“He looked so bad,” the Indian woman whispered, her eyes still shut. “They had him on the bed, in a room like he was a regular patient. There were tubes running to his arms like they were trying to save him, but even then it made no sense because I knew there was nothing they could do. But he was also strapped down. He was tied to the bed like they were afraid he would attack anyone who came near. He tried to reach for me when I stopped at his side, but all he could do was lift his hand because his arm was tied down. I held his hand. His grip was strong, but his skin was like ice. It was gray, pale and lifeless-looking. His eyes were so wide, expressive even though I knew he couldn’t talk or communicate, and I felt like he was trying to say something to me. The way he looked at me, the way he tried to sit up even though he was strapped down. And I just knew. I didn’t need him to say the words because I knew just by looking at him that it had been no accident.” She finally opened her eyes and met Helen’s gaze. “I know where he ended up, I know about the fight and how he met his end, but that was two weeks later. Where was he for those two weeks? How long did it take him to turn? How long did he suffer?”
Suddenly, I knew who this woman was. She was Meg’s aunt, the Judicial Officer of New Atlanta. Parvarti. I’d never met her before, never even laid eyes on her until now, but there was a reason this story sounded familiar. She and I had a connection she didn’t even know about, because I was the person who had sent her husband to his final death.
When Jackson had the impossibly tall zombie sent into the ring, I’d thought it was a message for me, but it hadn’t been. It had been for Meg. Still, I was the one who’d had to kill him. The one who’d retrieved his wedding ring before his body had been hauled away. Even though I knew, just like Parvarti did, that he had been beyond saving at that point, it didn’t stop guilt from creeping up on me when I saw how devastating his death had been for this woman.
“I’m not going to lie,” Helen said, “it was a brutal strain. I can’t say with certainty how long he was consciously aware, but it took nearly two weeks for the virus to stop his heart.”
Helen hesitated, and I could tell, just as I was sure the other woman could, that she was holding something back. I hadn’t known the man, had never even met him when he was still a living person, but even I found myself holding my breath. Waiting to find out what horrors Helen had been witness to.
“He was in the observation wing that entire time,” she finally said. “He had a bed in a temperature controlled room. I know it isn’t much of a consolation, and I know it’s hard to believe, but things could have been worse for him in the end.”
She was lying. No, not lying, but sugarcoating the truth. Meg’s aunt wasn’t dumb and she no doubt knew the truth as well as I did, but she didn’t call Helen out for lying.
“Thank you,” she whispered instead.
I knew the woman sitting across the room had to be tough. She was small, but had risen in the ranks of enforcers to become the Judicial Officer of New Atlanta. She was a woman who’d seen pain, who had felt the ache of loss and come out stronger for it. But everyone had limits. No matter how strong a person was, they had a breaking point and this was obviously Parvarti’s.
Helen patted her hand and nodded, “I’ve been wanting to tell you, I just had to wait for the right time.”
Meg’s aunt sniffed as she got to her feet. “I think I need to be alone.”
“I understand.” Parvarti left the room, but Helen was only quiet for a few seconds before saying, “I know you’re awake.”
I opened my eyes and found her heading my way. “I didn’t want to bother you.”
“I know.” She knelt in front of me and put her hand on my forehead. “How do you feel?”
“Better.” I sat up, forcing Helen to skitter back a little. “I’m not in as much pain.”
“The fever’s gone too.” She got to her feet. “Meg went to get something to eat. She’ll be back soon, I’m sure.”
My stomach growled at the suggestion of food, which was a miracle considering how awful I’d felt earlier. I stood slowly, testing my limbs before heading into the other room. My legs had been shaky before, but they felt a hell of a lot steadier now.
“I might get something too.”
“Even better,” Helen said.
Meg wasn’t the only one in the kitchen, but she was the only one who jumped to her feet when she saw me. “You’re up! I shouldn’t have left.”
She hurried over to me, her face a mask of concern even though I was up and moving around.
“I’m okay, and you deserve to eat.” I swallowed, hesitating before saying the next words because we still had a long road in front of us and I didn’t want to get her hopes up. “I feel better.”
Meg reached up to feel my cheeks just like Helen had, and the smile that spread across her face helped chase away some of my uncertainty. This was going to work out. I was going to be okay. Maybe if I said it to myself enough, I’d start to believe it.
Chapter Fourteen
Meg
The cigarette between Helen’s lips bobbed when she talked, threatening to drop ash onto the map we were all leaning over, but no one seemed to care. “The most important thing will be getting the failsafe.”
We were all crowded into the dining room at Bonnie and Max’s house once again, fighting to get a look at the diagrams currently spread out on the table. Between Helen, Parv, Jim, Angus, and Jada, the air in the room had gone from stifling to toxic. A fog of smoke hung over us, thick like clouds right before a storm rolled in. Donaghy stood close to my side, and with each passing hour he seemed to be doing better and better, but I knew it was only temporary. Eventually, the virus would win out over the magic blood Helen had pumped into his body and the fever would return, but it seemed to have at least bought us some time. Which we desperately needed.
“But we’re getting Margot and Axl first, right?” Mom pushed her blonde hair out of her face as she looked around, her eyes wide like she was terrified someone would argue with her.
“Yes,” Jada said, answering for Helen.
“I hate to bring this up,” Donaghy said, pausing to clear his throat when all eyes turned on him. “But when I left the CDC, Axl wasn’t in his cell.”
He glanced toward me and I gave his hand a squeeze. “I told them what you said.”
He gave Mom a sympathetic frown. “I’m sorry.”
She swallowed even as she reached out to pat his arm. “It’s okay. We need to know.”
Helen shook her head as she pushed the map across the table. “If he’s not in his cell he’ll be here, in the top secret medical wing.” She tapped a room that was three halls away from the observation wing. “As long as he’s stable though, Star won’t keep him here long. It would mean moving the guards and changing the routine, which he hates.” She glanced up and her blue eyes looked especially pale in the darkness of the room. “He’s a man of habit.”
“So we check the observation wing first?” Al asked.
“Stick with the plan,” Jada agreed, looking around like she wanted to make sure everyone was listening. “If he isn’t there, we’ll get him on the way out. After the failsafe.”
“After?” Mom shook her head and her brown eyes suddenly looked twice as large. “No. We need to get him to safety.”
“We need to get the failsafe,” Helen said softly.
Mom frowned, but before she could protest again, Angus reached out to her. “I’ll get him. Don’t you worry. Even if a few of us gotta stay behind, we’ll get him out. Right?”
“Hell yeah,” Al said. “Parv?”
Parv nodded, but her gaze was still focused on the layout of the CDC. “I won’t leave until he’s free.”
It seemed like she’d only done two things since getting here: study the layout and smoke. It was like she was trying to memorize every nook and cranny even though we would have the map with us, and I found myself wondering if it had something to do with Joshua. If she was also staring at the drawings of the h
alls that were lined with cells and labs, wondering which one her husband had spent his final hours in.
“I gotta get the crossword puzzle I left behind.” Angus practically pushed himself forward so he could tap his finger on a tiny square in that very same hall Parv was focused on, and I couldn’t help staring at it, thinking about how small it was and how he’d spent nearly twenty years locked away in that little box.
“Crossword?” Lila asked, shoving a mass of dark hair that was streaked with gray out of her face.
Angus puckered his lips in a way that reminded me of Dad. “It’s where I wrote down the code. I gotta have that book if we’re gonna get to the failsafe Jane told me ‘bout.”
Parv’s expression hardened at the mention of the woman’s name. “Jane betrayed Star. What if he suspected that she told you the code? What if he changed it?”
“He didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout us.” Angus looked toward Helen for confirmation.
“Star assumed Jane’s betrayal was all about her daughter. He had no idea she’d been sneaking around with Angus,” she said. “It never would have occurred to him that she’d strayed that far from their plans.”
“She did right in the end,” Angus said firmly.
“Right,” Parv muttered.
Jim ignored my aunt and said, “Once we have the code a small group will be in charge of getting Axl and Margot to safety.”
Mom’s head jerked up, her eyes focused on the zombie slayer. “I’m going with them.”
“I thought you might want to.” Jim nodded twice. “Once they’re out, the rest of us can go for the failsafe.”
“And the vaccine,” I said.
I found my hand reaching for Donaghy’s, holding it. His skin was clammy, but not hot. I knew the sweat was from the packed room and the Georgia humidity, which was impossible to escape this time of year, but I still found my hand sliding up his arm as if trying to reassure myself that he wasn’t burning with fever once again. His muscles flexed under my palms and the memories of the last time we were together flipped through my mind. He’d just finished a fight and I’d gone to see him in the shower. I’d stripped down and joined him under the water, needing him and knowing that he needed me too. We’d resisted before for some reason that I now couldn’t remember, but that day I’d found it impossible to hold back, and afterward I’d been glad we hadn’t waited. I just hoped we’d have a chance to be together again before heading to Atlanta.
Helen’s intensely blue eyes locked on mine, and she actually took the time to pull the cigarette out of her mouth so she could say, “The vaccine will be the last thing we worry about. I’m sorry, but this could be our only chance to get the failsafe and we can’t risk it. Not after twenty years.”
I started to protest, to point out that we could split up, but Donaghy stopped me by saying, “We get the failsafe first. No question.”
Helen nodded once before turning back to the diagrams. This time she moved the top one aside, the one that featured the holding cells and secret labs, revealing a different map of a different floor.
“Biosafety Level four.” She tapped her finger against the paper twice. “It used to be reserved for viruses like Ebola and Lassa, and they’re still sitting in there, but Star also uses it to store the different strains of the virus he’s created, as well as the vaccines that go along with them. The failsafe is there, too.”
A hush fell over the room that I didn’t understand completely, but instinctively knew had something to do with the other viruses Helen had named. I’d never heard of them, but I could tell by the somber expressions on the adults’ faces that they had.
“Are these other viruses deadly?” I asked.
The cigarette was back in Helen’s mouth when she nodded, and this time ash did drop to the map. It landed on top of the lab, right on Biosafety Level four. “The viruses in this lab were the deadliest ones known to man. At least they were until Star put his twisted plan into motion. Going in there is dangerous and you’re going to need a lot of backup,” she continued, “It’s going to take some time to get in there.”
We all listened as she explained the protocol. Putting on a positive-pressure, air-supplied body suit, how it would attach to a tube once inside the room that could feed it with oxygen pumped in from a separate source. How whoever went inside had to enter and exit through an air-locked room to ensure that nothing deadly could escape.
“Only two people should go in,” Helen looked around at everyone standing in front of her. “I’ll be one, but I’ll want a second set of eyes while I’m in there.”
“I’ll go,” Parv said as she reached up to push her dark hair back out of her face.
“Perfect.”
Helen’s expression said she thought it was a good choice, but there was something else there too. A look that said she was thinking about my aunt’s dead husband. Donaghy told me what he’d overheard, and it felt like the reality of what had happened to Joshua was weighing on Helen.
She cleared her throat and turned her eyes back to the map. “While we’re in there, we’re going to need everyone else to stand guard. We can’t be rushed or we could accidentally release something just as deadly as the original virus was.”
A few people had slipped into the room while we talked. Two men from the town, only one of which I recognized. He was in his forties and so average looking that he would be entirely forgettable in this settlement of tattooed and pierced people if it wasn’t for the fact that he was missing his left hand. The day before I’d heard this very man and Al swapping horror stories about the day they’d been bitten, and the terror of getting a limb unceremoniously amputated. Just thinking about it made me shiver, but for them it had been so long ago that the conversation had come across as almost mundane, if not a little humorous at times. Which was normal for Al.
The other man who’d come in was burly, also in his forties, and had a face full of brown wiry hair and arms covered in tattoos that were so faded that it was obvious they’d been there well before the virus had shown up.
The third person was a woman, and when she settled in next to Luke I stood on my tiptoes, trying to get a good look at her. She was only a year or two older than me, but like Jada was covered in tattoos and piercings. Her raven black hair had been shaved down to the scalp on the right side of her head, but on the left side it was about four inches long and sat flat against her head. As I watched, her blue eyes flitted up to Luke’s face and she stood on her tiptoes, her hand resting on his arm as she said something to him. Her lips were so close to his ear that it almost looked like they were kissing. This had to be the woman he’d been seeing, and I wasn’t the only one whose interest had been piqued by her sudden appearance. My aunt’s gaze zeroed in on them as well.
“How many people do you need standing guard while you’re in the room?” Mom asked.
“As many as we can get,” Helen said.
She exchanged a look with Dragon, who wore an expression on his face I’d never seen before. A somber one. One that said this could be a suicide mission.
“Everyone needs to be prepared,” Jim said, as if echoing my thoughts. “We have a solid plan, but this is the CDC. Not everyone is going to make it out of this alive, so the more people we have, the better off we’ll be when one or two of us get taken out.”
Taken out. He meant killed, but he acted like he couldn’t quite say the words.
“Who’s willing to go in with us?” Jada asked.
“I’m going,” Al said.
“Me,” Luke agreed.
“I’ll be there,” Mom said, “but I’ll be leaving with Margot and Axl.”
“You stay with them.” The tone Helen used was the one she usually reserved for Glitter, and it made her scratchy voice sound soothing and almost grandmotherly. “They’re going to need you.”
Dragon said he was obviously going, as did Angus, who insisted we needed his knowledge of the CDC, which was insane considering he had rarely left his room over the last twenty years.
Honestly, I was pretty sure he was just hoping to run into Star and get some payback, which no one could blame him for.
Aunt Lila tried to volunteer, but Al insisted she stay behind so Mom had some support when she came back with Dad and Margot, which made my aunt scowl even though she agreed. Charlie said nothing, but I wasn’t sure if her unwillingness to volunteer had to do with being afraid or something else. Maybe she felt inadequate. I couldn’t blame her. Even after my little training session outside the walls I felt pretty useless in comparison to Jada and the other people from this town. I knew I had good aim, but there was no way to deny that the zombie slayers were a hell of a lot more prepared for this than I was.
“Britt, Tony, and Kelly are going to be joining us too,” Jada said, nodding to the three people from Senoia who’d just joined us.
I saw both Charlie and Aunt Lila’s gaze move over the woman, Kelly, and I could tell by the way he shifted that Luke saw it too. He was going to get bombarded with questions. There was no escaping it now.
“We already have people driving around the outskirts of old Atlanta collecting zombies in a truck, right?” Jim asked, glancing toward Jada.
“Max headed out with a group a little bit ago,” she replied. “They’re taking care of getting the bomb set up too. If charges aren’t set on that wall already, they will be soon. Tomorrow, once the sun has gone down and the festival is underway, they’ll start luring even more zombies toward the wall.”
“Good.” Jim nodded as he spoke, almost like he was checking things off on a list.
“And that’s pretty much all we can plan for now,” Helen said. “My contact will meet us at ten and hopefully everything will go as expected.”
My back stiffened. “What about the vaccine?”
As far as I was concerned, they’d left a very important part out: where the vaccine was.
“That will be in the same lab as the failsafe.” Helen straightened, her gaze focused on me. “There won’t be any syringes there, but we’ll get one as soon as we can. On the way out we’ll pass dozens of labs that have them. We’re going to need to give the vaccine time to work its way through Donaghy’s system before we can release the bacteria, though. An hour probably.”
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