Chapter 2

Slade rolled his eye and drummed his fingers on the polished mahogany top of the disgustingly ornate writing desk that had been placed in his hotel room. Both feet, encased in steel-toed boots, were propped up on the desk. He tipped the chair back as far as it would go on two legs and continued to watch Amelia pace the room. She wrung her hands together and her eyes were lowered to the red Persian rug as if the answers to all of her questions were burned into it.

"I can't process this," she said matter-of-factly, "It's…completely out of my field of expertise. I'm an atheist, for fuck's sake."

He sighed. It never sounded natural when she swore, for emphasis or otherwise. It was a contrived gesture designed to make herself feel better, but apparently it wasn't doing the trick. Amelia's mouth was still a grim slash that marred her fair face, and it had remained that way since he'd told the story of his miraculous "rebirth", if one could call it that. sLADE called it luck.

"I would hope that you wouldn't be after all of this," he replied, raising an eyebrow, "Or do you still not think I'm real? We could get a staff member up here, perhaps"—

"No, no, it's fine," she replied quickly, the ends of her brown hair shining in the light as she shook her head, "I genuinely believe that you're here."

A smug smile crossed his face for a moment. Embarrassment had always been the way to get inside Dr. Valentine's head. Any threat of a public shaming caused the young woman with an IQ of 163 to clam up in an instant. The entertainment value she afforded him was one of the reasons he occasionally tolerated her interruptions.

"Good," he responded matter-of-factly, "I'm starting to believe there is a God, and I was evil to him in high school."

His wry comment got a smile out of her for the first time that day. But it also cast a softness over her features that made his own grin quickly fade. He didn't like the way she was looking at him now, and when she cast another fond glance in his direction Slade quickly stood and walked over to the metal suitcase lying on the bed. He'd informed her of the reasons for his return, and now it was time to get down to the real reason he'd brought her here.

"I need you to run samples," Slade began, pulling out a stack of papers written in medical jargon that meant nothing to him, "My skin, hair, blood, everything. There's some sort of factor that's there…a healing factor of sorts that wasn't there before. I can't account for it."

Slade threw the papers on the bed. He pulled out a knife from the pocket of his black pants and Amelia watched as he made a shallow, inch-long incision in his left arm. It healed within seconds. She gasped and ran forward, grabbing his arm with her slender fingers and examining it from every angle. Her hands were soft against his skin.

"Slade, this is amazing! Your cells are regenerating themselves instantaneously! This is fantastic!"

"Before you start writing your Nobel acceptance speech, Dr. Valentine, you should understand that under no circumstances are you to tell anyone about this. Are we clear?"

She looked up at him and held her grip on his arm. It was tempting her, that was for sure. Slade had always trusted this particular doctor in the past, but he felt that the current issue needed to be repeated. Amelia nodded and stroked his skin where the incision had been made and he pulled away when he felt she had a grasp on the situation.

"I understand. Does this work for everything? Is it just since you've been brought back to life? How long"—

"I knew you'd be interested," he said, putting a finger to her mouth to silence the barrage of questions, "But it can wait. I'll take you to a lab tomorrow. You'll be compensated for your work, of course."

Slade drew his hand away and walked back to the bed while Dr. Valentine picked up the papers and sat down to begin reading them. Dr. Chang had been given a preliminary look at Slade's blood with the promise of a quick death should he ever reveal this fact. But Slade wanted a true biological specialist to analyze it. At this point though, he was starting to wonder if including Dr. Valentine was such a good idea. Their kiss back at Harvard had been a mistake. He always enjoyed toying with her, and it had been an affective way of getting her to go with him, but that was where the benefits ended. He couldn't risk any sort of emotional instability on Amelia's part in case he needed her for some other assignment in the future. It would probably be best if they left out any physical aspect of their work. Slade looked down at her seated figure and cast a cursory glance over her body. She was a lovely girl, shapely and pale, with classical features, and he knew for a fact that she was a virgin. That alone tempted him above anything else. She'd refused him before because of it, and due to his constant need for a challenge he was more tempted than ever to seduce her.

"Who compiled these files?"

"Dr. Chang," Slade replied, grabbing through the hotel's green information binder off the nightstand, "Order us dinner, will you? I'm going to shower. Get me a steak; have them put everything on the credit card."

"Alright," Amelia replied, glancing up at him and nodding once before sticking her nose back in his files.

For once her hungry look wasn't for him; it was for whatever residual magic was left in his blood. She didn't watch as he ran a hand through his hair, didn't look up when he grabbed a change of clothes out of his suitcase and kicked off his boots. Her green eyes stayed affixed to her papers. It annoyed him. The fact that it annoyed him annoyed Slade even more, and he went into the shower to try and wash away whatever odd notions he was starting to have about his temporary employee.