Eden Plague - Latest Edition Read Online Free

apples, paper plates, and a plastic spoon. A plastic cup for orange juice. No metal.
Dad didn’t raise no dummy. Used right, a metal spoon can kill a man. I’ve already seen she’s dangerous, no matter how beautiful she might be.
Even with that wet stringy hair he couldn’t stop thinking about her eyes. “Make me a sandwich too,” He said gruffly. He didn’t want to put down the gun. “And keep talking. What’s your name, anyway?”
    “Elise. Elise Wallis.” She lined up six pairs of bread slices with shaky hands and started to construct sandwiches, after stuffing a piece of the loaf into her mouth like a slumdog orphan. She took a moment to choke it down dry, then continued. “It was just supposed to be a demonstration. You were supposed to shoot me, of course. Not quite so many times. And I didn’t really shoot at you, did I? Those rounds I had were filled with salt. Not even rock salt, just table salt. Nasty within five feet, but after that it just stings. Special ammo. It’s in his pocket in a plastic bag.” She sounded whiny, defensive. Querulous.
    Daniel laughed tightly. “Well, that didn’t work out so well. And now some poor arrogant tailored-suit schmuck is dead. I guess he didn’t have the super-healing. Why not? Experimental? Some kind of side-effects? Doesn’t work on everyone?” His mind was racing now, the adrenaline and the problem keeping him on track. He felt good, to be firing on all cylinders again.
    Outrunning the serpent.
    “Yeah, there’s a downside, mostly for the Company.” She finished making the sandwiches, pushed one across the table to him, and demolished another in four bites.
    He had to wait for her to keep talking anyway, so he took a cautious bite.
Too much mustard
.
    She looked into his eyes then, with a kind of haunted compassion or…something. Something hard to pin down. Maybe pity. He liked the eyes but he didn’t much like that expression, and he resolved he wasn’t going to fall for her sneaky womanly wiles, but there was still something in her eyes that he liked. Maybe it was because she had guts. In some other circumstances…
    She kept eating. Kept staring at him.
    He dragged his mind back to now, and barked, “Come on, talk between bites.” He still felt on the ragged edge of control, and his weapon hand started shaking.
    She stared at the gun and those shakes and said, “All right. Just let me tell it my own way, okay?”
    Another quarter of a sandwich went down her throat. She finished a cup of juice, poured herself some more. “I was a terminal patient. Cancer. Hodgkin’s. I had maybe two weeks to live. I was already in hospice, doped up. The Company made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Be a test subject for a new cure, they said. Of course I said yes.”
    She paused to eat another sandwich, and as she did she watched him fidget impatiently, watched his flickering eyes.
Not good. He’s losing it.
    He thought she was looking much better now, and her wounds were visibly shrinking. The bruising was getting smaller, the holes were closing, everything. His eyes moved all over her body, watching it happen.
Unbelievable
. But he had to believe it. It was right in front of him.
    He took the last bite of his sandwich and the woman across from him sighed, as if regretting something. The next second he found himself falling over backward as the dining room table flew up in his face. He forced his finger not to pull the trigger in reflex, and by the time he disentangled himself from the chair, table, tablecloth and sandwich makings, she was gone.
    Story of my life. The good ones always leave.

-4-
     
    Staring down the barrel of Daniel Markis’ gun wasn’t Elise’s idea of a good time. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t snap and shoot her like he shot Jenkins, so as soon as she had enough calories in her to survive, she’d gotten the hell out.
    It didn’t mean she felt good about it.
    Everything in her wanted to stay with him, to explain what was going