“So, you’re planning to infect me with Lyme,” Finn stated. A million imagined pinpricks of pain, like those his mother experienced daily, overwhelmed his nervous system, and he thrashed to shake them off. “Because you think that’ll make Cora cooperate.”
Moving the tube out of view, Kristian cleared his throat. “They’re not meant for you. A slow infusion through the natural feeding process of the ticks should reduce the probability that her lymphocytes will wipe out the Borrelia burgdorferi the way they did with Ulrich’s original strain.” He sniffed. “A secondary delivery method in case this,” he said as he held up a syringe, “doesn’t work.”
“Then why did you remove my hazmat suit?”
“You’ll see in a minute.” Kristian fiddled with the instruments on the cart, then abruptly left the room.
Over the rush of his shallow breathing and pounding in his head, Finn strained to hear his brother’s movements.
A moment later, the sound of wheels crushing debris came from the corridor, and a gurney appeared in the entrance. Protruding from it were Cora’s worn work boots.
Finn recoiled in horror. “Kristian!” he thundered.
Heaving, Kristian pushed the stretcher into the room and swung the stretcher around, bringing her feet even with Finn’s head.
Cora’s lithe form lay motionless, her wrists and ankles strapped to the four joists. Although her khaki pants shielded her lower half, from the waist up she was bare, her history of past torture fully exposed.
“Untie her!” he said, seething. “Now!”
“Soon. How often do I get a chance to work on her like this? Thanks to whatever you said that upset her, I was able to catch her off-guard. So now I have a rare opportunity to accomplish several objectives. In addition to introducing Borrelia burgdorferi into her microbiome and collecting several liters of plasma, I can further my research on coronaviruses. That, by the way, which been limited to specimen cultures, not host animals,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve decided that before infecting her with SARS-CoV, I should study the initial interaction of the virus with her cells in an isolated environment.”
“You’re crazy,” Finn said with a growl.
“Don’t worry,” Kristian replied as he retrieved an antiseptic towelette from a carton on the bottom shelf of the stand. “This won’t cause her any trauma. She’ll be asleep during the procedure.”
“What procedure?” Finn asked in a demanding tone.
“A lung biopsy. I’ll be using an aspiration needle, so the entry point will be small. See, I do care about her. And, of course, you.”
“Me?” Finn asked, jerking his arms, restrained at the wrists.
Kristian sighed with impatience. “I need a control group of typical lung cells.”
Finn’s mouth gaped open. “Why are you doing this?”
“Isn’t it obvious? The SARS virus damages the air sacs of the lungs. These samples will enable me to observe how Cora’s lung cells respond to an attack from the virus, compared to the response in typical lung cells.”
“This is wrong.”
“Let’s save the discussion on moralities until after the next novel virus emerges, and our family has stepped forward with a scalable technology that can quickly produce millions of vaccine doses,” he said, wiping clean a patch of Cora’s chest. “I’ve much to do before she wakes, including dressing your lacerations and getting you back into your suit. Then we’ll collect Lily.”
His anger surpassed the point of containment, and Finn yanked on the cords in an attempt to rip free the rails of the examining table.
“Stop that. You’ll worsen the abrasions. Those are your own fault, though I am sorry for the head injury.” Kristian discarded the towelette in a bio-hazard waste container beside the cart. “I only had enough chloroform in my bag for Cora, and I feared the window of opportunity might close while retrieving more.”
With Cora’s limp form only four feet away, Finn wasn’t worried about himself. “Does Dad know? There’s no way he’d allow this.”
“I don’t need his permission.”
“Mom will be livid.”
“At this point I’d rather have her alive and angry than dead.”
Finn couldn’t let this happen. But how could he prevent it? The slightest tug on his cords ignited the already raw skin.
His rage surged through his veins, and he released a primal, animallike yell.
“That’s very distracting,” Kristian chided. “It’s imperative that I’m able to concentrate,” he said, picking up a gleaming needle.
Moments Later
gnoring the fiery sensation of plastic digging into raw flesh, Finn battled the restraints as he screamed at Kristian.
“Shhh,” Kristian said, prodding Cora’s chest to determine his entry point between two ribs. “Ideally I’d be doing this with the aid of a CT scan.”
Finn clenched his jaw. So far, his rage had been futile. Although silence would make him feel complicit, it would be better for Kristian to quickly, cleanly complete this violation of her basic human rights.
Kristian leaned forward, and with his usual surgical precision, inserted the needle.
Finn longed to shut his eyes, but he felt a responsibility to bear witness. Such a small puncture likely wouldn’t even scab over, leaving no physical proof.
Deftly, Kristian withdrew the needle, just as the exterior door groaned and light swarmed the room.
“Stop!” Rollie bellowed from the doorway.
Kristian lurched backward.
A cold draft blasted Finn. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Thank Lily, too,” he replied, glaring at Kristian. “She was worried about you, so she came to the surface, where her phone has reception.”
“But the mosquitos,” Finn exclaimed.
“I instructed her to go back down and wait for us.” Rollie bent over Finn. “What happened to your head?” He peered into Finn’s eyes. “Follow my finger.”
“Kristian hit me with a pipe,” Finn replied, tracking the motion.
“What is wrong with you?” Rollie asked Kristian as he examined the contusion on Finn’s temple.
“He’s fine. At the most, a mild concussion.” Kristian responded. His hands remained tucked behind his thighs, and Finn realized he was hiding the aspiration needle, now filled with Cora’s lung cells.
“The same cannot be said for her.” Finn jerked his chin toward Cora.
Rollie shook his head in clear disgust as he rifled through his bag and pulled out a can of insect repellent. “You know her strain of RVF is lethal,” he said to Kristian as he sprayed Finn. “It’s sheer luck that none of the vandals who’ve come here during the summer have caused an outbreak.”
“The first thing I did was spray him.”
Coughing from the chemical mist, Finn glowered at his brother. He didn’t attempt to speak; the next statement he planned to make would be in the form of a fist to Kristian’s face.
Shaking his head, Rollie moved to inspect Cora. After checking for breathing, he visually examined her bare chest, narrowing in on the patch of skin still slick from the surgical wipe. “I’m appalled. After we thoroughly discussed this, you still . . .” He grunted—an obvious effort to keep his irritation in check.
Finn stared at his dad. Evidently, Rollie had been aware of Kristian’s desire to collect the tissue sample from her, which meant he must know more about Kristian’s side project than he’d admitted. Yet he apparently hadn’t insisted on overseeing the effort, so that he could ensure ethical boundaries were maintained.
Because, Finn realized, their father had a weakness: his wife. To avoid alienating Kristian, and losing him as a lab partner, he’d allowed Kristian to work independently.
From his bag, Rollie removed a space blanket. Gingerly, he covered Cora’s torso.
Their dad had pic
ked the wrong son to bring into the fold, Finn thought, grinding his teeth.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rollie asked Kristian, who’d backed toward the interior doorway, the aspiration needle still presumably palmed in his hand.
“You need to stay and face the consequences of your actions.” Rollie retrieved a buck knife from his bag. “How could you do this behind my back?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t—”
“Exactly. We do not operate on her. It’s counterproductive, and a distraction from our priorities.”
Defiantly, Kristian stood ramrod straight, his hazmat suit adding three inches to his stature and fifty pounds to his heft.
“Your involvement in this project has always been conditional on your adherence to those parameters.” Rollie turned to saw through the plastic cords restraining Cora.
“I wouldn’t do that yet,” Kristian said in a low tone.
Rollie lowered the knife, and Finn knew they were anticipating a violent reaction from Cora when she did wake.
“Pack this stuff up.” Rollie pivoted toward Finn’s bound ankles.
“Hang on. There’s a syringe with Borrelia burgdorferi,” Kristian said, pointing at the cart. “We’ve been waiting for this opportunity for six years, and we likely won’t get another chance before losing Mom.”
Slowly, Rollie lowered the knife.
“You cannot be seriously considering it.” Finn kicked against the cords.
“What makes you think she’ll ever give us blood samples now?” Rollie asked Kristian.
“I’ve accounted for that as well. My theory will work.”
“You can’t do this!” Finn shouted.
“If I don’t, your mom will die.” Rollie stepped toward the cart.
Through Rollie’s face shield, Finn could see the same resolute expression he’d witnessed from behind his cracked-open bedroom door as a child, when Sylvia would beg Rollie not to spend the day at North Brother Island.
A long-forgotten memory broke through Finn’s subconscious: She’s human, too. His mother’s plea.
Rollie’s response, as his features softened: I know, sweetie. Don’t ever let me forget it. Taking her chin in his hand, he’d kissed her, and Finn had slipped back into bed.
Rollie has forgotten, Finn thought now as he recalled Cora’s comment to Lily about the research poisoning their souls. His dad had feared that outcome. So he’d relied on Sylvia, who’d ironically become the catalyst for Rollie’s departure from the values he’d espoused throughout Finn’s childhood.
Finn pictured his father, poring over his patient files at the kitchen table, explaining to Finn why he jotted down the name of the person each patient loved most. Your great-grandfather shouldn’t have stopped the habit. Make sure I don’t.
Then, when Finn had surprised his parents with the news that he’d changed his college major to biology, Rollie had grimaced. You’ve got a more important role to fill. Switch it back.
And, just three weeks ago, Sylvia’s hand on his shoulder: You need to resolve. Because you’ll be the one still around.
Finn’s heart pounded. All those years, while he’d been struggling to understand why nothing he did was ever good enough, his parents had been grooming him to stop Rollie if he ever did stray from his principles. Once Rollie lost sight of Cora’s humanity, after Sylvia’s diagnosis, he didn’t want the “fail-safe” he’d designed anywhere near the island, Finn thought bitterly.
Regardless of whether keeping Rollie in check had been his “purpose” all along, today he would succeed in doing just that.
He rattled the ties. “Get these off me.”
“Just a minute,” Rollie said, uncasing the syringe.
“We don’t expect you to understand, Finny,” Kristian said smugly as he stored the aspiration needle within an insulated bag.
Racking his brain for an argument that would dissuade Rollie, Finn squeezed shut his eyes. And saw that array of patient files, a name scrawled at the top of each.
“Finnegan Gettler,” he announced.
Kristian chortled. “Congratulations. You know your name.”
Finn craned his neck to see Rollie, who now stood beside Cora.
“That’s what you should write in the upper corner of her chart.”
Rollie stiffened.
“I’m sure there’ve been others, but she’s lost them all. Now all she has is me. And she loves me, Dad. I know it,” Finn said with forced conviction. Rollie hadn’t witnessed his interactions with Cora; he couldn’t know the animosity that had prevailed each time she’d begun to soften toward Finn. “She is human, and she’s in love with your son.”
From the interior came a high-pitched hiccup.
In the hallway stood Lily, one hand gripping the tear in her suit, the other covering her mouth. “Lils,” he stammered.
She shook her head vehemently and stepped out of sight.
Finn longed to explain that he’d grossly exaggerated Cora’s interest in him, but he couldn’t, not yet.
Rollie wavered. The syringe in his hand trembled. “What am I doing?” he asked himself. “I promised her that I’d never cross this line; that I’d never stop seeing her as a patient, not a test subject,” he stated, returning the syringe to the cart.
“Let her go,” Finn said softly.
Nodding, Rollie retrieved his buck knife from the tray and cut loose Cora’s bindings.
“Kristian, what have you done?” Lily asked from the doorway.
“I was trying to help you, and Sylvia.”
She looked to Finn’s nearly naked form, then to Cora. “Not like this,” she said, crumpling to the ground.
“Lily!” Finn shouted as Kristian rushed to help her up.
“Get off me!” she said to Kristian, pushing him away.
Rollie moved to Finn’s side. “I’m so sorry I let it come to this. Thank you for being the son I truly needed,” he said as he inspected the lacerations on Finn’s wrists and ankles.
“We’re finished here,” he said, addressing Kristian. “For good.”
“I’m not abandoning our research,” Kristian declared, stepping toward Cora. “Before you showed up, I had things completely under control.”
With measured strokes that told Finn his father was trying to keep his anger in check, Rollie cut Finn’s cords. “As long as I’m still alive, everything on North Brother is under my control.”
“Except Cora. She’s become a feral, savage dog.”
“Kristian!” Lily said sharply.
“As wild as this island,” he continued without looking her way. “But I can change that.”
Rollie broke the last tie.
His fists already balled, Finn bolted upright. Hit by a wave of dizziness, he nearly fell off the rickety table.
Light and dark blurred together, and he swayed.
“Take it slow.” Rollie held him steady while reaching into his bag for a water bottle.
As Finn guzzled the room came back into focus. He lunged toward his brother.
A loud crack sounded, followed by a shriek from Lily, and Finn spun toward the noise.
The table had landed behind him on its side. Plaster dust filled his nostrils. Coughing, he waved at the cloud to disperse it and resumed his advance on Kristian.
“Finn,” his father said firmly, “we need to get Lily home.” He looked to Kristian. “Get them suits. Then start dismantling the onsite lab.”
Cora groaned, and all three men spun to face her.
Her eyes flew open and Finn registered fear in their blue depths. Blinking rapidly, she sat up, and the foil blanket fell away.
Grasping for words that could quickly pacify her, Finn concluded there were none and braced for her fury.
Cora looked down at her naked upper torso, clearly searching for a freshly
sutured incision. Her fingertips met the reddened injection site, and she raised her chin and fixed her stare on Rollie. “You promised,” she said in a glacial tone.
Instinctively, Rollie raised his hands to shield himself, then dropped them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that Kristian was planning this. He’s never gotten over Ulrich’s death. I underestimated how unforgiving and resentful he’d remain. That was my fault.”
“Ulrich’s death wasn’t my fault,” she hissed.
“Let’s not go there now.” Rollie shuffled backward. Beyond her, Kristian had slinked toward the corridor, where Lily had backed up against the far wall.
“I tried to stop him,” Finn said, embarrassed by how empty the claim had sounded.
Her focus didn’t stray from Rollie. “I suppose I’m now a carrier of Lyme,” she said far too calmly for the circumstances. “And God knows what else.”
“He didn’t inject anything,” Rollie said.
“But he did ‘take,’” she replied, rubbing the spot. Her emotionless tone, boiling with anguish beneath its surface, agitated Finn. He wanted her to know that he hadn’t been involved, but what good would that do now?
Shaking her head in apparent disgust, her hand drifted to her hip and her eyes narrowed. “You’d better give it all back.”
“Of course,” Rollie said, glancing at Kristian.
Cora didn’t follow his gaze. “Then get the hell off my island.”
“Kristian, go get the suits,” Rollie said without taking his eyes off her.
“I’m not—”
“Now!”
“Fine,” Kristian said curtly and left the room.
Wrapping the foil around her chest, Cora addressed Rollie: “We should have told him years ago.”
“It was the right call. I still believe that.”
“Sylvia doesn’t think so. According to Finn, she wants me to tell him now.”
Rollie turned to him, a questioning look on his face.
Finn shrugged. “Mom knows you never gave up your work.”
“How?”
Finn raised his hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
From the hallway, Lily scoffed. “She knew the same way any woman would: intuition.”
The Vines Page 34