Evolution

CHAPTER 23 : PART 1 | i ain't afraid of no spy

📎A/N. Hello, my lovelies, I hope you are all well and safe. Especially those of you caught up in the natural disasters that seem to be plaguing us at the moment. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.

❤ ℳ

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Petra rechecked her notes and her brows furrowed together. No matter which way she looked at it, the results did not make sense. The samples from the paramedic she obtained, and the one Alice provided from Carbine Jefferson had the same genetic markers. However, the samples from O'Neill were different. What had most surprised her was that the one that had infected O'Neill was a more virulent strain, stronger and faster to replicate.

How he had survived when the others did not, was a puzzle she was determined to find out. His most recent bloodwork showed the virus was still active. However, his antibodies were fighting it off. If only she had access to tissue samples from the other victims. However, somehow their bodies had been misplaced by the hospitals. While she kept her thoughts to herself, she suspected Daniel and Parker had something to do with.

They know more than they are letting on.

She was convinced of it, and was biding her time till she worked out exactly what it was. Petra sighed and patted her pockets for her cigarettes.

"It doesn't matter how many times you check, they won't be there," said Alice.

Petra's arm dropped, and she shot an angry glare at the door as she reached for the pack of gum on the bench.

"You of all people should know smoking is bad for you," said Alice.

Petra rolled her eyes and threw the gum wrapper in the bin. Had anyone told her she would be forced to give up smoking cold turkey she might have not been so adamant she needed answers.

Alice checked the mass spectrometer and chuckled. "He's only looking out for your best interests."

"He's my designated driver, not my keeper. But he doesn't seem to appreciate the difference."

Petra pursed her lips together and held back an additional retort that was ready to fly. She wasn't born yesterday. Daniel Locke had installed a spy to watch her every move and had the audacity of calling him a driver. As if she needed someone to drive her to and from their little village each morning and night. She'd been driving just fine for the past twenty odd years, and twists and turns in the dark on a mountain road didn't faze her the least.

However, she needed answers, and if Daniel Locke thought he had the upper hand by putting in place an attractive man to spy on her, she would just have to let him live under the delusion.

She was now more than convinced that this new disease was as engineered as the last outbreak. The only problem was, she couldn't work out how it was being delivered, or what the source really was.

Over the last few days, her initial suspicions had been proven correct, Parker, Daniel and the others in this weird little village in the backblocks of Colorado, were not directly involved in the manufacture of whatever killed those people. Alice was the only medically trained person in the area, and while she had the best equipment outside of the CDC, she didn't know how to use half of it, or how to interpret a lot of the results—at least not to the extent required for this advanced level of molecular biology.

They weren't involved, but they knew who was. Petra just needed to bide her time and get to the bottom of this. Even if it meant she needed to act ignorant of Joshua's role as a spy in all of this.

When his rugged face swam into view, she cringed. How she allowed Joshua to get under her skin was disturbing, to say the least. He was planted to keep her contained and to make sure they could keep her under constant surveillance. Yet, his relaxed, attentitive manner and his ability to let her forget about work scared her.