Jenna felt the weight of their gazes like a physical thing. Her heart lurched. Obviously, they had the analysis of her blood work. Just how awful could the results be?
Their expressions were unreadable, everyone holding her in cautious, silent observation as her footsteps slowed and came to a stop in front of the tech lab's wide glass doors.
God, they looked at her now as though they'd never seen her before.
No, she realized as the group of them remained unmoving, simply watching her through the clear wall that stood between her and the sober meeting on the other side. They were looking at her as though they might have expected her to be dead already.
As though she were a ghost.
Dread settled cold and heavy in her stomach, but she wasn't about to back down now.
"Let me in," she demanded, pissed off and terrified. "Goddamn it, open this fucking door and tell me what's going on!"
She lifted her hand and fisted it, but before she had a chance to pound on the glass, it slid open on a soft hiss. She stormed inside, Alex following in on her heels.
"Tell me," Jenna said, her gaze traveling from one silent face to another. She lingered on Brock, the one person in the room aside from Alex for whom she felt a measure of trust. "Please ... I need to know what you've found."
"There have been some changes in your blood," he said, his deep voice impossibly low. Too gentle. "In your DNA, as well."
"Changes." Jenna swallowed hard. "What kind of changes?"
"Anomalies," Gideon interjected. When she swung her head to look at him, she was struck by the concern in the warrior's eyes. He spoke carefully, looking and sounding far too much like a doctor doling out the worst kind of news to his patient. "We've found some odd cellular replications, Jenna.
Mutations that are being passed into your DNA and multiplied at an excessive rate. These mutations were not present the last time we analyzed your samples."
She shook her head, as much in confusion as it was reflex to deny what she thought she was hearing. "I don't understand. Are you talking about some kind of disease? Did that creature infect me with something when he bit me?"
"Nothing like that," Gideon said. He shot an anxious look at Lucan.
"Well, not exactly, that is."
"Then what exactly?" she demanded. The answer hit her not even a second later. "Oh, Jesus Christ. This thing in the back of my neck." She put her hand over the spot where the Ancient had inserted that granule-size bit of unidentified material. "This thing he put inside me is causing the changes.
That's what you mean, isn't it?"
Gideon gave her a faint nod. "It's biotechnology of some kind--
nothing the Breed or humankind has the capability to create. From the newest X rays we took today, it appears the implant is integrating into your spinal cord at a very accelerated rate, as well."
"Take it out."
A round of uneasy looks traveled the group of big males. Even Tess seemed awkwardly silent, unwilling to hold Jenna's gaze.
"It's not that simple," Gideon finally replied. "Perhaps you should see the X ray for yourself."
Before she could consider whether she wanted to see proof of anything she was being told, the image of her skull and spinal column blinked full-screen on a monitor mounted to the wall in front of her. In an instant, Jenna noted with sick familiarity the rice-size object that glowed brightly at the center of her uppermost vertebrae. The threadlike tendrils that had been present yesterday were more numerous in this newer slide.
Easily hundreds more, each thin strand weaving intricately--
inextricably--through and around her spinal cord.
Gideon cleared his throat. "As I said, the object is apparently comprised of a combination of genetic material and advanced high technology. I've never seen anything like it, nor have I been able to find any human scientific research that even comes close to what this is. Given the biological transformation we're seeing in your DNA and blood work, it would seem the source of the genetic material was the Ancient himself."
Which meant part of that creature was inside her. Living there.
Thriving.
Jenna's pulse hammered hard in her breast. She felt the pump and rush of her blood racing through her veins--mutated cells that she imagined were chomping their way through her body with each heartbeat, multiplying and growing, devouring her from within.