“But we need to know what’s going on inside the city,” I finished.
He nodded. “But Cricket, I don’t want you anywhere near him. Nina and Dylan are already getting close to Ryder and Key. They’ll fish for all the information we need.”
I wasn’t sure I could stay away from West. I needed to know the truth of why he was here. And to be honest, I was just plain curious about his life. But I also knew that Caine was only trying to look out for me. “Okay. I’ll be in touch.” I stood and started for the door again.
“Cricket, if you decide to disappear for a while, I’ll understand.”
He was giving me permission to flee. It was what I was good at, after all.
“Protect yourself. West’s mom and any doctors she’s told inside the city must know that you’re alive—and they know that you’re their best hope of survival if the virus becomes a problem.” Caine knew this because he had once been one of them himself—before he helped me to flee New Caelum. He had been an infectious disease doctor for New Caelum, and one of the best of the best. Yet, like me, he’d ultimately chosen not to be locked inside.
“Then we’d better hope it doesn’t become a problem.” I took a look around Caine’s living quarters. The fact that he chose to live in a basement apartment said a lot about his personality, his own desire to hide in darkness. “Do you have enough samples from me?”
Caine directed his tired eyes at me, but said nothing.
“You need more.” He hadn’t taken blood from me in a while.
He stood, walked toward me, and placed his hands on my shoulders. “We’ll find a way.”
“I’ll meet you at the lab. It’s going to be harder to sneak away, though. Dax is watching me closely. He’s worried I’ll leave again.”
“He knows you well.”
“I was always destined to hurt him.”
Caine nodded. “Take the south exit. I’ll make my way to the lab by midday.”
I lingered by the door, debating whether to question Caine about the problem that haunted us every time we began working on a treatment.
“What’s on your mind, Christina?”
I squeezed my eyes tight. He never called me by my real name. “What if the virus mutates again?”
“A definite possibility. Let’s hope that never happens.”
~~~~~
I snuck away while Caine sought to distract and delay the others. I passed by the vegetable gardens, which were thoroughly picked over; the settlement had harvested every vegetable and grain we could, and having experienced the first frost last week, a month earlier than we had hoped, the growing season was over. As in years past, we could only hope and pray that we’d stored up enough food and resources to get us through the winter—especially since our winters had gradually become more and more harsh.
In the park across from the gardens, children played hopscotch and swung on swings—some made of wood, others made of tires. All of the rusted metal structures had been removed the year before, after being deemed too dangerous for the small children. It struck me funny how the adults in our community considered some old piece of metal dangerous, when more than ninety-nine percent of our population had been wiped out by a single illness. If we had survived that, you’d think we could survive a rusty swing. Why didn’t we just live as the invincible people that we apparently were?
I stopped to watch one girl who was swinging by herself. Her dark brown hair blew in the cool breeze as she leaned her head against the rope with a look of melancholy. She was about the same age I had been when I was told I would never see my parents again. Twelve was too young for that kind of loss. To never again see the two people who loved me more than any others, who made all of my important decisions, who held me when I had even the slightest scratch.
There had been no one to hold me when I was struck by an illness that would forever change who I was.
Just when my feet began involuntarily walking in the direction of the sad little girl, a woman passed in front of me. The girl smiled up at her, then climbed off the swing and into what I presumed to be her mother’s arms. I stopped myself, realizing that this little girl was not me. She had someone—and hopefully she always would.
I could see my breath as I turned and made my way down the broken street and out through the back gate, looking back several times to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Caine had long ago given up on trying to keep me caged inside the settlement. And since all the other settlements were out west, on the opposite side of New Caelum, the area we called home didn’t see a lot of crime. Except for a random incident here and there, there just weren’t enough people in the area for anyone to cause any serious trouble.
That was, until the New Caelum people showed up. Now, I wasn’t sure what was the bigger threat—the visitors, or what their presence meant.
I still hadn’t gotten to hear the story of how Dylan managed to forgive Ryder for tasering him. But Dylan had never been one to hold a grudge. In fact, we were a pretty forgiving society by nature. Most of us, anyway. I probably would have knocked Ryder unconscious the first chance I had—and if not, then Dax would have done it for me.
I smiled briefly at the thought before a tinge of guilt took over. It was my fault Dax had become so attached to me. We had both taken advantage of each other’s vulnerability and loneliness.
It was a quiet morning as I strolled through one of the warehouse districts on my way to the hospital; it was several blocks from Boone Blackston, outside the settlement walls. Caine had managed to set up a completely sterile lab there, dedicated to studying the virus, a possible vaccine, and treatments. For some reason, he continued to act like we were still fighting a disease that had been gone from our society for six years.
Of course, who was I kidding? Caine’s behavior was no odder than my own. Since the world had been altered so drastically, we’d all developed our own particular obsessions and insecurities. I spent most of my nights listening for New Caelum’s incinerators. Even last night, I’d snuck out of the Biltmore Estate, leaving Dax and West asleep on the floor, climbed up to the roof, and stared up into the mountains, listening for any sign of movement outside New Caelum. And for any sign that the city was once again awake in the middle of the night, burning all evidence of the return of a deadly disease.
Fortunately, I’d heard nothing. No incinerator, and no additional trucks leaving the east gate.
I knew Caine and I were feeding each other’s paranoia. I wanted to believe that the likelihood of the virus being back was ludicrous; maybe West was simply here because his mother finally told him the truth—that I was alive when I fled New Caelum. But why would she do that? Why now? And why would he and the others risk exposing themselves to the outside world without good cause? Surely they knew they were putting their own immune systems at risk by leaving their sterile environment and mixing with the poor communities on the outside. What was so important that they would take that chance?
My thoughts ping-ponged all over the place, racing through so many questions that I would never be able to ask West. I couldn’t tell him who I was—I knew that much. No one could know. But I did miss him. He had been my best friend once. He had stood beside me when the only other important people in my life were stripped from me.
Questions assaulted me. What kind of person was West now? Who was he becoming inside the city? A politician like his mom? He had always been into computer programming. Had he continued down that path? Maybe he—
Voices echoing off the sides of buildings stopped me mid-thought. I froze. No one from the community should be out here; they rarely ventured this far beyond the walls.
I moved forward quietly. At the next corner, I poked my head around. Just down the street was one of the trucks from the city—it could have been the one Ryder drove, or maybe it was the one that had chased West and me the night before. No one was in it, but I could still hear the voices. They seemed to be coming from a building directly beside it—a warehouse with a large open door. Whoever it was, the
y weren’t making any effort to be quiet.
I inched closer, my back up against the side of the building. There were two male voices. They were yelling at each other. “Let’s just go back to the city. We have to get help. She needs help.” The voice sounded panicked. “What do we do, West?”
I moved closer, edged right up to the open doorway. Ryder and West were facing each other, arguing. Obviously Caine hadn’t found them.
“I don’t know!” West sounded just as desperate as Ryder. “I can’t reach Mother on the PulsePoint—she’s not answering. I don’t know what to do. We can’t chance how security will react when we pull up to the gates with her like that.” He clasped his hands behind his neck and paced. Then he turned back to Ryder. “When did you first see signs?”
“This morning after breakfast.”
“How about you? How are you feeling?”
“I’m fine.” Ryder sucked in a deep breath. “I feel fine.” He was starting to sound even more hysterical. “You don’t think—”
“I don’t know what—” he yelled, then stopped himself. “I don’t know what to think,” he said in a much lower voice.
They both turned away from me. They still hadn’t noticed me standing in the doorway.
Then I saw what they had turned toward. It was Key. She was lying on her side on the ground, curled up on top of some sort of blanket or sleeping bag. And she was shaking uncontrollably. Oh no.
I stepped inside and cleared my throat. The warehouse was one of those buildings that reminded me of old movies where the mob ran stolen car operations. It smelled of damp mildew, and it was large and drafty. And currently, it was completely empty, so Ryder’s and West’s voices echoed off the walls.
“What’s wrong with her?” I said. I crossed my arms and leaned against the opening. My heart was gradually picking up speed, like a marathoner looking for a pace to settle into. I knew exactly what was wrong with her.
“Oh, great. Just fantastic.” Ryder turned and tried to cover Key with a blanket, but without getting too close to her or touching her in any way.
“Cricket, you can’t be here.” West stormed toward me, but stopped more than ten yards away. “Caine told us to leave, and that’s what we plan to do.”
I stepped forward. “Is that right? You plan to leave?” I nodded toward Key, who was shivering in the fetal position. “Is she sick?” I knew she was, but maybe it was a simple flu. Maybe, although I suspected not. I knew the signs better than anyone. Not only had I suffered through the illness myself, I had nursed so many others through it. I had watched them die right in front of me.
West held a hand out, stopping me from advancing and blocking my view of Key. “She’s just tired. She hasn’t slept well since leaving the city. She’ll be fine when we get where we’re going. You need to leave.”
“West, maybe she can help,” Ryder said.
“She can’t!” West answered quickly. His face was cold, hard.
My head spun out of control trying to remember the exact steps for quarantine that our entire settlement had memorized. Time was of the essence. We needed to isolate any and all people who had potentially been exposed to the virus, and then block off all locations where these people had been.
I stared at Key’s quaking body. She would need medical care before her fever escalated to the level of seizures. “I can help,” I whispered.
“No, you can’t,” West insisted.
How was I going to convince him I could help without exposing my identity? I had to take drastic measures if we were going to isolate the disease and have any chance of helping Key survive.
I lowered my backpack to the ground, then dug through it until I found a bottle of simple fever-reducing medication. I pulled the bottle of water from the side pouch and held out both the water and the pills to West.
“Just set the items down and step away,” he ordered.
I started to do as he instructed, but then I realized that I was the only person in the room who couldn’t get the virus. I looked up at West, and I almost lost my breath when I saw the fear etched in the grooves of his forehead, the redness in his eyes. “No,” I said quietly.
He cocked his head. “No? What do you mean, ‘no’?” He studied me, and I resisted the urge to turn the scarred side of my face away from him.
“My pills. My water. I’ll give them to her. And you’re going to let me help the three of you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I’m trained for this. I know how to deal with the possibility of an infectious disease infiltrating our society again.” I was lying, but if I could do something to keep this disease from spreading—keep West from getting sick… “Besides, she might just have the flu. The three of you have been inside a world devoid of most bacteria and all viruses for six years. Your immune systems probably aren’t prepared to fend off what for us would be a common cold.”
“She has a point.” Ryder crossed his arms, his hand shaking like a junkie, distraught with the possibility that his girlfriend was dying. “Please let her help us, West. You said yourself that you think the doctor and others inside this settlement know where your stupid Christina is hiding. Maybe Cricket can help.”
I narrowed my stare at Ryder. Who was he calling stupid? But I remained silent while West assessed the situation. It seemed like he was taking forever to make up his mind, and I knew I was running out of time. Each minute that ticked by increased the risk that our settlement would be exposed to the possibility of another outbreak. And this time, perhaps no one would be left.
“What’s it going to be, West?” I wiggled the bottle of water in front of him. “Let her suffer more than she needs to, or let me make her a bit more comfortable while we assess what we’re actually facing?”
“Fine.” He stepped aside. “Set the pills in front of her, and then step away. She’s strong enough to reach for them.”
I walked a wide path around the two boys, then knelt beside Key so that I could see her face. Her teeth chattered. She looked up at me as I set the bottle of water close enough for her to reach. “Hey, Key. Can you open your hand? I’ll drop the pills.”
She did as I instructed. She awkwardly put the pills in her mouth, then grabbed the water bottle. Too weak to raise her neck, she simply squirted some water in her mouth and rolled her head backward to swallow. She choked slightly, but managed to swallow the pills. Water ran down her cheek and into her hair. “Thank you,” she managed.
“I’m going to get you help, Key. Do not let yourself think the worst. You might just have a nasty bug.” I rose and faced Ryder and West. “I need for the two of you to tell me why you’re so sure this is the Samael Strain.” When they just stared at me, I repeated, “Tell me why you think Bad Sam has returned.”
They traded glances. Caine was right: West didn’t trust us. Why would he?
“Why did you come here?” I asked. “You risked our lives and your health when you left the safety of New Caelum. And now you’re taking a huge gamble just staying in the same room with Key.”
“So are you,” West pointed out. “Why would you do that?”
“I’m the one asking the questions now, because not only have you risked your own lives, but now I have to tell my people—mothers, fathers, their children—that they must put themselves into quarantine. We have to watch each other in fear and paranoia while we wait out the incubation period of a virus that those people hoped to never again see in their lifetime.” My voice grew louder and more panicked with each word.
“I’m sorry,” West said softly, looking down at his feet. I was confused by his sudden retraction.
“You’re sorry? For which part?”
He lifted his head, and his eyes narrowed in on me. And in three quick steps, he was on me. He fiddled with something at his waistband, and before I knew what was happening, he’d pulled a Taser from his holster and jabbed it into my side. The electric jolt immobilized me, and I collapsed into his arms.
He slid a hand
to the small of my back, and another under my neck, supporting my head as he lowered me to the ground. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you tell your people.”
chapter ten
West
The look on her face when I drilled the Taser into her ribcage would haunt me for a long time. And apparently, I had overdone it, because now she lay unconscious. What had this scarred girl ever done to me except try to help me and my friends? And I had rewarded her with a fifty-thousand-volt electric shock. What kind of person was I becoming?
“Grab her feet.” I slid my arms under hers and lifted her upper body while Ryder grabbed her feet. “We need to relocate before her friends discover us.”
“What about Key?”
“There’s a hospital a few blocks away. I passed it yesterday. We can hide the truck, and hopefully there’ll still be some supplies to help keep Key comfortable. We’ll try to call my mother again from there, and we can go out at night to hunt down some food and water.” I needed to reach Mom. I had to know how Willow was doing and find out if the virus had spread. I glanced at Key over my shoulder as we carried Cricket. God, I hoped she didn’t have Bad Sam.
Ryder and I put Cricket in the front cab of the truck. When we went back inside the warehouse, Key was pushing herself up, first to her hands and knees, her arms having obvious trouble even with her lightweight frame. “I’ve got it.” She stood and held her hands out to the side, trying to gain some sort of balance. Her eyes were watering. Her face flushed. “I can ride in the bed of the truck. As long as I can lie down, I’ll be fine.”
“Key, let me help you.” Ryder stepped closer to her.
“No! Don’t come close. We have to minimize your exposure.” After grabbing Cricket’s water bottle, she limped weakly outside, and was barely able to lift herself into the back of the truck before she collapsed.
I scooped up Cricket’s backpack, and Ryder and I climbed into the cab.
At the hospital, we found an underground garage and parked the truck. The hospital looked to be in even worse shape than most of the rest of the buildings: windows shattered, doors busted open. I figured the hospital must have been ravaged by desperate looters during the outbreak. The odds that there were any supplies left weren’t good.
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