Contagion

by Contagion (retail) (epub)

  “Don’t think that.” His hand tightens on mine.

  “So, here’s the deal. You can go.” There is yellowy-green deception in my aura now, but he can’t see auras, can he? I lower my eyes, look away. “But first, we have tonight. Together, alone.” I look up again, and my eyes meet his.

  “Alone?”

  “Callie’s promised to stay away.”

  His hand lets go and traces a path up my bare arm. I shiver. I long so much to reach, to touch him inside like his hand touches my skin outside. I sigh.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes are warm hazel, almost green in the late-afternoon sun. Do they see more than I think they do?

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try.”

  “You touch me, like you just did, but I can’t touch you. I don’t mean like this”—I raise my hand to his cheek—“but inside. It’s like I have an extra sense I can’t use. As if you’d said to me, Close your eyes and never look at me. Keep your hands away and never touch me. It feels like that.”

  “Having you—having anyone—in my mind scares me,” Kai says.

  “It could be amazing. To touch, like this.” I hold out my hand, and he holds out his, and I link our fingers together again. “And this,” I say, and kiss him, then pull back and smile. “And inside our minds too, at the same time. To touch all ways, at once.”

  All ways for always. But that can never be.

  “It makes me feel like I’ll lose control.”

  “It’s not a loss; it’s to share, even more. You have to trust me.” I study his aura and see something else. “You don’t like to lose control, do you, Kai? Is that why you always stop? Why we never go too far?” I can feel the color rise in my cheeks, even as the way he looks at me makes everything spin with want and confusion, at the same time. Why are we talking about this when we should be saying goodbye?

  “It hasn’t been easy—when you kiss me like that, when we’re alone like we are now. But you’re only sixteen, Shay. And you’ve been through a lot.”

  “We both have.” And there is more to come. “You don’t have to protect me, not anymore.” You can’t.

  Kai stares back at me, then slowly nods. “And what if today is all we have?” He takes my hand, pulls me to my feet—kisses me, then tugs my hand, to go with him.

  Somehow I walk with him to the door, even as everything is tumbling so much inside that I can’t believe I can still put one foot in front of the other.

  And up the stairs, into the bedroom we’ve shared—but not shared, at the same time. Not wanting to be apart, but sleeping—fingers touching—at arm’s length.

  He stands, just looking at me, then reaches out a hand, clasps mine. He pulls me closer, leans down, and kisses me once, gently.

  “I do trust you. Go ahead.” He holds my hand to his temple.

  “Are you sure?” I say.

  “Are you?”

  To answer, I kiss him again and again, and then, just as our auras deepen, let my mind touch Kai’s.

  He knows I am here and he is there—that we are separate and together at the same time—and this time, he doesn’t push me away.

  Shay? he says inside, his thoughts entwined with mine.

  Yes?

  I love you.

  I caress him, inside and out. It’s the first time he’s said it. Here, in his thoughts, he can’t hide the truth.

  I can, but this truth I show him:

  I love you too.

  Love and want and desire for me and only me are clear and shining in his thoughts, in his aura; his hesitation is finally gone. It is tempting—so tempting—to give myself to him and have this now, but how can I add that to the list of betrayals?

  I kiss him. Then—instead of loving him—I betray his trust and break my promise. I soothe and sing him to a deep sleep like a siren that promises a sailor love but dooms his boat on the rocks.

  And then I write him a letter.

  I explain it all. That I am a carrier. That it has to be this way. That he should go to the cave and get a boat home—make sure that everyone knows the real cause of the epidemic and how it is spread.

  Without me.

  I don’t know if he’ll understand; I don’t know if he’ll hate me.

  I hope not.

  I kiss him one last time, and he smiles in his sleep. I put the letter on the pillow next to him, there for when he wakes up. It won’t be for a long time.

  I stand in the doorway and drink him in with my eyes—something to hold and keep close in my memory, for as long or as short as I may have left. The way his hair curls at his neck. The softness of his features from sleep makes him look younger—a softness the world doesn’t often see. But I do. The rise and fall of his chest as he breathes.

  Then I slip down the stairs, barriers up as much as they can be. If Callie is nearby, I don’t want her to sense me or follow. I know her better now, from living her memories of underground: there is nothing she hates more than being locked up, contained. I can’t let her come with me when that is about the best I can hope for once the authorities know I am a carrier. Besides, she belongs with her brother.

  And I step out into the night.

  I walk fast, the way worked out and memorized earlier.

  I’m strangely calm. Or maybe numb?

  I know what I’m doing is right. In addition to the letter I left for Kai, I also posted an explanation to Iona on JIT. I had to tell her that survivors are carriers, that she must tell everyone she can in case no one will listen to me.

  And that it was my fault that Lochy died. I hope that one day she’ll forgive me.

  I walk quickly in the dim light, and the miles go by. Soon the sun is on the rise, and this seems somehow surprising. How can it, when my heart is breaking with every step I take away from Kai?

  I’m nearly there now; I can see the air force base in the distance.

  I force myself to walk forward a step at a time. The numbness has gone, to be replaced by fear: deep, bone-shaking terror that strikes through me and my resolve and makes me want to run, to hide.

  There’s a bored-looking guard at the entrance to the base, and he’s not wearing a biohazard suit. I suppose that as far as they know, they’re the only ones on the island, so why would he need one?

  He’s not very alert. I have to wave before he notices my approach. He looks startled to see someone here.

  I keep my hands where he can see them and make myself walk slowly forward when all I want to do is run away.

  I stop when I judge I’m close enough to be heard, my trembling hands forward in a gesture of surrender.

  He seems to hesitate, then starts to step away from his position. Toward me.

  “Don’t come any closer!” I call out. “I’m a survivor of Aberdeen flu. I’m a carrier.”

  He stops abruptly.

  “I also know what caused the epidemic. I want to help stop it. Let me help.”

  His hands are tight on his gun.

  Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me…

  The words go over and over again in my mind like a prayer.

  CHAPTER 34

  CALLIE

  THERE IS A LOUD CRASH ABOVE when I return the next morning, and I rush upstairs.

  Kai is cradling his hand. His knuckles are bloody, and there is a hole in the wall.

  He’s alone, and there is a letter in his hand.

  Where is Shay?

  I rush around the house, then go outside. I will find her, if I have to check the whole island.

  So fast that all I am is a dark smudge, a blur. I skim around the edges of the island, then move in, bit by bit.

  I cover it all, including the air force base, but she’s nowhere. I can’t sense her; I can’t hear her.

  How can this be?

  I always feel where she is if we are close enough to each other—there’s nowhere on this island she can get far enough away that I shouldn’t be able to trace her.

&nbs
p; Where is she?

  Did she trick me? She asked me to stay away to give her and Kai one last night together alone. Did she wait for me to leave and then put Kai to sleep, so neither of us could follow her, and then go and turn herself in?

  I head to the air force base again to search in more detail. There’s a guard at the entrance. I rush past him and through every part of the base—quarters, meeting rooms, canteen, supplies—and then on to the airfield. Hangars, planes, technicians doing this and that inside them. She’s simply not here.

  It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I need to be with her! If she told them everything, surely the first thing they’d do is go and find Dr. 1?

  I need to be there when they find him.

  Horror grows inside me as I realize—it’s even worse. Without Shay, no one can hear me. No one can see me.

  She said she was my friend, but she tricked me and left; she knew that without her, I might as well be trapped under the island. I’m unheard. Unseen.

  Alone.

  She lied. She wasn’t my friend at all.

  Anguish twists inside me, a deep well of pain that grows and grows, and I scream it out as loud as I can. But for all anyone can hear, I might as well be the wind.

  Where are you, Shay? I need you!

  But she doesn’t answer.

  She’s gone.

  CHAPTER 35

  SHAY

  PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME, please don’t shoot me, please…

  My heart beats so slow I almost think fear has made it stop.

  Instead, it is time that has stilled. What should be a rush of blood in my veins pauses, waits.

  A bird’s cry seems to hang in the sky above me, the notes separating out and then joining back together. If I must measure the rest of my life in these small things, then they will go slow, as slow as possible, to extend my time on this earth.

  Please don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me…

  The soldier’s horror and indecision batter against me—a kaleidoscope of sensations painted on waves of something like color and sound that make up him, as he is now: his Vox, Dr. 1 called it. And his fear is not just of the disease, but of me. But this wars inside him with what his eyes see before him: a girl, hands held forward, on her knees in the dirt.

  Yet who would blame him if he pulled the trigger?

  Please don’t shoot me, please…

  The temptation to attack his aura—to stop his hands and make him fall—almost overwhelms me. But if I did, what would the point have been in leaving Kai and coming here? The authorities must listen to me. They have to know that survivors like me are carriers, that the epidemic started here, underground on this island. If I attack their guard, why would they listen to anything I might say?

  Though maybe they already know. Maybe the air force base on this Shetland island is part of the cover-up, and this is all for nothing.

  Please…

  His hands tighten on his gun.

  My head is swimming. I’ve stopped breathing but can’t bring myself to take a breath until I know what he will do.

  His aura shifts; it deepens with resolve. He’s made a decision.

  Eyes still on me, one hand moves away from his gun as he reaches down for a radio.

  I drop—almost collapse—to the ground, filling my lungs with air in a rush. I can hear the murmur of his voice but not the words.

  Be brave, Shay. Be brave like Kai would have been if he were here.

  Now that my heart is beating in normal time again, it thumps too fast in my chest, and my breathing is shallow and quick. Exhausted from days of not sleeping much and then walking through the night, I lie down on the ground and look at the calm, blue sky above me. My barriers are up in case Callie has noticed I’m missing, is searching for me, and that makes the world around me feel remote.

  I focus inside instead, on slowing and deepening each breath. And despite my fear, exhaustion has my mind drifting in that weird place that comes just before sleep.

  Does Kai know yet that I tricked him, that I’ve left?

  Maybe he’s still asleep.

  I imagine his eyes closed, lashes dark on his cheek, breathing gently, a half smile of pleasant dreams on his lips.

  And then my dream self is there, fingers in his hair, stroking his bare chest where his heart beats under his skin.

  Click.

  My hand stills. What is that?

  Click. A harsh, jarring sort of sound, like metal on rock.

  I’m confused, and then I come back to here, now—to my body lying in the dirt.

  It’s footsteps. Someone is coming. I push sleep away and sit up.

  Walking toward me are two men and one woman, all in head-to-toe biohazard suits. Execution squad or welcoming committee? They’re remote, muffled by the barrier of their suits—their auras are still there but half-strangled.

  The woman takes the lead.

  “Good morning. I’m Dr. Morgan. And you are?”

  “Shay McAllister.”

  “I understand you’ve told our sentry that you are a survivor of the Aberdeen flu. And that you are a carrier.”

  “Yes. That’s right.”

  “How do you know you are a carrier?”

  “Everywhere I’ve gone, the epidemic has followed. I didn’t know; I realized after. I could show you on a map where I’ve been and tell you when, and then you’d see.”

  She listens, nods; what I can see of her face behind the transparent front plate of the helmet of her suit is guarded and giving nothing away, but it is there, in her aura. They knew—or, at least, suspected—as much.

  “Why did you come to Shetland?”

  “To trace the cause of the epidemic. It wasn’t from Aberdeen at all; it came from here. Underground.”

  They exchange glances. A ripple of alarm passed through them when I said “underground,” but I can’t read why.

  “You’d better come with us,” she says. She hesitates, then holds out a hand.

  I take hers in mine, scramble to my feet. The suit is cold, metallic, the form of her hand vague underneath its glove. Any warmth her hand may have doesn’t penetrate.

  “We don’t have enough suits to cover the base, so we need you to put one on before we go in. All right?”

  I notice then that one of them is carrying a suit over his shoulder. He passes it to me.

  “I’ve guessed the size about right, I think,” she says, and shows me how to step into it. When it closes over my head, I have to fight to not struggle, to not push it away. It snaps shut and seals. She explains the controls and how to breathe inside it. The filtered air tastes dull and removed from the island.

  We walk down the hill. I feel clumsy, like the earth under my feet is too distant to walk on with any certainty.

  As if I’m separate from it and will never be part of it again.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my agent, Caroline Sheldon. Thank you to Megan Larkin and Emily Sharratt for their editing wisdom, and to everyone at Orchard Books and Hachette Children’s Group for their enthusiasm and hard work. And to all my publishers and readers around the world!

  A few years ago I was invited to the Stirling Off the Page festival in Scotland, and combined this with a writing retreat at Lake of Menteith and a school event in Callander. When I started a new story the next year, the places I’d visited were in my mind. The settings puzzle for Contagion fell into place with two more trips to Lake of Menteith and then Killin, and finally Newcastle.

  Killin and Loch Tay are such beautiful, peaceful places—perfect for dreaming, perfect for plotting. The Old Smiddy in Killin was a lovely place to stay and write, and thanks to everyone there for answering my endless questions about the area.

  I needed somewhere remote also, and Shetland, with its oil terminal, seemed perfect. Thanks to Karen Murray and Lyndsay Stone for coming along to Shetland, driving me about, and braving the many and varied hazards of research!

  Thanks to Jo Wyton, with her geology hat on, an
d to Addy Farmer, Paula Harrison, and my writing friends everywhere—it’s not a contradiction to say that you’re my kind of crazy, and help me stay sane.

  Thanks to Iona, Euan, and Duncan for coming to so many of my events, from the very beginning! And for their names.

  And first, last and always: thank you, Graham. I couldn’t do it without you—I wouldn’t be me without you either.