She was right. I’d asked for a 96-hour timer. Four days. From what West had told me, and from what I knew about the course of the virus, that was about how long Willow had left to live. I would do what I could to help her—I would give them Caine’s research and my antibodies—and then I would get out. There was no point in staying longer.
Zara continued. “I’ll plant the bomb tomorrow. Hopefully before you’ve even entered the city.”
I shook my head. “What? No way. You’re not planting this. I’ll get it in there.”
Zara sat back in her chair. “Oh yeah? You really think Westlin Layne is going to help you plant a weapon of mass destruction inside his own city?”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “No, you’re right. What am I thinking? This whole idea was crazy. I can’t go through with this.”
“What? Yes you can. That’s not what I meant. Getting leverage over them was a great idea; you just need help to pull it off. You don’t want to get trapped inside that city, Cricket. Do you know what they’ll do to you when they discover that you are, in fact, the sole survivor of Bad Sam?” Just in case I was living in denial, she went ahead and told me. “They will hook you up to an IV and drain you of your blood.”
“I know. I know that. You’re right. This is the only way I can be sure to ever come back out of New Caelum.” And I would never let that bomb detonate. No matter what. I wasn’t capable of such destruction.
I just needed to make the people inside believe that I was.
“So we agree that I’ll plant the bomb?” Zara said.
“Fine,” I agreed. “How do you know so much, anyway? And how do you know all these systems? You couldn’t have been much older than me when you left, and you weren’t there for very long.”
“I’m a few years older than you. And my parents were on the original team who designed the PulsePoints and the computer network that runs everything inside New Caelum. I knew my way around those systems before they even existed.”
“What happened to your parents? Are they still inside?”
“They’re dead.”
~~~~~
The plan seemed cruel, but as long as no one tried to hold me hostage against my will, they’d have nothing to worry about. And the threat of spreading the virus throughout New Caelum was an incredibly powerful insurance policy if things went wrong.
On my way back to West, I pulled the PulsePoint from my pocket. Staring at it, I thought of the many times I’d wanted to turn the device on and see the picture of West and me from the day before I got sick—the day before everything changed. That was the day West took me to the roof above the president’s wing.
The day he kissed me. We were only kids. But I felt very grown up that day. And like nothing bad would happen to me ever again as long as West was in my world. God had taken my parents, but He had given me West.
That’s what people had told me… that God sometimes took the good ones to be angels in His kingdom. Of course, the problem with that was that my parents weren’t dead—at least, not that anyone knew. God hadn’t taken my parents to be angels to look over me; my parents had been cast out by the people of New Caelum, forever shut off from their home—and from me.
I had kept the PulsePoint with me all these years. I never thought I would have a reason to use it, but I had kept it anyway, knowing it was my link back to West. And it was my link to the city I had tried but failed to leave behind.
Now West was here, and the feelings I’d had for him way back then and the feelings I’d imagined over the last six years were real again—maybe even more real now that we were adults. But they couldn’t be. I couldn’t let the feelings I’d had as a child resurface now. We weren’t children anymore. My mission was to help Willow and then get out. Give the city a way to cure the virus, so they wouldn’t have a reason to exit the cocoon they’d built for themselves. And so I could exit with a cure of my own.
~~~~~
As soon as I reached the estate, I knew that something felt off. The sounds of the area were different—more awake than they should have been at that hour. I scanned the area, but saw no signs of anyone following me.
The sky was just starting to show glimmers of light on the horizon. “West,” I whispered. He was probably awake and thought I had left. Not to mention he wouldn’t know his way out of the estate without falling through some of the traps set by Mother Nature during six years of neglect.
I picked up my pace. Down the stone steps, through different overgrown paths, always changing the routes I took to get to my various hiding places.
When I arrived at the balcony, my heart plummeted. West was gone.
I let out a breath, staring at the blankets left beside the fire. Only embers were left now. I fell to my knees. West was used to Christina leaving him. Why should Cricket be any different?
Now what? I buried my face in my hands and massaged my forehead with my fingers, thinking. Could I enter New Caelum without West? Why not? It wasn’t like I had given him any reason to protect me inside the city. I would have been on my own anyway, with or without him. So if I didn’t need his help, why did his disappearance bother me so much?
Because I would miss him. I had longed for my best friend over the years, and seeing him now…
It had made me feel things I never thought I’d get the chance to feel again in this lifetime.
chapter sixteen
West
When I woke, Cricket was gone. I had obviously misjudged her. I had been sure she was planning to willingly help me; she wanted a cure to Bad Sam as much as I did.
I tracked her steps all the way back to the settlement gate. There I found her speaking with the same ill-tempered girl I’d seen her fight with the first day I arrived here. Just as I arrived, the two of them turned and disappeared inside the settlement. I waited, not knowing what else to do. To say I was relieved when she reappeared would have been an understatement, and when she started heading back toward the Biltmore, I breathed a lot more easily.
At one point, she stopped and pulled the PulsePoint from her back pocket; she stared at it like she might turn it on. But Christina’s PulsePoint would only work for Christina, I reminded myself. There was no way it could work for Cricket. Not even the best computer geeks could hack that device.
So why did she carry it around with her? Not to mention that if she did turn it on, New Caelum would immediately know where she was. Or rather, they’d know where Christina’s PulsePoint was. And they would undoubtedly send someone after it, assuming that Christina was the one operating it.
I’d rather that didn’t happen. Though we were headed for the city, anyway, I wanted to be in control of when we arrived and how we approached them, not ambushed by another search party.
Cricket replaced the PulsePoint inside her back pocket and took off toward the estate again. I followed, at a discreet distance, as she went all the way back to the balcony. Still hoping to gather more information about what she was up to, I hung back in the shadows and watched.
To my surprise, she fell to her knees by the cooling embers of the fire and buried her face in her hands.
Why? I thought she had deserted me, but it seemed she was upset that I was gone. Why would Cricket react that way? I had tasered her, tied her up, and questioned her unkindly about someone she was under no obligation to hand over to me. She had protected Christina, and a part of me admired her for that.
I thought about how Cricket had shown up and offered to help Key, even when Key clearly had a fever that could have been—and, we now knew, was—Bad Sam. Why would she have done that? Why would she have risked exposure, unless—did she already know she was immune? She hadn’t mentioned it, though, and she had suited up any time she’d entered the quarantine chambers.
And what had made her suspect that I might be immune to the virus? I didn’t remember her taking blood from Ryder before he came down with the fever. I was the only one she tested, so she must have had some particular reason to suspect what she’d f
ind.
Why me?
As I stared at the back of this girl and thought about the selfless things she’d done for me and my friends in the past day, I remembered one more thing she’d said to me. She’d told me that she had what I needed to cure my sister. That was right before she stuck me with a needle and distracted me.
But now her words sank in. Ryder and I had mentioned Willow.
But we had never mentioned that Willow was my sister.
The world around me began spinning out of control. My eyes focused on the back of Cricket’s head—her blond hair. It couldn’t be…
I ran through a mental list of Bad Sam symptoms: high fever, excruciating headaches, joint pain, and bleeding sores…
… especially on the face and neck.
My heart was beating out of control as I stared at Cricket. I couldn’t catch my breath. “You will live to regret strapping me to that table and not letting me help Key,” she had said. Until now, I didn’t understand why she’d thought I would regret carrying out my mission and doing whatever I had to in order to protect my friends and locate Christina.
My backpack slid from my arms and hit the ground.
At the sound, Cricket started. She stood, and turned to face me. “Oh—I thought you had left.” Her voice came out soft and slightly shaky.
“No… I…” I stepped to the side and looked out over the balcony toward New Caelum. The sky was becoming lighter, but the cloud cover still made it difficult to actually see the buildings. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t look at her.
“Are you mad? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’ve suffered insomnia ever since…”
“Ever since what?” I asked quickly, turning to face her, because even though I couldn’t look at her, I couldn’t not look at her, either.
“Since… well… for a long time. Since I stopped sleeping inside the settlement.”
“Where did you go?”
“Um… I just took a walk. I needed the air and time to think. I can’t believe I’m truly going to go inside New Caelum today and breathe your stale, recirculated air.”
I studied her face. Her eyes were pointed to the ground, hidden from me, and she was hiding her scarred cheek with her hair again.
She was lying to me about where she’d gone. Of course she was; why would she trust me after I—
Oh my God, I’d tasered her and tied her to a hospital bed. What kind of monster was I?
I stepped closer to her, placed a crooked finger under her chin, and lifted.
She jerked away and stepped backward. “What are you doing? Don’t touch me.”
I retracted my hand. “I’m sorry. I…” Though she pulled away, I saw something in her eyes: she was in there, deep within those dark blues. How had I not seen it before?
Because she was constantly hiding her eyes and her face from me. Except now…
“Your hair… it was darker.”
She squinted up at me like she was trying to solve a puzzle, then her face morphed into some sort of understanding. She backed up another step. “You know.”
I don’t know how much time passed with us just standing there staring at each other.
“I don’t know what to say,” she said in the softest of voices. “Somehow, I think I’m supposed to apologize.”
“What do you have to apologize for?”
She looked away while hugging her arms across her stomach. “I’m sorry we led you to believe Christina was dead, but…”
“But?”
Her hard gaze met mine again. “Christina is dead. The naive twelve-year-old you knew is gone forever. She died when she faced the worst fight of her life.”
“How did you…” I could barely speak it. I had tried to imagine what it had been like for her, but I couldn’t. “How did you survive?”
“Caine. I wouldn’t have survived without him.”
“Where did you go? Have you been here just outside New Caelum all this time?”
“I bounced around some. But yes. Mostly here.”
I took a step toward her and raised a hand—then I dropped it to my side again. I so badly wanted to touch her. The vision of her lying motionless in my arms after I’d tasered her flashed in my head. I closed my eyes. “You were nothing but nice to us, and I hurt you.” When I looked at her again, she only stared back at me. “Will you ever forgive me?”
“I will help your sister. You don’t need my forgiveness.” Her voice was emotionless, cold. Had I hurt her beyond repair? “I will make sure New Caelum is virus-free. That’s what they must want. And you will make sure I leave New Caelum with the same cure for my friends.”
“I will help you.” Although I wasn’t sure how. I had no idea how I would be received when we returned to New Caelum. After all, I was supposed to be under a mandatory quarantine. Is that why they had cut off my PulsePoint? Would they even let me back inside the city? They might lock me up when I returned, even if I was being groomed to govern New Caelum.
I looked back at the girl standing before me. The Christina I had known had been full of light. But the Cricket I was learning to know now was shadowed by darkness. What kind of life had she witnessed during the last six years?
She was wrong about one thing, though. I did need her forgiveness.
chapter seventeen
Cricket
I had to focus. It didn’t matter that West knew who I was. He didn’t know me. We had been kids the last time we were together. He didn’t know how the illness had changed me. He had no clue what I’d gone through. Sure, he could see the scars on the outside of my skin, but he had no idea about the extent of the scarring I’d suffered on the inside.
The air was still, cool, and crisp as we left the shelter of the estate that morning. We had a purpose, but it was a purpose that had little to do with getting to know each other again. Darkness hung around West and me and it had nothing to do with the clouds blocking the sun.
We followed the paths leading into the mountains—paths I’d hiked many times before with Dax, Dylan, and Nina. Some were well worn, while others—ones we hadn’t frequented—were thick with overgrown brush. I wondered where Dax was now. I knew he could take care of himself. But this outside world made us all vulnerable, each in different ways, and I hated that I had hurt him.
A nervous sweat broke out across the back of my neck from a combination of our fast pace and my anxious thoughts. I removed my outer layer—a black wool winter pea coat I’d found in an old department store a year ago after one of my final growth spurts. Dax had been with me the day we’d gone on a spree to find some new clothes for the people of our small community. And now he had run, which is what he and I seemed to do best—run from trouble, run from discomfort, run from each other when times were tough.
“You’re quiet. Are we going to talk at all?” West glanced over his shoulder at me. His brown hair flipped up at his ears—he was in need of a haircut—and I mentally squashed my initial urge to play with it. He’d grown into a good-looking man, and I found myself wanting to know more about him. I didn’t know him any more than he knew me.
Though I knew that he was desperate enough to save his sister that he’d taser a girl he’d just met.
What was I supposed to say to him? Nothing sounded good inside my head, so I stuck with the basics. “What’s it like inside New Caelum?”
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s sleek and clean, and at times, it’s like growing up in a hospital. The people inside feel safe. But I think we like that clinical feel, because it assures us that Bad Sam is kept out.” He laughed a little, but I suspected it wasn’t because of something funny. “All citizens are required to report their temperature twice a day through their PulsePoints. There’s very little sickness. But by taking temperatures, the medics are able to catch many illnesses before they spread.”
“Sounds cold and controlling.” And exactly why I was thankful I had escaped that world the second the opportunity had presented itself.
“It can be
, but it’s been all right. I’ve been happy enough. I’m with Mother and Willow.” He cast me a sideways glance. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s okay. You were lucky to grow up with family. Tell me more.”
“Well, everyone has their own responsibilities inside the city,” he continued. “Once children reach seventeen or eighteen, they’re steered toward what their permanent job will be within the city.”
“What are your responsibilities?”
He turned and walked backward, facing me. “I’m the president’s son. I’m responsible for behaving the way my mother expects me to, and walking a straight line.” The beginnings of a smile touched the corners of his lips, but faded.
I cocked my head. I could see in his eyes he wasn’t telling me something. “And do you? Behave the way your mom expects you to?”
This time, he gave a full-on grin. And it was exactly the smile I remembered. Six years hadn’t taken away the dimple on one side of his face, nor had he lost the mischievous glint in his eye that he got when he wanted to cause trouble. “Let’s just say I learned how not to get caught.”
I wanted to return his smile, to laugh like this was some sort of game. “And what happens this time? When you get caught? What happens to you when you walk back into New Caelum?” Could he really just walk back into a city that monitored every move and change of temperature in its citizens?
His cheeks fell. “You’re right. Things are different. And I’m not even sure how they’re different, since I’ve had no communication with anyone on the inside.”
“You still haven’t told me how many of your citizens have Bad Sam. The truth this time.”
“What do you mean? Only one. Willow.”
This time I stopped. “You’re not serious.”
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