Darkest Night

“Nothing.”

She tried to ignore the pain his words had sent coursing through her body, and forced her vocal cords into action. “You can trust me,” she said, hearing the unsteadiness in her voice. “I know it probably doesn’t feel like it right now, and I understand if you find it hard to believe. But you can trust me, Jamie. You really can.”

He raised his head and looked directly into her eyes. “I’ve heard that before,” he said. “More than once.”

Anger burst through Larissa as her vampire side rushed to the fore. She knew she was in the wrong, that Jamie had every right to feel disappointed and let down, but she could not simply float in the cold air and allow herself to be tortured indefinitely.

“What are you saying, Jamie?” she demanded. “No more bullshit. Talk to me.”

“I need to think.”

“About what?”

“About everything,” said Jamie. “About what happens next. It’s all coming to an end, Larissa. Everything. Can’t you feel it?”

She shook her head, and felt red heat boil into her eyes. She was suddenly furious with him for wallowing in self-pity when there was so much at stake.

My family won’t even talk to me, she thought. They might as well be dead. At least your mum is safe, and your dad still wants you, even if he did lie to you. At least he cares that you’re alive.

“I don’t recognise this version of you,” she said, her voice little more than a growl. “The Jamie I know, the one that I fell for? That Jamie fights to the very end, even when everything seems hopeless. Where the hell is he?”

Jamie stared at her. “I’m tired of fighting,” he said.

“So what do we do now? Tell me.”

“Go back to the Loop,” he said. “I just need some time. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Larissa floated in the air, her glowing eyes fixed on his. He held her gaze for a moment, then shifted it to the gravel drive below, where everything had been set in motion by the thunder of machine-gun fire and the apparent death of a man who had been desperate for a way out. She wanted to shake her boyfriend, to scream at him to snap out of it, then wrap her arms round him and tell him that she loved him, couldn’t he see that, wasn’t that enough for him?

Instead, she turned away without a word and flew back towards the Loop as fast as she could force her body to move. The cold air made her eyes water, hiding tears that she would never have let anybody see, not least the boy she was leaving behind.

(#ulink_e7707eaf-81e2-5708-a884-6de252ce5508)

(#ulink_89d7394b-3116-55d9-8117-ac06da3f39ac)

Matt Browning’s stomach rumbled so aggressively that he immediately looked around to check whether any of his colleagues had heard it, his face reddening with embarrassment. Mercifully, it had either not been as loud as it had seemed or his fellow members of the Lazarus Project were simply too engrossed in their work to have noticed it; there was not so much as a raised eyebrow to be seen.

Matt checked his watch and saw that it was well past noon. He had been at his desk for almost seven hours, and had not eaten since grabbing a sandwich sometime the previous afternoon.

He was absolutely starving.

Matt got to his feet and carefully stretched his arms out above his head until he felt the muscles in his shoulders creak. The doctors had told him he could remove the foam neck brace tomorrow, but for now it was still wrapped round his throat like a thick collar. His back and neck were in constant pain, the result of the car crash he had caused in San Francisco, but a regimen of dizzyingly strong pills was keeping it at bay. The finger that Major Simmons had broken as he gripped the steering wheel was splinted and wrapped in bandages, but mercifully it was the little one, and it didn’t interfere with his ability to work.

He lowered his arms and took a look around the lab. At the far end of the long room, Professor Karlsson, the project’s Director, was deep in conversation with two of his senior staff. In the corner nearest the door, three of Matt’s colleagues were sitting in plastic chairs, staring intently into a slowly rotating holographic model of their best guess at what the genetic structure of a cure for vampirism might look like: a swirling cone of DNA strands, balls of blue and red proteins rotating round grey stretches that represented sections as yet unmapped, of which there were still a frustratingly large number. The rest of the Lazarus staff were huddled at their desks, grinding through the seemingly endless potential formulas that required testing on the project’s supercomputer array. Every one would almost certainly turn out to be flawed, at which point the results would be written up and filed away, and the process would begin again.

To Matt’s right, her blonde head buried in what looked like a protein recombination equation, sat Natalia Lenski, the girl he no longer knew exactly how to refer to. His friend? His girlfriend?

He had no idea.

Whatever existed between them was fragile, the result of a halting, tentative courtship involving two people to whom confidence did not come naturally, a courtship that had culminated in a kiss that had quite literally taken Matt’s breath away. It had been instigated by Natalia as he arrived back from California and been designed to soften the blow of the news he was returning home to: that Jamie Carpenter, his best friend, had been bitten by a vampire, and turned.

There had been two more kisses since. Whereas the first had been full of fire and passion, the second had been gentle, almost chaste, as Matt lay in the infirmary after a scan had confirmed there was no permanent damage to his spine. The third had been frenzied, a stolen moment the previous day when they had run into each other in the Level B corridor, a remarkable coincidence given how much time they both spent in the Lazarus laboratories. The momentarily empty corridor and the possibility of being caught had lent the kiss an urgency that had left Matt dizzy; he still blushed at the memory of it.

But that had been yesterday. Now he was standing two metres away from her without the slightest clue what he should say or do, and the determined way that Natalia was staring at her screen suggested she had no more idea than he did. In moments like this, the ones that other people appeared to navigate with ease but which he found as difficult and confusing as a labyrinth, Matt often asked himself what Jamie would do. The honest answer was usually something reckless and arguably foolhardy, but it was still a helpful exercise. Inaction did not come naturally to Jamie; he would do something, even if it turned out to be wrong, and Matt was gradually realising that it was better to try and fail than do nothing.

He took a deep breath, and crouched down beside Natalia’s desk.

“Hey,” he whispered.

The Russian girl turned her head to look at him, and the smile on her face made his head spin; it was wide, genuine, and utterly beautiful.

“Hello,” she said, her voice low. “Are you OK?”

Matt nodded. “I’m good,” he said. “Well, not really. I’m hungry. Come to the canteen with me.”

Natalia frowned. “Now? I have work to do.”

“It’ll still be here when you get back,” said Matt. “Did you have breakfast this morning?”

“No.”

“Then you have no excuse,” said Matt. “Come on. I’m buying.”

Her frown deepened. “The canteen is free, Matt.”

“I know,” he replied, and smiled. “It was a figure of … oh, forget it. Just come with me.”

“To our canteen? Or the one downstairs.”

“Downstairs,” he said. “The main one. I want to get out of here for fifteen minutes.”

Natalia nodded. “OK,” she said, and pushed her chair back from her desk. She got to her feet and blushed a delicate pale pink as Matt stood up and looked at her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Not a thing,” he replied. “Let’s go.”

They walked along the corridor and into the lift without saying a word.

The silence wasn’t awkward, however; it felt safe, and comfortable, and as soon as Natalia pressed the button marked G and the lift began to descend, she turned and kissed him, her body pressed against his. Matt’s eyes flew wide with surprise, then closed as he kissed her back, his hands on her waist as her fingers pressed into his shoulders. A flash of pain raced down his back, but he ignored it, concentrating only on not concentrating on anything, allowing himself to sink into a moment that needed no input from his endlessly rational mind.

The lift slowed to a halt with a familiar beep and Matt and Natalia sprang apart as the metal doors slid open, revealing two Operators in full uniform. They nodded as the two teenagers exited the lift, their faces flushed, their skin tingling. Matt momentarily considered taking hold of Natalia’s hand, but quickly decided against it; the busy canteen was only a hundred or so metres away, and it was not the time or place for such a wildly extravagant display of public affection.

Natalia smiled as he held open the canteen door for her. The cavernous room was as loud as ever, full of conversation and laughter and the clatter of plates on trays and boots on the tiled floor. As Matt led Natalia to where the long run of metal counters began, she whispered to him in a voice that was barely audible.

“People are looking at me.”

He frowned, and glanced around the room. A few heads were turned in their direction, although the expressions on the faces did not appear unkind, or hostile; if anything, they seemed curious. Matt stared back, until understanding hit him and he turned to Natalia with a smile on his face.