by Megan Crewe
“I’m sorry, Justin,” I said, my voice cracking.
He turned and swiped at his eyes. He looked as sick as I felt. My own eyes welled up.
“Why did she do that?” he said. “I never asked her to.…”
“She was protecting you,” I said. “You didn’t have to ask her. No one made her. She just wanted to.”
He exhaled. “You don’t think—could she still be—”
I remembered the limpness of her body as she’d fallen, the blood on her back, her unblinking eyes. A fresh wave of nausea rolled through me. “No,” I said.
“Fuck,” he said. “God fucking damn it.” He hit out at the car door, his elbow and fist smacking the window, and then kicked it for good measure. I stayed silent, letting him have his rage. It was all I could give him.
The road we were following curved into a town, and my gaze caught on the welcome sign. I recognized that name. Connor had turned here. There’d been an ice-cream shop by a corner. I spotted the posters in the store window just in time, and took a right. I thought we’d kept on this new road for a while. Maybe a whole hour? But I was driving faster than Connor had been.
There’d been no signs of pursuit behind us. I hoped that meant Drew’s trick with the water had worked, and not just that the Wardens were taking some other route to cut us off.
The headlights lit the unmowed grass along the shoulder an eerie yellow gray. We sped past the twisting branches of a patch of forest and the vacant buildings along the main street of another small town. This one’s name didn’t jog my memory. I blinked hard and stretched my arms, one and then the other. The haze in my mind receded only a little.
“Justin,” I said, and hesitated. “I don’t want to ask this, but—I’m not sure I’m going to recognize all the landmarks on the way. Do you think you could climb up front and tell me if I miss anything you remember?”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I can do that.”
He clambered between the seats and slumped into the one beside me. Leo fumbled with something in the back.
“There’s water,” he said, passing a bottle forward. “And some snack bars. We’ll do better if we’re not starving.”
I choked down one of the bars and a half a bottle of water, passing it back and forth with Justin. He pointed to a sign we whizzed past, that advertised a cottage resort fifty miles ahead. “We take a left when we get to that place.”
“Thanks,” I said, and he gave me a stiff nod.
None of us spoke again until the turn, and afterward only to confirm the next few adjustments of our course. I could feel the empty space in the car that should have been Anika’s weighing on all our minds. There were practicalities we maybe should have been discussing, but it seemed, at least to me, that we owed her that period of silence.
When we finally reached the long driveway that curved through the trees toward the house by the river, my pulse kicked up a notch. I slowed, watching the high beams light trunks and bushes and the empty lane ahead of us. No other vehicles were parked there, or in the yard around the house. Still, I didn’t want to spend a second longer here than we had to. I eased the car to a stop, jumped out, and ran down to the river.
For a moment, in the darkness, I thought the cold box had vanished. A broken sob burst from my lips just before my groping hand touched the smooth plastic surface of the lid beneath the dock.
The water was just as icy as before. By the time I’d hauled the cold box onto the bank, I was shivering and the skin on my arm had numbed. I hoped that meant the last batch of snow I’d packed in there had stayed frozen well enough to last the rest of the way to Atlanta.
When I got back to the car, Leo was sitting in the driver’s seat. “I figured you could use a break,” he said. Justin had moved to the back again, so I got in beside Leo, setting the cold box by my feet.
“What do we do now?” Justin said.
“We get to Atlanta as fast as we can,” I said. “And then we call up Dr. Guzman and find out how to get to the CDC in one piece.”
Leo shut off the high beams as we turned the car back down the driveway. In the thin glow of the regular headlights, the world became a ghostly landscape of muted shapes and shadows.
“You know which way to go?” I asked.
“Toward Clermont, and then onto the 129 south. Keep an eye out for signs, okay?”
“Go right when you get to the end of the driveway,” Justin put in. “That’s the way we went when we saw the sign for Clermont.” He tipped his head against the window. Remembering walking this way with Anika, I guessed. That was the last time he’d had with her before the Wardens came. I wanted to say something hopeful, but I couldn’t find any words that would make what had happened the slightest bit better. And who was I to talk, after the way I’d misjudged her?
A short distance down the road, we turned onto a highway. Leo started to speed up, straddling the middle lanes. Several minutes later, we merged onto a freeway heading south.
We drove around a broken-down Greyhound bus, and later a stalled van. I scanned the darkness whenever we passed an exit, watching for lights. The cars in the training center’s parking lot might have been temporarily useless, but Michael had other allies in Georgia, people he could have sent our way by radio. We were hardly in the clear yet.
We were only a couple miles from the city limits when something glinted up ahead. “Stop!” I whispered, as if anyone would be able to hear us from that far away. Leo pressed the brake, bringing us to a quick but quiet halt. I stared into the blackness, and then rolled down the window. No sound reached my ears. But a moment later, I saw the glimmer of lights again. Someone was on the freeway down there.
“Time to move onto the smaller roads?” Leo suggested.
“Looks like it,” I said.
He turned the car around and drove back to the last exit we’d passed, which wound down into a suburban neighborhood. The houses were set so far back on their treed lawns that I could barely make out their silhouettes in the dark. The roar of the convertible’s engine echoed in my ears. The night around us was too quiet for comfort.
“If they’re just sitting and waiting, they’ll still be able to hear us when we get close to where they’re staked out,” I said. “And the farther we get into the city, the more people Michael might have in position. We should ditch the car. I think it’ll only be a few more miles to the CDC buildings. If you’re okay to walk?” I glanced back at Justin.
“I’ll manage,” he said shortly.
Leo drove the car up one of the long driveways, pulling it onto the lawn behind a row of spruces that would hide it from the road. For the first time, we opened the trunk. Tobias’s transceiver sat there, still in its plastic case. My heart leapt with gratitude for Drew. He’d also left a bag with more of the snack bars and some juice boxes, and a couple of the two-way radios the Wardens used.
I wished I’d thought to ask him for some sort of map. But I couldn’t feel disappointed looking at how much he’d managed to accomplish right under Michael’s nose.
“Hold on,” Leo said as I turned away from the car. He squirmed under it on his back and fiddled with something underneath. A thin stream of liquid pattered onto the grass.
“Emptying the oil,” Leo explained as he scrambled back out. “If the Wardens find the car, they won’t be able to drive it far.”
“I’d like to smash the whole thing,” Justin muttered. He settled for smacking one of the doors with his knee. Then we left the car behind, stalking across the vast lawns.
The trees and shrubs provided almost as much shelter as if we’d been wandering through a forest. I sent a silent thank-you to the Atlanta suburbanites for their fondness for greenery. The world around us was still except for the murmur of our feet over the grass and the rustling of leaves overhead. Justin found a narrow branch that had fallen by the base of an oak and turned it into a cane, adding a soft thump to the sound of our passing.
A thick-leafed vine crawled across the faces o
f most of the houses, looking like dark splotches of mold in the moonlight. The air was crisp, the breeze chilly. I started to hunch inside my sweater, missing my coat.
We’d made it four blocks from the car when a breathless shout broke the quiet. “Is anyone there? Is anyone—is anyone out there? Hellooooo!”
I jumped, and Leo grasped my arm. A string of harsh coughs carried from wherever the shouter was, somewhere behind us. My fingers tightened around the handle of the cold box. One more person the vaccine was coming too late to save.
We walked even more carefully after that. An engine rumbled by somewhere to our left, and we went right for several blocks before continuing south. Justin limped along at a steady pace, but I could tell from the wobble in his steps that he was getting tired. And we were losing the cover of night. A faint glow tinged the sky to the east.
It was time we figured out exactly where we were going.
I was studying the homes on our side of the street when a low growl reverberated through a hedge up ahead. I edged across the lawn and peeked over.
Several thin, furry bodies were pacing around the lawn on the other side. Dogs. As my vision sharpened in the dim light, I saw that most of them were gathered together in a pack, facing a lone husky that stood over a lumpy shape on the grass. It took me another second to recognize the thing they were fighting over. My gaze caught the bend of a knee, the flesh torn down to the bone. I grimaced, swallowing down the bile rising the back of my mouth.
It looked as if the husky had found the body first, and the other five dogs had come across it and wanted dibs. As I watched, a ragged mutt and an Irish wolfhound charged right up to the corpse. The husky’s growl deepened. It snapped at them, even though it should have known it was outnumbered. Its coat was matted and its body gaunt. When had it last found such an easy “meal”?
The dogs circled around, and then all five of them rushed at the husky. One sank its teeth into the husky’s shoulder. The husky rolled out of reach, blood spurting over its pale fur, before springing back at them. I looked away as the wolfhound grabbed it by the throat. The husky let out a pained squeal, and then there was the sticky, liquid sound of tearing flesh. Paws drummed the grass as the entire pack fell on its victim.
I turned, my lips clamped tight. “I think we’d better backtrack,” I said. Leo nodded, looking equally sickened.
As we hurried back the way we’d come and took a left at the first intersection, the images of the fight—what I’d seen, what I could easily imagine from what I’d heard—echoed through my head. The pallor of dead limbs, the angry pink of ripped flesh. Fur-clotted blood splashed across the grass. As red as the blood that had streaked Leo’s face after Chay had hit him, as Anika’s blood on her back, on the pavement of the Wardens’ parking lot.
In that moment, I couldn’t see the difference. That was what we’d become: packs of dogs fighting over a world that was already mostly dead. Maybe Michael had forced us to his level, or maybe we could have found a way to rise above it—it didn’t matter now. We’d stolen and threatened and killed, and I hated it. I hated so many things of the things I’d done these last few weeks.
What was the point in being human, in having brains that could develop vaccines and organize people across a continent, if all we did was behave like animals? This world, where all that mattered was being in the strongest, biggest pack—it wasn’t a world I wanted to save.
But that was all we had, wasn’t it?
My legs quivered, and I stopped. Leo and Justin stopped beside me. I closed my eyes, trying to picture us walking through the CDC’s gates and everything turning right again. But the scene felt like something from a movie, overbright and silicon hollow.
I knew what happened today wouldn’t stop Michael from wanting the vaccine. Once the CDC had it, he’d just send his Wardens after them in even greater force. How were the doctors going to get the vaccine to anyone who needed it, with Michael’s people waiting to steal it the moment they left their buildings? It would just keep happening, this spiral of violence and fear, on and on.
“Are you okay?” Leo asked, pulling me back to the present. I looked into his worried eyes, lit now by the rising dawn. We had to keep moving.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, and made myself start walking. As we meandered past another row of ruined houses, I tried to remember when I’d last felt truly hopeful.
In that town near the river, after we’d chased off the bear. We’d helped those people, and they’d helped us. For a few fleeting moments, we’d been able to enjoy the company of strangers. That had been my proof. We didn’t always have to be fighting, even now.
That was the world I wanted, one where we battled the threats that faced us together. Why wouldn’t Michael prefer a world like that over the one he was creating—for his daughter, if no one else?
Maybe he would. Maybe he just didn’t see how he could get it.
If that was the world I wanted, maybe I had to find a way to make it happen.
I almost laughed at the thought, it seemed so ridiculous. Me? Then the weight of the cold box shifted in my hand, and I glanced down at it, and suddenly my heart was pounding.
I was the person who had the vaccine right now—the one vaccine in existence as far as we knew. If that wasn’t power, what was?
A nebulous sense of purpose I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around rose up inside me. We had to talk to Dr. Guzman. If I could talk to her, if I knew exactly what she and the rest of the scientists at the CDC were planning, then I could decide…whatever exactly it was I needed to decide.
At the next intersection, I checked the street signs and started trying the doors of the houses as we headed down the block. The third hung ajar, the doorknob broken. Our quick sweep turned up no sign that anyone had come through recently. From the half-empty closets and the bare tabletops, I guessed the family who’d lived here had grabbed their most valued belongings and run for it.
We set the transceiver on the dining room table. A brief worry flitted through my head, that the Wardens might have stumbled on the CDC’s frequency when we’d broadcasted before. But if Drew was the main radio guy, he’d have known if they’d been listening to us, and he’d have told me. We’d just have to be quick, in case they were scanning the airwaves now.
I switched the radio on and lifted the mic. Every nerve in my body hummed. I didn’t know what I was going to say. Well, I’d have to figure that out as I went.
“Hello?” I said. “I’m attempting to contact Dr. Guzman or anyone else at the CDC. If anyone from the CDC can hear this, please respond.”
We waited, poised around the table. The static fizzed. I repeated the message. A minute passed, and not a single clear sound emerged from the speaker. The nervous anticipation seeped out of me. I set down the mic.
“No one’s there.”
“It’s really early in the morning,” Leo said. “We don’t know how many people are still at the CDC—they probably have to take breaks from monitoring the radio.”
I looked outside, at the pinkish light spreading across the sky, and squashed down the feeling of desperation that had started to claw up through my chest.
“Right,” I said. “We’ll try again in an hour.”
Justin pushed his chair back and limped into the kitchen, where he pawed through the cupboards. Then he stepped back into the dining room, his arms folded in front of him.
“I can’t just sit around here waiting,” he said. “I’ll go check the other houses, see if I can find a map of the city.”
He’d only just finished speaking when he swayed on his feet and had to snatch at the door frame to catch his balance.
“Justin,” I said, “you need to rest. You’ve put enough strain on your leg already. And we don’t know how hard it’s going to be just getting from here to the CDC.”
“I have to do something,” he said, his voice ragged. “I’ve been so useless, and I’m not—I can’t—”
He trailed off, looking as if he’d lost the thr
ead of what he wanted to say. Looking just plain lost.
“You are not useless,” I said. “You’ve done ten times more than most people could have with both their legs working properly. And I need you to be okay so you can keep being useful when we head out. I’m not letting you take some stupid risk when we’re lucky any of us are here at all.”
He ducked his head. “It wasn’t luck. It was Anika. I should have been the one looking after her, and she—It should have been me.”
He swayed again, and Leo caught him.
“It shouldn’t have been anyone,” Leo said. “Anika must have done it because she wanted you to be alive. Let her have what she wanted. If you owe her something, it’d be that.”
Justin glanced from Leo to me, and his jaw tensed.
“Leo’s right,” I said before he could argue more. “And if you don’t go lie down on your own, we’re going to tie you to the couch. You can hardly stand up, Justin. I don’t care how else you spend your time, but I don’t want you moving for the next hour. Got it?”
He glowered at me the way he always did when I refused to let him do something stupid. It occurred to me that it’d been a while since we’d really been at odds. The standoff didn’t last long. He closed his eyes, and a miserable resignation came over his face. Sighing, he pulled away from Leo’s grasp.
“Fine,” he said. He hobbled over and threw himself down on the couch, propping his head against the padded arm. It was only a few seconds before his eyelids drifted shut again.
I set my hands on the table, trying not to look as if I needed them to hold me up, even though I pretty much did. My own head was heavy and my body exhausted, but my mind was whirling. What if no one answered the next time we called the CDC? What if no one answered all day? It had sounded as if they were well protected, but if the Wardens had gotten in, what hope did we have left?
I pushed myself upright, as if I could walk away from those worries. At least there were a few things I could control.