Blood Trust Read Free

moon, an unearthly luminescence?
    “What is this? I don’t under—”
    “Please do as I say, Ms. Carson, quickly, quickly!”
    “Commander Fellows?”
    “Yes,” Brice Fellows said. “Come, come, there’s no time to lose!”
    She sat up. The oversized T-shirt she slept in was black, covered in white silk-screened skulls. Though twenty-three, she looked more like sixteen or seventeen. Graves’ disease had interfered with her growing, so that she was slight, almost pixieish, just over five feet in height, her tomboy figure more suited to an adolescent than an adult.
    “Can you please tell me—?”
    “Hurry, Ms. Carson. The police are outside.”
    Fellows glanced around the dorm room, pointed to a chair on which she had casually tossed the clothes she had been wearing during dinner. Beyond was an empty bed with the covers pushed back.
    “Where—where is Vera?” Alli asked.
    “You don’t know what happened to her?”
    “No, I don’t.” Beneath her anger at this treatment, she felt a wave of fear rising inside her. “She fell asleep before I did. She was there when I turned off the light.”
    A catch in the commander’s voice. “Well, that, at least, is a relief.
    “Now, please, Ms. Carson, get dressed.”
    “Where is Vera?”
    “She’s in the infirmary.”
    A clutch in the pit of Alli’s stomach. “Is she okay?”
    “At the moment I can’t say.”
    “Commander, you’re scaring me.”
    “Please, Ms. Carson, just do as I ask.”
    Crossing to the chair, she drew on a pair of black jeans and a thick turtleneck sweater of the same color. She always dressed in black. Sitting on Vera’s bed, she placed her palms against the bottom sheet as if to make certain that Vera wasn’t there. Then, drawing her shoes over, she stepped into them.
    “Here, you’ll need this.”
    He passed her her leather jacket. She swung it around and zipped up.
    “Come with me.”
    She stood up, silently, with a fiercely beating heart.
    Beyond her door, the hallway was only dimly lit, so as not to awaken the other recruits on the floor, she assumed. She saw two police detectives, a three-man forensics team, and a pair of Secret Service agents, one of whom, Naomi Wilde, had been the head of her mother’s detail. Cops and the Secret Service? What in the world had happened?
    All at once, her heart skipped a beat. “Naomi, is Vera all right?”
    “Keep your voice down.”
    She turned to see three forensics techs snapping on latex gloves before they stepped into her room. Turning on the lights, they began to methodically go through it.
    “What are they looking for?” Then Alli turned back to Naomi. “Please,” she begged. “Just tell me if Vera is okay.” But Naomi’s face was as blank as a field of snow.
    “Ms. Bard is in the infirmary,” Naomi said.
    “I already know that,” Alli said. Something in her voice had spoken of a forced detachment, which caused Alli’s stomach to clench in anxiety. If Naomi wasn’t in control of the situation …
    “She’s been drugged. She was disoriented, sick to her stomach. She went out into the hallway without, apparently, knowing where she was, and collapsed. A security guard found her.”
    “What?” A chill ran through Alli. “My God, how … who would do such a thing? I want to see her—!”
    “Ms. Carson—”
    “Hey, Vera’s the only one here who gives a damn about me.”
    A member of the forensics team emerged from Alli’s room holding a plastic evidence bag with something in it. Approaching one of the Metro detectives, he handed over the bag and whispered in the detective’s ear, before disappearing back inside the room.
    The Metro detective cocked his head. “Interesting you should say that now.”
    Alli turned on him, her cheeks aflame. “What the hell does that mean?”
    He held up the bag. “This bottle contains traces of Rohypnol. Roofies in common street parlance, the date-rape drug. It was found under your bed.”
    “What?”
    “You deny it’s