Awake (Book 3)

Twenty-Six

My father finished dabbing at the blood and stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. "Well," he said, folding his arms. "This does seem a bit . . . anticlimactic, don't you think?"

I said nothing, eyes lingering on my limp mother and her broken neck and the lifeless eyes that didn't look that much different than from when she was alive. They would haunt me all the same either way.

"You must know the truth," he continued, "for you to be this composed, and for me to have to kill her."

I was tired. I was hurt. My heart was broken. I didn't have time to play his stupid games that would do nothing but give me headaches and prolong the inevitable. I stepped over Lucille's body and sat in the chair. After a moment Dr. Edmund joined me. We sat there, the two of us, surrounded by destruction and this world that teetered dangerously between us.

"This is how it ends," he said.

"This is how it ends."

"One of my favorite quotes growing up. 'This is how the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.' Fitting, huh? No screaming. No fiery balls raining down from the sky. Just silent terror."

He reached into his jacket and withdrew a long, complex syringe with some additional mechanism I failed to understand. The metal clinked the table where it rolled to a stop, the long needle pointed toward me like a compass, and a chill passed all the way through my body.

"For you," he said.

For me.

"Why did you do it?" I asked. There was too much silence. Too much inside and outside and all around. Too much threatening. Too much everywhere.

"Do what?"

As if he didn't know. "Create me. Create the serum. Why would you do it?"

I didn't expect an answer. Dr. Edmund looked away, eyes drifting, seeming to ponder the question, but I knew he wasn't. Because there was no answer. Nothing definite, nothing exact. Maybe he didn't even know anymore. Maybe he never really knew. There was no way to tell for sure. There never would be.

He didn't answer, gaze falling, and I sat there staring at my father who looked like he hadn't ever even entertained the idea of sleep.

My sister was pregnant. I would never see her again. My mother was dead. I sat with my father at the beginning of the end of everything.

This family was seriously messed up.

"I have to kill you."

His eyes snapped to mine, unsurprised at my calm claim. "So it seems."

I swallowed. Hard. "You have worked immeasurably hard to make my life hell. And I want you to know you have succeeded."

He didn't smile, didn't frown, didn't move.

"You had this . . . this virus in me the entire time, and you knew it, and it must have been hilarious to you. Everybody thinks they can manipulate me and laugh and have a good time. But this is me getting the last laugh. This is me pulling the final card."

Dr. Edmund lounged back against the chair, legs extended. He pushed graying hair off his forehead. "You are not the first person to want me dead."

"I will be the first to make good on that want."

His eyebrow inclined. He studied me. An expression of shock twisted his features. "I'll be damned."