Reckoning (New Haven Book 2)

by Sara Jo Cluff

  “We can have Rosie bring the residents back and forth,” Vice President Mendes said. “With her sweet demeanor, no one should feel guilty about saying no.”

  President Brown nodded. “Sounds good.” He looked back and forth between Derek and Naomi, I’m sure unsettled about leaving just the two of them in charge. I knew that had to do with Derek more than Naomi.

  “I can ask my dad to sit in here and help,” I said to the president.

  “I like that idea.” President Brown's shoulders relaxed. “We’ll have Rosie go get him first. He can take the test if he wants and then he can stay and supervise.”

  President Brown, Vice President Mendes, and Joshua all left the room. I was about to leave, but I looked at Derek one more time which I instantly regretted.

  I sighed and went to his side, keeping my voice low. “Don’t give up, tiger.”

  Derek grunted. “Like you care.”

  “I do.” I put my hand on his arm. “Dad always told us to never give up on what we wanted. Maybe you can just ease up on her a little. She doesn’t seem to like the direct approach.”

  Derek looked at me, hopeful. “Do you think she could like me one day?”

  I nodded. “Just take it easy. Be subtle. And kind.”

  “Kind?” His eyebrows were scrunched together.

  “Yes, kind. Do nice things for her. Bring her coffee in the morning but don’t make a big deal about it.”

  “She likes coffee,” Derek said, nodding.

  “Just set it down in front of her and go to work.”

  He rubbed his head. “And don’t say anything?”

  I sighed. “Derek, for once you just need to learn to keep your mouth shut. It gets you in trouble more often than not.”

  “Okay,” he said, glancing over at Naomi. “I think I can do that. So be thoughtful, but not pushy.”

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Maybe there was hope for the guy. I hugged him and left the room.

  Training seemed to be going well. Everyone who was old enough and healthy enough to fight was more than willing to help New Haven.

  Gideon was quick on picking up on our resident’s talents. Once he figured out what they were best at, he put them in that group for the rest of training. With so little time to prepare, we figured might as well train someone to be good at one thing than alright at a lot of things. Besides, you couldn’t hold a gun, a bow and arrow, and a sword all at once while fighting.

  It didn’t take long for me to see how well Will was with a gun. His grip was steady and firm, his aim accurate. He was able to figure out adjustments for wind and distance without hesitation. He tried to explain his reasoning and the calculations he used in his head. After about a minute, I shook my head and gave up. I had no earthly idea what he was talking about. But it worked for him and that was all that mattered.

  During one of our breaks, I went to check on Dee. She was asleep when I entered her room. I went and sat down in the chair next to her bed, taking her hand. She looked so peaceful as she slept. As gently as I could, I moved one of her curls back from her face.

  “That better be a handsome young man who has come here to woo me,” Dee said, her eyes closed.

  I laughed. “Sorry, love, it’s a beautiful young woman who has come here to check on you.”

  “Marie?” She opened her eyes. “Oh, sorry Emmie, I thought you were someone else.” Even though she was trying to be serious, playfulness danced in her eyes.

  “You’re lucky that I’m too tired from training to slap you,” I said, squeezing her hand.

  She squeezed my hand back. “How’s training going, anyway?”

  “Pretty good, actually. Everyone has been so willing to learn and so focused on doing well. I’m impressed.”

  “And how’s my future husband doing?” she asked with a smile on her lips.

  “Amazing,” I said. “He’s great with a gun.”

  She raised her eyebrows, her smile faltering. “Remind me to never tick him off.”

  “Thankfully he’s too sweet of a guy to ever hurt you.” I thought back to Recruitment and the challenge he and I were in together. He’d jumped on top of me to protect me from being attacked by bats, getting himself bit in the process. Adding the fact that I’d only known him for a couple of hours showed even more about his character.

  “He hasn’t met me yet,” she said, biting her lip. “He may not like me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He already seems smitten by everything I’ve told him about you.”

  Dee straightened out her sheets. “What can I say? I’m amazing.”

  I smiled at her and then looked over my shoulder at the door. “He should be here soon.”

  She shot up in her bed, grabbing my arm. “What? He’s coming right now? Oh, Emmie, what should I do? How should I act? How’s my hair?” She reached up and started fixing her curls.

  “Dee, you look beautiful as always. Your hair’s perfect, which totally sucks because you were just lying on it. You should get bed head like me, with your hair flying all over the place.”

  She laughed. “Your hair is pretty wild in the mornings. The trick’s not moving your head when you sleep.”

  “Please, I’ve seen you sleep before, woman. You toss and turn like a wild animal and still wake up with perfect hair.”

  Dee’s spunky attitude left. She looked me straight in the eye, genuinely concerned. “Do you think he’ll like me? I mean, I know we’ve been joking around about it, but I’m really nervous.”

  “He’s going to love you, Dee, trust me on that. Just be yourself. He’ll like your fun attitude.”

  “How’s my skin?” she asked, touching her face. “How pale am I right now?”

  I scratched my head. “Uh, you want the truth?”

  She pinched her cheeks. “Maybe this will give me color. My mom used to do it all the time when I was younger.”

  Her face fell when she mentioned her mom. Her parents and her brother hadn’t come back with us on either of the trips to River Springs. Austin said he’d investigate it, but I hadn’t heard anything from him. She wanted her family with her, especially being in the state she was in.

  Our moment of silence was interrupted with a knock at the door. I turned around and saw Will standing there, completely nervous. He had one hand in his pants pocket, the other holding onto a bunch of blue flowers that had started to spring up near the mountainside.

  I smiled at him. “Hi, Will. Come on in.”

  Will stepped slowly into the room, pausing when he looked at Dee. I couldn’t read his face to know what he was thinking. Dee sucked in a deep breath.

  When he started walking again, Will tripped over his foot, causing him to stumble. With bright red cheeks, he muttered something under his breath as he moved forward.

  I motioned to another chair in the room, near the foot of the bed. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  Will came to the side of the bed and held out the flowers to Dee. “I brought these for you.”

  Dee took them from him, a huge grin on her face. Her cheeks had some color in them, and I knew it wasn’t from the pinching. “They’re beautiful. Thank you, Will.” She held them up to her nose, smelling the fragrance.

  “You’re welcome,” Will said, taking a seat. “The spring’s finally starting to show up.”

  “Do you want me to get you a vase?” I asked Dee.

  She shook her head. “No, not yet. I want to hold them for a while. I haven’t seen the outside world in months. How’s the weather been?”

  “Nice.” Will adjusted his glasses as sat forward in his seat. “The past few days have been perfectly clear and a nice temperature. You weren’t missing anything before that, though. It’s been a rough winter.”

  “That’s what Emmie’s always telling me,” Dee said. “I thought she was just being nice.”

  “Please, when have I ever been nice to you?” I asked.

  Dee laughed. “True.”

  “So, I told Will your idea about s
tarting a school,” I said, looking at him.

  Will’s eyes widened in excitement. “I think it’s a brilliant idea.” He pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket. “I talked with Archie last night and we drew up a rough plan.” He scooted his chair around, so it was next to mine and closer to Dee.

  “Really?” Dee couldn’t hold back her smile.

  “Yeah.” Will flattened out the paper. “We thought we could start with a small building with a few classrooms for different subjects. I thought it would be good to put it right outside Headquarters near that alcove. That way the kids could have lunch up there on nice days.”

  “That would be lovely,” Dee said, looking at Will. I scooted my chair back quietly, trying to make myself invisible.

  Will pointed to a spot outside of the building on the drawing. There was some type of structure there, but I didn’t know what it was.

  “Rosie told me about these playgrounds they had in Scorpion,” Will said. “We want to put one outside on some grass.” He pointed to each item as he spoke. “There will be slides, swings, walls for the children to climb, and monkey bars.”

  Dee furrowed her eyebrows. “What are monkey bars?”

  Will laughed. “I asked Rosie the same thing. It’s a structure the kids can swing around on with their arms.”

  “Like monkeys,” Dee said.

  “Yes,” Will said. “Just like monkeys.” He pointed to another spot. “We could put picnic benches out here for lunch. Or even to have class outside sometimes.”

  “This is amazing,” Dee said, setting her flowers down on the bed next to her. She teared up. “Wow, this is embarrassing. Sorry. This is just something so dear to my heart. Something I hope to be a part of one day.”

  Will placed his hand on Dee’s. “It means a lot to me, too. And you can be a part of it. Archie and I just came up with the structure. We’ll need your help on what to put in the classrooms, course material, all sorts of stuff.”

  As Dee wiped a few tears from her eyes with her free hand, I slowly stood and left the room, leaving them alone. A smile found its way to my face as I walked down the hall.

  I found Marie, Dr. Stacey, and Alexander in a room at the end of the hall. Papers were all over the place and computers and microscopes were set up on a desk in the middle of the room.

  Alexander pulled back from a microscope when I entered. He came to me, giving me a big hug. He missed Eric as much as I did. He had barely reunited with his son after years of being held captive and now his son was the one being held captive, without knowing if they’d ever see each other again.

  Alexander released me from the hug, putting both his hands on my arms. “How’s our Emmie doing?”

  “I’m all over the place right now,” I said. “My emotion changes every few seconds.”

  “You’re a teenage girl.” Marie smiled at me. She had her hair back in a ponytail, showing off her high cheekbones. “It’s expected.”

  “Yeah, well take a normal teenage girl’s emotional state and times it by a hundred,” I said. “Because that’s where I’m at.”

  “I’ll make sure to keep my distance, then,” Alexander said, giving me a wink.

  Some vials were sitting on a shelf inside a cabinet against the wall. I picked one up, its pink liquid catching my attention. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, don’t touch that,” Dr. Stacey said. He looked older than Alexander by a few years. All his hair had turned gray and he wore glasses that sat low on his nose. Walking over, he took the vial from my hands, placing it gently back on the shelf. He closed the cabinet door and locked it. “I didn’t even realize this was open.”

  “What is it?” I asked, my curiosity now piqued.

  “It’s very dangerous, is what it is,” Dr. Stacey said, going back to the table where he was working. “It’s a virus.”

  My eyes widened. “A virus?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Stacey said. “One that could kill thousands of people with just a few drops. Not something you want to mess with.”

  “Why do you have it?” I asked.

  Dr. Stacey looked at me. “I didn’t want it left at Infinity Corp. President Randall is the type who’d use it. He was the one who wanted it created in the first place.”

  I walked up to the table Dr. Stacey was at. “Why not destroy it?”

  “We’re still at war,” Dr. Stacey said. “You never know if it may come in handy.”

  I looked down at some of the papers on the desk. I had no idea what any of it meant, but I glanced over them anyway. “How’s the research going?”

  Excitement lit up behind Dr. Stacey’s eyes. “It’s been incredible. The knowledge we’ve gained over the past few days have been monumental. Studying everything we’ve received from Dee and Lou has taken us further than we ever got in River Springs.”

  A little bit of hope sprung up in my heart. “That’s wonderful.”

  Alexander nodded. “It is. I’ll spare you the boring, technical details …”

  “Which I thank you for,” I said, looking down at all the papers with numbers and formulas that I couldn’t pretend to understand.

  “And let you know,” Alexander said, smiling at me, “that we know where it stems from and how it starts. With that knowledge, we’re putting together a formula of compounds that should fight off the disease.”

  “I brought back several medical supplies from River Springs that we need to formulate the compound,” Dr. Stacey said. “I think we have everything we need to start getting it ready.”

  My heart swelled. “I’m speechless.”

  Marie laughed. “Well, that’s a first.”

  “Emmie,” Alexander said, “do you think Dee will allow us to test the drug on her? We can’t sample it on anything, and we don’t know if it’ll work for sure, but we have to test it out.”

  I nodded. “Dee would be willing to do anything to help find a cure. She’s the type who’d sacrifice herself so others could be saved in the future.”

  “There will be risks,” Dr. Stacey said. “We can’t be one hundred percent certain how her body’s going to react to the drug.”

  “At least she’ll be here with you when she takes it,” I said. “That way if anything goes wrong, you’ll be at her side in no time.”

  A loud beep rang out from down the hall. I looked at Marie, wondering what it meant. She pulled out a pager from her pocket, her face turning serious.

  “It’s Lou,” Marie said as she ran out of the room.

  Dr. Stacey and I followed her out, running down the hall to Lou’s room.

  “He can’t breathe!” Marie shouted from the room. “He needs oxygen.”

  As Dr. Stacey and I entered, Lou was on the bed, his face turning blue. His body was so fragile as if it could break apart at any moment. A few seconds after Marie placed an oxygen mask over Lou’s mouth, he started convulsing.

  I backed out of the room, unable to watch. Leaning up against the wall, I slid my back down until I was sitting on the floor. I pulled my legs in close, the sounds of machines and Marie and Dr. Stacey shouting ringing in my head.

  “Emmie.” Someone touched my shoulder and I looked to see Will crouched down next to me. He put his hand on my arm. “Emmie, what’s going on?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I just stared at Will, not being able to wrap my head around what was happening. I could see Alexander in my peripheral vision, looking into Lou’s bedroom.

  Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall. After a few minutes, Will’s hand tensed. I opened my eyes and looked at him. His whole face had gone pale. I focused myself back on the noises and heard the distinct sound of a flat line. Marie swore loudly, followed by a loud bang, the noise of something being punched.

  I tried to get up, but I was too weak. Will placed his hand on my back and helped me stand. When I looked at Lou’s door, Marie stormed out. She walked up to her desk, which sat in an opening in the middle of the hall. Letting out a screa
m, she pushed everything off her table, file folders and office supplies flying everywhere. Marie leaned her hands up against the edge of the table and cried.

  Dr. Stacey walked out of the room, his face grim. He looked at me, shook his head, and walked down the hall past Marie.

  “I’ll tell Dee,” Will said to me. He hugged me tight before he left.

  I stood there for a few seconds, stunned by the sudden turn of events. Just moments ago, hope had filled the air. The wonderful idea of a cure sat in our hearts. And now …

  I ran down the hall, grabbed Marie and pulled her into a hug. She squeezed me tight, her tears falling on my shoulder. I let my tears flow and we stood in the middle of the hall, hugging fiercely, letting every emotion pour out.

  Birds chirped softly as they flew overhead. A couple of them landed on a tree nearby, their tweets coming out like a song. The air was nice and warm, the sky clear. The smell of blooming flowers wafted through the air, along with the sap of the trees that sat on the mountain.

  When Dante, Santiago, Maya, and I went around our city the day before looking for the perfect spot to start a cemetery, we instantly settled on the location. The sun cast a spotlight on the open area of grass a few hours before sunset.

  Every resident came, all of us lined up in a few rows, forming a semi-circle around the gravesite. We let James pick out the spot where he wanted to bury his son. President Brown and Dante stood to the left of the opening Dante and Santiago had dug for the casket. Vice President Mendes stood on the right.

  We’d been able to take Dee out in a wheelchair. Marie was worried because the night before she’d given Dee the first injection of what they hoped was a cure. The day Lou passed away, Marie stayed up all night putting together the drug. She didn’t stop until it was ready.

  We had no idea how Dee’s body would react to it, but so far, she had some color back in her skin and her energy level had gone up. She even demanded I bring a dress for her and made me help her into it.

  I stood to the left of her, holding her hand. Will was on the other side, holding her other hand. My dad stood next to me, his arm around my shoulder, squeezing me tight. Tina stood behind me, holding my other hand, and Derek and Joshua stood on either side of her.