by Megan Crewe
“The vaccine shipments will stop coming,” I said. “Until Michael sends more people up to sort you all out, in ways I think you’ll like less than mine.”
“Seems like there’s enough left for the rest of us,” Trang said. “And Michael can try whatever he likes.” He pointed a finger at me. “Listen. You didn’t have to make this offer. I realize that. But whatever your way is, you’re not backing it up. I’ll talk to the others, and we can probably hold off a few days. If you haven’t gotten Nathan sorted out ‘your way’ by then...” He smacked his hands together as if squashing a bug and then brushing it away.
“Right,” I said, feeling sick. “Got it.”
A few days. I’d already gone several without managing to budge Nathan any perceivable distance.
But it was all I had, unless I could cut off the Strikers’ support on the other side.
I headed straight back to the station to track down Janelle. She was in the apparatus bay, giving orders to a few Wardens about to set off on patrol. When they’d headed out, one on a motorcycle and the others on foot, I motioned her aside.
“Tell me you’re not considering throwing over Michael for these Striker idiots,” I said.
The tightening of her mouth was all the answer I needed. Damn it. I hadn’t realized she’d gotten that frustrated.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
All I could do was make the same appeal I had to Trang, but at least I had her supposed loyalty and a few real successes to push on. “Michael knows what he’s doing,” I said. “We’re getting this sorted out. It can’t be done in a couple weeks. I got all of you the vaccine, didn’t I? I’ve kept Nate from completely blowing this up. Hold off a little longer and I swear, everything will be back to normal. Better than normal, even.”
“If I did know what you’re talking about,” Janelle said, “I’d ask you why the hell Michael sent that prick up here in the first place. Why he made a problem to sort out.”
I couldn’t answer that. If I was right, I doubted she’d appreciate being made a pawn in Michael’s grand ethical experiment.
“Maybe Michael trusted Nathan,” Janelle went on at my silence. “Maybe he trusted you to keep a handle on him. You’ve squeaked a few things by, but you obviously don’t have the nerve or the stomach to really put him down. So either way, it looks like we can’t trust Michael. That’s what we have to work with.”
The criticism stung, more because of the truth in it. “You think they’re any better?” I protested, but she’d stopped listening.
“You’re a good kid, Drew,” she said. “Stay out of the line of fire and you’ll make it through.”
I watched her walk away.
She was wrong about that. If everything here went to hell, Michael would make sure I paid for it, one way or another. The people here who still needed the vaccine would pay too. Maybe even Zack.
If there was no good solution, if I lost either way, I was going to have to pick the way with the fewest consequences for the people who least deserved them. Even if that meant finding the will to stomach murder. Even if I had to become someone the person I’d been a year ago would have hated.
I wasn’t sure I hadn’t already.
I still had my few days. I studied the other Wardens carefully, complimented people on their hard work, slipped in a comment here and there about how much Michael appreciated their efforts, and watched for signs of guilt.
How many were ready to turn? It was difficult to tell. No one let down their guard. Maybe they all saw me the way Janelle did, as a good kid who’d ultimately accomplished dick all.
Which left only Nathan.
We were down to our last dozen or so vaccine doses, which gave me a perfect opening for a chat. I found Nathan inspecting the engine of his Mercedes, the cuffs of his suit jacket rolled up and his fingertips black with grease. He’d somehow managed not to get a single smudge on his white dress shirt.
“We’re getting low on the vaccine,” I told him as he wiped his hands off on a rag. “I’m going to relay a message down south this afternoon, see if Michael’s ready to send another batch this way.”
“Approved,” Nathan said. His gaze twitched to the delivery van. Its back doors were open to accept new cargo—and the space inside was empty. I stiffened. It’d been half full yesterday. Nathan must have taken the last load over to the store without me. Did he trust me even less now?
He turned, scanning the room. “I want to be here when it’s delivered,” he went on. “Can’t depend on the rubes around here.”
I had the feeling Nathan didn’t even know what “rube” meant, only that it was an insult, but I wasn’t about to correct his word usage. Especially since he might be including me under that label.
And I still had to make this last ditch attempt.
“They know not to mess with you now,” I said, propping myself against the neighboring Toyota. “You’ve been keeping everyone on their toes.”
“Hmmm,” he said.
“It’s been impressive watching you work, really,” I said, hoping I wasn’t laying it on too thick. “I didn’t realize how effective it could be, never letting them know what to expect from you. No chance to get complacent.”
“They can’t slack off that way,” Nathan said, nodding slowly, as if he’d intended it as a leadership strategy and hadn’t simply been following whatever impulse hit him at any given time. “Have to pay attention.”
“You know, I bet at this point you could do something generous, and it’d unsettle them even more. Make them work harder at staying on your good side.”
His eyes darted back to me. “If you’re trying to suggest something, spit it out.”
“Me? No.” I held up my hands. “Just rambling.” And planting a seed. He wasn’t going to take an idea directly from me—he needed to grow it himself. Give away some vaccines at half price, or free. Share some of his private stash with the other Wardens as a reward for their work. Extend a peace offering to the Strikers. All of the above. I didn’t care, as long as it made them believe I’d started shifting him in the opposite direction from where he’d been headed.
“Hmmm,” he said again, and then, “How’s this for generous? I figure we double the vaccines we can give out when the next batch arrives.”
“You want me to ask Michael for twice as much?” I said. We could probably move that many doses while they were still useable—we continued to get a small but steady stream of purchasers as people scavenged up the means to pay. I didn’t see where the generosity was in that, though.
“Let him send as much as he wants,” Nathan said casually. “I mean we cut what we get. Split the doses 50/50 with water. No one will know the difference. And we get twice the profit.”
I stared at him, knowing my horror must be showing on my face, unable to contain it. I’d pretended to be fine with an awful lot since I’d joined the Wardens, but this... Apparently I had a hard line, and Nathan had just etched it out for me.
“The people we vaccinate will get less protection,” I said. “Maybe none at all.” Only they’d think they were protected, so they’d stop being so careful.
Nathan shrugged. “By the time they realize, it’ll be too late for them anyway. Shame I didn’t think of it before we fixed up most of the Strikers—hell, we should have given them straight water—but sometimes genius takes time.”
He was insane. Not fickle or impulsive or even mildly unstable. Completely, irreversibly, insane. I saw it then so clearly I couldn’t explain it away. Maybe he’d always been crazy under the polish of his slicked-back hair and fancy suits, or maybe getting out from under Michael’s thumb had sent him spiraling, but it didn’t matter now.
I slipped my hands into my pockets, fingers curling around the grip of the pistol. There was a slim possibility that shooting him might save this. Might earn me enough respect that the Wardens would follow my lead after instead of kicking me aside. But I knew from the way Janelle had spoken to me, the wa
y the others looked at me, just how slim that chance was. And in that moment I wanted even less to bow to the standard Nathan had set, meeting violence with more violence.
“Sudden arrival of a conscience, Drew?” Nathan said.
“I want the virus gone,” I said. “That only works if people are getting the full dose of the vaccine.”
“Anyone stupid enough to get infected isn’t worth keeping around anyway,” Nathan said. “And once they’re gone, the virus dies out on its own. Isn’t that how it works?”
A practical angle, then. “And what do you think will happen when the ‘smart’ people figure out what you did?” I said. “Which they will, probably pretty quickly. What do you think they’ll do to you?”
“Oh, you’re worried about my safety?” He slid out his switchblade, flicking it open and closed. “I can take whatever they throw at me.”
“The whole goddamned city?” I burst out. “There won’t be a single person even in this station who’ll stand up for you.” He was building his kingdom out of kindling and lighting a flame under it—how could he not see that?
“There’ll always be some who realize they’re better off with me than against me,” Nathan said. “How do you think Michael got as far as he has? The others... They can make their choices, and all that’ll do is demonstrate that they never deserved my respect in the first place.”
He paused, eyeing me. “Of course, now I’m wondering if you include yourself in that statement. I thought you were ‘at my disposal.’ Changed your mind?”
The words were a trap, laid and set. A test. Waiting for a word that would justify finishing what he’d started with that knife.
A trap. A test. The thought jiggled loose a memory: the videos Aaron—my first boyfriend—and I had made, not far from these walls. When you had a public figure who always dodged and denied any issue, you couldn’t use your own words to take them down. You had to let them provide the evidence you needed. Give them an opening—a couple guys walking around a store or into an event hand-in-hand, for example—and watch them hang themselves with their own narrow-mindedness. Then post the record online for everyone to see.
“Not at all,” I made myself say. “I’m only concerned about maintaining what we have here. It’s been going well, so far. But you’re right; of course you can handle whatever comes up.”
At the same time, my mind was spinning. I couldn’t just shame Nathan, of course. If I was going to set him up for a fall, he had to fall all the way. So far he could never come back. Or the moment he recovered we’d be right back here.
Despite the surge of elation that had come with the inspiration, despite everything he’d just said, my stomach knotted. This was still a person’s death I was contemplating. I’d never wanted to be responsible for that.
I’d never wanted a lot of things. I’d sure as hell never wanted to see the world brought to its knees by a deadly virus. But here we were. I was ashamed of how much I’d looked the other way before, but that didn’t mean I could go right back to being the crusader I once was. It wasn’t a choice between bowing to Nathan’s standard and reverting to the ones I’d once held. It was in the middle ground I’d succeeded in this changed world. Trading morality against survival. I didn’t have to give up my morals completely. I could still draw lines I wouldn’t cross. I just had to make a few... adjustments. Find a balance between doing right and making sure I was still around to do anything at all. That was the ingenuity Michael had complimented me on.
I would be nothing but fair. I wouldn’t force anything on him. I’d simply set the pieces in place, and let Nathan dictate the terms of his own destruction.
What could I use—what mattered to him? The car? I didn’t have the mechanical skills to manipulate that. My gaze shifted to the delivery van, but it posed the same problem.
Nathan flipped the closed blade in his hand, brandishing it like a scepter, and I recalled my earlier thought. A kingdom out of kindling.
When I was fifteen, a store down the street from our house had gone up in flames. Burned to a skeleton before the firefighters could put it out. An older construction, boards and nails. “It might as well have been made of kindling,” Mom had said.
I raised my chin.
“I’ll put in the radio request now,” I told Nathan. “We’ll squeeze everything out of this city we can get.”
“That’s the spirit,” he said, but his smile was cold. Still, he let me walk away. Without a clue that he’d just set his own downfall into motion.
Nathan had the keys to the store’s padlocks, of course, but I’d never told him I’d found the keys to the front door when I was scoping the place out. The deadbolt slid over with a thunk, and in I went. In the faint lingering sunlight of the dusk, I lugged most of the jugs and tanks of fuel into the temporary holding place I’d picked across the street. Placed the few I was leaving and several empty jugs I’d grabbed at the station at the front of the stacks so it wouldn’t be immediately obvious how much was gone behind them. The guns and ammo I left where they were. If things went my way, I expected us to find better tools of negotiation.
And if they didn’t, if Nathan walked away from this test, well, I was dead anyway.
I thought briefly of Kaelyn. I hadn’t seen or heard any sign of her in the city since I’d arrived. Hopefully she’d made it back home to the island. I’d thought maybe I’d send someone out there to check in with her if I got things under control. I’d have liked her to know I’d at least tried. I’d have liked to explain this to Zack, too. But I couldn’t exactly whip off a couple emails. I was on my own.
The contents of the last jug I splashed around the room a bit. Then I carried it outside and locked up again. I splattered more gas on the wall, the edges of the windows and the door frame, the seams in the siding where that old dry wood showed through. I stuck to the front end—I needed Nate to be able to open up the back to get inside.
Then I backed up and pulled out the box of matches I’d carried with me from Georgia. My survival gear. I struck up a flame. Watched it dance above my fingers. Inhaled the oily fumes and the tang of phosphorus, and tossed the match toward the storefront.
The flame caught, flaring as it licked up the wall. I threw another, and another. No hesitation now, just a quick swipe and a flick of the wrist. The fire crawled and leapt, wafting heat. I was lit in the darkness. My heart hammering, I spun on my heel and hurried away.
I’d just reached the corner next to the fire station when a sound like bursting popcorn carried on the air. Those boxes of ammo. The fire had already reached the back room.
I ran the rest of the way, my breath rasping by the time I burst through the entry hall.
“Where’s Nathan?” I demanded of the guards. Before they could answer, Nate stepped out of the kitchen. I’d been counting on him eating dinner late, after everyone else had finished.
A few other Wardens were already standing in the common room. Tyler poked his head out of the radio area. A couple emerged from the stairwell. Our audience.
“The store,” I said to Nathan. “Where you’ve been keeping everything. It’s burning.”
He froze, panic and fury twisting together on his face. “What did you do?” he said in a low, dangerous voice.
“I didn’t do anything,” I said, but I let my voice even out. Let him sense the challenge. Let them all sense it. For Nathan, I suspected, that would be the tipping point. Where he showed who he was at the core: a desperate, obsessive, selfish maniac.
His face was completely white now. “I’ll deal with you when I have time,” he promised. “For now, you’re coming with me.”
He grabbed my wrist as he swiveled toward the entrance to the garage. That wasn’t part of the plan. I jerked my arm back automatically, and his switchblade leapt into his hand.
“Nathan,” I said, loud and clear. “The whole place has gone up. You can’t save anything. You’d have to be crazy to try.”
It was an honest warning. I was playing fair. But
Nathan, because he was insane, because fairness and honesty were concepts he didn’t comprehend, took it as a dare.
“We’ll see,” he snapped.
I couldn’t let him take me. I couldn’t let there be any doubt about who made the choice, if he didn’t come back. “Maybe you will,” I said, “but I’m not going anywhere.”
It was a risk. He lashed out with the knife, and I flinched away quickly enough that it only caught my cheek. Nathan took another step, and then looked toward the garage with a curse. A smoky smell was trickling in from outside.
“Don’t let him leave,” he ordered our spectators, and shoved past the door. In a matter of seconds, the screech of tires pierced the wall.
The guards, Janelle and Tyler, the rest of the Wardens around and trickling in at the commotion, ignored his last order and, for the moment, me. They streamed out onto the sidewalk, where the burning smell was growing thicker. A cloud of smoke obscured a swath of stars to the east. The convertible had already raced out of view. I stopped just outside the doors as the others milled about for a minute uncertainly.
Janelle made a move as if she were going to stride down the street and see what was happening. At the same moment, Nathan screamed.
I’d never heard him scream before. I’d never heard anyone scream like that, so livid amidst the pain that his fury was audible even at that distance, but we all knew it was him. It cut off with a creak and a crackling thump. Then we couldn’t hear anything at all.
Janelle and a few of the others glanced back at me then. I felt the glow of the station’s lights silhouetting me where I stood. I clamped down on my nausea and folded my arms over my chest. “I guess we’ve found out even his life didn’t matter as much to him as that stuff,” I said. “Unless you’re on essential duties, take the night off. Things are going to look different around here tomorrow morning.”