Vice and Void (The Savage Wolves Brotherhood #1)

35. Chapter 35

Chapter 35

Callum

“Kane dropped off the distillation equipment,” Callum said as he drove a hand through his hair. He glanced at the stranger beside Dakota, her red-tipped hair pulled into a tight ponytail. “It’s old, but it’ll work.”

Dakota was barely paying attention as she carefully cold-pressed another batch of oil from the water hemlock leaves into a beer glass that he would never fucking drink from again. He didn’t like her handling the plants, even with gloves on. She lifted the glass and peered at it from eye level before shaking her head and setting it back down. “I think we need another stem. Possibly six to eight leaves.”

"You got it,” the woman replied, turning toward the sink and nipping from the plant. Damn, would bleach work, or did he need to replace the fucking sink, too? “I’ll start with the stem, and you can press it. If you think we need more, I’ll start on the leaves.”

“Perfect,” Dakota replied as she dumped the contents of the beer glass into a round flask set on the stovetop.

Callum recognized the yarrow flower blooms, the petals now shredded and floating amongst the water, hemlock oil, and what Dakota told him was maple tree bark. “I thought we were keeping this a secret.” He gestured to the woman’s back, who snorted as she chopped the steam on a cutting board that he planned to toss in the garbage the second she was done.

“Thalia’s been a huge help,” Dakota retorted as she scooped some of the steam chunks from the cutting board and plopped them into the extractor Kane had assembled for her. “Besides, you wouldn’t come within ten feet of the hemlock when I brought it home last night.”

For a second, he forgot what he was about to argue over. Home . She had called his place home. Satisfaction swelled within him as he shifted his gaze to watch as Dakota worked the screw at the top of the extractor, giving enough friction to break apart the stem. Oil dripped into the beer glass as the extra pulp dropped into the garbage can below. At least he wouldn’t need to replace that.

“Yeah, because it’s highly fucking poisonous.”

The woman introduced to him as Thalia laughed as she scooped another handful of the stem chunks and fed them into the extractor. “And I’m also not a huge pussy.”

Callum scowled. “Easy.”

“I’m just busting your balls, man,” Thalia said as she slapped the back of her hand against Callum’s chest when she walked by. He glanced down, ensuring a stain of hemlock juice wasn’t planted on his shirt. “What do you think, Dakota? More?”

Dakota swiped at her brow with her dry forearm and kneeled to watch the oil drip into the beer glass. “This might be enough. I don’t know.” Her gaze lifted to the digital clock above the stove. “And we’ve only got twenty minutes until the equinox. We have to finish condensing the liquid and get it outside.”

“On it.” Thalia shucked off her gloves and tossed them into the garbage bin before she twisted the knob of the stove, increasing the heat on the flask. The contents began to steam, the first set of bubbles climbing up the side of the glass. She yawned as she leaned a hip against the counter. “Sucks that the equinox had to come at seven in the morning. Noon would have been much nicer.”

Callum couldn’t argue with her there. Dakota had a rough night. Her constant tossing and turning, along with the remnants of her nightmares, kept him awake into the early morning hours.

Dakota bit her lip as she rechecked the time. “I won’t be able to add this oil into the flask. It’ll bring the heat down too much.” Abandoning the oil still dripping into the beer glass, she tossed her gloves into the garbage and grabbed the thermometer from the counter. Slowly and carefully, she pushed it into the rubber cap at the top of the flask. A flash of steam momentarily fogged the thermometer before she wiped it away. “Okay, that’s on track.”

“We’ve got…” Thalia trailed off as she tapped her cell phone to turn the screen on. “ Twelve minutes and twenty-three seconds before we need to bring the distill outside.”

Dakota dipped the tip of a syringe into a bowl of ice-cold water, drawing up a reasonable amount into the plastic tube. With a twist, she uncapped another rubber stopper and screwed the syringe onto the open port.

“What’s that for?” Callum asked, tilting his head to look over her shoulder. Thalia was doing the same from the other side of the kitchen.

“Filling the condenser with cold water,” Dakota replied as she injected the liquid into the steam-filled chamber. She grabbed an empty flask beside the extractor and placed it beneath the condenser. Ever so carefully, she turned the nozzle. The droplets started slowly, clear-colored fluid dripping with soft plinks into the empty flask. Her swallow was more of a gulp as she watched, and Callum could sense the anxiety pouring from her in waves.

“Ten minutes,” Thalia announced as she took the syringe and generously filled it with cold water before handing it back to Dakota.

Dakota took it, unstoppering another rubber piece at the top of the condenser to let the warmed water pour out. She replaced it with another shot of the cold water, and the dripping evolved into a quiet, yet steady, drizzle. “I don’t think I’ll have more than one dose after all this.”

“One dose is all you need,” Callum said as he rested a hand on her shoulder, letting his thumb slide against the crook of her neck. “You just need to see if it’ll work.”

“I still don’t know what it’s for,” Thalia interjected with a small smile. “But if this one doesn’t work, we’ll adjust for next time.”

Dakota trembled beneath his hand. She poured the second batch of warmed water out and injected another shot of cold water. “It’s a year out if this one doesn’t work.” The unsaid rest of that sentence was evident in her tone: it needed to work .

The theory of the distill itself didn’t sit right with Callum. Age-prevention and longevity are what she called them. The prospect of immortality is how he viewed it. Even the well-used distills at the Guildhall pushed the bounds of nature—Pain, Blood Replenishing, Bone Repair. Were they truly gifts from the Banished Gods like they had been marketed to be? Or was it another way for the gods to hold their lives over their heads? To jump through hoops and walk through fire just to heal? Was the addiction that Ace had spiraled into over the last few years worth the prize?

“Seven minutes,” Thalia said as the constant stream of distill continued to pour from the nozzle. “What did you tell James for not being at the Guildhall this morning? ”

“The meteor shower isn’t for another three weeks, so we have time for the Blood Replenishing. I just told him I had an appointment that I couldn’t miss.”

Thalia nodded as the three quieted, watching the distillation equipment with bated breath. The flask wasn’t even close to being filled a quarter of the way, the scent wafting into the kitchen one of musty urine and something that hadn't finished rotting. It was unpleasant at best. Fucking disgusting at worst. And it would take ages to get out of his house.

A few more minutes passed before Dakota shut off the stovetop. The boiled liquid in the flask settled instantly. Without the thin oil band resting on the surface, it could have been just water.

“Three minutes,” Thalia said, her voice wary and nervous as the time ticked closer to the equinox.

Dakota took a deep breath and let it out as she turned the nozzle, ending the steady drip. “One dose. That’s what we have.” She lifted the flask and eyed it. “At least, I hope it’ll be one dose.” She aimed for the sliding back door behind the newer dining room table Callum had never eaten at.

A chill was on the wind, and cold dew coated what was left of the patchy grass. It gave the air a sweet, fresh smell that was welcome compared to the reek of the distilled hemlock oil still permeating the kitchen. The leaves on the tree at the back fence line were beginning to change—green edging to gold as autumn marched summer away.

Dakota stood in the middle of the lawn, squinting as she peered at the cloudless sky. The sun was out, though it was still tipping over the tops of the trees, casting long shadows that reached toward the back of Callum’s house. She shivered as she set the flask down in the middle of the yard, looked up at the sky again, and then moved it a foot to the left.

“There. I think I’ve got it in the right position for the sun.”

“Thirty seconds.”

It happened so fast that Callum barely had the chance to blink. One moment, Dakota was standing beside the flask. The next, silver metal glinted in the morning sun as she pulled a knife from her pocket and slid it in a jagged line across her palm.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Callum seethed from the doorway. He stormed to the middle of the yard in record time, though it wasn’t quick enough. Dakota had already closed her hand into a fist, dripping blood into the opening of the flask. It mixed with the clear liquid within, red blooming like wildflowers. Or smoke. Or death.

He could have fucking killed her. He wanted to kick the flask across the yard and had already reeled back his foot to do so when Dakota stepped in front of him with fierce determination plastered onto her face.

“Magic requires a sacrifice,” Dakota retorted as Thalia gaped from the patio, her toes curled against the cold cement.

Thalia’s watch beeped as the equinox passed, piercing the tense silence that spread like a dense fog between them. It was done. He never hoped something would work less than he did now.

“I fucking told you never to use your blood, Dakota. Never.”

Dakota’s throat bobbed with her swallow, and the blood from her fist continued to drip into the grass at her feet. “All I need is a little blood. I didn't want to ask you or Thalia. It's fine."

It wasn't his blood that would make it work. That he was sure of it. And what piss-poor fucking luck was it that the love of his life had the blood that she had and also had a mind for experimenting. The consequences of anyone finding out was unimaginable, and he didn't know who the fuck Thalia was. So he left the question unanswered, instead gritting out, “You’re playing a dangerous fucking game—“

“No, I’m not. I’m playing the right one.”

They glowered at one another. Everything boiled to a head…his father’s murder, his unwillingness to allow her to be found, the reason he tattooed her godsdamned hip. The constellation of freckles she thought was a birthmark now covered by his initials. She was going to throw it all away. Unwittingly. Unintentionally. If even one fucking person knew what she had done, what the fuck she was…

“We still need to test it,” Thalia’s small voice floated toward them. “I don’t know what you had in mind, Dakota, but—“

“I’ll fucking do it.” Callum bent down to swipe the flask from the ground, the glass wet from the morning dew. He didn’t miss a beat as he stomped past Thalia, her mouth still ajar as she stepped back to let him by.

“What are you doing? Callum. Callum!” Dakota was tight on his heels, following him up the cracked cement stairs and back into the kitchen. Her blunt nails scraped against his arm. “Don’t fucking pour it out, don’t fucking—what the are you doing?” Her eyes went wild and wide as he picked his gun up from the dining room table.

Callum’s breath was painfully raw as Thalia stopped on the top step, her hands bracing against the sliding glass door frame. “You need it tested, don’t you?” He clicked off the safety from the side of the gun, not taking his eyes off Dakota .

“You’re insane,” Dakota stated. Her gaze flashed from the flask to his gun and then back to him. “I don’t even know if it works yet, and we don’t have—“ She was cut off by a single pop that cracked through the house, the acrid scent of burning steel curling through the morning breeze.

Thalia slapped a hand over her mouth, horror and shock penetrating every inch of her expression. Dakota screamed, her shoulders bounding toward her ears at the sudden and unexpected crack. Callum let out a single grunt of pain, not allowing himself to feel. He entered the callous, cold, and unforgiving piece of himself, where he would go when required to kill. Shallow pants split through his gritted teeth as blood spilled from the entry wound in his leg.

“Get me a chair,” he hissed, leaning heavily on his other leg to prop himself against the counter. “Pretty sure it lodged in my femur.” He felt the shatter of bone, the white-hot fire of torn muscle and flesh. It almost eclipsed the fucking fury he was attempting to shutter. Almost.

“Fuck a chair. You have to go to the Guildhall,” Thalia countered but entered the house to tug a chair toward him. “What were you thinking?”

Callum collapsed into the seat, grimacing as he straightened his leg out in front of him. Red stained the gray sweatpants, blooming almost in the exact pattern as Dakota’s blood in the fucking flask he still held onto. “I was thinking that if anyone is gonna try this, it's gonna be me.”

Dakota stepped forward, holding her hand out to take the flask. “We have to get you to the Guildhall. I don’t even know if this works.”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Callum’s attempt at humor met a stony-faced end in Dakota.

“You die,” Thalia answered in her place. “Like, a terrible fucking death.”

Dakota moved to snatch the flask back, seemingly believing he was distracted, but Callum held her back with a hand before downing the distill in one gulp. It tasted otherwordly, almost as bad as it smelled. Rotten vegetation and the water at the bottom of a garbage bin. The flask slipped from his hand, exploding against the floor in a glass burst.

“Callum!” Dakota cried out as she dropped to her knees beside his seat. He wanted to tell her to stand, to get her knees out of the glass shards, but he was afraid he would vomit if he opened his mouth. “Thalia, call the MenderLine. We have to get him to the Guildhall. ”

“No,” Callum managed to grunt as Thalia lunged to grab Dakota’s phone from the table. “No.”

Something was happening, and the pain was so blinding that he hoped it was death. Metal ground against his broken femur, and he let out an involuntary shout, his hands forming into white-knuckled fists that he clenched against the armrests of the chair. The bullet surged through his torn flesh before rolling off his leg and dropping against the glass on the floor.

Thalia’s steps stuttered, her face as pale as Callum felt. “Holy fucking shit—“

Another grunt tore out of him, a swallowed scream now that the pain had dulled a fraction. Once lodged in his muscle, bone fragments came free, locking into place and fusing with another white-hot stream of fire that he would not forget about anytime soon. His muscles and flesh came next, fibers knitting and gluing. Then it ended as soon as it started, and Callum rushed to the sink to puke on the hemlock plant still lying there.

Dakota scooted forward, scattered glass grinding against the tiled floor before she stopped beside him. He wanted to joke about her being on her knees, but the thought of speaking sent his stomach roiling again. Her fingers were gentle and delicate as they prodded his healed gunshot wound through the rip in his sweatpants, and she turned to pick up the blood-stained bullet from where it fell by the chair.

“Holy fucking shit,” Thalia repeated. She crumpled into a seat, her lips still parted in shock. She may as well have seen a ghost. “Holy fucking shit.”

“It worked,” Dakota whispered as she looked up at him. “It fucking worked.”

Callum’s stomach clenched again, a heaviness settling deep in his chest. This time, he knew it wasn’t due to his system still attempting to purge the distill.