Total pages in book: 57
Estimated words: 55221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55221 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 276(@200wpm)___ 221(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
“Tougher to keep stable,” Evie murmurs from her desk.
“Yeah. So let’s start small. Safer that way. Something that’s not airborne.” I think through the options. “Keep it small but blunt. Only a few samples at a time, and introduce the virus directly into the blood and see what happens. The less fancy it is, the better off we’ll be during this trial phase. We’ll finetune it as we go.”
“Roger that.” He salutes. “I’ll head down and get what we need. Evie, need anything?”
She twirls on her stool. “No, I’m good for now.”
The door opens, a woman walking in, then pausing as she looks around at the three of us. “I should’ve knocked, I guess? Sorry about that.”
“Hey.” Evie looks up. “Astrid.”
“Hi.” She smiles, her dark eyes sparkling a little behind her wire-rimmed glasses. Dressed in casual but stylish civilian clothes, she pulls up a stool close to Evie and plops a large notebook on the desk. “Just figured I’d come check in since you have your new addition to the team. Brought some notes.”
I glance between them, then at Wyatt. He waggles his eyebrows and shoots the two of them a look. I snort a laugh.
“Oh, sorry.” Evie stands quickly. “This is Georgia. Georgia, meet Astrid. She heads the crew that’s been researching the vampires.”
“Heading downtown.” Wyatt opens the door, the guard outside giving him a sour look. “Evie’s good. You need anything, Georgia?”
“Yeah, some signalosomes, but I’m still looking for the right ones. This catalog system is prehistoric.” I flip another page. “Someone without any sort of basis in science must’ve compiled it. Makes no sense. A toddler could’ve done it better.” I glare at the notations written in neat block print at the bottom of the page. “At least they had nice handwriting, I guess.”
Evie clears her throat.
I look up. “What?”
She bobs her head toward Astrid in a comically obvious gesture.
“Okay then, I’m out.” Wyatt lets the door close, and he chuckles in the hallway.
“Sorry about that.” Astrid looks stricken.
Shit. “Oh, you—”
“I did the best I could. The way those were categorized didn’t make sense to me, and I just did what I thought was best. The troops arrived with a mountain of things from the CDC and told me to make sense of them and to do it on paper because there was no guarantee our systems would keep working, and that was before I’d even met Evie, so I organized sort of according to the numbers that were at the end of each sort of batch of vials or by the case.” She’s talking so fast her words start to blur. “I—”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” My cheeks heat. “It’s all right.”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t do it right.”
“You did fine.” I close the catalog and tap the cover. “It’s fine. Really.”
Evie gives me a death glare.
The room goes silent as I wonder if I should speak or just hide under the table. Somehow, this makes me more uncomfortable than when General Lopez was threatening me with execution.
“Astrid has a background in languages and curation,” Evie says, her tone one degree above frostbite. “She was working at the Smithsonian when her Army major father evacuated her here. She’s been working for the cause ever since, first cataloging the incoming materials and then moving to studying the vampires.”
“What can you tell me about them?” I try to hurry past the awkwardness.
Astrid’s face loses some of its dourness, though her light brown skin is still tinged with red. “I’ve learned a lot. I mean, what do you want to know?”
“How many bloodlines?”
“Three.” She perks up.
“Name them.”
“Dragonis, Corvidion, and Tantun.”
“Abilities?”
“Dragonis can control humans and each other through their blood. Corvidion are the winged ones. Tantuns are venomous in their bites, their scratches, and their blood.”
“Who rules them?”
“Gregor, though some of our sources indicate the other two houses, and those within House Dragonis, are after his position somewhat perpetually. It’s like an age-old game of king of the hill. Anyway, he maintains control through his blood bonds and his progeny. Theo, whose death weakened Gregor’s position substantially, and Valen, who serves as his top general, the Specter. Not much is known about any of them, but Theo was at the White House throughout the tenure of President Clark.” She looks away. “After his death, Valen became more of a central figure, leading the charge against us. We don’t know why they attacked or what their end goal is. The blood camps are gone, so they aren’t after a food source. Their hold on the government disintegrated when they destroyed DC, and their ability to appeal to the rest of the world died when they executed missile strikes on major population centers. They’ve made no demands. There doesn’t seem to be any unified goal other than killing us.”
There’s nothing to argue with. “Fair assessment.”