No chance, she assures herself. He’s already decided it’s too implausible to be believed.
But a little voice inside Holly’s head whispers that Christopher Cooke seems like the type who’s more than willing to believe the impossible once he’s found the proof.
Chapter Twenty-Five
At least the package from Elliot arrives in one piece. Holly’s working in the office a few days later when it comes, so Nan signs for it. When Holly walks into the kitchen, the housekeeper is holding the cooler box and looking curiously at the bright biohazard warnings taped across it.
“Thank you, Nan, I’ll take that,” Holly says. She expects the housekeeper to get the hint, but she doesn’t.
“Is this something from the States?” Nan asks.
“Yes,” Holly says, trying to keep the impatience from her voice. Nan has been a huge help with Jack this week, keeping Ed’s schedule busy enough so that including Jack in practice has been a nonstarter. Holly can tell Jack’s frustrated, but he’s not blaming her, which is a refreshing change.
“Is it safe to have in the kitchen? Around the food, I mean?” Nan asks dubiously. “It has all those warnings on it.”
Holly had been planning on injecting Jack in two days. Superstitiously, she’s wants to wait a full month from his last injection in the hopes she’ll catch a break before then and Eden will be found. But it’s clear Nan won’t be comfortable storing the blood in the refrigerator next to the Brussels sprouts for tonight’s dinner. And really, Jack’s been so up and down lately she can’t afford to wait until his next crash. Holly sighs.
“I’ll take it up to the office.” She takes the box from Nan and carries it up the stairs. On the landing, she bumps into Jane, who is exiting her room.
“Hmmm. That looks quite terrifying. What is it?” Jane asks. Her long hair is pulled back today, and a shaft of sunlight from the window on the landing catches it and turns it to molten silver.
“Just something I’m working on,” Holly says, trying to slide past, but Jane is too sharp.
“For the boy? Let me see.” She follows to the office, where Holly reluctantly opens the box. She unwraps the vial of blood and holds it up to the light, checking to ensure it isn’t cracked or broken.
Jane shakes her head. “It looks ordinary enough. What do you plan to do with it?”
“It’s the last one I have,” Holly says. “But there’s no sense holding on to it for too long. It won’t be viable. I’ll inject Jack with it today. All of it. He needs it.”
Jane reaches out and gently takes the vial from Holly, turning it this way and that. “That cream of yours the other day was quite the miracle-worker,” she says. “I might not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, the difference it made in Jack.”
Against the office’s subdued walls, Eden’s blood takes on a rich, mesmerizing red. Holly can’t take her eyes from it. “And this is the source, so it must be even more powerful,” Jane muses. “Tell me. Have you ever tried it on yourself?”
She doesn’t so much as glance at Holly’s leg, but her scrutiny stings anyhow. No, Holly wants to say. Of course not.
And yet. In the aftermath of the car crash, it was Jane who canceled her vacations and charity dinners to sit with Holly in the hospital, to take her to physical therapy and to be fitted for a brace. Jane knows exactly how badly Holly’s leg was damaged and how hard Holly worked to recover the use of it, because she was there. She knows no amount of rehab could have made it as fit as it is now.
Holly doesn’t make a defense. She doesn’t explain that she didn’t dare test Eden’s blood directly on Jack until she knew whether it was safe, until she understood what it would do. She doesn’t talk about the hours she spent terrified that the tingling sensation that coursed through her body with the first injection meant she’d done something wrong, that she’d die when Eden and Jack needed her most. That she hasn’t taken it since those early days, although regular usage would cure the limp that plagues her when she’s tired or cold. That she’ll never use it again. And that for every hour she’s spent researching a cure for Jack, she’s spent that and more on Eden.
And she doesn’t say a word about how hard she cried the first time she took blood from her daughter.
“Yes. In the beginning,” is all she says. She reaches over and takes the vial from Jane, wraps it back in its protective casing. When it’s covered, the light in the room seems to dim a little bit.