We were not present for said rantings, as Jane put us in Protocol: The Ladykillers, which involved us staying at River Oaks, surrounded by Jane's family of choice and most-trusted UERT officers, watching horror movie remakes with Georgie. Because Prom Night made her laugh. But one of the nicer UERT guys, Ray McElray, let me watch the video of Dr. Hudson being tased, which felt pretty good, even after the fifth time I watched it. Ben made a still of Dr. Hudson slumped to the floor with his ass in the air while he drooled and peed his pants. I saved it as my laptop's wallpaper.
Jane came home and assured us that it would be safe for us to return to work, that Dr. Hudson was secured in a holding cell under the interrogation floors, seven levels below our offices, and that he would be left there to think about his actions for a decade or two. While locked in a metal mesh box, standing upright, surrounded by pictures of clowns, and with heavy metal–polka fusion played at top volume.
"I'm not even going to ask if that's really necessary," Ben said.
"Agreed," I told Jane.
///
"Yes, well, you try to put my kids in a death box and stake them out for the sun, I tend to take that a little personally." Jane sniffed, patting our heads.
I would not allow myself to feel that little tingle of warmth in my chest at hearing her call me one of her kids. I just wouldn't. I ducked my head and tried to keep the stupid smile off my face.
"I mean, having Georgie around is like having a child of my own, only I'm pretty sure an actual child would be ninety-two percent less terrifying," Jane said. "But you, Ben, you are the low-maintenance childe I don't remotely deserve. You are a genuinely good kid, and you have to know how much I appreciate that. And Meagan, you are the little sister I always wished I had. Kind, levelheaded, bright, and a total smartass. Also, because my mom would have been so distracted by your puppy-eyed adorableness that she wouldn't have even noticed me. High school would have been a completely different experience. This is as schmaltzy as I'm going to get. I love you both. Good night."
And the stupid smile would not go away, especially after the household went to the grave for the day and Ben sneaked into my room, snuggling against my back as we drifted off to sleep.
Jane loved me. And not just in the "Aw, you make my life easier and fetch me coffee" way. She fought for me, protected me, cared for me. She treated me like part of her family. And I wanted that. I wanted to belong to her family. I just wasn't sure how to do that.
Work became almost routine again, without the threat of medical experimentation hanging over our heads. With Dr. Hudson in violation of his contract, he no longer had any privileges in the science department, and Jane was able to reassign his staff to Council outposts all over the world. Dr. Gennaro ended up sampling bat guano in the Amazon. Considering his participation in the whole "death test" thing with Dr. Hudson, I didn't feel sorry for him.
The good news was that Jane was allowed to completely restaff the science department with noncrazy people. After she made them sign nondisclosure agreements the thickness of my geography textbook, she allowed them to perform another round of blood analysis and various tests of our endurance.
Hudson's analysis of our blood had been spot-on, but the new scientists, led by a Dr. Denise Oxmoor, were doing a more complete analysis of our DNA to try to explain why we had so many animal and plant bits inside us. And while we didn't need another test to know that silver was a horrible, no-good, very bad idea, we knew that UV exposure up to direct, high-noon levels couldn't hurt us. Dr. Oxmoor and her assistant had to hide behind a special lead shield while we were exposed to tanning-bed lights. But now that we knew we wouldn't explode into dust, the experiment was far less stressful. And the more we were exposed to the light, the less dramatic the drop-unconscious-to-the-ground reaction became. We could stay conscious. We were slow, I would admit, but we were up and moving around, more and more efficiently with each exposure. Dr. Oxmoor speculated that within a year or two, we might be able to move around during the day completely unscathed and undetected.
It was fun testing the limits of our "above-average vampire-ness." We were thirty percent stronger than the average vampire. I managed to flip a car by its bumper, and it landed on its tires, but I had to think about guys who posted "Make me a sandwich" memes on Facebook to work up the rage for it. We ran forty percent faster. We read faster and swam faster-which was a way more fun test. Who knew the Council complex had an indoor pool below the interrogation levels? We could go around eighteen hours without feeding, but we got super-cranky and then passed out wherever we stood. (Ben ended up facedown in the ten-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle being used to test his mental acuity.) We could scent blood from three hundred yards, where the average vampire maxed out at one hundred. We could not fly but not for lack of Ben trying . . . by jumping off the top of the Council offices. Fortunately, his ankles healed right up.