“Maverick, no, no, please.” Her voice bubbled out like a litany of sorrow. She kept murmuring useless words as tears ran down her cheeks. She shook him again, gently, then fell onto his chest, crying her eyes out.
Pilar knew, in that instant, that she would do anything to save him. If someone told her to cut her right arm off, and it would make him well, she would have happily sawed it off with a blunt, rusty blade.
Pilar sat up and wiped her eyes when her first wave of panic began to subside. The tears were burning her face, hard tracks of grief that ran across her cheeks, refusing to be wiped away. Her mind was moving again, but it was racing in mindless circles, not helping her come up with ideas that might help him.
Help. I need help.
Pilar grabbed her phone and called the agency. She already knew that the hospital couldn’t help him. Most likely, no one could, but she had to try.
“Hello?” a voice on the other side of the line answered. Pilar was making every effort to control herself, but she wasn’t doing a great job.
“NICK!” she screamed, so desperate that she wasn’t paying attention. Immediately Pilar began babbling about Maverick’s condition until the other voice roared at her to stop.
“Pilar, slow down, please, and tell me what’s happening!”
“He’s dying,” Pilar moaned. “He’s going under from the poison.”
"Are you sure? It may just be making him weak."
“Yes!” screamed Pilar. “It's killing him! Hal sent more of his shifter goons to send a message … he said that Hal has the cure for the poison! Nick, I have to take him to Hal!”
“Your job is to keep him away from Hal!” Nick snapped. “So, you aren’t going to do that. You don’t even know if the creature was telling the truth.”
“If there’s any chance it could save him, I should do it.” Pilar was in tears.
“Even in a best-case scenario where they cure him, you’ll both be shot before you can leave his condo! Pilar, take his vitals.”
Pilar put the phone down on the table with the speaker on. She reached over and checked Maverick’s pulse. It was incredibly slow and light, barely fluttering against her fingers. His breathing was low and shallow. Even though he was sweating, he was ice cold.
“He’s failing,” Pilar cried, her voice husky with tears. “He can’t have long left. Minutes at the most.”
Nick sighed, and Pilar waited. The silence stretched out.
“What can we do?” Pilar cried. “Give me something, or I will run outside and scream to Hal’s goons that they can have him!”
“Pilar …”
“I would do anything to save his life!”
“Anything?”
“Yes, anything!”
Nick took another deep breath. “Go to your agent kit. In the side pocket hidden in the lining, you’ll find a vial and a syringe.”
“Okay.” Pilar ran to her room, fumbled through the kit, and returned to the couch. Maverick’s breath was almost nonexistent, and to Pilar, he looked dead already.
“What is this stuff, Nick?” Pilar asked, eyeing the syringe.
“This is a last chance serum,” Nick said. “It was manufactured by Zeke. We make all our clients sign a waiver before we undertake the job, and Maverick has consented to have it used on him in an emergency.”
“But what is it? Will it cure him?”
“That, I truly don’t know,” Nick said defeatedly. “What it does is activate any dormant shifter genes in the person’s system. It will only work if the subject has a compatible makeup and alpha genes. It might kill him, Pilar.”
“He’s already dying!” she cried.
“Then I’d say we really have no choice,” Nick said, his tone empathetic.