Accidental Sire(50)

"No," I insisted, a rumbling growl creeping into my voice. "We are not guinea pigs. We're human b-well, we're people! You can't just torture us and claim it's for science like that's a get-out-of-war-crimes-free card." 

"Mrs. Jameson-Nightengale was very clear that she wanted comprehensive tests," he said, staring at me with blue, derpy eyes that had gone cold and calculating, like he was trying to figure out how long he could keep me down on the lab floor without anyone noticing. "She said she wanted results, damn the consequences."

My eyes narrowed, and I picked up on the tiniest twitch of a vein near Dr. Hudson's temple. No. He was lying. That couldn't be true. And the twitchy vascular system was his tell. Jane wouldn't risk Ben like that. And while she wasn't pulling for permanent custody of me, I knew she wouldn't set me up to be tortured. She wasn't that cold.

Quicker than I'd ever moved before, I stepped around Ben and moved very close to Dr. Hudson. I snagged the stake from the medical tray and pressed the point to his throat. My voice reached a low, gravelly octave I'd never heard come out of my mouth. "You. Will. Not. Spray. Him. With. That."

"You're a little off the mark," Dr. Hudson told me, just a little smugly, as he glanced down at the stake. "I know you probably haven't taken anatomy, but you're going to have to move it a little lower. That won't kill me."

"But it will keep you from whistling for a while," I shot back, pressing just a bit harder.

Dr. Hudson's nostrils flared, but he placed the silver canister back on the tray. "Righty-o, we'll just move along."

"No, we're done," Ben told him, grabbing my uninjured arm and pulling me toward the door. "We won't submit to any more tests without Jane being here. This is insane."

"Oh, I don't think we have to worry Jane about this," Dr. Hudson chirped. "After all, we do need to know how you handle sunlight."

We turned to see Dr. Hudson quickly slide on a pair of heavy rubber gloves and one of those masks that welders use. Another lab vamp-lackey, whom I recognized as Dr. Gennaro through his own welder's mask, walked briskly through the lab's rear door, holding a weird lantern with a purplish lens.

"What is that?" Ben asked as I grabbed the doorknob and rattled it. The hallway door had locked behind me. Why hadn't I noticed that before? When it wouldn't budge, I resorted to yanking on the doorknob to try to force it off the frame. I threw my weight against it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Help!" I screamed. "Help!"

"This is a UV lamp," Dr. Hudson told us in his "professor teetering on the edge of a complete nervous breakdown" voice. "Think of it as a suntan in a box."

Ben and I locked gazes and threw ourselves across the room at lightning speed. Ben swiped the stake from my hand somewhere near the bed, which I didn't appreciate, because it left me weaponless. He launched himself at Dr. Hudson but overshot with his super-strong legs and smacked against the wall. The hit apparently dazed him, because on his next try, Dr. Gennaro stepped between them and knocked the stake aside.

Ben threw him to the tiled floor, but Dr. Gennaro swept his legs out from under him. Ben's head hit the floor with a thud. The stake clattered to the floor and slid under the bed. I picked up the nearest heavy object-a bedpan-and swung it at Dr. Hudson's head. But I missed, because Dr. Gennaro kicked the backs of my knees, folding my legs under me, and I flopped to the floor like a fish.

Ben groaned. "My head."


      ///
       
         
       
        

"This is embarrassing," I told him. "We have to learn how to fight."

I chucked the bedpan at Dr. Hudson, but he easily sidestepped it, because unwieldy metal objects are really hard to throw, even with vampire agility. My back hurt too much from the collision with the tile to do much more than fling my leg up and drop my foot down heavily on Dr. Gennaro's crotch. He curled up in agony on the floor, which made me a little happier.

In a voice I'm sure he thought was soothing, Dr. Hudson said, "Now, we're only going to expose you to a low setting for five seconds. The skin damage should be minimal."

He turned on the lantern. The lab was filled with warm, bright light. I ducked my head under my shirt and braced myself for the heat, for the pain. I heard Ben let loose a short yelp and felt his arms wrap around me, the cloth of my shirt trapped between my face and his chest. I closed my eyes, buried my face against him, and waited to turn to ash.

Nothing.