by Teri Terry
Freja does too. JJ thinks she shouldn’t, but she ignores him. She tucks herself in next to Kai as he sleeps. Her mind she keeps closed to me, but there is such pain on her face that I look away.
CHAPTER 20
KAI
I DON’T KNOW THAT SHAY WAS HERE. I don’t know that Shay was here. I don’t know that Shay was here…This is a litany I repeat over and over inside as we head back to the site.
Callie’s checked: no one is there, no one is near. Patrick was right: the rain killed what was left of the fire, at least as far as we can see. We need Callie’s help now, so Patrick sets Amaya and Henry the task of watching the approaches in case Vigil comes back, or the authorities. The rest of us will go in.
“Everyone, this could be dangerous; take it easy and listen. No rushing ahead without checking it’s safe.” Patrick says it to everyone but looks at me.
“It’s all right,” I say. “I’ll do as I’m told.” Nothing is all right in any sense of these words, but I won’t rush in and have a building collapse on my head.
I don’t know that Shay was here…
Until I do, I will hang on to hope.
Callie guides them to the first body—air force, in uniform—outside the perimeter of the place. Perhaps a guard? He was shot, by the look of things.
Patrick kneels next to him, places a hand lightly on his arm. A moment later, he stands. “He was out for a walk, saw the attackers approaching and ran back to raise the alarm—they shot him before he made it.”
And I’m remembering that survivors can talk to the dead—something like that. It’s one of the things I’d heard about them but not seen in action.
I look a question at Freja; she must know the rumors that have been spread about survivors. She shakes her head slightly. “Not talking to the dead, just sensing their last thoughts—whatever they saw and felt as they died. It’s not an easy thing to do.”
“So if somebody saw Shay…”
She nods. “We all know what she looks like; Callie showed us.”
We break in through a warped door.
The air is poor, and we smash windows, open doors, to let more in, and Patrick makes us wait. I’m squirming with frustration at the delay.
Finally we go in; the main structure seems to be built into the rock, with a metal frame that is largely intact—so falling ceilings look unlikely.
We check rooms one at a time. There are more bodies. Some are badly burned, some not; some air force, some in some sort of civilian clothes—jeans, T-shirts, maybe, from what is left of them—others are in their beds.
Each time we find a body, one of them checks it—taking it in turns. Again and again, they shake their heads; there is no news of Shay. They tell what they sensed if it helps work out what happened. Most were chased, burned, or the smoke got them and they didn’t really even know what happened—drifting away in their sleep. They’re the lucky ones; some of the others’ deaths were very hard, going by the reactions of those who read them.
We find a wing of bedrooms. There are names on panels on the doors, and some can still be read. I check them as we go along, but none have “Shay” on them, and I’m starting to really believe she might never have been here.
There is one last bedroom to check. Freja rubs at the name panel on the door. “No Shay!” she says. “It says Beatriz, Amaranth, and Sharona.”
Ice runs through me so it is hard to move, to speak, to anything. Finally I manage to take a step forward, to say, “Sharona? That’s Shay. It—it’s her real first name.”
I reach Freja’s side and see the name on the door for myself. We try to push the door open; it’s warped and won’t give, and I’m glad to be able to heave at it hard, put my shoulder into it, until it hurts.
Finally I force it open.
The fire didn’t make it into this room. There are three beds, and only one has a shape inside of it.
The ice has taken over all of me now. I can’t move. I can’t look.
Freja takes my hand, and together we step forward. I make myself look at the body in the bed—at the blonde hair—and I almost cry with relief.
“It’s not her. Does she know what happened to Shay?”
Freja leans down, touches the girl’s shoulder. Sighs. Shakes her head. “No. She died in her sleep, from the smoke, most likely: she was dreaming of a boy.”
Freja is so pale, with dark rings under her eyes. It’s hard to do this, she’d said before.
“Thank you. For everything.” She nods tiredly, and we carry on.
We join some of the others heading down a part of the complex that has been more thoroughly destroyed.
A few bodies lie in a burned-out hall in full biohazard gear. The suits seem to have protected their bodies from the fire.
“I think with those suits on they must have been some of the attackers?” JJ says. It’s his turn.
JJ has to pull part of a suit off to reach the man inside. He touches him, flinches. He stays in contact so long that Freja looks worried, but then he pulls away.
He turns to me, grins. “Your girl rocks,” he says.
“What? You saw her? Tell me!”
“She killed these two. They were chasing her and another man down this hall. They were trying to go through that door at the end, but it wouldn’t open and they were trapped there,” he says, and gestures at the end of the hall. The door there now hangs open. “She told them to stop, and when they didn’t, she attacked their auras. Hearts stopped, I think.”
“So she went this way?” I say, and head for the door.
“I assume so but don’t know. He didn’t see that.”
“Careful, Kai,” Patrick says, and I remember my promise and just manage to hold myself back until he checks through the door.
We carry on searching. We don’t find Shay, or the body of anyone else who saw her before they died.
But she was definitely here: she escaped with somebody through a door in a hall, leaving two dead behind her, and that’s all we know.
Shay, what happened to you?
Where are you?
PART 5
ACCEPTANCE
The way to capture a soul should be with thought and careful reason, but in the unaltered, mind and heart rarely agree. Other methods become necessary.
—Xander, Multiverse Manifesto
CHAPTER 1
SHAY…
Shay…
Shay…
My name is said over and over again; it’s a tie that reaches out and holds me fast and won’t let go—like a lasso around a bucking horse that just wants freedom.
Shay…
I struggle to release my name, but it holds me tight—or do I hold on to it? Why don’t I let go?
Then Mum is here. I’m dreaming—is that it?
They can help you, if you let them, she says.
But I want to stay with you.
Not yet, beautiful girl, she says, and kisses me. Not yet.
Shay…
Shay…
Shay…
There is a chorus of my name in different voices, inside and around me and anchoring me to this world. They want to get in, but will that bring back the burning, the pain? I’m scared.
Scared—you? No way. It’s Spike. Alex must have saved him, and I’m glad.
Not just Alex—I wouldn’t be here without you. And I’m not letting you go. But I can’t do this alone. You have to let everyone help.
If I don’t let them help me, the fire will have won. Would that make me become like Callie forever? And then I’m even more scared.
So one by one, I let them into my mind. Spike. Elena. Beatriz. Even Alex. They hold me inside, shield me from the pain—each of them taking some of it on themselves—and slowly, a blood vessel here, a layer of tissue there heals. Skin and deeper tissues and lungs knit and repa
ir until I can breathe on my own. I heal.
And then I sleep.
CHAPTER 2
A DARK, DREAMLESS PLACE gives way to fractured images and light. There is movement and pain that slips again to darkness.
Gradually light returns.
Dreams first. Nightmares where I’m running and running and there is fire and hate, and I can’t escape.
I dream of my mother too, and sometimes she is here with me, stroking my hair and singing. But other times she is on the pyre, and this fire chases and tempts me too—beautiful flames that dance bright and promise to take me to her.
Then Callie comes to me, dark and cool and soothing. Before I couldn’t imagine what she went through when she was cured in fire—now I came very close to knowing. Would I have become like her if they hadn’t saved me? I’m sorry I left you, Callie.
And I cry out for Kai, but he never answers. Now he’s even deserted me in my dreams.
But here, there is warmth—a new friend is curled up, purring by my side, and rarely leaves.
And Spike is here as well. Beatriz and Elena too. Even unconscious, I can feel their presence, their care.
I have a new family, and they know me more, inside and out, than anyone else ever could.
CHAPTER 3
THERE ARE SLIVERS OF LIGHT through my lashes—crescents of a room, a window.
Someone, or something, is here next to me; I feel it. I turn my head a little and open my eyes wider. A furry paw bats at my nose lightly, and a deep purr vibrates through the most beautiful cat I’ve ever seen: silvery gray fur and intent green eyes.
So this was my warm friend while I slept. As if to answer my thought, a small meow interrupts the purring.
“Well, hello there, beautiful!” I look past the cat and there, on a chair with a book in his hands, is Spike.
She’s awake, he broadcasts widely, and soon there are footsteps. A door opens and Beatriz runs in and flings herself at me. The cat grumbles a sleepy protest from my other side at being disturbed and moves farther down the bed.
“Take it easy,” Spike says to Beatriz. But it’s okay. My arms move now and give her a little hug.
“Where are we?” I say, and it feels odd to shape words in this throat and mouth. I swallow.
Alex is at the door now, and Elena too.
“My country house,” Alex says. “In Northumberland.”
I move a little, sit up, head swimming. I look at my arms: they’re perfect, whole. I’d wrapped them around my head when the fireball hit me. Now I’m shaking, and my eyes dart side to side. I pull my knees up under the blankets and slip my arms around them.
“Do you remember, Shay?” Elena asks, her voice soft.
“The mob and the fire.” I shudder. “It caught me. And then all of you shared my pain and healed me, didn’t you?”
“You were beyond doing it yourself,” Alex says. “Well, I thought you were beyond any help. It was Beatriz who somehow knew what we had to do and showed us how. And Spike got through to you and convinced you to let us in to try.”
I look again at my hands, caught in wonder. I swallow and breathe and all is as it should be—but new cells replaced the dead, and much of me feels like a not-quite-comfortable new suit that needs wearing in a little. “I was on fire. I breathed fire into my lungs—and you fixed me? I can’t quite believe this.”
Am I still dreaming?
Spike comes over to the other side of my bed and takes my hand—a gesture that feels natural. This hand has felt this before. He’s been sitting, just there, holding my hand with its new skin while I slept.
“You’re not dreaming. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” Spike says.
“How did we escape?”
Alex comes farther into the room. He takes a chair by the window and pulls it up next to me and sits down.
“I had plans underway already to get all of you away and bring you here, but that witch hunt found us first. Somehow a group of survivor hunters—Vigil, they call themselves—found out where you were being held and attacked.”
I look around at the faces—so few faces—in this room. “Are we the only ones left?”
“Yes. We’re the only ones who got away.”
Pain catches in my throat. Ami—we left her in her bed to die; and all the others too, who didn’t come when Alex called. Are they like Callie now—neither alive nor dead? They don’t seem to have followed us here if they are. Tears are threatening, and I just don’t get why this happened. “I don’t understand why they attacked us. We weren’t a danger to them locked away like that, so why seek us out? Surely finding us was the biggest risk to them.”
Alex shrugs. “Fear and prejudice, mostly, and not just because of the epidemic. They were scared of difference—scared of us because we can do things they can’t, see things they can’t. And the rumors of what we can do have been multiplying at an alarming rate to include the absurd and incredible. They truly think we’re demons or witches. Not even human anymore.”
“But how did they find us? That facility was so much of a secret they wouldn’t even tell us where it was.”
“I don’t know,” Alex says. “I’m assuming someone who worked there let something slip; either confided in someone they shouldn’t have, or did it deliberately.”
“Will they find us here?”
“No; no one knows we’re here,” Alex says. “As far as they know, we died with the others during that attack, and no one followed us—we made sure of that. Even if they knew we got away and worked out somehow where we came, there’s no chance they’d come out here: it’s too far into the quarantine zone with everything that’s been going on.”
“Why’s that? What’s happened?”
Alex’s eyes move to Elena. They’re having a private conversation, but I want to know and I want to know now.
“Tell me what I’ve missed,” I say, insistent.
“I’ve been told I shouldn’t be telling you troubling things yet after what you’ve been through, but if I don’t explain now you’ll worry. Zone boundaries have been breaking down. First it was breached in Glasgow; now the epidemic is in London.”
I draw in a sharp breath and shake my head, wanting to reject his words, but I can tell he’s speaking the truth. Despite the devastation from the epidemic that I’ve already seen in Scotland, as long as London was free of it there seemed hope that it could be beaten; hope that is slipping away now.
If the whole country is overrun, only the immune and survivors will be left—survivors like us. And Alex.
“You were a survivor—one of us—all along, weren’t you?” I say.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t risk telling you. If they worked it out, I’d have been locked up with the rest of you, and there’d have been no hope for any of us.”
“So no one there knew?”
“No. No one in the government or running the facility had any idea.”
“How did you keep that a secret, right under their noses?”
“Best way to hide is in plain sight.” He grins, and the others seem to accept what he’s saying, but I still can’t work out how he got away with it. They didn’t seem to have any trouble identifying what the rest of us were, did they?
“Good thing, too,” Elena says, smiling, “or none of us would be here now.”
“I was, luckily, alone when I was ill,” Alex says. “So no one knew I was a survivor. Things were pretty chaotic in Edinburgh in the early days of the epidemic, and they hadn’t developed the scan yet. I already had my immune stamp before they did.” He holds up his hand, the I tattoo I’ve seen before visible on the back of it.
“But why were you going to help us get away before this happened? We’re carriers. Surely we should be locked up.”
“This house is inside the quarantine zone, and the whole area has been deserted: we are both safe ourselves an
d others are safe from us. But the government had it wrong, thinking they could study survivors like specimens. They thought we were the problem; that if they could work out how to decontaminate us, the epidemic would end. But they need us. We aren’t a problem—we’re evolution. With the abilities and brainpower we have, we’re humanity’s best hope to beat the challenges it faces—including this epidemic. We can do it, together. We can show them.”
Alex’s words are passionate, convincing; he believes what he says. Yet I still have an uncomfortable feeling that he is holding something back—something to do with him being a survivor. But I don’t know what it could be.
The others believe him. It’s all over their auras—that the damned could be the saviors. That we could change everything.
Could it really be possible? I want to believe.
I shield my thoughts. Who is Alex, really? His eyes meet mine, and I get an uncomfortable feeling that he knows what I’m thinking, despite my mental barriers being in place. There is something about him, some presence—and it’s not just from how tall he is, the way he carries himself. He has a way of drawing people to him—when he speaks, you want to listen. But he is also a keeper of secrets, and someone my mother left. She didn’t just break up with him; she fled her home, never told him she carried me, his daughter. She didn’t trust him, and neither did Kai—the two people whose opinions I value above all others.
Yet Alex risked his life and went back for Spike when I wouldn’t leave without him; somehow he got both of us out of there when I was hurt. I look around the room, at Elena and Beatriz too. He saved all of us.
And we didn’t know the one crucial thing about him—we never saw him clearly enough to know he was one of us. Did Kai and Mum have him all wrong too?
Later I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling. I convinced everyone I needed to rest, even though physically I seem to be more or less okay now. I just needed, I don’t know, processing time—alone.