Of Eternal Life (22 page)

So, what had she learned in science today?

She snorted.
That immortality is real?
She caught the reflection of her freakishly pretty eyes in the rearview mirror.

She was going to live forever.

It hit her for the first time. How was that even possible? What had been done to her body that would allow her to live forever?

The human body had a very finite existence. The Hayflick limit — the number of times a cell could divide before dying — ensured that everyone had an expiration date.

But there were scientists who had lengthened the Hayflick limit in lab mice … . Abilene wracked her brain. What chemical had they used?

Something niggled in Abilene’s brain.

And like a tumbler, everything clicked into place.

With one hand, Abilene wrenched open the glove compartment and pulled out any and every piece of loose paper she could find. She grabbed a pen off of the floorboard and kept one eye on the road as she steered with one hand and wrote with the other.

Ideas flowed from Abilene’s brain to the paper at an inhuman rate.

It may have been minutes, hours, or days, but the next time Abilene really looked at her surroundings, she realized she was sitting in the Duke parking lot.

Right in front of the lab building.

She flicked a glance at the dashboard clock and saw that it was right before dawn. Abilene drummed her fingers on the dashboard.

Duke
did
have an all-night laboratory.

Abilene gathered all the crumpled, coffee-stained paper she had written on, wrenched open the door, and headed toward the front door of the building as quickly as she could.

Three Months Later

Abilene gave the two young recruits who were standing in front of her desk the snake eye until their gazes wavered and fell to their shoes. Since replying to her military summons, she’d known this day was bound to come.

After all, telling the United States Army to go fuck themselves, in writing no less, rarely yielded positive results.

Abilene’s gaze wandered around her office, and she allowed herself a rare moment of indulgent pride as she considered all she had accomplished in the past couple of months. Her eyes were drawn to the frames dotting her wall. It wasn’t Abilene’s decorating style of choice, but her assistant had framed several of the articles that had been written about Abilene’s research. They were posted on the wall among an impressive handful of awards. On Abilene’s desk lay the letter from the Norwegian Nobel Committee that she had received today.

She had been nominated for the Nobel Prize.

She, Abilene Miller, screw-up of the modern world, had finally come into her own. She still had trouble believing it.

The night she’d ended up at Duke had marked a new beginning. She’d spent a few more nights in the lab before she’d visited an old professor to show him what she’d been working on. Pure shock and awe had lit his face when she’d explained her theory on the Hayflick limit and the implication on human immortality.

The next three months had been a flurry of grant applications, late-night labs, and unwanted publicity as her research became famous.

And hanging over it all was Eli.

She missed him with a constant ache that often became actual physical pain. She’d realized what she had to do to stem the debilitating lust that struck like clock-work every few hours, but the orgasms she brought herself were hollow, and infuriatingly, only made her miss and love Eli even more.

She had hoped distance would cure her feelings. Instead, distance had enriched them. And she didn’t have too long to figure out what she was going to do about the other quickly-growing wrinkle in her plan to forget Eli.

She rested a hand over the slight bulge beneath her rib cage as she brought herself out of the prison of her thoughts to nail the recruits with another glare.

“Would you mind repeating that again, gentlemen? I fear I’ve misheard you.” Her tone dared them to repeat their missive.

The blond one on the right cleared his throat and, without looking up from his boots, said, “Your presence is requested in Washington. You leave in an hour.”

Rather than dignify them with a response, Abilene continued to stare them down as she drummed her fingers against the glossy surface of her cherry-wood desk. Before long, she had both men squirming in their dress uniforms.

Ah, yes
, she congratulated herself, silently. She had, indeed, become a badass.

“I’m sure you’ll understand that it’s quite impossible for me to leave my research at this time,” she said. The words themselves were pleasant enough, but the young men were not fooled. If they continued to try to strong-arm Abilene to Washington, it would be at their own peril.

There was a knock at her open door, and Abilene swung her gaze to see her wide-eyed assistant. Abilene frowned. Her assistant was never wide-eyed.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she began, “but the president is on the phone.”

Abilene stifled irritation. The president of Duke was always calling her. “Please tell him I’ll call back later,” she said.

Her assistant remained in the door. Abilene’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry, doctor,” her assistant continued. “It’s the President. Of the United States.”

The men standing in front of her desk exchanged relieved glances, and Abilene only
just
prevented herself from swearing.

It looked like she was going to Washington.

“I’ll meet you out front, gentlemen,” Abilene sighed as she reached for the phone.

• • •

Eight harrowing hours later, Abilene stood in front of a solid metal door between her two escorts, clutching her overnight bag to her chest. Both men had repeatedly offered to carry her bag for her, but she liked how it doubled as a shield.

She may have changed a lot in the past months, but she was still wary in new situations.

And she had no idea what she was doing here. Both men had been silent as the grave, each refusing to answer her questions.

A security camera panned over them, and then she heard the click of the door unlocking. It opened toward them, and Abilene’s mouth dropped open.

She knew
exactly
why she was here.

The door had opened to reveal a vast, domed room. It looked like the inside of the botanical gardens she’d visited as a kid. The building housing the room had appeared like it was solid brick, but from inside the room, Abilene could see that it was only camouflaged to appear so. The squared walls of the building were not fully opaque. Sunlight filtered through the illusion of brick and streamed through the glass dome that was nestled in the middle of the building like a ball in a box. Men and women wearing lab coats walked from one side of the room to another, entering and exiting what appeared to be labs and offices.

Two magnificent, fully-grown trees stood in the very center of the room. Thick, virile roots sprang from their trunks and plowed into the dirt that made up the floor of the dome. The trees’ leafy branches stretched out to brush against the glass walls.

Abilene recognized the fruit hanging from one of the trees as the specimen she’d been forced to eat. The other tree held fruit in the shape of a pomegranate that was swirled black and white. The colors of the fruit moved rather than remained still. The pattern the black and white made was mesmerizing.

Abilene sucked in a breath.
These are the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
.

And right on the heels of that thought:
Eli is here
.

Her traitorous heart leapt.

“If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” the man to her left said as he gripped her elbow, “you have an appointment that begins,” he paused to look at his watch, “five minutes ago.”

Abilene nodded as he led her toward an office on the other side of the dome. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the trees, and her escorts noticed. The blond chuckled. “Yeah, that’s how we all react when we first see them.” He shook his head. “It’s
still
a struggle to not just stand there and stare all day.”

Abilene could empathize as she twisted her head at an awkward angle to keep the trees in view. She didn’t see the men stop, and so she plowed full tilt into one of them.

He grunted and stepped forward to catch himself. Abilene blushed. She peeked around his shoulder to see they were standing in front of an office. The door had a brass name plate that read
Sergeant Collins: Co-Director
.

Her heart leapt again, but this time Abilene didn’t curse it. The man hadn’t contacted her in the last three months, and she hadn’t seen him but that once, but he was important to Abilene. They’d connected on a high level.

She was eager to see him.

“I’m meeting with Sergeant Collins?” she asked. Suddenly she was more than ready to get this show on the road.

Rather than answer her, the blond opened the door for her, and the men moved to flank each side of the door. Abilene eyeballed them again. They were young and handsome.

Quiet and cute. Why couldn’t I like one of them?
she thought as she moved through the door and closed it behind her. She was ruined for all other men.

And then she spotted Collins behind his desk. As soon as she had entered the room, the man stood. His eyes were glowing as he looked her over with concern. His face morphed into a smile, all of his wrinkles on display, and he moved around the desk to stand before her and catch both of her hands between his own.

“Abilene, dear, I’m so glad you could make it.”

She couldn’t prevent the smile that stole over her features at his warm greeting, but she did manage to pull her hands out of his and pin him with an accusatory stare. Well, as accusatory as she could manage in her joy.

“Sergeant, you know I was dragged here against my will.”

“Earl, please.” He gestured to one of the armchairs sitting in front of his desk, and while she settled herself, Sergeant Collins seated himself in the chair next to her rather than on the other side of the desk. He took her hands once more. “How have you been, dear?” he asked, his gaze probing.

She knew he wasn’t talking about generalities. He was asking about Eli. Abilene blinked. Hard. It was enough to stem the tears she could feel stinging the backs of her eyes. “Busy,” she said noncommittally.

That adoring grin split his face once more. “Yes, I know that.” He gestured with a nod toward a bulging file folder on his desk. Abilene could see newspaper and magazine article clippings protruding from its depths. It touched her. Sergeant Collins had followed her recent success. So had her parents, as it turned out, and they had been calling lately, hoping to create a relationship with their daughter now that she wasn’t an embarrassment. She’d been permanently unavailable.

But Sergeant Collins had liked her always, even when she was all untapped potential. It meant so much more that he had clipped all of her press. And from the looks of the dog-eared, stained folder, the contents had been visited often.

“I’m so proud of you, honey,” Collins confirmed.

Damn it
. Now the tears came, and she had no hope of stemming the flow. Damn her hormones. Sergeant Collins just looked at her and pulled an actual handkerchief out of his pocket as he patted her back.

God, Southern men are a breed apart
, Abilene thought as she took the handkerchief and blotted at her tears. She had to admit, she’d missed the manners she’d gotten so used to in that short amount of time.

Once Abilene had herself under control again, she gave Collins a watery smile, and he took that as his cue to continue. “You’re here, Abilene, because we want to hire you.”

We?
Abilene frowned. That better not mean who she thought it meant.

“The United States government,” the Sergeant clarified.

But Abilene was already shaking her head. It didn’t matter who was trying to hire her — Collins, the government, or Eli — she wasn’t looking for a job doing …whatever it is they were doing that involved the trees. If she was going to maintain her distance from Eli, working with him was out.

“Now, just hold on there, girlie,” Collins chided. “Why don’t you let me explain the job and why we want you?” Abilene hesitated. “What could it hurt, huh?”

Abilene clenched her teeth. In the end, she knew she couldn’t deny Collins anything. She would steel herself to the possibility.
Wait him out. As soon as he’s done talking, just say no. Easy-peasy
.

But actually listen
, the Voice whispered.

Collins launched into his explanation of the job, probably guessing that if he waited a moment longer, Abilene would refuse him.

Against her better judgment, Abilene was soon listening to the Sergeant’s explanation avidly, even scooting to the edge of her chair in her excitement.

Damn it, but this was her golden goose. They wanted her to do genetic research for them: continue her current work, but with unlimited funding; complete run of her own laboratory; and as many young, intelligent recruits as she wanted to work for her.

She would have
carte blanche
. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She could accomplish so much. This would make all of the difference.

And from the smug look on Sergeant Collins’s face, he knew he was offering her something she would be unable to refuse.

Bastard
, she thought fondly. After all, how mad could she be at the man who was handing her her dreams? It was almost too good to be true.

For a second, old doubts crept in.
Why
would he offer her this position? She was still young, inexperienced. Sure, she’d proved herself, but….

Eli
.

Collins wanted to hire her because of Eli. Not because she was some laboratory rock star, but because she was connected to Eli. Knew Secrets. Was a liability.

“Stop,” she whispered. Collins halted so quickly, she may as well have yelled the word. “I have to know why.”

Collins frowned. “I don’t understand, honey. Why what?”