Read 02 Seekers for Free Online

and every painful shift in the road. The mansion I had come to love as a second home stood stark against the darkness. Bright flowers and manicured hedges were bent from the deluge of water the storm had brought. The moss on the stone wept with the rain, dripping a constant waterfall on the steps and ground. Jackson pulled the truck to the broad steps of the front of the house, and Daniel helped me out. He took the pieces of his shirt away as he helped me up the stairs.
    “I can fix it, but it’ll mean stitches. I’ll need some things, though.”
    “Stitches,” I repeated.
    “Yes.”
    Jackson had followed us up the stairs. “I’ll go steal some stuff from the hospital,” he offered.
    “All right. You know what to get?”
    “I think I can manage,” Jackson said. He reached out and very gently ruffled my hair. “Learn to use those feet. They’re great for not falling down.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
    Jackson’s answering grin was lopsided. He turned and started back down the stairs. Daniel shut the door behind us, shutting out Jackson’s departure. “He won’t be gone long,” he assured me.
    “How bad is it?” Beatrice asked, stepping out through the door which led to her lab, her warm brown eyes full of worry. Her auburn hair was thrown into a messy bun and her youthful face was tight with anxiety.
    “I’m okay,” I said.
    Daniel sighed, annoyed. “She’s not okay.”
    “Come sit down,” Beatrice said. I followed her to the long dinner table, and heard her ask in her best mother voice, “Daniel, dear, what happened to your shirt?”
    “Clare’s using it. I’ll go get another one.” He kissed my hand and released me. “I’ll be right back.”
    I nodded and sat, setting my heavy head on the table. I didn’t care the table was antique and beautiful, I just cared about resting. Beatrice didn’t comment about me dripping blood on her table like she normally would have. She simply reached out and rubbed the arm that wasn’t
    holding the pieces of Daniel’s shirt in place. Her hand was warm and electric; it told me I would be okay, though she kept a solid wall between our thoughts. Something I was grateful for. I wasn’t in the mood for thoughts. But even through the wall, I could sense her agitation and fear.
    She hesitated for a moment, searching for ways to keep me conscious. “Han would have come
    down but he’s testing some of the more recent blood we took from you. He thinks we might have discovered something quite interesting.”
    “Interesting?” I asked dreamily.
    “Yes. Very. I was getting quite vexed at your blood to tell you the truth.” She said it as if she thought I would take offense at her hating my blood. “I had a tiny moment of…irritation and I slammed the sample down a little too hard. It broke and mixed with another sample I was
    working on for a friend of mine. I started to clean it up when Han noticed the most bizarre reaction. He checked in the microscope to be sure, of course, and he was right!”
    “Right?” I asked.
    “Yes! Your blood changed the blood I was working on. More than that…it got rid of the cancer cells I was trying to isolate. And your blood did all this without changing! It would seem you have a sort of…auto response mechanism.” Beatrice frowned. “But the merging wasn’t quite
    right…it seemed tenuous, breakable…like it didn’t want to complete its hold on the second
    blood.”
    “Because I hadn’t given it permission,” I said dreamily.
    Her science talk, while interesting, wasn’t enough to keep me awake. A dark cloud of wonderful rest swirled around my eyes, and I felt it pull me down. I closed my eyes.
    “Clare!” Daniel’s voice was sharp.
    I jerked out of the darkness and found Daniel again. He wore a black crumpled shirt, which looked as if he had picked it off the floor, and his face was worried.
    “Sorry,” I apologized when I saw his worried face.
    “Don’t apologize. Just don’t fall