Excitement danced in Lillie’s eyes. “Taking the drug wouldn’t be dangerous, would it? There wouldn’t be any side effects, right?”
Zarina sighed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple. “It won’t kill him or cause any significant damage. If there was any chance of that, I’d never consider giving it to Tanner. But Lillie, this drug is designed to make drastic changes to a hybrid’s DNA to reset their body back to what it once was. There’s a price to pay for that.”
“What kind of price?” Lillie whispered hesitantly, like she was afraid to hear the answer.
“There could be slight physical and personality changes,” Zarina said. “He’d probably look a little different, maybe shorter and less muscular. His voice and eye color could change. Maybe his hair color, too.”
She nodded. “That’s not so bad.”
No, but there were other possible side effects that might be. Ones she didn’t want to so much as consider in Tanner’s case. But she’d deal with them if it meant helping him.
“Lillie, there’s a small chance Spencer might not remember certain things, maybe not even you. You’d have to start your relationship all over.”
The girl swallowed hard but then took a breath. “Is that all of it?”
“I wish it were,” Zarina said sadly. “I’m not sure if Spencer can father children now that he’s a hybrid, but after taking the antiserum, there’s a very good chance he won’t be able to. I didn’t test the antiserum for that possibility, but everything I know about medicine makes me think the back and forth changes to his DNA are probably going to be too extreme to ever let that happen.”
Lillie’s eyes filled with tears. “I could deal with losing the parts of what make him the Spencer I know, but not the part about him being unable to have kids. He comes from a big family and talks about having a family of his own all the time. I couldn’t let him give that up. I’d rather he stay like he is.”
“Do you think he’d feel the same?” Zarina asked gently.
The door opened, and a group of preppers walked in before Lillie could answer. The girl quickly wiped the tears away and gave them a wave as they headed over to the stoves to make breakfast. Then she turned her attention back to Zarina.
“I don’t know. Spencer would take any risk if he thought it might change him back to what he used to be, especially if he thought it would keep me safe.” She reached across the table to take Zarina’s hand. “Please don’t mention the antiserum to him. Let me tell him.”
“I will,” Zarina assured her. “I promise.”
That seemed to satisfy Lillie. The girl released her hand and sat back with a sigh. “Is that why Tanner won’t take it? Because he knows about the side effects?”
Zarina shook her head. “No. I never got the chance to get into that level of detail with him. He said he wouldn’t take it the moment I brought it up. I’m sure he has his reasons, but he won’t tell me what they are. In fact, he doesn’t tell me much of anything. Instead, he keeps saying he needs to stay as far away from me as he can, and it’s infuriating as hell.”
Lillie rolled her eyes. “Tell me about it. Please tell me he doesn’t pull the same crap Spencer does and use that line when you tell him you love him.”
“Actually, I haven’t told him,” Zarina admitted.
“But you love him, right?”
“More than anything. But I’ve always thought a conversation like that should wait until we’re…I don’t know…closer, I guess you’d say. Why tell someone you love him if he isn’t ready to hear it?”
“Because Tanner is a guy,” Lillie said as if that explained everything. “Besides, sometimes you might have to both lead the horse to the water and make him drink.”
Zarina had absolutely no idea what that meant. Maybe it was an American thing. “I don’t understand.”
Lillie sighed, and for a moment, it seemed the nineteen-year-old girl was years beyond Zarina in both age and wisdom.
“I mean that if you want to be in Tanner’s life, you might need to put yourself in it regardless of what he says.”
* * *
“So, how did you stumble across these preppers in the first place?” Zarina asked as she pulled the vial of antiserum out of her backpack to check on it. “Did you smell Spencer and the other hybrids?”
Tanner momentarily turned his attention away from the ax in his hand and the wood he was chopping, glancing suspiciously at the vial in her hand. They were on the edge of the camp, and while they weren’t exactly alone considering there was a whole group of people nearby, she wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing them. Well, maybe except for Spencer and the other hybrids, but they were off patrolling the woods.
“Yeah,” Tanner said. “I picked up their scent within the first couple of days of getting here. At first, I thought I was having some kind of olfactory flashback, but I figured out soon enough it was real. It wasn’t difficult to track them down after that.”
From where she sat on a nearby tree stump, Zarina watched Tanner position a big log on its end a few feet in front of him, turning it this way and that like he was a diamond cutter looking for that one perfect place to strike. She waited for him to tell her the rest of the story she’d been curious about hearing since seeing the hybrids yesterday, but he seemed to be done.
“Weren’t you stunned when you realized the men who’d gone through the hybrid experiments with you were still alive?” she prompted.
He didn’t say anything for a moment, but then he shrugged. “I guess so. I’d figured I was the only one who’d made it out of those labs. Finding out I was wrong was a relief in a way.”
She was about to ask him what
