Breed of Envy (The Breed Chronicles, #02) (36 page)

I was beginning to feel the same way I had before Halloween, when everything was getting on my nerves for little to no reason. Though maybe this time I did have a reason, even if it wasn’t the best one. But a girl was allowed to sulk a little when everyone around her gave her are-you-insane looks, wasn’t she?

I glanced at Linc, narrowed my eyes. Even he was wearing that look. “Why is everyone looking at me like that?” I demanded.

Linc strolled into the room slowly. “Like what?”

“Like that!” I waved my arms at
that
. “Like I’ve suddenly lost my mind or something.”

“You’re in a gym. Willingly.”

Okay, so he had a small point there. Gyms were usually on my list of Places To Avoid, but still. It was annoying. “I’ve been to the gym before.”

He snorted. “When you’re forced.”

I slammed my fist into the punching bag hard enough to leave my knuckles stinging. The bag flew away, then came crashing back.

Linc eyed me, then cautiously walked over. He laid his hand on my shoulder. It was warm and had my arms dropping to the side.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“It’s okay. Today was…different.”

“Today was mostly okay, at least until everyone started giving me the stink eye.” I crossed my arms and turned to face him. “And until you suddenly went completely unopinionated on me.”

“’Unopinionated’?” One of his eyebrows arched. “Is that word?”

“Yes.” Maybe. “You have an opinion on everything, and then you suddenly go silent about everything. What’s up with that?”

He shrugged. “You and Brian were having the discussion, not me.”

“You could have offered an opinion.”

He shrugged again.

I glared. “You thought he was right. You don’t even like him.”

“I think he had a point,” he said carefully. “And no, I don’t like him, which is why I didn’t agree with him and chose to stay out of it. Plus, I knew it’d tick you off.”

“You’re allowed to have a different opinion than me. Does it bug me when we have different ones? Yeah. But we’re different people. We don’t always share the same opinion and we won’t. You like stupid zombie movies and I don’t. It doesn’t mean I suddenly like you any less. I’m a big girl, Linc. I can handle us not agreeing on everything all the time.”

“Then like I said, I think Brian had a point about some things. Baby or not, it’s still a demon.”

“It doesn’t mean we can’t have compassion or sympathy for them, does it? Isn’t that what sets us apart from them? Because we
can
have those feelings for our enemies?”

“I don’t know, Jade. When it comes to humans, maybe. But demons? I think it’s going to be more of a weakness than a strength.”

“So now you think I’m weak?” Okay, so clearly I’d been wrong about us having different opinions and me being okay with it, because that one just baffled me completely. I laughed. “Wow. Okay.”

“Jade…I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then how else did you mean it?”

“I just meant, when we can actually go on real hunts, showing them any sympathy can get people hurt or killed. I’ve heard some of the hunters talking about it, where someone on their team has hesitated, for just a second, and gotten someone else hurt.”

His words weren’t helping or making me feel any better. “And you think I’ll be that person? The one who hesitates and gets people hurt?”

“I think,” he started slowly, “that if you’re going to sympathize with demons, then yeah, it’s possible.”

“I don’t sympathize with demons. I have the same reason as anyone else to hate them. I showed compassion. To a baby, for crying out loud. Wouldn’t you want the same?”

“And that’s just it. They don’t show it. To anyone. Ever.”

“They didn’t attack me, did they?”

His lips parted, but then he snapped his mouth shut. “No, they didn’t, but—” He broke off.

“But what?” No answer. “But what, Linc? Spit it out.”

“But nothing,” he said quietly.

A small laugh tore from my throat. “Yeah, okay. I’ll see you later.”

“Jade. Where are you going?”

I paused as I walked by him and glanced over my shoulder, but I looked beyond him, to the wall. “To show my compassion to someone who doesn’t see it as a weakness.”

*~*~*

Greene sent someone to find me a few minutes later and told me to go see Doc. I’d tried arguing but it didn’t work. It never did.

“I’m not hurt,” I muttered under my breath when I knocked on the TT room door. I was still in a bad mood. Linc was being…something. A jerk, maybe. Or maybe he was being normal and I was being the jerk. I sighed.

Doc answered almost immediately and gave me a stern look. “I’m the one who gets to decide if you’re hurt,” she said, which told me I hadn’t been as quiet with my mutter as I’d thought.

“But I don’t hurt. At all. Not even an ache.”

Doc raised an eyebrow at me. “I was told you fell out of a tree.”

“Jumped.”

“You what?” she screeched, yanking me in the room and slamming the door shut behind me.

“Okay, so I started to fall and then jumped so I had a chance to land on my feet. Which I did,” I pointed out. “I’m not hurt. At all.”

“Well, you should be. Landing like that could have seriously hurt your knees, ankles, or feet.” When I didn’t move, she pointed. “Go get changed.”

I just sighed and went to change into the gown. I came out a minute later, walked to the TT, and stepped on the base to wait.

“No electrodes,” she said. “Just a quick, basic body scan.”

“Okay.”

Once she started the scan, she looked up. “I heard about the other…stuff. The demon’s reactions to you,” she said quietly.

“Yeah. It was weird.” I frowned. Really weird, if I was being honest. Almost as weird as the Sawthorn demon coming after me like it had. But at least the Sercoons hadn’t tried killing me.

Doc made a sound.

I was facing her, so I saw the expression that went with it. She managed to look confused and concerned at the same time. And almost secret-y. “What is it?”

She stopped the scanner before responding and motioned me over to her. She pulled out a chair beside her, so I sat down. Her eyes darted to mine for a second then flashed away. “I’ve been doing some research.”

I couldn’t even pretend to be surprised. “On?” I asked, though I knew the answer. She meant research on me.

“On your DNA. I heard about the Sawthorn demon’s strange….pull to you.”

“Pull?” I said, laughing bitterly. “That’s a nice way of saying it was hell bent on killing me.”

“I read the report, but is it true it ignored Linc to go after you?”

I nodded. “Yeah. It just knocked him aside like he didn’t matter.”

She nodded and that weird look crossed her face again. “I see.”

“What, exactly, do you see?”

“I think I know why the Sawthorn went after you.”

“What’s your theory, Doc?”

“I’ll tell you, but keep in mind I am
not
an expert. You’ve read that certain demons avoid each other, and how certain demons have been known to, on rare occasions, pack together?” At my nod, she continued, “They all have an uncanny ability to know friend from foe, to seek out their own species or avoid other ones entirely.”

“Doc. Just spill it.”

“The Sawthorn demon went after you, I believe, because you have DNA it was, almost quite literally,
made
to go after.”

“But demons are enemies to humans in general, or vice versa. Yet it still ignored Linc.”

“True. However…” She paused, typed something on the screen. A weird tier chart appeared as a hologram in front of us. “The top tier would be its enemies DNA—the enemy it’s almost forced to go after. Humans would be in the second tier.”

“It has an enemy tier?”

“Basically, yes.” She gave me a stern look. “Don’t you? Which would you see as a bigger threat—a demon, or, say, Rachel?”

“Okay,” I grumbled. “Point seen and taken. It has an enemy teir.”

“You were at the top of that tier in the Sawthorn’s case. You were the bigger threat. Linc didn’t even register, and he wouldn’t have until you were out of the picture.”

“Great.”

“I’ve talked to Director Greene and Dr. Hamilton. They’ve both never seen or heard about this kind of thing happening before. I think they both suspected it after the first attack, though, because neither of them seemed that surprised when I offered the theory.”

“You guys talked about it?”

She nodded. “Yes. We were as curious about it as I’m sure you were.”

I sighed. “So I really am a demon magnet?”

Doc’s eyes were guarded. Slowly, she nodded. “In some way, yes.”

“Ah, hell.”

C
HAPTER 19

I dropped my head to my hands and sighed. Demon whisperer, demon magnet. What was next?

“Jade…”

I shook my head at her. “Peter and the other hunters—they have demon DNA, too, yet you said this hasn’t really happened before. Explain that.”

“I can’t. It’s a question we’re all wanting the answer to, though. Kind of like how you have vampire DNA when, until we found it in you, it wasn’t possible before. The other hunters have different DNA, but it isn’t.... I’m not sure how to explain it other than to say it’s basically invisible to them. The demons can’t….read it from them like they can read it from you, apparently.”

“Great. So Peter and the others have DNA that’s basically invisible ink, and I’m the demon whispering magnet. Terrific.”

Hell. If my mood hadn’t already been bad, this would have done it.

“Demon whispering magnet?” she asked.

I frowned. “Adam’s calling me Demon Whisperer now, because the Sercoons didn’t attack me.”

She nodded. “I think what I told you explain their reaction, too.”

“The tier thing?”

“Yes. I haven’t done the research on them yet, because you just got back, but I’m betting if I looked, I’d find that you either share their DNA, or you have a friends DNA.”

“Can you find out? For sure, I mean?” I asked quietly.

“Yes. Do you want to wait? It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Yeah, I’ll wait. But I need to…move.”

She nodded and turned away so her focus was on the computer. I rose from the chair and paced the room.

How was I supposed to react to this? I didn’t want to be a demon magnet. Or a demon whisperer. And if I really was a demon magnet—even to only some species—Greene wouldn’t let me go on hunts, would he? Not if he thought the demons would just come after me.

I’d make great bait though, I thought with a laugh.

Maybe I could have a reverse DNA treatment. Or a…DNA tweak. Something.

I kept pacing, trying to think of my options, but I couldn’t think of any good ones. Most of them left me with not-so-great feelings, because they meant everything I’d worked for so far had been for nothing.

“Alright,” Doc said a few minutes later. She tossed a look over her shoulder, motioned me forward. “I think I found it.”

I immediately went to her side and retook my seat. I tapped my foot on the ground anxiously. “Lay it on me, Doc.”

“I’m…not sure it’s what you want to hear,” she said carefully.

“No, it’s probably not. But I need to know either way. Just tell me.”

“You do have Sercoon DNA.”

I expected that news, but even now, hearing it, made my stomach drop. “Great.”

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

“No?” I pushed up from the chair and started pacing again. “There’s a good side to having demons like you?”

“You mean, besides the fact that, if it likes you, odds are it won’t try to kill you? I’m not a hunter, Jade, but even I think that’s a good thing.”

“Yeah, it’s great. It just means everyone will know they like me. And around here, that’s
not
a good thing. Especially when the feeling is…not quite mutual, but not quite not, either.” I frowned and stopped pacing. Slowly, I turned to face Doc. “Does this thing go two ways? The…reading or the knowing—whatever you want to call it.” I let out a harsh sigh. “What I mean is, if they don’t view me as a threat, then is it possible I wouldn’t view them as one either?”

From her expression, I figured it meant she hadn’t considered that. But I was sure Greene and Dr. Asshat had, or would soon if they hadn’t already.

“I’m not sure, to be honest. I suppose it
is
possible. Dr. Hamilton would know more about that then I would.”

“But you’ve known everything else!”

“I know how to research, Jade. I’m in an advanced medical class, but I’m not a doctor. I’m not a geneticist. I can read the reports, I can compare samples and make what I hope are plausible theories, but that’s all they are. Theories.”

I shook my head and then lowered it. “They won’t let me hunt,” I said quietly. “They won’t risk it. Not if your theories are right, and I don’t see how they aren’t.”

“Why wouldn’t they? If there are demons that won’t attack you, then that makes you an asset, not a detriment.”

“But demons like the Sawthorn. It came after me and kept coming after me. If more demons respond like that…” I looked up, met and held her gaze. “Can they undo it? The treatments. Can they undo whatever they did or fix it or—”