It doesn’t. His skin is warm like the wind on a sunny day, like a seat in front of a fireplace, like a cat curled on my lap. His eyes, his beautiful, soul searching eyes open with a start and stare into mine for two full, glorious seconds. His hand lifts from the bed to cup my cheek. “Ruby, why are you so cold?” His voice is heroin for my ears. My lips are so numb that I can't make them move to respond.
Why am I so cold?
The more I struggle to answer, the more I can't make a peep. My field of vision narrows, from the entire room to just his bed, and then down to the curves of his face. I'm being sucked into some kind of black hole, and I can't shake away from it. I reach for Sam with my other hand, cupping his face with both shaking hands, and his eyes widen, but I can't stop it. I'm drawn inexorably down until...
I wake up to the sound of my name like the pop of a balloon, like the crack of a gun.
“Ruby!!” Job calls out hoarsely, as though he's used up his allotment of noise for the day. His brows are drawn together as though some equations he's working on don't align the way they should.
I blink my eyes repeatedly to bring the details of his face into focus.
“Why am I here?” I moan. “I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be. . .” I want to say dead, because I'm pretty sure that's why I had to leave Sam. I'm not dead. I can't stay with him, but I want to go back. I don’t want to be here in the land of regret and shame and pain.
I want to scream and cry and race back to him as fast as possible. It felt so real, and wherever it was, I want to be with him again. I don't want to be alone anymore, alone in this world without Sam in it.
“Ruby,” Job says, “try to focus on my voice. Can you hear me?”
I nod.
“Ruby.” He snaps in front of my face and moves his hands back and forth, checking whether my eyes will track across the midline. “Did you change the settings on the apheresis machine?”
I nod, vaguely remembering. My brain feels stuffed with cotton candy. I'd love some cotton candy right now. I try licking my lips, but my tongue is so dry it hurts.
“You did change the settings? Did you make the machine take more blood?”
No cotton candy. I sigh. “There are so many people. So many who need my antibodies.”
A string of curse words behind me draws my eye. I can barely make it out by the two candles lighting up the room now that the sun's gone down, but Rafe's fists are clenched, and his face is flushed red.
“What happened?” I ask. “Why am I so cold?”
“You doubled the withdrawal,” Job says. “That put you into hemorrhagic shock. You should’ve known it would do that. You're a scientist.”
I shake my head. “I only changed it to a pint, which is a normal amount. Plus, it's plasma not blood, so it's fine.”
Job swallows hard. “You've lost weight Ruby, and given blood several times in the past few days. You're volume depleted, and possibly already in shock from Sam's death. Do I need to go on?” As he speaks his voice softens, but his eyes are still flinty.
I try to swallow but my throat is full of sand. “I’m sorry, okay?”
“I'm going to get some blankets.” He points at the machine and talks to Rafe. “Make sure she doesn't touch anything else.” The reproof in his tone stings.
I look around as my head clears. Rafe's the only other person I can see. “Where's Amir and his sister, my number one fan?”
“They have other work to do. They left.”
I hear Job in the hallway, slamming cabinet doors, and I roll my eyes. “He's acting like I tried to kill myself or something.”
Rafe folds his arms and stares at me. “Did you?”
I snap at him. “Are you kidding me?”
“I don't make jokes.”
“No, okay? I didn't try to kill myself. Geez.”
“Riyah's not the only one who doesn't like you, but I'm trying really hard to rise above it. This kind of stupid behavior makes that hard, honestly.”
My jaw drops. “You don't like me? Why? What have I ever done to you?” I ignore the voice that tells me how easy my life has been compared to his, compared to every Marked kid in America. I mean, my dad's dead, and my mom, well, I thought she was dead, but that can be said of every single one of them. Plus, they didn't have an aunt or uncle to pick up the slack. Or if they did, they all died too.
“I met Wesley a few weeks ago now. He's a good guy, and I like him. He's smart, he knows how to get stuff done, he's funny, and he's worked flat out since he got here. He's done everything I asked and more. He lost his mom, his dad, his home, and a girl he loved, and he did it without whining. Even so, he spent every spare second telling me about this girl, a girl he described as prettier than anyone he'd ever met. He said she was kind, generous, and the smartest person he'd ever met. He said she acted ten years older than she was. I don't have many friends, but I count Wesley as a friend, and no matter how depressed he's been, he never once gave up. And if he quit, his surrender would only impact him. Yours would doom us all.”
I struggle to sit up. Instead of helping me, Rafe holds out one hand, and thumps me with two fingers right in the middle of my forehead. “Sit back, princess. I know you think I'm being unfair, but I ain't done yet, so you can listen until I am.”
I breathe in though my nose, and out through my mouth like my uncle taught me, but I can't quite school my expression into a calm one. He's monstrous.
“Your boyfriend and I had to talk quite frankly about your first kiss, and how it made him feel. It was more than I wanted to know, but I do know it. And then you finally show up a few weeks later, and he's right. You've got something in your blood that stopped Tercera cold. He's immune, but for some reason his blood doesn't do nothing for us. Talk about highest highs followed by lowest lows. We put all our resources into finding you because we're dying. Not like in the future, at some point, possibly, maybe, but literally, dying right now, in front of my eyes. My friends, the only family I have left are covered in festering sores, and their organs are giving out.”
“I know,” I say, “but—”
“No, princess. Not your turn yet. We finally find you, running away like a sad little girl from WPN, an army at your back. Wesley gathers you up, so worried, so concerned, and do you run, sobbing, into his arms? Nah, not you. You recoil from him like he's your dirty uncle trying to grope you at Thanksgiving dinner. Turns out, in the past few weeks, you dropped Wesley like a hot potato, and you're in love with some Sam guy. Well, here's the thing. There's absolutely no chance that you're so devastated you can't go on, not for some guy you didn't love three weeks ago when Wesley got Marked to begin with.”
I open my mouth, but Rafe shakes his head.
“My take is that you didn't love Wesley and you don't love this guy. You're a spoiled little girl who's used to getting whatever she wants, and now you're seeing the world for the first time. Entitlement at its finest.”
I collapse back against the pillows. He thinks I'm a whiny waste of space. What if he’s right?
“Oh, now you've got nothing to say?”
I look at my hands, because I can't meet his eyes. My fingers are still stiff with cold, but they're warming up as I huddle under the blanket, and the lost volume flows back into my body.
“I wanna like you, honestly I do, but we've got literally hundreds of thousands of lives hanging in the balance here, and your little broken heart doesn't matter to me. If it hurts your feelings that we see you as a blood bag and not a person, well, I ought to be sorry about that too I guess, but I couldn't possibly care about that either.”
Job stomps over next to me, and glares at Rafe. He drapes a blanket over my legs, tucking it under each of them. “Feel any better?”
He's talking to me, but Rafe smiles and answers him. “Actually yeah, I do. How about you princess? You gonna survive your latest temper tantrum turned suicide attempt?”
“I'm always glad to know where I stand with people.” I pull the blanket up to cover m
y chest.
Rafe glances at the apheresis machine. “Even so, maybe keep that far enough away she can't reach the control panel, huh?” He spins on his heel and marches out the door.
“I'm sorry, Ruby. I only caught the end, and I was upset with you too, but you didn't deserve any of that.”
I collapse bonelessly against the pillows and close my eyes again. “Actually, I think I did. I knew not to increase the volume. You can't power through blood loss.”
Job sits on the edge of the bed and puts his hand on mine. “Your heart was in the right place. It always is. And you've never been one to throw tantrums. He doesn't know you at all. You love Sam, and it wasn't some kind of girlish infatuation. I know that, and if he doesn't get it, or if Wesley doesn't, then screw them both.”
Job does not know how to talk angry, but his indignant defense of me brings a smile to my face anyway.
“Do me a favor?”
I nod. “Sure.”
“Don't touch the machine again, okay?”
I snort. “Smart aleck.” I eat the stew Libby brought me, and even cold, it tastes better than Defense rations. I'm swallowing the end of it when a knock booms on the door, and two guards enter, guns in holsters on their hips. I recognize one of them.
“Sean?” I ask. “Right?”
He grins at me. “We asked to be assigned to watch you, along with a hundred other guards, but Rafe thought you might appreciate a familiar face. I knew you were special last week from the moment I saw you. It wasn’t coincidence that you evaded that net.”
I roll my eyes. Everyone wants things to be preordained, but we make our own luck. “What are you here for?”
“Routine check, boss's orders. We'll be checking every morning and every night, and we'll be standing guard around the clock. Not always me, of course, but I’ll take my turn.”
I bite my lip. “That sounds miserable, I'm sorry. I don't think that's strictly necessary.”
Sean says, “People are excited you're here, but they know there's only one of you, and that can be a hard thing to stomach. It can do weird things to people.” He gestures to the guard next to him. “This is Dax. You'll remember him too, I imagine.”
I bob my head. “Hey Dax. How's your shoulder?”
He frowns. “It's healing up nicely, thanks. I'm sorry to hear that guy who shot me didn't make it back.”
It's big of him to say it. I know he wasn't a fan of Sam. “Thanks.”
“We're gonna do a sweep of each room, if you don't mind,” Sean says.
I shrug. “Sure. I'm kinda stuck here for now. Sorry I can't help.”
“Not your job.”
Sean and Dax stomp from one room to the next while Job fusses over me, forcing another glass of water down my throat. I collapse back and close my eyes, trying to ignore the noise for a moment. I'm warmer, but still shaky and light-headed. My new guards wave bye and head for the door, which slams shut a few times as they exit. I sigh in relief and lean back against the pillows behind me.
The sound of heavy boots approaches and my eyes shoot open again. Rhonda's stalking toward me. I didn't hear her come in over the generator’s humming, but I hear when she stomps close enough. She sounds like an elephant with a sore tusk. Maybe I'll actually see one of those around here if I ever get out of this plasma center. “What's this I hear about you trying to kill yourself?”
I roll my eyes. “Rafe's exaggerating.”
Job shrugs. “Well.”
Rhonda shoves him out of the way and swings her legs up until she's laying down next to me. The machine beeps to signal it's done, and Job circles to take out my IV. Rhonda doesn't speak while he's removing the needle and tubing, but when he wheels the machine away, she whispers. “What's going on, kiddo?”
I mean to explain to her how I wanted to help, and I saw Libby and I wanted there to be more of my plasma to work with, as many antibodies as we can pump out. I want to help the people dying all around me. I wanted to do something good. I open my mouth to say just that, but when I look in her eyes, the lies die on my tongue.
A gasp wracks my body. “I know I'm whiny, and a spoiled princess, but it hurts so bad Rhonda.” The tears flow again and I hate myself for them. I'm not Marked, I'm not dying, I'm not even sick, but I kind of wish I was. Because then I wouldn't be at fault for everything, and left with nothing.
Rhonda pulls me close. “Oh baby, I’m sorry. I'm so sorry. It’s all been so fast and you don’t have time for any grieving. It’s not natural, and it’s not fair.”
She's stroking my hair when I whisper again. “I dreamed of him when I fell asleep—well, I guess when I passed out. I thought I was dying, and he was waiting for me, and I. . . I didn't want to come back.”
She pulls back to look at me. “Oh Ruby, no.”
I shake my head. “Or maybe it wasn't that, I don't know. It was so strange, like I was in a hospital, or maybe a prison, or a psych ward from Before or something. I had to look and look, and run until my heart nearly burst before I found Sam, trying one locked door after another, but finally I found him, and Rhonda, in my dream he wasn't dead. He wasn't in heaven, either. He was warm, and gorgeous, and . . .alive.” I close my eyes. “I know how the Marked feel when they see me. My heart filled with so much hope, so much desire, and it all collapsed like a house of cards when I woke up and realized it was some stupid dream.”
Rhonda stares at me one second too long this time, and I see it in her eyes. Doubt.
“What Rhonda? You're not telling me something.”
“No, I'm not hiding anything,” she says, “I'm just so sorry you're hurting.” She tries to pull my head back toward her, but I resist. Her eyes looked just like this when Job and Sam ate my candy and she guessed. Her lips pressed in the same thin line when I dropped Aunt Anne’s ring in the lake and she tried not to rat me out. Her nose scrunched exactly the same when she knew that Job broke my telescope, but he tried to blame a bird.
“Tell me right now. What're you unsure of?”
She puts her hand to her face and rubs her lips. “It's nothing, I swear.”
I squeeze her hand. “What?”
“I don't want to get your hopes up, and Sam wouldn't have wanted me to tell you, not now.”
“Tell me what?” My voice cracks, and I think about Sam's eyes, so real, his hand, so warm. “What is it? You have to tell me. I'm sick of people deciding what I should and shouldn't be told.”
She wrings her hands. “Sam wasn't normal.”
I narrow my eyes, ready to defend him. “What does that mean?”
“He... he was part of some experiments.”
“What kind of experiments?” I narrow my eyes at her.
“Defense teamed up with Science. Mom and Dad spearheaded it. They should've experimented on us, Job and me, but they were afraid. They couldn't do it. John Roth volunteered for the trial. Losing his wife and his other son did something to him. He wasn't the same again, Mom said. He was cold and mean after his wife left. He wasn't much of a father to Sam, I don't think.”
“Back to the point,” I say. “Sam's dad John volunteered to be part of the experiments? How does that impact Sam?”
“John was too old. But Sam wasn't.”
I grind my teeth. John Roth offered his only surviving child?
“I'm not sure what Mom and Dad did exactly, but Sam's fast, really fast, and strong. He's stronger than he should be, even for his size. He's also quiet when he wants to be, like freaky quiet. And his reflexes are out of this world amazing.”
“I sort of already knew all that. I'm not sure how that helps, though.” His speed and agility didn't help him evade my mom’s shots in the back. I saw the blood, so much blood.
“That stuff was all a side effect of their real goal. They were trying to find a way to boost the human genes enough that they could fight Tercera.”
“It didn't work, I assume.”
“No,” she says. “Or I guess they don’t really know. They scrapped the whole initiative. They
had several test subjects other than Sam. One of them came in contact with Tercera, and before you ask, I don't know whether it was by accident or not, but either way, it didn't work. The little boy died even with their enhancements.”
I close my eyes. They die when we try to treat for Tercera, and they die when we don’t. So many little boys dying here now with the suppressant failing. Dying slowly is supposed to be a mercy, but watching all these kids with sores and desperate eyes, I’m not sure I believe it. “Beyond depressing.”
“Sam had already changed when they shut down the program.”
“Changed how?” I ask. “Just the speed and strength?”
“He heals super fast, Ruby.”
My stomach falls and my breathing picks up. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“I saw Sam get shot once,” Rhonda says, “during a training exercise. He was teaching a new girl how to shoot. The kid thought the safety was on when it wasn't, and she shot Sam in the foot at point blank range.”
I bite my lip. “And?”
“Sam was out running laps with the rest of his patrol a week later.”
When I don't respond, Rhonda says, “Ruby, he should never have walked again. That's the only reason I know about any of this. I confronted him, and he told me to talk to Mom. He wouldn't say anything else, so I asked her over and over, finally threatening to ask John Roth before she finally caved.”
My hands fist into balls so tightly that my nails cut into the skin on my palms. “You're telling me he survived on that bridge?”
“Six gun shots to his chest?” She shakes her head. “I don't know, Ruby. If it were anyone else, I'd say no way.”
“But it's not anyone else. It's Sam.”
“I didn't mention it before for a reason, even at the tree, when I wanted to tell you so bad.”
“If you told me earlier, I'd never have left Texas City. I'd never have gotten into a car headed this direction, away from WPN, away from Sam.”
“Sam's a fighter, Ruby. If he survived, he'll escape himself. I know it.”
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 33