CHAPTER 35

Vera and Lorna took their meals at a fast-food restaurant across the hospital. She didn't treat her daughter far from the area, for she still had a blood sample to examine. The sample time frame shouldn't be passed an hour or the contents would be affected even if it's kept in storage.

"Dear, you know you should be careful who to trust. Then why did you suddenly want her to be recruited?"

Lorna sipped her pineapple juice in a glass and placed it back on the table. They had just finished their meals, and the talk would start. Her mother doesn't sound too mad but just worried about her. She retreated from the table and leaned at the back of her seat.

"Mom, please, I know what I'm doing. I just wanted to help her exact her revenge." Shoulders slacking, she'd had enough of her nagging. Why can't her mother just trust her for once in her decision? She's not a child anymore.

"But not everyone can be recruited just for revenge. If all of them wanted it, don't tell me you would help those people."

Even the buzzing noise of everyone around them, from all the clinking sounds of spoons and forks on their plates to the chitchats of other customers, her mother's serious tone is too loud for her ears to be unheard.

She leaned her body forward and propped her elbows on the table. "She's not just anyone, mom." She emphasized each word. "I may not have seen her full skills yet, but she's a talent. We could use her hatred for our own." Then she retreated from the desk and glanced at the busy streets outside the transparent glass wall. "Besides, we have the same enemies after all." She grinned back at her mom.

Vera shook her head at her daughter's thoughts. With a sigh of resignation, she can only reply, "Loyalty—"

"—For the mission only." Lorna finished her sentence. "I know, mom. I grew up with that rule." Then she picked up her phone and opened the screen. "Mom, you should get back now. It's past half an hour already." She doesn't want another speech from her mother, so it's a perfect alibi for her to be free at last.

"You're lucky I have something to do." Vera stood on her feet and picked up her purse from the table.

Lorna got up from the seat and leaned her body forward, putting both her hands on the table and her face close to her mother. "What if you stay with me here and forget those blood samples? Besides, I had shot her with our poison, and there was no problem. She's human, alright."

Vera's eyes went wide with each word she spat. "Nothing happened to her?" The only thing she's curious about.

Lorna shrugged her shoulders and plopped herself back on the seat as she crossed her arms and looked up to her mom. "She was riding that time. We made it here, so nothing happened." She answered dismissively.

She yelped in surprise when Vera tapped the table loudly. Other customers turned their necks in their direction. "What?" With eyebrows in a single line and a glaring stare at her mother, she asked irritatingly.

Vera crouched down the table, looming over her daughter, darting her with bulging eyes, the veins at the side of her forehead slightly noticeable. With gritted teeth, she mumbled. "What if something happened? You'll have the same fate then."

"But I'm here. Nothing happened, so just drop this matter, please. I'm not a child anymore." Her reply had thick annoyance in her tone. She stood up, grabbed her phone and duffel bag, and walked out from the table, past her mother.

"Then don't think like one." Vera followed her by the eyes. Her daughter continued on the way out.

Shaking her head as she placed a hand on her forehead. She only had a stubborn daughter, yet she couldn't handle her well. People have been staring at them ever since earlier, so she gets out of the property to resume her work then.

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Melisca bit her lower lip as she raked her mind about what to do next. She stared at the black, tiny keypad with buttons from 1 to 10. Drawing her face closer to the little device of a lock as she squinted her eyes for the fingerprints.

Her once obsidian iris gradually turned golden as she focused on using her Lycan vision. Slowly, her sight became sharp in contrast and vivid. Fingerprints are visible on four buttons on the keypad, and there are four dashes on the screen. The password is the combination of the fingerprinted keys. Four numbers equal twenty-four combinations without repetition of a digit. Her eyes turned back to normal, and she suddenly felt out of breath. The strength she had left must be running out from the starvation she was suffering. Using her wolf abilities was fast-draining her.

She paused for a moment and stood up straight. Her back started to ache from crouching her body. She heaved a long breath and exhaled loudly while stretching her neck from side to side. Hands on her waist as she stared at the lock. How she wanted to just jab the transparent glass of the storage by her fist and snatch her sample back. But that would ruin her chance to enter the organization.

Checking the watch on her wrist, her eyes widened at how much time she had left. "Fuck!" Cursing under her breath, she directly returned to her position by bending her body and starting with the combinations. "I just hope this doesn't have limited tries." Or else she's back to nothing.

Vera entered the hospital's vicinity, and nurses and guards greeted her on the way. She decided to stop by her clinic room on the ground floor to leave her purse and get her doctor's robe before she went to the lab.

Melisca, still trying the combinations on the lock. Sweat trickled at the side of her forehead, heart rapidly beating for she knew anytime anyone would come in now and catch her right on the spot.

"Good noon, doc." Another doctor stopped at the side of Vera, walking with her in the hallway.

"Hello, doctor Amel." She greeted back to the younger male doctor with a smile. "Going to the laboratory?"

"No, just going back to my clinic. Have a good day, doctor." Then he took a turn to his left, opening the door to his room.

She nodded as she gave him a small smile and proceeded on her way.

Melisca still going on her last four combinations. The past variations were not successful and she's running out of fucking time. Her hands almost trembling and her heart deafened her ears for the loud thumping. She even felt her throat gone dry for she forgot to gulp down her saliva. Her breathing became rugged as the ticking clock in her head played like a time bomb.

"Doc Vera, good afternoon. Doc Gen left some papers for you to check." The nurse at the reception desk at the front of the lab called her attention.

"Sure, but where is he?" Vera asked, approaching the half-curved marble surface of the reception. She reached for the papers in the nurse's hands.

"He said if you could read some results for him, he got an emergency call from his wife earlier and would be back after two hours at least." The nurse replied.

She nodded, her eyes on the papers and started to walk to the left side where the blood sampling area was.

Melisca almost felt her ears tweak at the voice outside the room that came from the reception desk. She couldn't be any more wrong than it came from the doctor who took her blood. Like a deer caught in a headlight, she froze on the spot as her breath hitched in her lungs and her eyes jerked at the door. The nearing footsteps grew louder in her ears or was it her heartbeat she was hearing?

Vera decided to proceed with the papers later as she held the knob to open the door of the lab. She can check it when she's done with her work. Closing the door behind her, she roamed her eyes around the wide room. The ventilation felt suffocating though it was pretty cold. Eyes narrowing, she got a feeling that someone was inside the room. With quiet cautious steps, she circled the entire area. When she encountered no one, her eyes snapped at her storage sample and approached the box. Nothing seemed amiss and the blood sample is still there.

She sighed an air of relief and her shoulder slugged down. It could just be her being paranoid. Besides, her daughter told her that she had injected Liz with the anti-superno formula and the woman survived it. So, there could be nothing in her blood sample that she planned to break in here to avoid it being examined. Still, she wants to check it, Liz might be the hybrid they have been hunting forever since many years ago. But the names she gave at the interrogation don't match the ones they are looking for.

The other door at the far corner of the lab flapped open, a nurse came in with a small basket of white sample cups.

"Did you enter here earlier?" Vera asked the nurse.

"Yes doc, to fetch some empty sampling cups." The nurse answered as she looked at the doctor with curious eyes.

Vera nodded for the nurse to continue what her doing and she turned her attention to the glove box to fetch a pair to commence her analysis.