by Kat Falls
“The river patrol just brought it in,” Everson replied evenly. “I don’t want to expose it to the research animals until I’ve tested it for Ferae and other diseases.”
“You’re going to take that thing’s blood? You?” She didn’t wait for his response before turning to Dr. Solis. “I said he could work here as long as you kept him away from anything dangerous.”
The scientists glanced from her to Everson, clearly confused.
Everson’s mouth hardened into a tight line. “I take every precaution.”
He had to be embarrassed at being treated like a child in front of the scientists, but he continued to give a good guard face. Unlike his mother, whose latex-covered jaw was clenched in a grimace.
“You want to stay and play with test tubes? Then you follow my rules. Brooklyn.” She snapped her fingers at a guard. “Kill that thing and destroy the carcass. Boil it, burn it; I don’t care. Douse it with acid if you have to. Just make sure every germ in its flea-ridden body is dead.”
The guard scrambled to unholster his gun.
She glanced upward as if praying for patience. “After we leave.”
He dropped his gun hand. “Yes, Chairman.”
“Dr. Solis,” the chairman said serenely, “please clear the room. I’d like a word with my son.”
The scientists hurried for the door, thinning the group. In a matter of seconds, I’d end up exposed to her sharp eyes. The swinging doors were behind me, and I backed toward them as the group scurried past Everson, stealing looks at him as they passed. His expression remained stony.
I backed through one of the swinging doors, caught it, and closed it smoothly. Something hissed behind me — a soft, threatening sound. I whirled to face row upon row of steel cubbies, stacked seven feet tall, with cage doors — not glass-fronted like those in the lab, though these also contained animals. Infected animals. Their scratching and scrabbling echoed off the hard surfaces, which were probably hosed down hourly given the overwhelming antiseptic smell.
I slunk down the middle of the farthest aisle, keeping well out of reach of the cages with my gaze front and center. No reason to make eye contact and set off a crazed animal even if it couldn’t sink its teeth into me.
A gunshot blasted in the other room, and my heart leapt. I wasn’t the only one to startle. A cacophony of yips and chittering broke out around me. The guard must have had less-than-stellar aim, because the lynx-lizard thing screeched out its torment and the crate rattled so loudly I expected to hear it explode into splinters. Another shot, and the mongrel’s scream cut off as fast and completely as a knife slash.
“What are you keeping back there?” I heard the chairman demand. I needed to get out of sight before she barged in, but even as big as the room was, there was nowhere to hide. There wasn’t so much as a gap between the steel cages.
“Test animals,” Everson replied dryly. “If you want Brooklyn to kill them too, he’s going to need more ammo.”
She grated a reply too low for me to catch. My only option was to hide on top of the cages. I hated, hated that choice but hated the thought of being sent back to the West and executed even more. Up it was.
I jammed my boot toe under a knee-high cage door and prayed that I didn’t pull the whole row down on top of me. Not that that was the worst thing that could happen. No, that would be infection. The beaver in the eye-level cage cowered in a corner. Above him, a raccoon paced. They didn’t look feral. Actually, they didn’t even look like hybrids. But then, they wouldn’t if they’d been infected recently. The only way to do this was fast. With a hop, I clambered up six rows of cubbies like a sugar-high monkey — so fast that nothing sank its teeth into my grasping fingers. At the top, I hoisted myself up and rolled out of sight just as the swinging doors whooshed open.
Only one set of footsteps crossed the room.
“Lane?”
Everson. And yet, I stayed pressed to the steel-topped cages on the off chance his mother was hovering by the door.
“Lane, I know you’re here. I saw you duck in.” He strode down the next aisle. “Tell me you’re not hiding in a cage.”
I risked a peek over the edge of the row. He was alone, crouching to check the big cages on the bottom. I pushed up and sat cross-legged. Not because I was feeling so relaxed, but I didn’t want to dangle my legs and test my patrol-issued camo pants against teeth. “Is she gone?” I whispered.
When he straightened and our eyes met, a tingle went down my skin.
“How’d you get — never mind.” He stalked down the aisle, not keeping his voice down. “What are you doing in here?”
“I didn’t want to run into your mother.”
He stopped below me and let out a breath. “A lot of people feel that way,” he said. “But they usually stick to hiding behind doors.” When I didn’t move, he sighed. “She left. I told her this area is covered in germs.”
I snatched my hands off the metal-topped cage. “Is it?”
He raised a brow. “Well, this is the virology lab …”
I furiously rubbed my palms on my camo pants. Why had I worked to break my hand sanitizer addiction? Why had I thought that was a smart, healthy thing to do? Carrying hand sanitizer, that was the smart move. Self-respect didn’t kill germs; chemicals did.
“Of course, we keep the infected animals in a secure area. These” — Everson lifted a hand toward the cages — “are the control group. But you knew that, right? You knew they weren’t infected before you climbed up there?”
His eyes dared me to admit the truth — that I’d been incredibly reckless. I took a deep breath and yanked my ponytail very tight to keep my brain alert. “Of course I did,” I lied.
“Uh-huh,” he said with so much irony, he might as well have rolled his eyes. Instead, he held up his arms. “All right. Scoot out and jump.”
I stared at him. “Jump?”
“I’ll catch you.”
“I’m not four. You can’t catch me.”
“Lane. Jump.” His tone made it clear he was done arguing. “Now.”
Right. Bossy. I kept forgetting that about him. “I’m not jumping,” I snapped. “I’ll squash you. Isn’t there a step stool around here?”
“Lane, if I go down, I’m going down with an armful of girl. I’m okay with that.”
Okay, first off, I was a lot more than an armful, but I wasn’t going to point that out. And second off, was he flirting? Hard to tell. The words were nice, but he still looked impatient.
“Lane.” He lifted his hands higher.
Yep, impatient.
“Oh, all right,” I huffed, and scooted to the edge of the metal-topped cages. I dropped my feet to prop my heels on the top row. Whatever was inside that particular cage took a swipe at my calf. Its claws didn’t rip through my pants, but it was enough incentive to hurl myself at Everson.
I slammed into him, and his arms closed around my hips. He let me slide slowly down the long, hard line of his body until my feet touched the ground. I exhaled on a shaky breath as animals paced in their cages on either side of us. I craned my head back to look into his storm-cloud eyes, which were intent on me.
Even if he had been flirting, that wasn’t why I’d come to see him, risking his mother’s wrath in the process. And possibly my life. I stepped back to put a little space between us since he hadn’t. “Does the patrol have infected humans locked away somewhere?”
Everson tensed and let his hands slip from my hips, as if I’d dumped a bucket of cold water on him. The crease between his brows deepened. “What?”
“Guards kidnapped a manimal out of the zone — Mahari. They took her away in a truck.”
“Where’d you — never mind, I can guess. You heard this from the grups who attacked your jeep the night you got here?”
I nodded. “Does the patrol have her?”
“No. That’s why we put up electric fences everywhere. To keep the infected humans out.”
“Maybe they took her to another base,” I pressed
.
“The rest are just field camps. Prefab buildings. No labs or scientists — and no bridge to the Feral Zone. You said they took her away in a truck.”
“That’s what the lionesses said.” And I believed them. All three of them couldn’t have imagined it. “Maybe the patrol has humans stashed away, and you don’t know about it.”
“I’d know.”
“Maybe —”
“Lane, I’d know.” His words were casual, but I could hear the underlying steel in his tone.
I gave up. If Everson didn’t know where Mahari was, bugging him wasn’t going to change it. But that meant I’d hit another dead end.
He propped a shoulder against the row of cages. “Now can I ask you something?”
I nodded as I studied the random assortment of animals curled up in their cages behind him: raccoons, skunks, cats, and a fox. It wasn’t hard to picture Mahari locked in a human-sized version.
“Why have you been avoiding me?”
My eyes snapped to his. “I haven’t,” I said quickly. Too quickly. He’d caught me off guard just as he’d intended.
“Yeah, you have,” he said like it was no big deal. “My mother told you to stay away from me, didn’t she?”
“No.” I edged back up the aisle.
Everson’s gaze dropped to the space I’d just put between us and then back to me. “Did she give you an ultimatum?”
Was he kidding me with this nonchalant act? The night Rafe locked us in a supply closet, Everson himself told me that he’d joined the patrol to fight Ferae on the front line and get away from his mother. If he found out that she was still interfering in his life, his anger would redline. Even if he promised not to tell that I’d outed her, he’d give it away somehow with body language or a cool undertone. I wasn’t going to risk my life on his acting abilities. “If she’d said something to me, would I be here now?”
He studied me. “Then why?”
“Why?”
“Every time I get near you, you can’t get away fast enough.”
“I —” Had no answer for that.
“Look, I know I was a jerk when I first saw you again. I just couldn’t believe your dad would bring —” He cut himself off and then let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry.”
My skin burned. Not just on my face but across my body like a brush fire. I wanted to break into a hundred apologies for shunning him and explain that his mother hadn’t given me a choice. “It’s not that,” I muttered. “It’s just — I’m not going to be on base for very long, and it seemed like it would be better if we didn’t, you know … spend time together.”
He shot me an exasperated look. “Better?”
“Yes.” As I said it, I realized I wasn’t lying. “You didn’t spend last month saying good-bye to people and pets you love. I did, and it sucks.”
Everson watched me as if my thoughts were scrolling across my face. “You know,” he said quietly, “for as long as I can remember, my mother has played fast and loose with the truth. Told me I had an autoimmune disorder to keep me at home. Didn’t tell me that she’d started the plague. Big lies, right?”
I nodded. That he spoke to her at all was shocking.
“But I know that everyone isn’t like her,” he went on. “I know you’re not. And after what we went through, I hope you know I’m not like that. I’ve got your back, Lane. You can trust me.”
I did trust him. He was the only person on the island I trusted. He wouldn’t rat me out to his mother. I knew that in my gut. So then, why not give him the honesty he deserved? I cleared my throat. “She might have mentioned something about not fraternizing with you …”
He didn’t look surprised to hear it, though a muscle in his jaw twitched. “Why?”
“I’m a bad influence.”
“Right. The girl who lives on a base so she can take care of orphans. You’re the worst.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t let him put a shiny polish on my actions. “I’m here because my dad won’t let me live in Moline.”
“Okay,” Everson said, stepping closer. “You’re here. You shouldn’t be, but you are. And while you’re on Arsenal, I’m going to get as close as you’ll let me — because my mother doesn’t decide who I fraternize with. I do.”
His gaze was so intense my face felt scorched by it. I backed up. I wanted no part of his pushback against his mother. He wasn’t the one who’d get booted off the island. Why had I put myself in this situation?! For Mahari. For Rafe. Oh, and the letter.
I reached down the front of my shirt and fished out the envelope. Everson arched a dark brow when I offered it to him. “It’s for you,” I explained.
“You switched to mail duty?” he asked dryly.
“No, I — Jia stole it … because — Just take it.” I thrust it toward him.
When he took it from me, something slithered out of the open end. I scooped up the knitted scarf from the floor. It was emblazoned with “My hero” in red yarn. Ew.
“Uh … Here.” I offered it to him.
He eyed it and then looked back at me with a silent “What the heck?” “No return address,” he said, glancing at the envelope.
“They probably cut it off in the mailroom.”
“Probably,” he agreed, shaking out a piece of pink paper. He flipped it over and read: “Your future wife, Nola.”
Whoa. He had a future wife named Nola? I tried to keep the shock off my face as I asked, “Your girlfriend?”
He shot me a bemused look. “I don’t know anyone named Nola.”
“Someone you don’t know knit you a scarf?”
“That bother you?”
“No. I —” Was still holding the scarf. I offered it to him again, but he’d gone back to the letter. “I’m going to leave it here, okay?” I hung the scarf on the latch of the nearest cage and headed for the swinging door.
Behind me, he read aloud. “Dear Everson, the next time you have a taste for something wild, you don’t have to go all the way to Chicago — come back to the West. I promise I’ve had all my shots …”
I spun back to see him looking as disconcerted as I felt. Making up something like this wasn’t Everson’s style. Dirty jokes, lewd come-ons — that was more Rafe’s thing. “Some guard is messing with you,” I guessed.
“No guard knows I went as far as Chicago. That information is classified,” he said, and shifted his gaze back to the letter. “I want to see you in that leather apron again — but this time, just the apron.”
“I didn’t write that!” The words burst from my lips, sounding incredibly defensive, which was exactly how I felt since I was the only person on this side of the river who’d seen him in a handler’s apron.
“I know.” He crumpled the letter and shoved it into his pocket. “But the only people present when I was debriefed were Hyrax and my mother.”
“I really hope neither of them wrote that.”
Everson snatched the scarf off the cage and tossed it into the bin labeled “Medical Waste.” “C’mon,” he said, steering me toward the door.
We entered the warehouse-sized building that housed the commissary, gym, and mailroom, the door to which stood wide open. The only guard in the place was in the back, stuffing mail into slots as fast as he stuffed cookies into his mouth, taken from an open tin perched on his rolling cart. Every so often, he’d chuck a letter or package into a fat drawstring sack on the floor.
I started for the counter, ready to demand answers, but Everson hooked my elbow. I followed his stunned gaze to the opposite wall. The floor-to-ceiling collage of photos didn’t stun me. It was just … Ugh. Okay, I was a little surprised that the patrol allowed the mailroom workers to put up pictures of half-naked women in a public area. Maybe on this side of the wall, everyone got less civilized, not just the infected.
“Classy,” I muttered.
Everson dipped his head, putting his lips by my ear. “Those weren’t there a week ago. And they shouldn’t be there now.” He surveyed the mail office, e
yes narrowed. “What’s with this place?”
What was he talking about? The mailroom was messy, true, but not in a dirty, germy way. It looked more like organized chaos along the lines of Santa’s workshop. Stuffed-to-bursting canvas bags lay in heaps across the floor while packages covered the counter in teetering stacks. A lot of those packages had been cut open, but that was protocol.
The guard in the back pulled the drawstring sack closed and hefted it over his shoulder. As soon as he disappeared into a back corridor, Everson headed to the wall for a closer look. I didn’t think this was the time to be eyeing girly pics, but whatever. I closed in on the counter. The opened parcels contained snacks and baked goods and most were half empty. Eating other people’s care packages was crappy, but hardly evidence of a conspiracy.
Everson fell back a step from the wall of photos, both hands resting on top of his head.
“What is it?” I joined him.
“You tell me,” he said, gesturing to the pictures. “We fell into another dimension, right? That’s the only way this makes sense.”
I saw now that the glossy pictures weren’t magazine centerfolds but real photos from real girls, signed with x’s, o’s, and/or hearts. But the shocking part — really shocking —was that most of the scribbles began with some variation of “To Everson.”
“There must be another guard with my name,” he said, though he didn’t sound like he believed it.
“Maybe …” I pivoted to take a longer, closer look at the mailroom — at the open care packages and the overstuffed canvas bags. “Is this more mail than usual?”
“A lot more,” he confirmed.
I squatted by a canvas sack, tugged open the drawstring, and let the letters spill out. Every single one was addressed to “Everson on Arsenal Island.”
Given the pastel shades of the stationery, most of these letters were from teens and maybe even tweens, going by the doodles and stickers. I snatched an envelope from the pile and ripped it open. The letter began with “Dear Everson,” written in big, rounded letters.