It had been hours since Ed arrived at Bromely Marks and it felt to him as if nothing at all had been accomplished.

Roughly three after turning, when it became clear to him that solving the vampire epidemic that he was now a part of, vampires being at the top of the food chain now, he left the hospital he'd been working at for years and went to work for Charles Bromely at Bromely Marks after he heard on the news that there was talk of creating a blood substitute.

A majority of the world hadn't cared about finding a substitute, believing that they would always have humans to farm and harvest, but activists insisted that they find another way to survive, insisting that at the rate they were going humans would one day go extinct. It was laughable at the time, but it wasn't now, not when third world countries were starving and the percentage of remaining humans had fallen to the single digits only ten years after the outbreak. Now, the whole world was desperate for a blood substitute, and his job that was once damn near laughed at by fellow vampires was now held in the highest regard, and Ed was among the most respected in the field as he was Bromely Marks' chief hematologist.

None of it would matter, however, if he didn't create a blood substitute that wasn't fatal as all the others serums had been. He'd conducted so many tests, made so many concoctions, but each and every one was a failure, killing the test animals or the vampire test subject depending on how far the testing went. It was enough to make him want to pace and pull his hair out, the hunger getting to him just as it was everyone else, making him desperate for a solution for not only the sake of the human race but also because even the pigs blood he drank was becoming more and more depleted by the day, forcing him to drink human blood here and there just to survive.

In all honesty, he was better off that a lot of other vampires considering who he worked for, but he refused to drink human blood unless he absolutely had to. It wasn't because human blood tasted God awful, it was because it tasted so damn good, and that fact sickened him. Becoming a vampire was the last thing he ever wanted, yet his own brother forcibly turned him for whatever reason, costing him more than his heartbeat.

Ed sighed, a pang of sadness piercing his dead heart as it did whenever he thought about Kate. They'd been as close as anyone could get once, inseparable even, but just as he hadn't wanted to turn, neither had she, and that grief stricken look on her face when she fled through the day he was bit had become seared into his brain. Never would he forget how heartbroken she looked, how angry she sounded when confronting Frankie, nor would he forget the way she said "I love you, too" like it were a goodbye.

It had been goodbye.

Nearly ten years had passed since he last saw her, and he hadn't a clue where she was or if she were even still alive. Regularly, he checked the manifest of humans caught and brought to Bromely Marks and other corporations like it to see if her name appeared – background checks were run from dental records to ensure healthy blood was provided to vampires – but thank God it never had. That didn't mean she was alive and well, though, just… not farmed.

Sighing, Ed forced Kate from his thoughts and peered into the microscope to study a sample of the latest blood substitute that had been concocted to see how it reacted to a drop of vampire blood.

For a moment there was no reaction at all, but then the substitute ate away at the cells of the vampire blood.

He sat back in his chair with a huff, frustrated beyond belief.

They had a few months to half a year before their blood supplies ran out.

He had no time for more failures.

"Ed?" Christopher called from across the lab, getting his friend's attention. "There's a call for you – line two."

Pushing his chair back to where a phone was on the wall, he picked it up on line two. "Dalton."

Cynthia, Charles Bromely's personal secretary, replied sweetly from the other end, "Dr. Dalton, Mr. Bromely would like to speak with you in his office."

"I'll be right there," Ed replied, frowning.

He reported directly to Bromely, but his boss rarely asked to speak with him while he was in the middle of testing unless it was of the utmost importance. All he could think was the reason was that there was perhaps something going on with the blood supply or a problem with his experiments concerning the blood substitute.

Hanging up the phone, he walked to the lab doors where Christopher still stood.

"Well?"

He glanced at his friends as they walked down the hall to Ed's office. "Bromely wants to see me in his office."

"About the substitute?"

"Don't know," he sighed. "I don't see what else it could be about, though, not with the hearing in a few days."

Christopher nodded, smirking grimly.

Whatever Bromely wanted to talk about, a sinking feeling had settled in Ed's gut.

For the past few minutes, Ed sat in Bromely's spacious office, politely refusing a cup of coffee as Bromely sorted through a few things at his desk.

Not much had been said as of yet, just a few pleasantries, the offering of coffee, but that was really it. Bromely was more focused on looking over what he had on his desk than anything else. Judging from that and the fact that he'd yet to say a word about the substitute, Ed was inclined to believe that whatever this was all about had nothing to do with his work on the blood substitute.

After a moment, Bromely turned to face Ed.

"Last night a handful of humans were captured," his boss informed him. "Per standard procedure, all of their possessions were confiscated and sorted through for any evidence as to where others may be hiding. One of the soldiers found something interesting on one of the humans and immediately brought it to my attention."

Ed frowned. "I don't entirely follow, sir. What does this have to do with me?"

Turning to close and pick up a small metal box similar to a safety deposit box, Bromely walked to the plush chair where he and took a seat across from Ed.

He opened the box and retrieved a photo, looking at it for a long moment, and Ed craned his head slightly in an effort to see what exactly it was, wondering just what any of this had to do with him.

"This photo was found on one of the captured humans – the woman in the photo, to be specific," Bromely explained, setting the photo on the center of the table for Ed to see. "I am going to go out on a limb and assume you know her."

Had Ed's heart been beating, it would have skipped a beat, perhaps even stopped as he gaped in shock at the photo resting on the table.

It was of him and Kate, the one that he always had on his desk when he was human, and the one that went missing the day he was turned.

He was nearly trembling when he picked it up to look at it more closely.

The photo had seen better days – the edges were tattered and frayed, deep creases from being folded so many times for so long had been left behind – but it now seemed much more precious than it had been almost ten years ago.

"Who is she?" Bromely asked.

Glancing at him for a moment before turning his eyes back to the photo, he replied quietly, "Kate Reynolds. She… she was my fiancée. I haven't seen her since I was turned back in 2009."

Bromely sighed and speculated with a note of sympathy, "She feared what you'd become and ran."

Ed hesitated to answer, the day he turned being too personal and heartbreaking for him to want to talk about with nearly anyone. But he had to tell Bromely something, anything to appease him because he said that the woman in the photo had been the one carrying the photo.

Kate was alive, but she'd been captured.

Ed wasn't going to let her be farmed, so for now he'd talk to Bromely. Besides, his boss sounded like he had an inkling of the situation, or at least a slight idea.

"She'd said that she would rather die than turn – we both said as much," Ed admitted somewhat reluctantly. "It wasn't a pretty sight after I was turned, and she got scared after she was attacked by the vampire who turned me. I wasn't going to force her into a life she didn't want, so I let her go. Wasn't hard for her to put some distance between us since it was light out."

"Change is hard for some to accept, and impossible for others," Bromely observed with a weary nod. "Not everyone sees this as a gift, and I suspect it took some time for you to accept it as such, am I correct?"

Ed nodded, not trusting himself to sound sincere if he spoke since he believed this to be a curse, anything but a gift.

Holding the photo tightly, protectively in his hands, Ed said, "I want to see her."

"In due time," he assured him, leaning forward with his hand interlaced. "There are certain terms we need to discuss."

"Terms?" Ed repeated, not entirely liking the sound of that.

Nodding, Bromely explained, "This would normally not be permitted, not unless there was a guarantee that she would be turned, but given the uniqueness of the situation I've called in a few favors and have spoken to the proper authorities who have agreed to release her from the facility and into your custody with a few conditions."

Ed sat forward, listening intently. "What conditions?"

"Firstly, she'll be on permanent house arrest and will not be permitted to leave your home during the day, and must never remove the ankle bracelet that would be put on her. If she's to go outside, it will only be during nighttime hours and she must stay on your property. Second, she's not under any circumstances allowed to speak to another human. There will be no second chances if she breaks any of these rules – she'll be taken into custody immediately and harvested should she violate the terms of her release. You'll also face a considerable fine, though I suspect that it's not your well-being good that you're concerned with."

That was most certainly true. He was technically already dead – Kate was very much alive. The only well-being he cared about was her's, not his, and a "fine" was hardly a concern.

There was just one thing he was wondering about.

"Does Kate know about this arrangement?" he asked.

Bromely shook his head. "When she and the others were found, she killed two vampires, and when one of the soldiers tried to drop her food off to her cell she attacked him as well. I don't think she's interested in anything I have to say. You, however, she might listen to given your history together."

He wasn't entirely sure about that. "She hated vampires in 2009, and now she's killing vampires…" Trailing off, a thought popped into his head and he asked, "Why are you letting her go when she's killed vampires, even if she would be on permanent house arrest?"

"Make no mistake, I'm putting a lot on the line and the only reason I'm not having her prepped for blood harvesting is because you are my chief hematologist and because that photo was found," Bromely explained sternly. "Had you not just told me she'd been your fiancée or shown such concern for her well-being, I'd have never made requests to have her life spared and would not have mentioned her. With that being said… I have some understanding of the matter, and am willing to take this risk considering your position here."

Ed was inwardly ecstatic that Kate was getting a chance and wasn't going to be strung up, but at the same time she was getting special treatment because she was connected to him, and so many other humans were not given this chance to live. That didn't sit well with him, but despite his misgivings about it he wasn't going to bring it up with Bromely. He wasn't going to make ripples.

"And she won't be forced to turn and won't be harvested?" Ed asked, needing confirmation.

"That depends entirely on you and her, Edward," Bromely replied. "If she wishes to turn or you wish to turn her, that's your business, but if she breaks the rules laid out before her she will be detained and processed."

Kate had always been stubborn, and knowing that she'd killed vampires made him nervous, because nearly ten years had passed, and when he knew her she had never been one for violence. She didn't ever hit or slap even when people might have deserved it, and even though she was so stubborn she never threw anything or reacted physically out of anger. In fact, the first time he ever saw her hurt anyone was when Frankie attacked her on that fateful day.

Now she was killing vampires, understandable considering she was human, but still so unlike her, and that was what worried him.

He didn't want to risk her doing something that would get her killed.

Still, this was the only chance she was going to get, plain and simple.

Convincing Kate would be the biggest challenge.

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