voice and his words. Evil soaked his very essence. Just being near him sickened her.
She looked at the fire, but she saw only flames, dancing brightly. She couldn’t do what he wanted. He was asking the wrong person.
“I
can’t.
”
The lights grew brighter, burning her skin as fiercely as the flames. She couldn’t back away, couldn’t move. They’d chained her down this time.
“Become one with the fire. Feel its power.
Use
its power,” Gray Eyes said.
The urge to scream ran through her, but it wouldn’t matter to them if she did. It never mattered. Her gaze met Joshua’s.
You have to do something, or they’ll kill you,
his voice whispered into her mind, calm despite the anger she could almost taste.
Fire is not my element.
No. They are fools who do not look beyond the obvious. But you have other abilities. Use those instead.
They’ll know. They’ll see the difference.
They know nothing about us, despite all their tests. Trust me, Samantha.
She briefly closed her eyes
“Samantha? Doctor O’Hearn here.”
O’Hearn was the nonhuman and rare species specialist she’d been sent to by Gabriel and Stephan. Apparently, if anyone could sort out precisely what she was, it would be this woman. A sliver of tension ran through her. Surely it was too soon to have reliable results back? She’d been told it could take months of checking and cross-checking. “Hi, Doc. What can I do for you?”
“I want your permission to discuss your case with Karl Morgan.”
Karl? Gabriel’s friend? “Sure, but why? Karl’s an herbalist healer. How would he be able to help?”
“He also happens to be the Federation’s resident expert when it comes to extinct races. I think he might be able to help make sense of some of these results.”
Obviously, O’Hearn had been unable to match the gene coding in the test samples with any known races if she was now considering extinct ones. Walkers were, apparently, a very rare race who were vaguely related to the vampires, without possessing their need for blood to survive. A race who could completely disappear into shadows.
Become
shadows, in fact. They also apparently had eyes just like hers—eyes that wavered between blue and gray. “Karl did say he suspected there might be walker blood in me, but he never got around to doing the tests.”
Mainly because he’d been blackmailed into handing her over to Jack, who’d wanted to use her emerging abilities to overthrow Sethanon.
“Yes,” O’Hearn said. “Gabriel mentioned Karl’s suspicions, which is why I want your permission to talk to him.”
“If it helps uncover what I might be, then sure, go ahead.” Sam hesitated. “Was there any match to what’s supposedly on my birth certificate?”
“Oh, yes. There are traces of shifter and changer, as I mentioned earlier. We’ve also pinpointed the partial code of the were-people. But there’s something else, something I’ve never seen before.”
If she
had
come from Hopeworth, that wasn’t altogether surprising. “I want to know the minute you come up with anything.”
“Of course.”
Sam hung up and yawned. What she needed was an early night. She shoved the folders to one side and got ready for bed.
Sleep came. So, too, did the dreams.
She was in a large, white room. Lights glared above her, their brightness as warm as the sun and almost as blinding. Sweat trickled down her face and her back. She was standing alone in that room, but she was being watched. Down at the far end was another room. Men in white stared at her from behind the safety of shatterproof glass.
Joshua was with them, his small form dwarfed by the doctors. Silent but not afraid. Josh was never truly afraid.
“Feel the heat. Draw it in,” the man with the dead gray eyes commanded.
Just hearing him speak made her shudder. Not because of the threat in his tone—though she knew from experience that threat all too often became reality—but because of what lay underneath his voice and his words. Evil soaked his very essence. Just being near him sickened her.
She looked at the fire, but she saw only flames, dancing brightly. She couldn’t do what he wanted. He was asking the wrong person.
“I
can’t.
”
The lights grew brighter, burning her skin as fiercely as the flames. She couldn’t back away, couldn’t move. They’d chained her down this time.
“Become one with the fire. Feel its power.
Use
its power,” Gray Eyes said.
The urge to scream ran through her, but it wouldn’t matter to them if she did. It never mattered. Her gaze met Joshua’s.
You have to do something, or they’ll kill you,
his voice whispered into her mind, calm despite the anger she could almost taste.
Fire is not my element.
No. They are fools who do not look beyond the obvious. But you have other abilities. Use those instead.
They’ll know. They’ll see the difference.
They know nothing about us, despite all their tests. Trust me, Samantha.
She briefly closed her eyes
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