The Variables (Virulent Book 3)

by Wescott, Shelbi

  “Please,” Scott said kindly. “I like the company.”

  “But you can’t tell me what you’re working on? That’s cool I guess.”

  Scott turned back to his workstation.

  Grant stepped forward. “Unless...you’re not trying to kill me again, are you?”

  From behind, Grant could see Scott’s shoulders tighten and his breath caught short. But before he could respond, the door to lab swung open, and Gordy entered, whistling loudly, and wrapping his knuckles on the workbenches as he walked.

  “Good news!” Gordy announced. “I’ve procured a little shithead for you. Perfect for some experiments. Roughed up Claude’s daughter while she was visiting the hospital wing. He’s in the tanks right now—” he cut his dialogue short as he saw Grant standing awkwardly in the middle of the room.

  Grant had shoved his hands deep into his jeans pockets and pulled one out to give an uncomfortable, but tidy wave. He felt himself blushing from embarrassment, and then he felt even hotter as he realized that he had inherited his girlfriend’s trademark response.

  “I didn’t realize you were allowing company into your secure lab,” Gordy said as an indictment.

  But Scott didn’t miss a beat. “My lab is always open for curious scientific minds,” he replied. Then without acknowledging Grant’s presence more than that, he looked at Gordy straight on and added, “Grant was just leaving.”

  Grant sheepishly slid by Gordy and, without saying a proper goodbye to Scott, exited the lab and ventured down the hallway. Whether or not Gordy thought his boisterous announcement had been missed, Grant didn’t know, or care. But he had heard enough to know that something happened to Cass and someone was about to pay for it. Fueled by worry and curiosity, Grant marched to the elevators, and started his way toward Lucy’s pod.

  The King apartment was empty, but it didn’t take long for him to hear the muffled conversation emanating from the conjoined wall. There was a pattern to the voices: deep and pulsating; then bright, quick and intense; followed by weepy and soft, a cooing as smooth as a lullaby. Grant left the family room, littered with Harper’s puzzles, abandoned articles of clothing and discarded books, and walked back out into the hall. He knocked tentatively on the Salvant’s apartment door. After a second, the door slid open, and Lucy peered out. Her face was red and splotchy and tear-stained. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hurried him inside.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” she whispered. “Cass was attacked.”

  “I heard,” Grant replied.

  “How did you hear?” Lucy asked. “The guards just brought her back.”

  Grant shrugged. “Gordy came to get your dad...”

  “Oh, wow,” Lucy breathed, understanding the implication immediately. “Come on.”

  The Salvant’s living room was darker than usual; only a single lamp burned in the corner, illuminating part of the couch and the floor, and cloaking everything else in dusky darkness. Cass sat huddled against her mother, her head resting on Atabei Salvant’s shoulder, while Atabei rubbed her daughter’s arm. Maxine sat on the other side of Cass, looking all business, her mouth drawn in a tight-lipped frown.

  Taking Grant’s hand, Lucy led him to a chair by the far wall. Together they sat and watched Claude, his body was still, but his eyes focused on the ceiling, then the floor, and then his daughter, in a loop.

  Grant realized his arrival had effectively stopped the conversation. He looked down at the floor, away from the group, and rubbed his hand against the arm of the chair.

  “Grant said that Gordy came to get Dad,” Lucy said. “They have Hunter in the tanks.”

  That announcement spurred Claude into action. He looked at Atabei who nodded her approval, and then Cass’s father started walking to the door.

  Cass sat up and looked panicked.

  “That’s unacceptable,” she called to him, wiping away a tear. “No... ne les laissez pas le tuer! Please, papa. Cela ne peut pas être le seul moyen!”

  Atabei put a firm hand on Cass’s shoulder, but Cass wiped it away.

  “Papa,” Cass said again. Claude turned. “Vous avez le pouvoir de ...”

  “You are wrong,” Claude replied in English, as he turned to go. “I support this decision. That boy attacked you. Where were our guards? I can only think of what they would have done if—” he stopped and put up his hand. “This is done, Cass. It’s done.” Then he was gone, out into the hallway, his footsteps echoing behind him.

  “Mama?” Cass pleaded, getting to her feet. Grant saw now that Cass’s shirt had been torn, and it had ripped at the seam, exposing the left side of her body, and a lacy bra. He looked away. “It’s not right...”

  “I’ll go after him,” Lucy said, and she stood to go, letting her hand slip from Grant’s as she began to walk across the apartment. “Maybe I can get him to see...”

  Maxine’s voice was tired, but commanding. “Absolutely not, Lucy. You will let your father and Cass’s father handle this.”

  Fuming, Lucy turned. “How can you say that? Our whole lives you taught us to stand up for a wrong when we saw it! You can sit there and say to me that Hunter deserves to die? That’s honestly what you think? Punished is one thing...but the tanks, mom, the tanks are awful.” Grant watched as Lucy grabbed her chest as if she was in pain.

  “If I didn’t know any better,” Cass added, her voice calm and calculated, “I’d imagine that Hunter was encouraged to assault me. Planted the seed that I needed to be put in my place.” When she pointed to the door, her shirt slipped further down—she snatched it and held its loose ends tight in her hands. “Just so he could make his war a self-fulfilling prophecy. Hunter was good bait...so ripe for influence. So full of hate.” She shivered.

  “And so you wish him health and happiness?” Atabei asked. “That boy was not going to settle for pawing at you, ripping your clothes. You think he would have stopped there? You wish for him to live alongside us in the new world?”

  “I don’t know,” Cass whispered. “Does he deserve to die?”

  “That is not the way this world works,” Maxine said. She sounded weary, but resolute.

  Lucy took a step toward her own mother, “Someday I hope to wake up from this nightmare and discover that you have some master plan...either that or we have some invasion of the body snatcher’s type of experiments going on. Because you are not my mother. I don’t know who you are,” Lucy paused, suddenly full of emotion, “but when you find her, can you let her know I miss her?”

  Her mother flinched. Pain flickered for just a second, and then her features hardened.

  “Yes, well,” Maxine replied, her voice low. “How quickly we forget what our parents do for us.” She turned and looked at Grant, her eyes wide and flashing. “Let’s reevaluate what we’ve gained, shall we? Although you might want to consider a change of careers. Running around saving all these teenage boys seems a bit gauche if you ask me. You can’t think of any other pro-social platform you can get worked up about?”

  Lucy’s mouth dropped open and she withdrew as if slapped. She tried to form a retort, but before she could her mother stalked forward, stopping merely inches from Lucy’s face.

  “Don’t you dare attempt to win a war of words with me. You have something to say, and if you don’t want to be embarrassed, you discuss it privately,” Maxine whispered. “I will not stand for being disrespected. You want to fight a war? That war is not with me. You want to fight a war with me? You will lose.”

  Grant put his hand on Lucy’s back and moved her toward the door, but he felt resistance as he pushed. The tension was palpable, and he never handled conflict with much ease. He resisted the urge to smirk or make a joke. An ill-timed smile had been the bane of his formative elementary school years. Cutting remarks and tension were the building blocks of his mother and father’s relationship. Until the cancer. Imminent death always had a way of masking the anger.

  He was on Lucy’s side, and he understood the
basis of her moral argument, but he couldn’t help but think that Maxine had a valid argument, too. The girls were wasting their energy. If the men in charge wanted Hunter dead, then there was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

  Maxine spun and extended both hands to Atabei. “We’ve overstayed our welcome. I’ll take my own troubles back to my place. You don’t need our drama cluttering up your own issues,” she said, gripping Atabei’s hands firmly in her own. And with that, she walked briskly out of the apartment and waited in the hallway for Grant and Lucy to follow.

  Lucy turned and rushed to Cass, burying her face in her friend’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry this happened to you. All of this,” Lucy said. “We hardly had a minute to talk. What were you doing down there anyway?” she asked, but she stopped and put her hands up, recognizing her inopportune intrusiveness. “I’m sorry. That was a dumb question. It doesn’t matter.”

  Cass hugged Lucy again and sighed. “I think I need to go lie down,” she said and disappeared without another word into her bedroom.

  Out in the hallway, Maxine tapped her fingers against the wall.

  Lucy glared at her mother, but her mother ignored her with dogged tenacity.

  They entered their own apartment and stopped short.

  Ethan was sitting on the couch. His legs, real and artificial, were outstretched before him, and two crutches leaned against the coffee table. He was burying his head in his hands, and when they entered, he looked up, his eyes red.

  He stood up, the prosthetic holding his weight, and he moved forward with a jerky, unsure movements. The fake leg was stiff, and he moved with the gait of Frankenstein’s monster as he came toward them. His mother’s and sister’s shock must have amused him, because his lips curled into a reserved smile.

  Ethan took two more steps and Maxine moved toward him, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Stop,” Ethan said, putting his hand out. She stopped. “I want to see Teddy,” he said.

  Maxine sighed. “I don’t know if you can...Blair’s been keeping him pretty isolated.”

  Grant noticed that Ethan’s shirt was covered in blood. Thick, blackening streaks spread across the white cotton. Ethan caught him staring at the stains, and before Grant could say anything, he pulled the shirt off and held it in a ball in his hands. He didn’t toss it to the floor; he just stood there, holding the bloodied shirt tightly, and staring at his family, expressionless.

  “You are looking good,” Maxine said. “There’s some color back in your cheeks.”

  “Don’t,” Ethan replied.

  “Ethan—”

  He took another stilted step forward. “Stop, please. There are two things I want. I want to see Teddy and I want to get away from this place. Just tell me when we get to leave...tell me when we can get out of this hellhole.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sometimes the food was drugged. Sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes Lou allowed Darla, Ainsley, and Dean to congregate upstairs and sit on the old-fashioned furniture and listen to the perpetual static of a radio while Lyle spun the dial—hoping, waiting. Sometimes they talked fluidly of old times and memories, and sometimes Lou grilled them about what they knew and who they were going to see. Questions which they dutifully ignored.

  The stun guns and Tasers were the Hales’ weapons of choice, and when the captives’ legs were untied, or they were allowed to use the bathroom, they were never alone. It was degrading and humiliating, and with each day that passed, Darla grew angrier at the prospect of not seeing her son. Angry didn’t even begin to scratch the surface of her emotions. Her veins ran cold with rage. Nebraska was still so far away. Teddy felt intangible—like a concept and not a real person she needed to see. The drugs addled her brain, and made her forget her sense of urgency. It wasn’t that she hadn’t tried to escape or plot a way out of the basement. Every moment of every day became dedicated to convincing Lou that she was not a threat.

  For the first time in her life, Darla was despondent and careless. The Hales only wanted information, and she refused on principle to trade that for her own release. If only she had something else of worth to offer them. She didn’t. And soon they would realize their energy was wasted, the kidnapping was in vain. Maybe they’d kill them. Maybe they were cannibals after all. It didn’t seem as farfetched as Darla once thought.

  Lindsey had accompanied Darla to the bathroom. She looked away as Darla peed into the tall green bucket next to the toilet. Lou had fashioned a plastic lid, complete with a tidy hole at the center. They emptied the bucket when it got full and the room reeked like urine and feces. Darla heard a fly buzz around her head and she swatted it away.

  She had stopped talking to Lindsey. Stopped trying to convince her that she wasn’t the enemy. Lou was staunchly committed to the idea that his captives were Sweepers or knew when the Sweepers were coming. He would launch into wild-eyed rants; the fragility of his mental state was evident to everyone. Sometimes Cricket would stop him before he resorted to violence, and sometimes she would leave the room and let him deal with the prisoners with impunity.

  Darla wiped herself and dropped the rationed toilet paper into the bucket. She lifted her dirty, unwashed pants and underwear and liberally applied a layer of hand-sanitizer. Then she nodded toward the door and waited. But Lindsey didn’t budge.

  “I’ve been thinking—” Lindsey started, rubbing a hand over her neck. “Because it wasn’t supposed to go on this long...”

  She paused, as if waiting for Darla to interject, but Darla refused to engage. She blinked lazily and yawned without covering her mouth.

  “It’s not up to me,” she continued. “Just tell him what he wants to know and he’ll let you go. If you’re not working for the Sweepers, then what do you have to hide?”

  The fly landed on Darla’s shoulder and she batted at it. It buzzed off toward the shower.

  From downstairs Lyle shouted up at Lindsey to hurry up. Lindsey leaned down, slipped the rope over Darla’s wrists, and led her out into the hallway. Darla tried to kick at Lindsey’s heels, but she failed. Even though it was midday, the house was dark and stuffy; not a single shaft of light sneaked through the blackout windows. The entire house felt oppressive and severe, and Darla closed her eyes as Lindsey led her back down the steep cement steps to the basement.

  “I’ll come back with dinner,” Lindsey said as she unlocked the door. “And I have a proposal...if you’ll hear me out...”

  “Save it,” Darla said.

  Lindsey pouted as she untied Darla’s hands and gave her a subtle push back into her room. She shut the door, and the locks clicked into place.

  Ainsley sat in the corner; she flipped the flashlight on and off. On and off. Her face was gaunt, and her body was growing leaner. The light illuminated her striking features, casting them in shadow, and then she’d hit the switch and the darkness would swallow everything again.

  “What day is it today?” Ainsley asked when she was certain they were alone.

  “I don’t know,” Darla answered.

  “How long have we been here?” Ainsley asked. On and off. On and off.

  “Stop with the light.” Darla walked over and took the flashlight from Ainsley. She flashed it on the wall next to the door. Four crude marks were etched into the wall. “Five days. Tomorrow will be six.”

  “I’m hungry,” Ainsley complained.

  “Then eat what they feed us.”

  Ainsley stopped talking. She sulked in the darkened corner. Darla flashed the light on her, and like a vampire she recoiled from the glare, throwing her pencil-thin arms up over her face. Above them they could hear the creaking boards as people moved around the house from room to room—they resented their captors’ mobility.

  From beyond the outer walls, Darla heard a faint rumble. The noise was distinct and it jarred her more than anything because she hadn’t heard the sound since they had arrived. A car was approaching. She was certain.

  “Is that—?” Ains
ley scampered to her feet and lifted her head.

  Darla walked over to the corner of the room and dropped to her belly. They had discovered on the third day that a heating vent carried their voices to each other from room to room. It wasn’t a perfect method of communication between the rooms, but it had worked, and it had kept Dean from going too crazy alone with the rabbits.

  She crawled past the boxes and a thirty-year-old spring rocking horse with rusted coils, the paint where its eyes were supposed to be faded away, until she felt the cold metal beneath her fingers. “Dean!” she whispered through the floor. “Dean!” She placed her ear against the grate and waited.

  “I’m here,” Dean said. “You hear the car, too?”

  “Other survivors,” Darla whispered back. “Or...” she couldn’t finish her thought. She hadn’t entertained the possibility that it could get worse.

  A car door slammed. Then someone began to knock on the front door. The movement above them was steady and calm. Their captors did not respond to the knocking with the level of distress and worry that one could reasonably expect from sudden visitors. That led Darla to the only rational conclusion she could muster: the Hales knew the people who had arrived on their doorstep. And they weren’t a threat.

  Inaudible voices. Cheery salutations. The front part of the house was alive, and Darla snapped her fingers at Ainsley, who had found her way to Darla’s corner and hovered within earshot of the open vent.

  “Stand on the coffee table over there and listen,” Darla said.

  Ainsley did as she was told, and Darla followed her with the flashlight, brightening the way. She strained her head and her neck, but shook her head and stepped down.

  “You can’t hear anything,” Ainsley said and she plopped herself against the coarse carpet next to Darla.

  “Dean?” Darla whispered.

  “Yeah,” he replied.