by Angel Lawson
I pull him into a tight hug, pushing past the shock of him being here. His body is warm, his shirt smells like the soap from PharmaCorp, but his skin carries the tinge of sweat. I revel in the weight of his hands against my back, happier to see—feel—him than I expected.
“Give me a second,” I say, stepping away and waving my arms around, seeking the wall. It takes a few tries but I manage to find and push the button that flips on the small sconce by the door. The room brightens and he’s standing by my bed.
Moving closer, I see the torn spot on the hem of his shirt and the red scratch near his jaw. I reach for him, running my finger down the hot wound. “What happened? Why are you here?”
He sits on the edge of my bed and I have a flash of being at Fort Shaw, sharing bunk beds and plotting our escape. I didn’t trust him then. I’d just learned his story and how he’d followed me on my father’s orders. But now, when I sit next to him our outer thighs touch, and I can’t express how happy I am to see him.
“Before you left The Fort, Wyatt and I came up with a system.”
I frown. “What kind of system?”
“It was the only way I was willing to stay behind—to leave you,” he says, pushing my hair behind my ear. “My work in the lab is important and the job out here is important, but he promised to let me know if anything changed, he’d get a message to me. I came right away. It took me two days to get down here.”
“You walked?”
“No. Not the whole time. Sneaking out of The Fort is harder than you may realize.”
I can imagine. “So that was you at the gate? Why didn’t you just ask for me?”
He shakes his head. “I had my orders.”
I glance down at my feet, trying to absorb everything. Wyatt knew before Paul told us his story that something major happened at the school. Something he felt required Cole, a scientist, to risk everything to come to the compound.
I exhale, at the same time feeling worse and better. Better because Cole is capable and I can depend on him. We have the same motivation. I never know where Wyatt stands, including being shocked to know he’d been concerned enough days ago to send for Cole.
Worse because…well, something isn’t right. The testing, the sickness and sending in bombs to cover it up. Whoever is behind all of this seems determined, and now Cole is mixed up in it.
“Thanks for coming.”
He plants a kiss on my temple, but he fidgets nervously and says, “I’m glad you think so.”
“Is there a reason I wouldn’t be?”
He sighs and runs a hand over his scruffy blonde hair. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“It’s about PharmaCorp. About your sister.”
I have no idea what to even assume. With Jane, it could be anything. “What?”
“Since you’ve been gone I managed to get back on your father’s good side. I think he feels guilty about everything we went through. I’ve had access to everything the lab is working on. Full clearance.”
“That’s awesome.”
“Yeah, the problem is I found out way more than I was expecting.”
“About what?” I ask, not liking where this is headed.
“The vaccine. It’s not what we think it is.”
Chapter 19
I’m on my feet in an instant, pacing. Cole quietly suggests I lock the door. I nod and follow his instruction. I don’t want the others to hear what he has to say. Not yet. The worry I’ve been carrying for weeks—months—about my sister’s work comes crashing down. I rub the spot on my arm where I got my own vaccination and shiver.
“What has she done?”
“When your dad let me on the team, I finally got my hands on some of the real testing that the lab had been performing for the last couple of months. Even before we got to The Fort, Jane and your father had been working on a vaccine.”
“We knew they were trying to replicate the results he’d been working on with me, right?”
He shakes his head. “Yes, but I’ve learned PharmaCorp is always working on more than one project.”
“Cole, what has she done,” I ask again, this time barely a whisper.
“There are two vaccines. The Eater Virus Innoculation-1 and Eater Virus Innoculation-2.” He pins me with a look. “The first is an actual vaccine. If someone who has the EVI-1 is exposed, then the vaccine should fight off any parasitic infection.”
“And the EVI-2?” I ask.
“It’s a bit more complicated. The second inoculation saves an exposed person from the full threat of the parasite. People maintain mental and physical functions but are not immune to the actual infection.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighs, not out of exasperation but out of regret. I can hear it in his exhausted voice and see it in the lines on his face. “EVI-2 manipulates the virus, turning the parasite into a functioning part of the victim’s brain. It burrows into the part of the brain that incites violence and rage. It manipulates the amygdala, which triggers aggression and fear. But ultimately, the parasites form lesions on the frontal lobe, impairing independent thought and decision making, which keeps them malleable.”
“Cole…” I press. He’s getting a little too science-y for me.
“Basically, she’s creating a controllable group amped up and wanting to fight. They’re perfect workers—soldiers really, waiting for the trigger to pull. Then they’re fighting machines.” I shake my head, unbelieving, and he adds, “I know it sounds crazy.”
I scoff. “What it sounds like is Jane has built herself a super army, controlled and dictated by her—and has been for months.”
I continue my pacing, trying to absorb everything he just said. It’s a lot, but knowing my sister and her need for power, I’m not surprised in the least. If anyone could build an Eater army, it would be her. Psychotic bitch.
Finally I ask, “Which vaccine did she give us?”
“According to the records, you were given EVI-1. As was everyone else at this compound and most people at the Fort.”
“Then who is she targeting for her army?”
“That’s an answer I don’t have, but the experiments have been going on for months—if not before the original wave of deaths started. I suspect she’s gathering data from the testing we all get when we go through processing at The Fort or places like this, and then sorting people into specific groups.” His eyes narrow. “Jane is fully entrenched in biological warfare. She’s not trying to save the world. She’s trying to control it.”
“Holy shit.” I finally stop pacing and sit in the middle of the room, unable to do anything but try to process. I blink at Cole and spot his tense jaw. Nope. It’s not working for him, either. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know. What can we do?
“We can stop her.” I will stop her.
He moves to the floor and takes my hand. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do. The vaccines are already out there. This isn’t the only medical compound she’s created. Her operation is huge. Also, Chloe is still at The Fort. I can’t risk Jane going after her.”
“Does Walker know?” I swallow. “Wyatt?”
“I don’t know how much they know, if anything. I did do some digging on Wyatt. He’s definitely a favorite of your sister’s. She did a lot of blood work on him. I’m just not sure to what end.”
Army guys that follow directions, with a quick temper and extraordinary skill. I can’t help but think about Wyatt. He’s got a little bit of each of those—except it doesn’t totally jive. I know he’s got independent thoughts. He brought Cole here. I know he’s in control. I’ve seen it.
Haven’t I?
Shaken even more, I ask, “Then who do we trust?”
He presses his forehead against mine and his hands are warm and strong. I know the answer before he says it, but listen anyway, needing to hear the words. He doesn’t fail me when he replies with the only answer I need.
“Each other.”
The team waits in the main room of the bunker, drinking instant coffee and eating MREs they found stacked high in the cabinets. Cole and I exit my room together, and I can’t decide if I’m more annoyed by the implied “walk of shame” or the fact any or all of these people could be an enemy. Add trust issues to post-apocalypse gifts my sister has given me.
Parker and Jude look skeptical when they spot Cole behind me—I don’t blame them, they have no idea who he is. Wyatt doesn’t look up from whatever he’s studying on his lap but Davis gives him a short, friendly nod.
I give a quick introduction, explaining that Cole came from The Fort to check on Paul and the others.
“How is Paul today?” I ask. Jude volunteered to stay with him overnight, although I’m rethinking leaving anyone alone with him for long. We don’t know what vaccine he was given or how he’ll react if triggered somehow. Cole says it’s possible that the infection is dormant.
“Fever’s still down,” Jude replies. “And he drank some water.”
Cole nods and squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll go check on him.” He disappears down the hall.
“He’s a doctor?” Jude asks.
“Sort of. A researcher that worked with my father in Raleigh. He was in med school when shit hit the fan, and has some other experience in the field.”
Parker nods. “What does he think about Paul and the others at the school?”
“He thinks it’s likely they were exposed to a volatile vaccine. He wants to keep an eye on it.” I try to keep my voice even. “We should all be careful.”
“He thinks the vaccine is what caused the outbreak at the school?” Davis asks. I can’t decide if he’s playing dumb to appease me or what. Damn this trust thing.
“A vaccine, or whatever it was they were testing.”
I decide not to say anything further but I feel Wyatt’s eyes on me. He and I need to talk, that’s for sure. He brought Cole here for a reason. He is either trying to placate me or he’s trying to wake me up.
Our eyes meet and I realize it’s likely he’s doing both.
*
I get my chance an hour later when I follow Wyatt into the tiny bathroom just off the kitchen.
“Seriously?” he says.
“I needed to talk to you. In private.”
“Yeah, well, I’d like to take a piss, you know, in private, too.”
I make a face. The word piss is gross. “I only need five minutes.”
He snorts and shakes his head. “You always ‘only’ need five minutes.” Not one to remain idle, he moves to the sink and opens the medicine cabinet. He plucks a packet of shaving gel and a razor from inside before turning on the water.
I close the toilet lid and sit down.
“What do you know?” I ask.
“About what?”
“About why you sent for Cole. About Paul and the strange illness. About the school. About who bombed them.” I take a deep breath. “About everything.”
He glances down at me while lathering his face with a blue gel that quickly turns white and foamy. “You always overestimate my security level. I’m not as all-knowing as you think I am.”
“You may not know everything going on at The Fort, but you have suspicions.”
His hands splash in the water and he expertly glides the razor across his face. I have a quick, wistful memory of my dad from years ago and push away the feeling before it engulfs me whole.
“Did you know that I grew up in Maine?” he asks suddenly.
“No, actually, I figured you were from down here.” Of course, everything he’s ever told me could be a lie. I’ve considered that before.
“Yeah,” he says. The razor scrapes away another strip of hair. “I grew up in this tiny town. Completely idealistic, like something you’d see on TV. To me, it was small and claustrophobic. Everyone knew one another. Our lives were mapped out ahead of us. My dad worked for the post office. He hated it, but it was a good job and he figured me and my brothers would all do the same thing or something similar. Something stable and mind-numbingly boring. Of course, the idea of working in a tiny, brick building sorting mail for thirty years made me scared—and angry.”
“I can imagine.”
“It didn’t matter, though. I knew what I wanted to do—but I’d just never known anyone that had done it before. Not by choice, anyway.”
“What was that?” I ask.
“My classmates rebelled in the most typical ways. Wearing all black. Dressing goth or whatever-the-hell you call it. They consumed tiny tabs of acid and later, ecstasy, while holding poser raves in the basement of their parents’ 1960s ranch-style houses, pretending they were fighting the system. They were pathetic then, even before the E-TR virus ran rampant. They were trapped in that god-forsaken town just like I knew they would be.” He swished the razor through the water, leaving trails of deflating foam and tiny hairs. “While they faked their rebellion, I was actually rebellious. I’d been obsessed with the military since I was a kid, which was absolutely unheard of in my uber-liberal town. All I wanted was to become an elite member of the Special Forces. I read about it, dreamed about it, watched every movie I could get my hands on about it. I had no real clue what Special Forces really meant, but I enlisted in the Marines the day after I graduated from high school and never looked back.”
“So you went in and kicked ass, huh?”
“Not really,” he says to my surprise. “I was middle of the pack. Average at running, shooting, and combat. The weird thing was that all I needed to be was average. That’s what they’re looking for. Someone trainable. Someone with discipline. They don’t want the best. They want to mold you into being the best.”
“So the Marines taught you how to be a bad-ass, ninja, fighting machine?”
“Yeah, along with some skills I picked up along the way.”
I’m not really sure why I’m getting the Wyatt info dump right now, but there has to be a reason. I sit patiently and wait—even if it’s killing me not to ask a million questions.
“All the little things that made me average helped me excel when I finally got a combat assignment. I led three invasions on terrorist cells. Three successful campaigns. What I learned at the end of my time there is that I am very good at war.”
“So that’s how Jane found you. She wants to work with the best.” And it means Jane thinks we’re at war. But with who? The Eaters? The government? Each other?
“When I came back from combat and was discharged, I was used to a highly structured lifestyle. I immersed myself in sharpening my hand-to-hand skills. Learning martial arts. My reputation was out there and I would get the occasional call for a consulting job.”
I raise an eyebrow and ask, “Consulting?”
“Mercenary.”
“Ah. Right.”
“I was called in to provide security all over the world. To help handle conflicts and smaller political skirmishes. To organize and orchestrate defense against coups or other potential warfare.” He splashes water over his now-smooth face and wipes it with a threadbare towel. “I was also contacted by a private agency interested in studying my skills. I didn’t know the full context of it but I was told it was to assist in training future soldiers—something I could get behind. I lost friends in those campaigns. Good men and women. I’d do anything to keep that from happening. So I signed up and went through a series of tests—blood and physical. They wanted to know everything about me. My DNA. My family background. I was pushed to my limits physically and with combat simulations. When we were done, they asked if I would be willing to lead an operation in Africa—the military wasn’t being proactive with the Boko Haram kidnappings and the agency wanted to try their methods. We were to remove the victims and infect the radicals with a new biological agent that incited them to kill off one another. It was perfect for this isolated group out in the desert. Everything went according to plan. The girls were extracted. We poisoned the soldiers, watched them turn into soulless canni
bals, and eliminated any survivors.”
My stomach drops to my toes as the reality of what Wyatt is saying hits me. He was at ground zero. He participated in unleashing the E-TR virus on society. I wave of nausea rolls over me, and I fight back the urge to vomit. When I gather the courage to look at him, he’s avoiding my gaze.
“As usual, my campaign was successful, but what I saw in that desert shook me, and I’ve seen some really bad, fucked-up stuff over the years. I came back to America, put my check in the bank and took off for the mountains, hiking and camping away from civilization. When I finally emerged, that’s when I realized something had gone wrong. Somehow the virus got loose. I hadn’t done my job properly. I’d allowed this poison to infect the whole world. Like, destroy the entire, freaking world. Or at least that’s what I thought.”
He finally looks at me and it’s clear as day what happened. Jane. She did this. She sucked him into her world. Her horrific, virus-infecting, end of civilization apocalypse.
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
He’s leaning against the sink with his arms crossed over his chest. I stand and face him. I’m so angry right now. At him. At Jane.
“So you came down out of the mountains, found out about the infection, and went back to work for her?”
“I went back for answers,” he grinds out. “She assigned me to track you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were the answer. The key to the vaccine. Finding you was the way to fix everything. Plus, you’re her sister. Believe it or not, it means something to her.”
For the first time since I’ve known Wyatt, during all those days and nights together traveling, driving across the farmland in the smelly truck and running for our lives from Erwin, he looks ashamed. Vulnerable, even.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his hand moving to touch my chin. “I didn’t know she was using me to make another vaccine—something worse.”
“The EVI-2?” I ask, but he doesn’t have to reply because it all clicks into place. Cole said Jane was developing an army to work and fight for her. My eyes travel over Wyatt, taking in his taut, muscular chest, the lean, bulging biceps. His hands are quick. His movements sure.