“Go ask her. Go ask Holland.” He didn’t face me still.
“She said she saw things. I heard her. She said she felt lumps. She said all those things,” I half- whispered, half-shouted to him.
“She saw nothing, and that is what we were searching for. Why she was hiding everything.”
“You know what? You’re angry because I have someone and you have no one. I know what this is about,” I said defiantly.
And then he was laughing. “Yes, I’m jealous of a girl working to destroy you. She almost did. You have never been so wrapped around someone. She is using you. She is luring you in to bring you to your father. I’m right, and you know it.” He didn’t smirk, he just stared me in the eyes as if he was claiming to be the person who was right and I was the idiot who believed her.
I didn’t believe him, and I was infuriated. I snatched the papers from his hands and I stormed down the hall and into my room. I smacked the lights on, and I walked to her. She was waking up slowly. She was smiling at me until she saw my face, and she cowered down like she knew what was wrong already.
I threw the paper down onto her bed. “Explain this. Now,” I shouted in her face.
“What? What is that?” she asked as she gathered the paper and a blank expression came over her.
“This is your phone record,” I said in an urgent tone.
I had the sick urge to hit something, but I didn’t. I focused on her soft eyes. She grabbed the papers and looked taken aback. “This is from my room? I haven’t called anyone. I don’t have anyone to talk to out there.” She pointed to the walls. I saw her eyes are glassed over as if she couldn’t believe it.
“Do you know whose number that is?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“Well, it is familiar, but I don’t know. I think they used to call my house for my father. But why does that matter?” she shouted.
“That is my father’s number, and your room has called him over twenty times.” Her face grew from curiosity to confusion.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have nothing to say to him. He killed my family. Don’t you remember? Don’t be stupid.” She tossed the paper back to me, and I felt my blood boil.
“You work for him, don’t you?” The fury I felt spilled over and the shock on her face pushed me over the edge. “You do! You can’t even answer me.”
“I just thought you knew me better than that,” she said simply as she laid her head back down.
“You weren’t even sick. Gabe put dye remover in you to see if you were faking, and take a look at you now. You’re all cured and not rotting anymore. You are a liar. And I suggest you leave before I kill you. You betrayed me, and you betrayed my friends. I was a mess and worried sick over a liar. You made me care for you. You should leave now.”
She just stared at me. There was no remorse in her eyes. I felt my anger faltering, but then she stared at me. “Yes, you are an idiot.” My mouth dropped open when she walked past me to her room. “I’ll leave in the morning, but you should know that you’re wrong, and you lost the person who would have given you everything. I would never side with someone who betrayed you and me in different ways. I’ll be gone tomorrow.” She didn’t turn back, but I knew the tears spilt, because I heard a sob as she closed the door.
After a few moments, my door slammed against the wall as Holland opened it and stared at me for a while before walking in.
“I don’t think she betrayed you, honey. You left the door open, so I heard the conversation. Gabe gets too paranoid.” She was ready to defend Gabe again, because her eyes looked infuriated.
“Who called my father then?” I asked a little too angrily. The fury hadn’t left me.
“Honey, I don’t know. They could have planted that here. I mean, they have found us before. Remember the footage from a year ago?” I did. The day was terrible. We watched and waited to be attacked while someone waited just outside the house at the lifeguard chairs. Finally, they left the house untouched, but I knew he worked for my father. “For heaven’s sake, we took someone in to test the cure and they exploded right down there. He could have planted false phone calls. I’m confused, but I know she loved you. What if she was working for him and then she stopped because she cared for you?”
I didn’t respond, because I didn’t believe she loved me at all. “Then she betrayed me,” I said finally.
“But love betrayed how she felt before. If she was working with him, he knows where we are. And no one has attacked us yet. Think about that.”
I did for a second and I laughed. “He’ll be here soon then. I upset her.”
Holland smiled. “I don’t know what is going on. But I do know that you should go talk to her. You can get past this. Just think about it,” she told me.
She got up swiftly and shut the door behind her. I could always count on her to make me feel better. I waited about five minutes and walked to the door. I took a deep breath and decided to talk to Lena. She would be honest if she loved me.
I couldn’t help but wonder if she changed her mind about my father. Then why did she and he continue communicating? Or maybe they planted it there so that I would send her away. What if I was giving them what they wanted?
I knocked twice as soon as I reached her room. I walked in slowly and saw she was lying down. One arm hung off the bed and she looked uncomfortable. So I walked to her and lifted her arm slowly. I turned on her lamp beside her bed.
I jumped back and started shouting for help. The next few seconds of my life made me feel as if I had nothing to live for anymore. I began blaring for help. I didn’t know what happened next, because Lena was gone. Not dead, but almost. Her eye was completely blackened from the rotting behind them. She was completely rotten and the smell was unbearable. I didn’t know what happened, but I did know there was no saving her.
I felt myself losing my grip on the bed, and I fell to the floor. She was sick. There was no denying it, because the rotting remained the same as it once did. I felt the blow to my head, and I was lost to the world.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Nothing Left
I WOKE UP from my trance, and I looked up to the bed where Lena had been, but she was no longer there. Holland stood crying, and Gabe was nowhere in sight. I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Lena was dead. She must have been.
“Is she gone?” I asked quietly as I sat up to put my hand to the back of my head. I leaned against the wall and felt hopeless. I didn’t want to hear the answer, but I did anyway.
“She’s gone. Gabe took her,” Holland said between sobs, and I shot up.
“Took her where?” She didn’t meet my eyes. I looked around in frantic mode. Where could she be if she wasn’t dead? So I asked.
“Is she dead, Holland?” I asked loudly.
“No, Gabe took her to your father,” she said in between gasps and sobs.
“Why is she there?” I screamed, and I shot up from the floor fast, ready to attack her. “Was she with him then?” My heart felt as if it were being ripped from my chest.
“Gabe took her so she could live. She didn’t want to die. You didn’t want her to die either.” Holland didn’t look to me anymore. She had her face in between her hands.
“What happened? I thought she wasn’t sick. Like Gabe said,” I shouted.
“We were wrong. She was sick; she was so sick that she reacted to the dye. I want to make a real antidote now. We should have made a real one to begin with.” She heaved in between her words. “I feel so bad. This is all our faults. This is all my fault.” She sank to the floor and started wailing loudly. I reached to comfort her, but stopped myself because I was sickened at the thought of being near her. Lena didn’t deserve this. She never betrayed us. She believed in us to save her, and we let her down. The love of my life was gone forever.
“Holland, I don’t understand what just happened.” Holland shook her head. “You have taken away the person I love. Even if she was lying, why was I betrayed, too?” I shouted to her. I got up
slowly and walked toward her, ready to hurt her. I remembered I was nothing like my father. I clenched my hands.
“Gabe told her you said to leave and this is what you meant. She thought you wanted her to disappear so she did. She was so sick. She just nodded,” Holland told me. She forced herself to look at me and didn’t cower away. “So this is what you wanted,” she screamed back at me.
“Why would he tell her that? Why would you do this to me?” I started to shake furiously all over. Holland shuddered as she cried louder.
“Well, you did tell her to leave when you were yelling at her,” she said as tears gushed from her eyes. “We lost her, and the only hope of finding a real cure. She is gone forever.”
“Oh. Shut up. You wanted her only for your pathetic tests. I wanted her because she was real. She was mine, and I lost her.”
I slouched down and felt empty. Gabe walked in, and I wanted to slap him. “Well, I gave her to your dad. It was hell. I called him from the number we found in Lena’s phone records. He was only about two hours north of us, which on the jetpack takes no time at all. He was helping to cure some kids. But, guys…” He hesitated. “They followed me.” I got up and balled my hand, and just as I was about to attach my fist to his face there was rumbling and the floor began to shake underneath my feet. The ceiling began to sprinkle bits of sand down on us. I stood in place, ready to offer myself up so I could be near her once more.
“Who followed you?” Holland shouted above the noise.
“Them.” He pointed to the ceiling as a human arm burst through the ceiling.
“What in the hell are they?” Holland screamed as she ran past us.
“They’re human robots. Remember your suggestion, Holland,” he said sarcastically, but then flailed his arms frantically. “Run, Jared!” Gabe roared to me.
I moved my feet, but I didn’t feel as if I was there. I was a pile of Jell-O moving through the room. There were a million arms and legs being pushed through the ceiling, and I was just about to turn to go out of the emergency door when someone landed right in front of me. It was her.
She was beautiful. There was red lipstick on her lips and brown eye shadow along her eyelids. She never wore makeup like this, but she looked extravagant. Her hair was down in soft waves. It was pushed back slightly, revealing that every trace of rotting was gone. She had the cure. Around her neck was her golden necklace that meant so much to her. I wondered why they let her keep that. She wore jeans with a casual gray shirt that grazed her thighs. She looked incredible, and I was in awe at how different she appeared. She was always beautiful, but now she was perfect. I could not find one flaw in her face. She had her chance to kill me, because I would gladly die from her hands, and she knew it. She grabbed my neck with an iron grip and began to choke me. I gasped for air, but immediately calmed down to stare at her. I felt her grip loosen. A sudden realization seemed to hit her, and she dropped me instantly and turned her head to the side in wonder. She reached for my face and conflict covered her eyes.
She knew I was someone she recognized. I saw it in her face, but then her eyes flickered from her normal hazel eyes to a dark emerald. She shook the confusion out of her mind. Her eyes, now the color she feared and had nightmares about, were her own. She smirked at me with taunting eyes. And I screamed as a burning sensation came over my body.
“Help me!” I managed as I fell to the floor in pain. I caught sight of someone running toward Lena with a brick. Holland hit Lena with it before Lena had time to react. She dropped the brick and looked down, conflicted. “Sorry,” she said in a melancholy way.
Lena didn’t get knocked out, but she did lose her concentration. I ran to the escape door with Holland following me while Lena recovered. I never showed Lena the door out, so she hopefully wouldn’t lead anyone to follow us. The door led to a slide into the ocean. Gabe had made it for this exact scenario. We always thought it would be fun to take, but this wasn’t fun. Nowhere near fun. We barely made it to the room before I heard the wind blowing strongly outside.
Gabe was already outside by the time I reached the door. It locked down as soon as Holland crossed the doorway. The slide elongated upward from our underground home and into the ocean and was only visible when we hit the button, which Gabe did. We each got onto the slide and a whooshing sound erupted around us as we were suctioned down and landed into the ocean. As I hit the water, I closed my eyes, letting it engulf me. When I opened them I looked above to see at least a thousand figures flying toward us.
“They can fly? Are you joking? I forgot. Damn it!” Holland screamed loudly.
They flew toward us with full speed, but as soon as they approached the ocean, they stopped suddenly, as if something beckoned them to come forward, but they couldn’t. All their eyes glowed and they all turned quickly around. They always let us go, and I never knew why. One stayed back, staring and turned away slowly. It was Lena.
“Guys,” I said quietly. They both turned to look at me. “I have to go after her. She is still in there. I can try to make her remember me. They wiped her memory. I’m sure of it, but I can bring it back,” I told them. “I know I can do it, and she is taken over by these impulses, but what if I can stop them? I have to try or die trying. That is who I love, and I won’t live without her.” I hesitated and was overwhelmed by how much I would risk saving her. “If she is gone forever, then I will die killing my father and anyone who is with him.”
They both looked at me, dazed, but Holland nodded. “Go get her. We’ll be there for you. I’m going to stay here and get supplies. There will be war. We have to get her back. She is the key. She is the antidote, Jar.”
I smiled and nodded to her; Gabe just nodded swiftly. “I will stay here and work on weapons. Hopefully they won’t come back. Try to keep them at bay,” he told me. We shook hands, and I held Holland in a hug. We got out of the water after our embrace, and I looked up to the sky. It was clear once more. The water weighed me down and the sand stuck to my body. I needed a change of clothes, but I kept walking. I had plenty of time to get clothes from a store. I walked to the cave where the car was hidden. The Audi that I drove to get Lena here was covered with sand. I looked forward and began driving. I caught sight of Holland and Gabe by the beach, trying to find the way back in. They caught sight of me, and Holland was waving to me and Gabe gave me a thumbs-up and smiled to me.
I drove the car toward the road; toward my love, toward my death. I didn’t know which, and I didn’t think I cared either way. It led me to her.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my mom, dad, Dina, Dimitri, Grandma, Great Grandmother and Susiefor giving me with the courage to write this book.I have many people to thank for the courage I have now.
I want to thank Edee for being there for me when I was still learning the ropes of book writing. I will always remember you and what you have done for me.
Thank you, Ron, for taking my pictures. They are amazing and I can’t thank you enough.
Thank you to my editor, Measha, for being awesome and my second pair of eyes. You let me know what worked and what didn’t. You have changed the story in the best way possible.
Thank you to Ashley for listening to my vision. I could never have had my dream cover without you.
Thank you to my family for listening to me ramble on to you about wanting to write this book. All of you have believed in me and I’m blessed to have the biggest support system.
To my mom, who always told me to never give up even when I felt like I was going fail. You always told me I would make it happen if I put faith in myself first.
To my dad, who encouraged me and always believed in me, even when I was unsure.
To Dimitri, who always told me I could make it and that I was crazy not to try. And for always telling me that I will make it “big time.”
To Dina, who listened to me and encouraged me to do this. We both are going to do great things one day.
Finally, thank you for reading my first book.
; About the Author
Taylor Hondos attends the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, studying English Literature. In high school she began writing “Antidote” and finished writing it by the end of her freshman year of college. “Antidote” is the first book in the Antidote trilogy. She plans to release “Prospect” next year. She lives with her family in North Carolina.
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Antidote Trilogy: The Complete Box Set Page 17