Last Shot (Jacob Black) [3] COMPLETE

39. A Cure for a Lost Cause

~Jazmine~

I smile before grabbing my other dagger and twirling them in my hands. I walk up behind a chimera and instantly recognize its scent. Tears of anger try to form in my eyes but I rip his head off instead. I walk around stabbing, slitting throats, and ripping heads off until every single chimera is dead. A growl comes from behind my and I spin around twirling my daggers. The giant lizard creature thing slowly crawls toward me and I tilt my chin up. Kanima. It moves faster and I get in a defensive stance. I stab it in the head and its tail cuts my leg. I stagger backward slightly before losing feeling in my body.

"Jazmine!?!" Lydia runs toward me.

"I'm fine, just the mother fucker paralyzed me." I state. She throws my arm over her shoulder and pulls me onto my feet. "Lydia, no offense, but you aren't going to be able to drag my dead weight to that parking lot."

"I think you're underestimating my abilities." She says strained dragging me about five feet before almost dropping me. Jackson catches me and I narrow my eyes at Lydia.

"Now what do I tell you Lydia?" I say.

"Okay, so I overestimated my abilities." She sighs. Jackson picks me up and carries me, Lydia following, along with all of the others.

"Ms. Carter?" A voice pipes up from behind a building.

"Put me on my feet." I whisper and Jackson helps me stand. "Actually it's Jazmine Argent, but yeah it's me." I say as Beth steps from the shadows.

"Is there actually a cure?" She asks.

"Yes, there is, and never let it be said that I am not a man of my word. Ride in one of the suburbans. Once we get to the house and I'm no longer paralyzed I'll give you the cure." I reply. She nods and I slightly limp, with Jackson's help keeping me on my feet.

•  •  •

Beth sits in a chair and I sit in front of her.

"Before I do this, there's a few things I think you should know." I say.

"Okay." She nods.

"It's probably going to be extremely uncomfortable at first, but after a few hours you should feel fine. There's also the possibility of this not working, nothing can be one hundred percent certain. You're probably going to have a headache for a few days, maybe a nosebleed but nothing too serious, if this works. Another thing is it is going to hurt like a bitch. I can't exactly give you anything for the pain because that will interfere with the cure, but trust me it won't hurt nearly as bad as it would've if I killed you in the school. Just whenever you're ready we'll do it. If you don't want to do it, that's fine. You can leave and as long as you don't kill anything or bite anyone we'll leave you alone." I explain.

"I think I'm ready." She states.

"Are you sure?" I ask for clarification.

"Yeah. Let's do this." She replies. I give her a reassuring smile before getting up and walking over to the table and grab the syringe with my blood mixed with mercury. I walk over and roll up her sleeve.

"Ready?" I look up at her. She nods. I find her vein and slowly push the needle in. She squeezes her eyes shut and I push the back of the syringe, injecting the cure in. I slowly withdraw the needle and she slowly opens her eyes. "Well, unfortunately Beth, that was easiest part, if you thought that hurt, well you're in for one hell of a rude awakening."

"I don't care, the pain will probably be the only thing telling me this isn't just some crazy fucked up dream." She shrugs.

"You're preaching to the choir." I scoff and sit back down across from her. "I mean, in about thirty minutes you might wish it was just a dream and the pain didn't exist, because it hurts, a lot."

"How does it work?" She asks. "The cure, how does it work?"

"The mercury, it kills all of the venom in your bloodstream, which should kill you and is the painful part, my blood will counteract the mercury, and keep you alive. That battle in your body is another reason it hurts so much. Then once it stops my blood will slowly die from the mercury and you'll be human again." I reply.

"There was a lot of kill in that." She states.

"It won't kill you. It kills the chimera, but not the human." I say. "You'll be alright. And once this is over, you can go on living an as normal life as possible. Finish school, go off to college, get married, have kids, or you know whatever suits you."

"You can't do that can you? That's why you offered me the cure." Her voice becomes gentle.

"I mean I can, but I couldn't bring a kid into this mess. Saving people, hunting things, it's the family business. My parents hid it from me until I was sixteen. They tried to leave, but then we came back here and everything changed. Back into the business just like that. The stuff I've seen, things I've done, no kid should have to know about that even existing. Unfortunately, I am the last of my bloodline, and it'll be another six centuries before it ever happens again." I pause. "It's a cruel and unforgiving world, Beth, enjoy the fact that you're going to be human again. Not everyone gets a second chance."