Blood Born Read online

  “Oh. Hi, Nick. Nice to meet—”

  He suddenly stopped and faced her. His eyes still held that deer-in-a-headlight wideness. “Why are you here so late?”

  She paused. “Why am I? Why are you?”

  “I’m . . .”

  Nick’s mouth clapped shut. His gaze shifted from side to side before he resumed his course down the hall.

  Way to go, she told herself. Way to bowl him over with sexuality.

  She stood still and watched him go. No point in scaring the little rabbit any further—even if he was a tall and dark little rabbit.

  Dammit, she should probably go home. The hot flash, which she knew resulted from erratic hypothalamic activity, was subsiding into a typical post-flash chill, making her dizzy.

  Nick produced a keycard from his lab coat (a blue lab coat; why couldn’t she get a blue one?) and used it to enter the administrative suite. His card was also blue, she noticed. Hers was white.

  He paused halfway through the door. “Well, aren’t you coming?”

  “What?”

  “Coffee.”

  Margaret snapped to her senses. “Oh—oh, right. I’m coming.” She hurried after him.

  Damn, he was fast. It was a wonder he wasn’t jogging, and yet as they passed the I.T. and accounting departments, he still looked like he was out for a Sunday stroll.

  “So, let me get this straight,” she said as they walked, a little winded. “You guys don’t have a working coffee machine, either—so you gotta come way down to this end of the floor?”

  “I don’t drink coffee.”

  They entered a break room containing a kitchenette, TV, and small table. Nick retrieved a Styrofoam cup from a cabinet. Margaret watched, bemused, as he pulled a brick of ramen noodles from his pocket, tore off its wrapping, and proceeded to break it apart into the cup. Many of the noodles missed and fell onto the floor. She felt like telling him that he should have washed his hands first.

  Never one for uncomfortable silences, she said, “It just makes me worried. If they can’t maintain a coffee maker, then what about our lab equipment?”

  Nick filled the cup with tap water and set it to cook in the microwave for two minutes. “Our equipment works perfectly.”

  “Oh?” She placed her mug into the InstaJava maker (the “turbo” model, she noticed) and hit the start button. “What are you guys working on in there?”

  Nick coughed and averted his gaze. “Research and development.”

  Good going. You’re scaring him off again. “It’s not an idle question. I’m here tonight writing a newspaper column in defense of genetic engineering.”

  “But aren’t you just a fertility specialist?”

  Margaret crossed her arms. “Yes, I’m just a fertility specialist.”

  “Hmm.” Nick turned to regard his ramen.

  Jerk, Margaret thought. Oh well, it was a nice fantasy while it lasted.

  The InstaJava maker sputtered its final drops into her mug, and she was glad to see real coffee this time and not piss water. She blew on it to cool it down. Funny, but she didn’t feel like drinking it anymore—with this hot flash, she now wished for a cold soft drink. Her heart was palpitating way beyond her norm. Without hormone therapy, she knew she could look forward to as many as four of these episodes per day during the next three years. Great, just great.

  She watched Nick retrieve his soup from the microwave and poke it with a plastic fork. Despite his strange facial wrinkles (maybe bad genes?) he possessed all the personality of a test tube. So she was surprised when he blurted, “You could write that genetic enhancement and cloning are natural outgrowths of our socio-biological evolution.”

  “How so?” What she really wanted to say was, Huh?

  “It’s simple, really. You could say that scientific endeavor is a normal byproduct of our development as a species. To claim otherwise is to characterize human invention as unnatural.”

  At last, Margaret realized this was the wrong time of night to be thinking so hard. “But that’s exactly what Reverend Williams is saying, that science isn’t natural.”

  “Then ask Reverend Williams where science comes from, if not naturally from us. The only other option is that it must come from someplace unnatural and therefore exterior to ourselves—such as from God.”

  Margaret sipped her coffee. It was an interesting argument, but full of holes. “Maybe you should write this thing for me.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I happen to agree with the reverend.”

  Margaret blinked at him, mouth hovering at the lip of her mug. “What?”

  Instead of answering, Nick just smiled. Margaret didn’t like the look of it nearly so much as she’d hoped. Tucking his expandable file under his arm, he picked up his cup of soup and left the room.

  Damn him. He could’ve at least left his file behind for me to snoop through.

  Margaret followed him out into the work area, where Nick was already past a row of cubicles and about to turn the corner to the exit door. Back in the dim light, he’d resumed his lissome, animal-like aspect.

  “Nick.”

  He stopped. His eyes reflected the light spilling out from the break room. “Yes? I’m busy, you know.”

  “I’m sorry—I just didn’t get your last name.”

  “That’s because I didn’t give it.”

  Margaret felt her hot flash redline. That sonofa—

  No. She caught herself. She was too much of a professional to lose her temper. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t.” The smile returned. It looked worse somehow because a shadow spilled across the lower half of his face. “I was merely stating a fact.”

  “Oh. Well in that case, if we’re still friends, how about a tour of your lab—seeing as I’m writing an article defending you, and all.”

  The smile dropped, and he stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. His eyes still reflected the light. Contacts? At least she hoped it was contacts. The only creature she’d ever met whose eyes glittered like that was her cat, Gemini.

  Finally, Nick said, “Are you kidding?”

  Then he disappeared down the hallway.

  Margaret stood there, mouth agape, and listened to the door slam behind Nick whatever-his-name-was as he left the administrative suite. Her composure dissolved.

  “That . . . mother . . . fucker!”

  She surprised herself by throwing her mug at the floor. It splashed coffee across the carpet and bounced before coming to rest. She immediately picked it back up and found it unbroken. She wiped liquid away from the rainbow that pronounced her life as having just begun.

  “I’ll have to tell Daniella where she gets her temper from.”

  When she stood back up, her knees crackled instead of just creaking. That meant it was time to go home, feed the cat, and go to bed. What a damn waste of a night.

  Yawning, she assessed the spill and wondered if the carpet would stain. She realized she didn’t care. On her backswing, just before beaming the mug at the floor, several drops had sprayed the corporate counsel’s nameplate, which hung beside his door on her right. Margaret sighed and reminded herself that she was a professional, then used the sleeve of her coat to clean it.

  Her gaze drifted inside.

  The counsel had left his desk lamp on. That always irritated her—people who left their lights on when leaving for the night—and she had half a mind to walk in and turn it off. It fit his image, though. She remembered him as a pompous asshole who liked to tour the patient areas while taking notes on his Blackberry. He probably used his speakerphone all the time, too, and with the door open.

  She was about to leave when her eye caught on the blue keycard tucked next to his cell phone charger. It looked just like the one that Mr.-Nick-I’m-too-good-to-give-you-my-last-name jerkoff used.

  “Oh, I’m a bad, bad woman,” she said as she entered the counsel’s office. She slipped th
e keycard into her pocket. On her way back out, she turned off the desk lamp.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  When Daniella finally emerged from the parking garage, she walked slowly and kept an eye out for Eric’s car. It was so late that the theater’s garage and the Mexican restaurant’s parking lot were empty.

  She used her torn shirt to wipe her tears. Her face felt swollen and hot. How had it come to this? The worst part was that she couldn’t tell anyone. The cops would see her ripped clothing, laugh, and imply she’d deserved it for parking alone with a boy. Even if they did help, they’d tell Mom, which meant revealing she’d ignored her curfew and permitted a boy to get carried away with her.

  The memory of Eric’s assault made her want to take a shower. When she got home, that’s exactly what she would do. She would need to do it quickly before Mom came home. She would hide the torn tanktop at the bottom of the kitchen trash.

  Daniella walked slower and slower down the alley beside the parking garage, movie theater, and restaurant. A wet blanket of shock draped over her. She stared dully at her toes as she shuffled along, vaguely headed in the direction of Gallows Road and home. The whoosh of traffic beyond the buildings muffled all but the sounds of her footsteps and her steady gasps.

  What am I going to do? What am I—

  There was only a second to realize her footsteps didn’t sound right—that there were two sets of them—but by then her stalker was right behind her. Hard hands clamped her shoulders and hurled her into the outer wall of the movie theater.

  She slammed into the bricks head-first. A starburst of pain crashed down from the crown of her head. White light exploded across her vision as she crumpled to the pavement.

  She remained conscious but saw only red, twinkling blackness. Her attacker dragged her away from the wall by her ankles. She felt lips on her shoulder and stinging pain as a sharp tooth pierced her skin. Daniella wasn’t sure if she was face-down or face-up.

  Why is Eric doing this? He told me he loved me. Told me—

  Then her jeans were being yanked off, and she realized she was on her back because the rough asphalt pulled her hair upwards as Eric pulled and pulled and—

  They were off and her panties must have come off too because pebbles tore into her bare bottom before he fell on her, heavier than she’d imagined, smelling of dirt and sweat and his dick oh God it was huge and stung as it punctured her cherry and tore into her—

  —oh God please Mommy I’m sorry so sorry I stayed out late and—

  —humping heavier shame tearing her to pieces his penis thick a baseball bat ripping her hole larger burning it—

  —biting her again this time on her neck stabbing hard with his tooth—

  —then his thick cum pulsing into her, filling her up and searing her bloodied inner flesh.

  Vomit surged up her throat, and Daniella turned her head to spew onto the pavement. She sobbed through the stomach acid and the snot caking her face.

  Eric withdrew from her and disappeared. His sticky filth coated her vagina and the insides of her sore thighs, which burned as if abraded with sandpaper where his legs had touched her.

  When unconsciousness enveloped her, she dove into it with gratitude.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Sneaking into the research department would have to wait until another night when Margaret was sure no one was there. For now, she returned to her office and gladly powered down her computer. The blue keycard went into her desk drawer.

  The message light on her phone was blinking.

  She considered letting it go until Monday but then thought that the message might be from Nick. Maybe he’d had a change of heart. (Not, as Daniella would say.) More likely it was her daughter calling from home.

  She sighed and hit the button to check her voicemail.

  “Mrs. Connolly, this is Officer Heager from Fairfax County Police,” a young man’s voice said. “Your daughter Daniella gave me your work number. She’s at the Fairfax Hospital emergency room. I think you better get down here right away.”

  Part II: Gestation

  Come to the bridal chamber, Death!

  Come to the mother’s, when she feels

  For the first time her first-born's breath!

  —Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867)

  Chapter 3

  Yes, she’d already had four cups of coffee since starting the graveyard shift. Yes, she knew it was bad for her, but wasn’t everything these days? And no, she didn’t plan on cutting herself off for the night. In fact, if something didn’t wake her up soon, she might seriously consider that old jibe about visiting the “pharmacy” in the police department’s evidence room to sample the confiscated methamphetamine.

  Detective Christina Randall parked her unmarked Crown Victoria in one of the hospital parking spaces reserved for cops. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

  “God, I need to get back to day duty.”

  But she knew that wouldn’t solve her problem. Even when she had three days off in a row—enough time to sleep and readjust her body clock—she still couldn’t shake her chronic fatigue. And that wasn’t even the worst of it.

  As she drained her cup, which 7-Eleven had comped during her break, she typed one-handed on her Computer Aided Dispatch terminal. She instant-messaged the network that she had arrived at Fairfax Hospital to investigate a sexual assault. This connected on-screen with Officer Heager’s status listing, which showed he was also here for the assault. He was the one who summoned her.

  Getting out of the car, Randall put on her blazer to conceal her shoulder holster, grabbed a notebook, evidence tags, and victim statement form—and then sneezed so hard she saw stars.

  This prompted a flare of sinus pain, which brought on yet another headache. Wincing, she re-tied her short ponytail of dark hair more loosely. That was the worst of it: the persistent allergies and migraines. Tiredness she could handle with caffeine, but the rest of it? They always said—whoever the hell “they” were—that if you lived in the DC area long enough, you would develop allergies. Randall supposed her time had come.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Chrissy,” her mother chuckled yesterday on the phone. “Just go see an allergist.”

  “I don’t see doctors unless I’m bleeding.”

  “Such a stubborn little lady.”

  “Why do you always call me that? Your ‘little lady’ is in her thirties and can break two bricks with a bare hand.”

  “Tell me, honey, can you do the same thing with your head?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never—”

  “Because it’s certainly hard enough.”

  Grimacing at the memory, Randall entered the Emergency Department. A few people who looked as tired as she felt sat in the waiting area, watching TV or staring into space. One guy with muscles like a comic book hero saw the police badge clipped to her belt and glared at her. Randall smiled back. She nodded at the receptionist behind the banker’s grille to let her through the sliding glass doors into the main emergency ward.

  “There’s a lot of bad people in the world, Mom,” she said later in that same phone conversation. “I wish you’d just do what I ask sometimes.”

  “Pshaw. You don’t listen to me anymore, so why should I listen to you?”

  “Because allergies are one thing, and criminals are another.”

  “I am not installing a security system.”

  “Then let me remind you why I became a cop to begin with. Christmas Eve, I’m seventeen years old, and a burglar breaks in at midnight and—”

  “And you kicked the crap out of him. Yes, I remember. So why do I need an alarm system if I have you?”

  “Because I’m not there anymore.”

  “Well, you’ll be home for Christmas at least, won’t you? Won’t you?”

  When Randall had started to object, Mom burst out laughing—and changed the subject.

  Randall sighed as she approached the ER’s main desk to ask where she was supposed to go. What was the use of it all?
Here she was, supposed to make the world safer, but she couldn’t even get her own mother to listen to her.

  “’Lo, detective,” said a male nurse writing on a dry-erase board. The board hung behind an array of work stations, displaying a grid that listed patients and room numbers. “Funny seeing you back here so soon.”

  “Nothing funny about it, I’m afraid. Where’s Officer Heager?”

  He glanced at the grid. “Trauma room eight, down that hall and on your left.”

  “Thanks. Is the counselor there already?”

  The nurse recapped his magic marker. “I paged her half an hour ago, but I haven’t seen her.”

  Randall frowned. Sexual assaults had become so commonplace that the hospital long ago hired a psych counselor just for those patients. This person worked in tandem with social workers the courts assigned to assist victims throughout the criminal justice process. She hated having to deal with hysterical family members without one present.

  “Oh, that’s right—we have a new person starting tonight, don’t we? Damn.” Randall wanted to kick something. “That explains it. What’s her name—do you know?”

  “Cassandra Elliott, I think. Pretty little thing. Young.”

  You would notice, Randall thought. “Would you mind paging her again?”

  “Sure.”

  Randall thanked him and started off, but the nurse called after her: “Hey detective, whatcha doing tomorrow night?”

  She clenched her fists at her sides and looked back to see him waggle his eyebrows. Dammit, she was always getting propositioned—by grocery clerks, neighbors, men she’d never known from college but who looked her up anyway—and it especially pissed her off when it happened while on duty. But she needed to maintain friendly relationships with the people here, so she smiled a smile she didn’t feel.

  “Tomorrow night? Oh, I’ll be busy beating up men who get too fresh with me. How ’bout you?”

  She held the grin long enough to make the guy laugh before she continued on.

  Officer Heager was waiting for her in the hallway outside the trauma room. He was leaning against the wall and fiddling with his cell phone, one elbow resting on a rolling IV stand. When he saw her, he coughed and unconsciously smoothed his uniform shirt.