Consume. Melissa Darnell

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СКАЧАТЬ If the masses start thinking they don’t need to donate blood anymore because we can all rely on synthetic blood instead, there goes all the donor blood that’s already in short supply. Then we really do end up having to rely solely or even mostly on expensive synthetic blood. Do you have any idea how much health-care costs would shoot through the roof then? A trauma victim can require up to fifty units of blood. And cancer patients make up twenty percent of all blood transfusions given. Can you imagine what their health-care costs would become?”

      Of course you can’t, she finished silently, not realizing Tristan and I could both hear her thoughts. Because you’ve never had to worry about money in your entire life!

      Whoa. I sat back in my chair with a thump. I had never heard Carrie talk so much.

      “The synthetic blood’s only expensive right now because it’s new and nobody’s making it yet,” Tristan said. “Once more companies learn how to create it and ramp up production to meet the demand, the costs will drop and make it more affordable.”

      “Oh, so you’re going to rely on the free market’s supply and demand to set the prices and help reduce health-care costs?” Carrie snorted. Why am I not surprised? Typical rich boy, taking zero account for human greed because he’s full of it himself. “I guess you would be pretty excited, seeing how your family owns a biomedical supply company.”

      Tristan frowned. “What does that have to do with it?”

      “Because obviously you’re all set up to jump on the synthetic blood wagon and make a few billion more off others’ misery for your family,” Carrie said.

      Tristan blinked at her in surprise. “To be honest, I didn’t know my family’s company could even do that sort of thing. I thought we only made sterilized containers for medical supplies.”

      One of Carrie’s eyebrows arched as she thought, Ha! I knew he was stupid after all.

      Out loud she said, “That’s my point. Your company’s facilities are already set up for creating stuff in sterile environments for the medical industry. I doubt it’d be all that hard to add some lab equipment and a few geneticists to start making synthetic blood for public use. Especially when the setup costs would earn out in no time.”

      “You really think so?” Tristan asked, his eyebrows raised.

      Unable to read his thoughts, Carrie slowly nodded and watched him with narrowed eyes.

      “Huh.” He stared off into space for a minute. “It’s an interesting idea. I wonder if Emily’s heard about synthetic blood.”

      “Your sister? Why would she care?” Carrie asked. She’d always thought of Emily as a stereotypical dumb blonde cheerleader.

      “Because she’s the one destined to take over the family company as soon as she graduates from college,” Tristan answered automatically. She’s the future brains of the family, not me, he thought to himself, forgetting for a moment that I could hear him. “Em’s always been the brains of my family.”

      He sounds sad about that, Carrie thought. Like maybe he wished he was as smart as his sister.

      She cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her tone was slightly softer. “You know, intelligence isn’t set at birth. It can be improved with a little applied education. For instance, take a look around you at this table. Almost everyone here was practically flunking their science courses till I started tutoring them.” She hesitated. “If you ever need any help in that area, by the way, you can always bring your homework here at lunch.” She finished with an attempted half smile.

      Surprised by the offer, Tristan smiled back. “Thanks. I may take you up on that. Emily used to help me with my homework, but now that she’s gone off to college...”

      “Hey, what am I, chopped liver?” I blurted out with a laugh.

      Carrie snickered. “Do not get her help with science unless you really do want to flunk. English is Sav’s forte.”

      Michelle nodded, making her short honey-blond hair bounce against the tops of her shoulders. “She brought my C average up to a B+ in English, but she doesn’t know jack about chemistry.”

      “No, chemistry’s my area,” Ron argued.

      Carrie rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease. Just because you understand the elementary table and throwing together a few chemicals doesn’t mean you get science as a whole.”

      “Speaking of,” Michelle interrupted Ron’s planned argument. “Did you hear about what happened last week in chem class with Sally Parker and Terrell Stuart? She found out he was cheating with Christie Permetter and threw some chemicals at him during a lab, and...” And with that, Michelle was off and running and nobody could get another word in for at least five minutes while she filled us in on more JHS gossip.

      Until Dylan walked in.

      “Aw, look, now there’s a matching pair of them,” he sneered as he walked past.

      Tristan scowled and clenched his fists. But he didn’t turn to look at Dylan, which made me proud of him. Maybe I was wrong to be so afraid of his losing control.

      Michelle muttered, “I cannot believe he and Bethany Brookes are together. What can she possibly see in that jerk?”

      “What?” I blurted out, leaning forward in my chair, sure I’d heard her wrong.

      “Oh, yeah, for four months now,” Michelle added, her eyes wide. “Talk about the last couple you’d ever think would get together. But she seems to like him for some reason.”

      So that was why she didn’t want to welcome me back. She was dating my boyfriend’s former best friend turned archnemesis now and was probably embarrassed about it or something.

      But...Bethany Brookes and Dylan Williams? The idea just did not compute. She was so sweet and nice, and he was so...well, not. Was she dating him just to get back at Tristan for leading her on all last summer and this fall?

      Tristan twisted in his chair and looked across the cafeteria. Sure enough, Dylan had just dragged a chair over by Bethany, turned it backward with a noisy dragging of metal legs across the linoleum floor, then straddled it. As we watched, he glanced our way, grinned, then leaned over and gave Bethany a kiss on the cheek that made her blush and lean toward him.

      A single second of growling was all the warning I got. Next thing I knew, Tristan was gone. He reappeared across the cafeteria, where he held Dylan against the cylinder-shaped room’s curved brown brick wall.

      Oh, crap.

      CHAPTER 6

      I jumped to my feet and tried to remember to move human slow as I wove in between the tables to get to them.

      “You son of a—” Tristan began.

      Dylan laughed, or tried to. It came out as a wheeze past Tristan’s forearm, which was pressing against Dylan’s throat. “Jealous, Coleman?”

      “I’m going to kill you, Williams,” Tristan said, their faces only an inch away from each other. Tristan’s irises had turned silver-white. Oh, so not good.

      The СКАЧАТЬ