Wings (A Black City Novel) Read Online Free Page B

deprivation, starvation, drugs—all designed to break a prisoner’s spirit.
    The door at the end of the ward opens and Dr. Craven enters the room, clipboard in hand. He’s a tall, middle-aged man with vivid green eyes, wiry bronze hair, and half-moon spectacles perched on the end of his long nose. He’s wearing a pristine white lab coat over his bottle-green jumpsuit. For twelve years, Dr. Craven worked for my mother in Black City, as the head of the Anti-Darkling Science and Technologies Department. He’s also been our family’s personal physician for almost two decades—he was the one who performed my heart transplant when I was younger.
    Dr. Craven engineered the C18 “Wrath” virus, which was designed as a biological weapon against the Darklings, so he’s my best hope of getting cured. My father mercifully didn’t contract the disease after he was attacked by an infected Darkling, but I wasn’t so fortunate. Perhaps it’s because I have a Darkling heart inside me? Or my father’s just immune? We’re still trying to work it out.
    “Hello, pumpkin,” Dr. Craven says.
    My parents pull apart, and Mother quickly dabs her eyes.
    “Hey, Dr. Craven,” I say, taking a seat on the edge of my bed. “Long time, no see.”
    He smirks a little. I’ve spent most of my time at the hospital since I got here.
    The pager on my mother’s belt beeps and she checks it. She turns to my father. “It’s the Commander. He wants me to call him right away.” My dad runs the military operations here, but as the highest-ranking government official in the compound, my mother is technically his boss. She looks at me, uncertain.
    “That’s fine. You should go!” I say, a little too enthusiastically. I love my mother, but we can’t spend more than ten minutes together before we end up bickering.
    Elijah gives her a cold look as she walks past. When she’s gone, Father plucks a book from his pocket:
The Adventures of Captain Redbeard.
My heart sinks. That’s definitely more my dad’s taste than mine.
    “You don’t have to stay here; I know you’re busy.”
    “I’m never too busy for my little girl.”
    I cringe slightly. That’s still how he sees me—as his little girl. Father squashes beside me on the narrow bed, stretching his legs out in front of him, while Elijah sits cross-legged on the bed next to us. They take turns reading the dialogue, putting on stupid voices and making me giggle—Elijah’s damsel in distress is hilarious. It’s a welcome distraction as Dr. Craven inserts the IV line into my hand and starts the treatment.
    Thankfully for me, Dr. Craven is a very cautious man and has been working on an antidote to the Wrath virus since he first engineered it several years ago, on the off chance it might jump species. He was right to be concerned—I’m the living (well, possibly dying) proof of that. But the antiviral drugs have never been tested on humans before, as he didn’t get a chance to complete his trials before having to go into hiding after the Golden Haze scandal, so we have no idea if this is going to work.
    I try to focus on the story as Dr. Craven draws my blood before starting the intravenous drip. He takes the sample to the lab to run some tests to see if the treatment’s having any effect. I’m not optimistic; the last eight results have all come back showing there’s been no change in my condition.
    “What were you and Mother arguing about?” I ask my father.
    Father puts his arm around me. “We were discussing Polly’s memorial service. I thought it was time we had one, but your mother doesn’t agree. She’s not ready for it.”
    I picture how broken my mom looked earlier, and understand what my father means.
    “Do you miss her?” I whisper.
    Father gives a curt nod, his jaw clenching. He loved Polly deeply, despite the fact that she wasn’t his biological daughter. Her real dad was Purian Rose. My mom had an affair with him early on in her marriage to my father and got