I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth twice. I tune out the sound of shifting feet, impatient sighs, muttering and whispers. I lean forward and turn the knob.
It should disturb me to see my dad’s place without my dad in it, but it bothers me less than the rest of our old home. He died in the family room. I hid in the closet. I lived in my room. I made food in the kitchen with him, and we ate together in the dining room. I have memories most everywhere, but only a few here. The beakers, test tubes, and machines that whirred and buzzed gather dust now, transforming them into something foreign. Something I don’t recognize at all.
A vast mahogany bookcase spans the far-left wall. A built-in desk sits just to the right of it. I close my eyes and think of the time my dad and I were eating ice-cream cones. He suggested we make play-doh. I was so excited that I practically ran to the lab ahead of him. We made the dough in flasks over a controlled fire, but in the end, it was so thick and hard to stir that I collapsed on the floor, whining. Dad took over.
I was sitting on the floor playing with purple and green play-doh when I heard a whump. I looked up just in time to watch another book fall off the bookcase and land on my foot. I began bawling, loudly.
“Don’t cry, dumpling,” Dad said. “I’ll show you a secret.”
I shake off the memory and gulp some air to keep from crying. I cross the room to the built-in desk and the Eiffel tower clock still resting on the top of it.
“This is it,” I say. “This little decoration is the key.”
“The key to what?” King Solomon’s brow furrows. “That clock contains the cure?”
“I hope it’ll reveal the cure. The tip of the tower has a small reservoir.” I reach into my pocket and slide my hand into the hole in the liner. I slide the fountain pen out and unscrew it. At the same time, I blow into the tip of the Eiffel Tower clock to distract everyone else. Dust flies up into my eyes. I wipe them off and blow on it again, and again. The third time, no dust flies out. “If my blood matches my dad’s, this safe will open.”
Sam keeps King Solomon and Josephine near the back wall with a looming stance, giving me the space I need. Adam and four other guards array themselves on either side of King Solomon, glaring at Sam and Job. I press my finger to the top of the reservoir, but I don’t press down hard enough to break my skin. Instead, I squeeze on the pen until blood squirts through the nib. I turn my face toward the bookcase full of battered, scientific treatises and journals expectantly.
Nothing happens. My heart pounds in my ears.
I came all this way. I’ve lost so many people—Wesley, Aunt Anne, Rhonda.
All for nothing.
Then it happens. Books fall from the bookcase several shelves up as the safe door swings open. I catch two of them, but the third falls to the ground right next to my foot. Heart in my throat, I crouch down to look inside the open safe.
A hardback leather journal, larger than the ones I read back in Port Gibson, rests in the safe. A small wooden box sits on top of it. My heart constricts—Mom’s ring box. I forgot about that in my fervor for the cure. I open the box.
The enormous diamond heart, surrounded by canary yellow diamonds, sparkles up at me, undimmed by time or dust.
“My ring,” Josephine says.
I turn to look at her as if for the first time. She really is my mom. I smile at her and she beams back. I’m not sure whether the journal holds the cure, but I feel like it was almost worth the trip, just for this moment of connection.
Then I think about Rhonda, Wesley, and Aunt Anne and I feel guilty for ever thinking it.
I’m completely shocked when King Solomon grabs me by the back of the neck and shakes me like a terrier shaking a snake. Before I can guess his reason, what with my brains being scrambled like eggs, he’s grabbed my mother by the shoulder.
“A slut and her whelp.”
He shoves us both toward the door and we sprawl to the ground. The ring skitters toward the wall and I lunge for it, forgetting entirely about the journal that slid under the desk. I hear Sam struggling with the guards and hope he’s okay.
“You told me you hadn’t been with him,” King Solomon says. “You swore there was no possibility that Ruby was anyone’s daughter but mine. You’re a lying whore.”
Solomon kicks my mom in the ribs. She doesn’t make a sound. She should’ve cried out. Why doesn’t she? I tuck the ring in my pocket and watch my mom. Solomon kicks her again, and this time she curls into it, still not making a peep.
This isn’t the first time he’s beaten her.
I stand up. “Leave her alone, you filthy pig.”
He turns toward me. “Or what? Your boyfriend can’t help you.”
One glance shows me he’s right. Adam and his men press guns to Job and Sam’s temples.
King Solomon’s been in absolute power in Galveston for so long, I don’t think he even considers that I might not curl up into a ball and accept whatever he orders. Like his guards. His people. My mom. He’s missed every part of my life, so he doesn’t know one major thing.
I am nothing like my mother.
I pull the tranq gun out of my waistband and pull out a pouch, the one labeled T. “I don’t need my boyfriend.” I put a dart in the gun.
“No!” Solomon leaps backward, slamming into the bookcase in his efforts to back away.
“If your guards take those guns off of Sam and turn them on me for one second, Sam will kill you all.” I smile. “But what’s the big deal? It’s just a tranquilizer. It’ll wear off and you’ll be fine.”
“That’s not a tranq,” he rasps. “It’s Tercera.”
I look down at the dart with horror. T for Tercera. He keeps a gun with Tercera darts in his desk to infect people at will?
“You wouldn’t dare to question God, huh?” I ask. “Because you play God already. Is that it? You infect anyone you don’t like, anyone who questions you?” He shakes his head, but I ignore it. “You beat my mom. You shot my dad. You murder whoever you want, and you plan to murder all the Marked? You’re irredeemably evil.”
Then I realize that if T means Tercera . . . what does A mean? Antidote? Or Accelerant?
“Do you already have the cure? Or do you infect people and then accelerate the disease?” He either uses Tercera to execute people, or he’s been sitting on a cure all this time without sharing it. I don’t know which explanation is worse.
“What, no answer?” I lift the gun. “Then let’s find out.”
My mom cries out, but it’s too late. I shoot the dart, and my aim’s true. It hits Solomon squarely in the chest. His eyes fly wide and his hands claw at the edge where it protrudes. My mom lunges for me, but someone stops her. I glance sideways. Sam used the distraction to disarm the guards, all of them. Job leaps across the room and stops my mom from touching the newly infected King Solomon.
I pull out the other pouch.
I load a dart marked A into the gun, and aim it at King Solomon. “Which is it, Daddy? Will this cure you? Or accelerate your death, like you accelerated thousands?”
Before he can answer, I fire the second dart. King Solomon raises one arm to block and the dart hits his forearm.
I smile darkly. “Now tell me again about how the people who die fulfill God’s will.”
King Solomon begins to froth at the mouth. I’m guessing that’s not the effect of an antidote. I turn and walk out of the room.
By the time I reach the elevator Job appears, forcibly hauling my mom with him. She struggles against him, pulls at his shirt and cries pitifully, but he gently tugs her toward the doors all the same. Sam’s only a step behind him, the leather journal safely under one arm.
Bless him. Sam does everything right.
25
By the time we reach the elevator at the bottom of the building, my mom’s sobbing wordlessly on Job’s shoulder. At least it’s mostly quiet.
Sam slides into the driver’s seat, so I take shotgun. He wastes no time putting the van in gear and drivi
ng down Beach Drive toward Seawall. I hold my dad’s journal in my hands. For a moment, I can’t bring myself to open it, but after we hit Seawall, I crack the cover.
I discover pages and pages of unintelligible notes and equations. Great. It might contain the cure, but how will I know? Panic grips me. We can’t leave the island without it. If we make it out of here, there’s no coming back. Impatient and scared, I flip to the end.
There it is, the last entry, just like before.
I’ve done it. Ever since I developed that disgusting virus in my attempt to create a universal vaccination, and my partner decided he wants to sell it knowing it had a long lead time, I’ve been desperate to formulate a solution. Recently, I tested my designer virus against it. The Triptych virus transmits by touch, and it replicates fast, faster than any other virus I’ve seen. My new virus doesn’t replicate as fast and it doesn’t transmit by touch, not yet anyway. It requires a blood transfer, but my new virus eats the old one up.
I know because Jack and I got in a fight and a vial broke. I caught Triptych myself. I thought I might not catch it when the vial broke because that strain needed to bind to blood to operate properly, but because I’d cut my finger, the sample I had bound to mine. I could’ve infected the whole world. The strange mark I coded into it appeared on my forehead within half an hour of exposure, just like I intended. Ruby was watching TV in the other room. She came in when I cried out, in spite of my warning.
I’ve never been so afraid.
I dosed myself with my attack virus. I almost dosed Ruby too, but it hasn’t been properly tested. I don’t know what side effects it may have. After my blood tested clean again, I dosed a frantic Ruby with the antibodies I developed first. I made them to protect her from Triptych, but they’ll boost her immune system across the board. It should be enough to keep her safe forever. I gave her triple the load I calculated she would need to be safe. She had a pretty bad reaction last night after I dosed her, but she’s fine, now. I know my actions were paranoid, but I can’t help it. Since her mother left me, she’s all I have.
Jack called me a few minutes ago, irate. He’s calling my bluff. The funds from selling Triptych will fund our ongoing research he says, including fine-tuning the cure. He knows I’ll work night and day if he does release it. Jack knows nothing about my success with the antibodies I gave Ruby. He only knows I’ve been formulating a cure, not the form it takes. I told him I’ll never agree to sell, no matter what, but it may not matter. He stole a sample of Triptych before I installed my new safe. I told him if he sells it, I’ll report him, even if it means they come after Ruby and me.
It might have been a lie. I don’t think I can risk her. I don’t care whether Ruby’s my biological daughter, so I never checked. I took her to punish her mother at first, but I kept her to protect her from the monster that stole Josephine from me. That awful action, the worst thing I’ve ever done, has filled my life with light. She’s the best thing I’ve ever taken part in. She’s everything to me. Her blood now carries something that’s more mine than any DNA. She holds something I made to protect her. And I’ve hidden the key to Jack’s mess in the one place I value above all others. In the body of my daughter.
I drop the journal and it slides to the floor of the van.
I’ve been the cure all along. That’s why Wesley’s kiss didn’t Mark me. It wasn’t lip-gloss—of course it wasn’t. I should never have believed that.
I could’ve saved Wesley, Rhonda and my aunt. I gasp when a horrible thought hits me. If my dad hadn’t been murdered, or if I hadn’t been stolen, or if my Aunt and Uncle hadn’t run and left his research, or if any of those things hadn’t happened, they could’ve used my blood to keep the world from dying. My cowardice killed my dad, and my dad’s death doomed everyone in the world, even more than I already thought.
My breathing accelerates, and I close my eyes and focus on slowing it. I can’t hyperventilate until after we’ve escaped the island.
I focus on the good news. David Solomon has no idea what this journal says. If we get off this rock quickly, he never needs to know.
Sam reaches over and takes my hand with his big, strong one. Sam’s my rock, and he’s with me. Job’s safe, and hopefully Rhonda and Wesley will be soon. And after seventeen years without her, I found my mom. We freed her from the monster—who might actually be my biological father.
As much as I wish we’d known what Dad hid in my blood all along, for the first time in a decade, today’s a better day than the one that came before it. I have Sam, my mom, my dad’s journal, and we’re leaving Solomon to die in the same way he’s doomed so many others to suffer.
I’m still scared, but I know how to move past that fear and do what needs to be done. For now, maybe that’s enough.
***
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THE END
Copyright © 2018 by Bridget E Baker
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For Job.
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1
More than a decade ago, I hid in a closet while a madman murdered my father. My dad’s twin sister and her husband swooped in soon after and relocated me along with their two children to my dad’s secluded cabin to mourn.
Unbeknownst to six-year-old me, the move also ensured my biological mother couldn’t find me. In the weeks that followed, a deadly virus transmitted through simple touch spread across the world like wildfire. Less than a million people in North America survived. My family only escaped infection because my aunt took us all into hiding.
In a way, my dad’s kidnapping of me from my mother saved us all.
Of course, before I give him too much credit, I have to factor in the fact that good old Dad engineered the virus that wiped out most everyone. It’s a travesty that he didn’t tell me before he died that he injected me with what amounts to a vaccination for the virus the night before his murder.
We only know about the vaccination in my blood because of the journal in my hands. A journal I stole from the leader of the world’s largest and most secure political and economic group. Unfortunately they’re also fanatical religious zealots. Right after I stole this journal, I shot the leader with the Tercera virus, which he totally deserved. I found the dart I used on David Solomon in his own desk drawer, for heaven’s sake.
I wish I’d known what was in my blood a decade ago, when I could've used that information to save some of the billions who died. Or last month, when I could have saved my long time crush, and best friend, Wesley. Or last week when my aunt contracted Tercera from raiding Marked kids. If I’d even known three days ago, I wouldn’t have left my cousin Rhonda to take my place with a posse of angry Marked kids.
I hope I’m not too late to save Wesley, Rhonda and Aunt Anne.
I glance back down at the leather-bound journal I retrieved from a hidden safe in my dad's old lab in Galveston. I could barely make sense of his cramped handwriting in the best of circumstances. With the bumping and jouncing from the van that's tearing down the road toward the bridge off this island, I’m struggling to put a dozen words together.
“Geez Sam,” I say, “how fast are you driving?”
“Why are you so crabby?” Sam asks.
“I’m not crab
by,” I say.
“Well,” Sam says, “After everything we risked, is there any good news or not?”
I nod. “Good news, yeah. You could say that. Maybe not the silver bullet we were hoping for, but the journal describes a cure of sorts.”
My cousin Job, who's more like a brother after being raised by the same parents for a decade, sits up straighter. “It says there’s a cure? Does it say how to recreate it? Is it hard? Is that the reason for all the weird breathing and muttering?”
“I’m not muttering.” I scowl at him. “I haven’t had time to pore over the scientific equations, or technical notes. The bad news is, the journal doesn’t mention details on the virus Dad mentioned, the one he called the hacker virus. Or at least, it doesn’t in the passages of commentary. The notes I’ve read at the end focus on something else entirely.”
I don't know how to tell them it has been inside of me all this time. It feels like it's my fault we didn’t know all along, like I should’ve realized it somehow. It’s like I’ve been sitting on a box full of food in the middle of a horrible famine, so I can stuff my face after everyone else has perished.
The bridge from Galveston to the mainland looms in front of us. I glance at the backseat where my mom stares out the window despondently. She's no longer crying, but her mouth is slack, and her shoulders are slumped. She's probably in pain from the beating her awful husband just gave her, but I'm worried the worst damage isn't physical. Bruises will heal, but I don't know how to even start to repair the damage I can’t see or study under a microscope. David Solomon deserves to pay. I hope he suffers.
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 26