So, he obviously knew about Bad Sam and its reappearance. “Is Willow still alive?” I asked.
Through the mask, I saw the man raise both eyebrows. “Yes.” The tone in his voice did very little to convince me though. “She’s alive,” he added, as if the additional words would reassure me.
I took a couple of slow steps toward him. “Look, whoever you are, I brought several vials of the Samael Strain with me. I also brought information that will help Dr. Hempel find a treatment for Willow and a cure for Bad Sam. But we’re running out of time.” I could only hope Dr. Hempel was capable of doing what Caine claimed he could do.
The man leaned away from me. “We have your bag. Why would you bring samples of the virus here? Don’t you realize the danger you’ve put yourself in, not to mention everyone else inside New Caelum?”
I stared through the mask into his eyes. “Are you not listening to me?” My voice escalated. “I’m here to see Dr. Hempel. Give my bag to him, and when he’s ready to hear what I’ve come here to tell him, tell him to come see me. If this stupid city has any hope of surviving another outbreak, you’ll take me seriously.”
Perhaps it was the crazed look on my face, but the man’s eyes suddenly widened, and he backed up toward the door. As he reached for the handle, I stepped even closer to him. Then I sucked in the biggest breath I could and blew it all over the front of his mask.
When he finally managed to open the door and practically fell through it, I yelled, “I want to speak to the president, too!”
He pulled the door shut behind him.
I turned and walked back toward the bed. I didn’t even hear the door open again behind me.
“Hi… Cricket, is it?”
I whipped around. Justin stood just inside the door—and without a hazmat suit.
I cocked my head. “You’re taking quite the risk, aren’t you?” I asked.
“I’m immune to Bad Sam.”
I raised an eyebrow. So, some people inside New Caelum knew how to test for immunity? Interesting.
“And I’m pretty sure you’re immune as well, am I right?”
I didn’t answer.
He walked over and picked up the clean clothes from my bed, then thrust them at me. “If you want to see Dr. Hempel, you will shower and put these clothes on.”
“And if I don’t? I’d like to see the president first.”
“Funny. I don’t see how you’re in any position to make demands. You’re inside our city now; you’ll do what we tell you. And if you cooperate, we’ll see about allowing you to live… inside our city walls.” And if I didn’t cooperate, the threat of death was clear. He spoke like New Caelum was some sought-after prize, like I had chosen to come here.
I knew I wouldn’t be welcomed, especially since they didn’t know who I was. But I also knew that they wouldn’t understand the timer at the bottom of my backpack. Not yet. And even if someone did figure it out, they wouldn’t be able to stop it without my help. Nor would they locate the bomb that I hoped Zara had successfully put in place. “Fine, but if you don’t come back and get me soon, not only will you risk Willow’s survival, but you will put all those not immune to the virus inside New Caelum at risk of contracting the disease.”
He narrowed his gaze, pausing with one foot outside the door. “What do you mean by that?”
I crossed my arms, attempting to hide the shakiness in my hands. “You didn’t think Caine and Christina sent me here without a well-designed insurance policy to make sure I got back out, did you?”
chapter twenty-four
West
After agreeing to Justin’s terms, I was granted entrance to New Caelum and delivered directly to a decontamination chamber, where nurses ensured no trace of a virus could have survived anywhere on my body. And as I waited for the shower to scrub me clean, I could think of only one thing—Cricket. Was she close by? Were they treating her kindly? Had they put her through a more rigorous decontamination than me? Though they were treating me like a diseased outsider, I was still a member of leadership, so they knew better than to act abusive. But Cricket had no such protections.
If anyone has laid one thoughtless hand on her, they’ll suffer. Why couldn’t she have just waited and let me bring her in? Now I had no control over the situation.
Once I was decontaminated, showered, and dressed in my normal black and charcoal gray government clothes, I was covered in a full hazmat suit and escorted to the Presidential Suite, my home for the past six years.
Mother was waiting for me when I arrived, sitting on the edge of a chair. Her feet were crossed at the ankles, and her hands fidgeted in her lap. Her face and eyes were void of any emotion. She, too, wore black pants and a gray sweater.
“Mother?”
She stood. “Remove that suit. I know you don’t have the Samael Strain.” The guards behind me left without comment.
Once I had cast the hazmat suit aside, Mother crossed to me, sliding her arms around my neck and gripping me in a tight hug.
I peeled her away and held her at arm’s length. “Where’s Willow? How is she?”
I had been forbidden from entering the isolation wing where I presumed Willow was still being held. Given that Willow’s disease had probably progressed to a more advanced state, I wasn’t surprised by the restricted access.
Mother smoothed the collar of my gray shirt. “She’s doing as well as can be expected, but she’s very sick.” She dropped her eyes and seemed to sniffle. “They’re taking good care of her.”
She backed away from me and fidgeted with a ring on her right hand. She seemed unusually unsure of herself. When she looked up, her brows lifted in question. “So, you found her?” Her lips lifted at the corners like she was excited about something.
“Found who?” For some reason, I felt the urge to play dumb.
“Christina, silly.” She slapped at me playfully, a gesture I’d never known her to do in the past. “Tell me all about her. Was she beautiful? Did you recognize her? Did she recognize you?”
I cocked an eye. “What is wrong with you?”
“What do you mean?” She pursed her lips. “I want to know more about Christina. Willow will be so excited to see her again.”
The more Mother spoke, the more I suspected something was off. Her voice was almost gleeful. She was happy, airy. Nothing like a woman worried about her only daughter dying.
“I never found Christina, Mother, but I did find someone who could help us. Someone who knows Christina.”
“I don’t understand. Justin told me—”
“Since when do you speak to Justin about anything?” Though he was technically her vice president, she had stopped communicating with him months ago, and had even talked of taking on a new vice president. She had been pretty confident the council would support such a change.
Now she backed up and returned to her uncomfortable chair. She stared down at her feet, muttering something under her breath.
I kneeled in front of her and slid a hand up to her cheek. “Mother, what is wrong with you? Did someone give you something? To help you relax, maybe?” She was acting drunk, but it was early in the day, and Mother only drank an occasional glass of wine with dinner. She never overindulged.
“What?” Her voice rose an octave. “Of course not. That’s absurd. I am the president of New Caelum. I do not need the help of any drugs.”
I stood up and backed away a bit. “Okay. So what did Justin tell you about Christina?”
“Just that she called in on her PulsePoint, and that he was sending men out to get her. I just assumed she was somewhere inside the city—freshening up. I mean, can you imagine being out there all this time with such filth?” She squinched up her nose and shuddered.
Actually, yes, I could imagine it very well. “Well, Justin was mistaken,” I said. He had to be. Cricket would never have admitted to her real identity. “I did bring a girl back to New Caelum. She was sent to us by Dr. Caine Quinton. It wasn’t Christina, though.”
&
nbsp; Mom’s shoulders rotated back at the sound of Caine’s name. “Dr. Quinton? You saw him? How is he?” She smiled politely while picking a fallen hair off of her sweater.
I crossed the room to check the liquor cabinet. Not that that told me anything. Mother always had a well-stocked bar for entertaining the council. “He was fine, Mother,” I said absentmindedly, then caught myself. “No, he wasn’t fine.” I faced her again. “He’s trying to run a settlement and build a healthy community.” I purposely left out the bit about our own Ryder and Key delivering Bad Sam to the people of that settlement.
“Well, of course he wasn’t fine. What did he expect?” She waved her hand as if dismissing both Caine and me. “He chose his path. He chose to play the hero and devote his life to helping the poor souls who were unlucky enough to find themselves stuck on outside. Instead of…”
“Unlucky?” I’d never heard my mother speak about those on the outside in that way. “You act like the people on the outside were just victim of some lottery system. Like they had a glimmer of hope in the beginning and just drew the wrong straw.”
“Oh, whatever.” She stood and walked to me again. “I’m just so happy to have you back. And with Christina.” She smiled. “Now, I’m going to have my bath before dinner. Justin will be here to eat with us.”
I started to tell her again that Christina wasn’t here, but I knew my breath would have been wasted. Not to mention that I’d have been lying.
~~~~~
“Get up, West.” a man’s voice barked, jolting me from my sleep. I grunted, my hand massaging the crick in my neck, and the voice sang, “I have a surprise for you.”
I’d fallen asleep sitting up in this very uncomfortable chair, waiting for my mother to finish bathing. Waiting for anything to happen, really. I knew that once I’d reentered New Caelum, I’d be at the mercy of the city’s rules. I’d been sequestered until I could be debriefed—and until it was proven that I didn’t have Bad Sam. Now I stared into the dark, almost black, eyes of Justin Rhodes.
I stood and backed away from him, rubbing a hand over my face in attempt to shake the fog from my head. I knew I’d lost a lot of sleep during the nights I’d been away, but I couldn’t believe I’d let myself fall asleep without knowing the fate of Cricket.
“What’s wrong, West? You’re acting a little nervous.” Justin undid the buttons at his wrists and began to roll his sleeves up to his elbows.
“I just woke up to you in my face, Justin. What did you expect?” Asshole. “Why? Is there something I should be nervous about?”
“Well, let’s see. You left the city without permission. For all we know, you’ve been exposed to Bad Sam multiple times. And then you ask to come back?”
Justin nodded toward two guards who stood just inside the door to our suite; they had masks over their faces and surgical gloves on their hands. At Justin’s nod, they left their posts by the door and crossed over to me.
I instinctively held my hands up and backed away. “What’s going on?”
“Just a precaution, my friend.”
One guard held my arms behind my back while the other rubbed a device across my forehead. “It’s normal,” the guard said—referring to my temperature, I supposed. He then pushed my shirtsleeve to above my elbow, tied a band around my upper arm, and proceeded to extract blood from my vein. After he had placed a piece of gauze over the injection site, the other guard released me.
Justin clapped his hands together. “Great. As long as your blood test comes back negative, it would appear that you are virus free.”
“It will.” I concentrated on keeping my breathing even and saying nothing that would upset Justin. “I’ve been careful, and I’ve shown no signs.” Not to mention, Dr. Quinton had determined that I was immune to Bad Sam.
“Also, I expect you to regularly submit your temperature through your PulsePoint now that you’re back.”
A door behind me opened. I turned to find my mother, dressed in a simple black dress. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun at the base of her neck.
“I thought I heard voices.” She breezed over to Justin and gave him a peck on the cheek, then wiped the lipstick from his skin.
“Hello, Ginger, darling.” Justin turned his head and spoke against her lips. When he faced me, he smiled. “I guess your mother told you?”
I gawked at their display of affection. “Actually, no, she must have left something out.” I pulled down the sleeve of my shirt; anything to keep my hands busy.
“Your mother and I are getting married.”
“Why?” It was all I could think to say.
“Westlin,” Mom scolded. “Don’t be rude.”
Willow and I hated this guy. My mother hated him.
“It’s okay, darling.” Justin hugged Mother close. “We’ll give West a minute to get used to it.”
“Was that the surprise?” I asked, remembering Justin’s irritating voice when he’d first entered. Mother didn’t seem the least bit worried that a deadly virus was sweeping through her daughter’s body, and I had to find a way to bring the conversation around to what we were going to do about discovering a cure.
“No. Actually, the surprise should be here any minute.” Justin glanced down at the mini-PulsePoint on his wrist, then smiled at me. “You’re going to love this.”
He walked to the entrance of our suite and with the click of a few buttons, the door slid open. “Ah. Here she is now.”
Cricket rounded the corner and approached the entrance to the suite, flanked by two guards. At the sight of her, I nearly lost my ability to breathe. She was dressed in a sapphire-colored satin dress. Her blond hair was pulled back and smoothly tucked into some sort of braid. Even the hair that usually hung against her cheek was braided along the right side of her head. She fidgeted like crazy with her hands, and her face tilted to the right.
She was beautiful, and my wildly beating heart was testament to that fact. However, that wasn’t the surprise; it was the color she wore that was the surprise.
“Welcome, Cricket,” Justin said. “This is my lovely fiancée, President Ginger Layne.”
Cricket held out her hand to Mother. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Her voice was even and seemed void of emotion.
“And of course you know our Westlin.” Justin gestured my way.
She turned to me, and that was when I saw the spark of pure, unfiltered anger in her eyes. She held out her hand to me. “Nice to see you again, West. And so soon.” The second sentence held an especially sharp edge.
I wrapped my fingers around her hand and squeezed, holding on to her palm long enough to feel a slight tremor in her handshake. When I looked up at her face, what I saw tore me apart. Though she was making eye contact, she was still leaning her head to the side, attempting to hide her scars. I could have punched Justin in that moment.
I swallowed hard. “Yes, it is very nice to see you again, Cricket.” The coolness of her hand warmed under my touch, and I didn’t want to let go.
“Uh-huh. Okay then.” Justin rubbed his hands together. “Let’s eat.”
As if on cue, a door slid open. A couple of servers rolled in a formally decorated table, then set chairs around it. Justin led Mother over and guided her to sit.
I turned back to Cricket. Her eyes had widened a bit. I ducked my head to get her attention. “Are you okay? Did they do anything to hurt you?”
“No. They haven’t physically harmed me. But West,” she said through gritted teeth, “what’s going on here?”
I brought a finger to my lips, warning her not to speak much. “We must eat first.” I leaned closer to her ear and breathed in a scent of jasmine, a favorite of my sister’s. Many of the city’s soaps and shampoos were produced by the men and women who worked in New Caelum’s greenhouses. “I’ll find you later. I promise. Just as soon as I’ve earned back my privileges.”
I pulled back, then offered her my arm. “Shall we?” As the gentleman I was raised to be, I led Cricket to a chair next to my m
other, then sat as close as I could—but not close enough—on the other side of her.
The servers placed covered plates in front of each of us and poured wine in our glasses. Noting the look on Cricket’s face, and knowing that I was very dehydrated after my time on the outside, I motioned for the server. “Can we please get some water?”
The server looked to Justin. Only after Justin nodded did the server leave and come back with water. Cricket gulped down the entire glass when it was placed in front of her.
“So, Justin… Mother… when is the big day?” I lifted my water glass and saluted them, trying not to puke in the process.
Mother looked from me to Justin. “I guess it sounds sudden to you?”
“Sudden for you to agree to marry this man while I’m off on the outside of New Caelum trying to find someone who can cure your only daughter of the disease that killed off most of our country? You think that would seem sudden to me?”
Justin spoke through clenched teeth. “Westlin, careful.”
“Well,” Mother said, “when your sister became ill, the people of New Caelum thought it best to put the election on hold. Justin… my partner…” she smiled and nodded toward the weasel beside her, “…suggested, and I agreed, that a merger of our relationship would make New Caelum even stronger than it already is.”
Mother made marriage sound like a business transaction. And since I knew which party at the table needed strength in order to make it through another election, it was easy to see who was pushing for the arrangement. “So, this is for political gain?”
Justin stood suddenly, knocking over an entire glass of red wine. The wine streamed across the white tablecloth and almost into Cricket’s lap. She instinctively stood and backed away, letting the wine roll off the table and puddle on the floor at her feet.
Justin’s face reddened. His hands curled into fists against the tablecloth. “Westlin, I’m only going to remind you once: You will swallow this hostility and do what you can to help our cause, or the promise I made you when I allowed you back inside New Caelum will come true.”
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