25 Revelation

IMANI

"I sent an invitation to the unveiling party to Lucas," Lola stated with a mouth filled with spaghetti but Imani heard her clearly.

"What the heck, Lola? Your dad's going to be pissed if he actually shows up."

Lola twitched her nose as she twirled the spaghetti in her plate around her fork. "Meh, he'll be distracted by his arm candy."

Renfield Sutton had divorced Lola's mum, Tabia Mina, when Lola was fourteen. The reason was because Tabia became an activist for vampires and werewolves, the very people Renfield despised. Ever since their divorce, Lola's dad has been in relationships with lots of women. Most of them were in the same age range as Lola and that really disgusted her. She had also followed in her mother's footsteps and though her dad hated that, he couldn't hate his only daughter.

"By the way, it's my party. I can invite whoever I want," Lola said as she looked up from her plate and at Imani. "Oh, and dad has been blowing up my phone. He said you haven't been picking his calls and he wants to talk to you about Lucas."

Imani groaned as she leaned into her chair, throwing her head back. "He's probably going to say the same thing Tyrone said to me."

Lola furrowed her brows and the fork in her hand stopped in front of her mouth. "What the fuck did Tyrone say?"

"He said it will be in my best interest to stop seeing Lucas," Imani replied and her friend instantly scowled.

"Stupid piece of shit," Lola muttered as she shook her head. "Why do they think –"

She was cut off by the ringing of her phone on the dining table. Imani glanced at it and saw 'Takeda' flash across the screen before Lola quickly grabbed the phone.

"Be right back," she said as she stood up from her seat and walked out of the dining room before Imani's phone vibrated on the table too.

"Reporters," she muttered when she saw that it was an unknown number.

She hung up and the screen showed the e-mails she hadn't opened yet; the e-mails from Sutton Inc. and Jacob Peterson.

She opened the e-mail from Jacob and saw a file and a short message that said 'I am so sorry'. She furrowed her brows in confusion as she wondered what he was sorry for before she downloaded the file.

It finished downloading in a couple of seconds and she opened the file to read its contents.

'THE T VIRUS: CREATED BY IMANI TALLERICO ON 25TH OF SEPTEMBER, 2399,' was the first thing she saw.

It took Imani a moment to process what she just read in the file and her brain stuttered while every part of her went on pause, waiting for her thoughts to catch up. Her eyes slowly widened as her mouth fell open and she sat bolt upright before she read the words that were in uppercase again.

25th of September, 2399... She remembered that day. She, Dahlia and Jacob had been trying to create a cure to the Sirizan virus in a lab in the Barnes Institute of Medical Research for two weeks but what Imani ended up creating on that day was not a cure. It was a new virus. A deadly one. She made something that doesn't exist in nature with the ability to transmit efficiently.

Imani stopped trying to find the cure for a couple of days after that and when she started trying again, she found the cure that saved the world. But the thing is, Imani trashed all records of the experiment in the institute that created the new virus on impulse. There were a lot of rumours at that time which claimed that someone created and released the Sirizan virus into the world on purpose. She didn't know if that was true but she didn't want a repeat of that. She thought no one knew about it until now.

What started as a contortion of her stomach becomes a feeling of being smothered by an invisible hand and she began to scroll down with shaky fingers, shaking her head in disbelief. She couldn't believe her eyes; she didn't want to anyway.

'Why did he... Why did he send this to me? He shouldn't even know about this,' she thought as the hairs on the nape of her neck bristled and a gaggle of goose bumps laminated her skin.

She stopped scrolling when she got to a part that said 'SYMPTOMS OF THE T VIRUS' and even though she remembered what they were, she still read it. It had the same symptoms with the Sirizan virus and a couple more.

'Shedding of fur, going berserk randomly, loss of sight and difficulty turning.'

She knew of the first three but she didn't understand the last one and she scrolled down again before she saw something that made her jump out of her seat like a firecracker had gone off.

'First official trial of the T virus: Wolfborn.'

"Oh my God," she muttered under her breath as she tightly gripped the phone.

Thoughts were accelerating inside her head and she wanted to slow them down so she could breathe but they wouldn't. Her breaths came out in gasps and it felt like she would black out while her heart was hammering inside her chest. The room spun and she leaned against the dining table, trying to make everything slow down. She felt sick.

"Imani," Lola called out as she stepped into the dining room and her voice steadied Imani, making her able to focus again. "Are you alright?"

Imani turned around to face her friend as she held her phone to her chest. "I umm... I'm fine. Just a little tired."

"Are you sure? You sounded like you couldn't breathe properly." Lola walked up to her and cupped her face.

Imani wasn't fine. She was terrified and very confused.

"Yes, I'm fine. Just tired," she stated as she forced a smile onto her face before she removed Lola's hands from her face and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Lola asked and Imani briefly stopped walking to turn around.

"I... I need to make a call."