“I don’t know. Sometimes, there’s a switch that can make it a normal window.”
Alec looked around until he found an extra switch on the wall. He turned the knob and suddenly, the man began to rage again. Alec quickly switched it back and the man fell silent.
“That’s bizarre,” Elaina said. “It appears that the rage symptoms are only a response to others. If the infected person is alone, they’re just sick. Once you stimulate them with other humans, the rage kicks back in and they go berserk. The only problem is, we can only report the cases of people going crazy because there have to be witnesses present, and the witnesses set them off.”
Will whipped his head around toward Melissa. “See! You didn’t have to shoot her,” he bellowed. “If we would have gotten her into isolation, she would have stood a chance. You murdered her, plain and simple.”
“What—” Elaina started to ask, but Alec violently shook his head. She closed her mouth.
“What was I supposed to do?” Melissa asked. “We were in the woods. There was no isolation chamber for her to wait it out in. What would we have done then? There was no way to cure her. She would have died, plain and simple. I’m sorry, but no matter how you spin this, I am in the right.”
Will stormed out of the room, muttering something about going to see Derek. Melissa went into the hallway and sat down, sobbing.
“What’s going on?” Thomas asked tentatively, stepping back into the room.
“Nothing,” Alec said wearily. “We caught an infected person, but everything is fine now.”
“Then why is there a girl crying in the hallway?”
Alec slouched down on a stool. “Lainey, I have something to tell you.”
“I have a bad feeling I already know what it is,” she said nervously. She set her work down, removing all distractions.
“When we lost Will and Natalia, they got picked up by a rebel army organization. Bretton was testing his new virus there. He injected Natalia when they were trying to escape. She attacked Will and nearly bit him. That girl out there, Melissa, shot and killed her to save Will.”
Elaina rested her head in her hands. “Bretton did that?” She didn’t ask because she couldn’t believe it, but because it was too horrible to be true.
“Yeah. They just barely got away. Will’s really torn up about it. He’s been lashing out at Melissa.”
“She probably made the right call,” Elaina muttered. “I just wish I could have been there.”
“Me, too. But we can’t beat ourselves up about it,” Alec said, looking at the infected man on the other side of the glass, curled up in a ball.
Elaina nodded. “Do you mind if I work alone for a little bit. I just need some time to process this.”
“Of course. I’ll be nearby if you need anything. You’ve got a whole team of bodyguards now.”
“Thanks.”
Once everyone was gone, Elaina backed away from her workstation and rested her head on the table. Hot tears poured from her eyes. As she cried for her fallen friend, she felt the pain of losing her sister all over again.
“We couldn’t save her, Lily,” she sobbed to herself, wrapping her hand around the tiny remains of her serum. She rolled the smooth glass vial in her hand, focusing on all the work and sacrifice it took to produce such a tiny portion.
Steeling herself, she sat up and wiped her eyes. Will had left a bottle of water on the floor when he stormed out, so she drank until she replaced the tears she’d cried for Natalia. As callous as it felt, she didn’t have time to mourn an innocent life when there were many more to save. Elaina gathered her supplies and got back to work.
Chapter Thirty-One
Elaina put the last of her serum in the incubator and closed the door. Now, she had nothing to do but wait for the virus antibodies to develop. She hated this part of the process—she liked to feel like she was accomplishing something. Plus, she was so eager to start testing on infected people.
She looked through the two-way mirror at the infected man in the lab coat. She wondered if he was a doctor, or had just found the coat in the chaos and put it on. In his infected state, it made no difference to her, though she wished she could pick the mind of a doctor who had dealt with infected patients. Perhaps he would have a better understanding of the physical effects than she did.
In her daydreams, she would finish the serum and test it on the infected man before he succumbed to the illness. As it were, he looked close to death. Occasionally, he would wipe a trail of blood from his nose or even from his eyes. However, he was completely docile, as long as no one was within his field of vision. At least they had that going for them.
She knew that the virus would eventually cause organ damage, which would lead the whole body to shut down, but, when she thought about it, she had yet to see an infected person die that way. In all the cases of death she’d witnessed, the deaths were caused by blunt force trauma or gunshot wounds.
Always a fan of facts and figures, she wished there was some sort of data collected to break down the causes of death in infected patients. She had a bad feeling that most of the deaths could be attributed to controlling the spread of the virus.
Alec and Will returned to the lab with Derek, Thomas, and Melissa. Will had a sullen look on his face.
“Are you busy?” Alec asked her as he peeked his head in the doorway.
“No, I’m just waiting on these viruses to replicate for my serum.”
“Okay. I figured we could formally introduce you to Melissa and Derek.”
“Hi,” Elaina said awkwardly. “How much have you heard about me?”
Melissa twiddled her thumbs. “Alec told us everything. Don’t worry, we came to the conclusion on our own that you weren’t the one who released the virus.”
“That’s good,” she said, with a hint of sarcasm. She was getting tired of having to defend her innocence. “I suppose it helps that you’ve met Bretton Vincent. He’s probably my best defense in this whole thing.”
Derek nodded. “You can’t really defend the man’s actions once you’ve seen his true character. I’m sorry about what happened to your friend.”
“I’m sorry about what happened to yours,” she replied. “She sounded like a nice woman.”
“She was,” Will responded. “They both were.”
Everyone fell silent. Both Will and Melissa looked straight at the ground, unable to make eye contact with anyone.
“Well,” Derek said, breaking the awkward tension, “I’m glad that you’re on our side.”
He extended his hand toward Elaina to show her that he trusted and respected her. She shoved her hand into his and quickly shook it.
“What’s that?” Derek asked, his tone changing. His grip on Elaina’s hand tightened.
“What—” Elaina started, anxious by his sudden change in demeanor. She looked down at her hand and noticed a half-moon shape on her hand.
“Those are teeth marks,” Derek said. “Did you get bitten by the infected person? It looks like your skin is broken.”
Elaina picked up a cotton swab and brushed it over her hand. A tiny trace of blood smeared onto the bleached cotton puff. The imprint of bite marks was unmistakably from the infected man she’d shoved away.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Alec asked, trying to suppress the fear in his voice.
“I didn’t know!” Elaina exclaimed, recklessly pouring rubbing alcohol on the wound. The alcohol stung her skin. “I was too freaked out by the attack to notice and then I got busy with my work. It’s not uncommon for me to completely space out when I’m working.”
Elaina wished she had Natalia to vouch for this fact. She had seen Elaina work in the lab and knew how wrapped up in her work she got. After gaining a little shred of credibility, Elaina feared her new acquaintances would turn on her. As she had learned with Alec, if someone didn’t know her already, they might not believe her idiosyncrasies were authentic. She had told her story too many times to be called a liar again.
“Everybody, relax,” Alec said. “This is clearly an issue we need to deal with immediately. We need to stay calm and think rationally. Let’s keep our weapons out of it.”
“How do you feel?” Will asked nervously. He looked for some of the signs Natalia showed, but didn’t see any.
“I feel fine. Honestly. I didn’t even realize I had been bitten. The bite isn’t that deep. It just hardly grazed my skin.”
“You still have the virus in your system,” Derek said. “Besides, Natalia didn’t show symptoms right away, either. You need to go into isolation immediately.”
“Wait,” Alec said. “What about your cure?”
“As far as I know, it’s kept the infection at bay so far. I think it’s been about a week since I’ve been infected.”
The others looked at Elaina with different degrees of puzzlement on their faces.
“I only told this to Alec,” Elaina said, preparing for a full riot, “but when we were at the army camp, Bretton infected me with his virus, too. In fact, he injected me, just like he did with Natalia.”
Will looked like he was going to be sick. The others looked like they wanted nothing to do with Elaina. Melissa’s hand was shaking in her pocket.
“I immediately gave myself a dose of my working cure and it seems to be working well,” Elaina said. “I haven’t had any symptoms yet. But, I’d be lying if I said that I was definitely immune. The truth is, I have no idea if it’s going to work. I have a hunch that it will, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. I wouldn’t stake anyone else’s life on it.”
“But you might be immune to it, right?” Alec asked.
“I might. I might not be, too.”
Melissa and Derek looked highly uncomfortable. A vein in Derek’s forehead was twitching.
“We need to keep the uninfected safe,” he said. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but you may end up being a danger to us if you start having rage symptoms.”
“I would never want to put you in danger,” Elaina said. “If I don’t make it, I don’t make it. I’ll succumb to the virus in isolation if it comes down to it.”
Alec winced. The thought of losing Elaina was so painful to him that he couldn’t even fathom the thought of it. If Elaina couldn’t survive the virus, then what hope did the rest of the world have? Her knowledge would die along with her.
“But, if anything happens to me,” she said, taking a shuddering breath, “you need to give my notes to someone who can carry out my work. I’ve written everything down, and any scientist worth anything could follow the steps and produce a pretty good serum. I have about twenty-five milliliters of serum in the incubator, which would help keep symptoms at bay for most people. Plus, I think it could work as a vaccine, too, if the current strain doesn’t change too much.”
“Come on,” Alec said. “Don’t say that. You’re going to be fine.”
“No,” Derek said, “this is good to know. I think it’s time to isolate yourself now.”
Elaina nodded. She grabbed a couple bottles of water and a bag of cookies. “I’m going to sit in this closet for a few hours. How long do you think it took Natalia to turn?”
“Maybe three hours?” Melissa estimated.
“Okay, then let’s make it five to be safe. I’ll hang out here for a little while. If I’m not showing symptoms when the time’s up, we can assume that my particular case is different, and I might not become contagious.”
“We’ll come check on you periodically,” Alec promised. “If you need anything, we’ll be around.”
“Okay,” Elaina said, heading into the closet. “You know what to do if things get bad, right?”
Everyone nodded.
“Good. I’ll see you in five hours.”
Elaina closed the door behind her and Derek propped a chair against the doorknob. He returned to the wide window to look at the infected man, whose vitals were quickly fading.
“Has anyone looked at these notes?” Melissa asked. “Maybe we can start making more of the serum while she’s in there. She said her directions were pretty clear.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize you were a scientist,” Will said sarcastically.
“I’m not, but how hard can it be?”
She picked up the notebook and started flipping through pages. As she read, her face fell.
“Can anyone else make sense of this?”
Alec and Will looked at the notebook. Elaina had written an extremely detailed log of every step in her process, along with diagrams of what the different chemical structures and viruses were supposed to look like, but no one was able to even pronounce the words, let alone understand what they meant.
“What are the chances we find another scientist?” Will said wearily. “The only other scientist we’ve seen in months is a complete psychopath. What are we supposed to do if she dies?”
No one answered. Even if they managed to find someone else to replicate the serum, it would take too long. They needed to be able to distribute it before the entire country’s population fell ill.
“I’m going to go back downstairs and get Victoria’s body,” Derek said, breaking the silence. “I don’t want it to sit around here with the other dead people. She deserves a proper burial.”
“I’ll help you,” Alec said.
“Me, too,” Thomas agreed.
Will and Melissa followed them out of the room. There was nothing they could do in the lab until Elaina’s isolation period was over.
Derek pulled a gurney into the room and with Alec’s help, lifted Victoria’s body onto it. Will couldn’t look at her—he was tired of seeing dead bodies everywhere he went. Thomas covered her with several white towels. Then, they proceeded down the stairs and wheeled her body to the garden behind the hospital.
“Listen,” Alec said quietly as he trailed behind with Will. “It’s not healthy for you to be this angry. You have to find a way to get through this. It’s going to eat you alive if you don’t.”
“There is no getting through this,” Will said. “I don’t know how to forgive someone for killing Natalie. I don’t know how to forgive my mom for killing my dad, or how to forgive my dad for pushing her to that point. I don’t know how to forgive myself for doing nothing to stop any of it.”
“None of those people are to blame. If you want to direct your blame, blame it on Bretton. Otherwise, let it go. I know you’re hurting, but being angry at Melissa is going to poison the whole group.”
They watched as Thomas and Derek started digging with the two shovels they’d found in the maintenance closet. Will let out a strangled chuckle.
“What?” Alec asked.
“Nothing. I just realized that this is the first burial I’ve seen since the virus hit. So many people around me have died, yet this is the first time any sort of respect has been made for the dead.”
“There’s hasn’t been too much time to grieve. It wasn’t safe to stay in one place for too long.”
“Maybe that’s my problem,” Will mused. “I haven’t been able to find closure. Each death makes me feel a little bit worse. It’s starting to be too much for me to handle.”
“Well,” Alec said, walking toward the hole in the ground, “here’s your chance. We’re only burying Victoria, but maybe you should memorialize everyone else you’ve lost.”
Will nodded. “Okay, I’ll try.”
They gathered around the rectangular hole as Derek and Thomas lowered her in. Then, they all took turns scooping a pile of dirt back in to cover her.
“I would say a few words about her,” Thomas said, “but I never knew her.”
“None of us really did,” Derek said.
They stood around in silence before walking away, one by one. Will was the last one to leave. He picked up a handful of soil and slowly scattered it on the grave.
“Goodbye,” he whispered, before getting up and following the others inside.
Something about the makeshift funeral eased a hurt inside of him that had been nagging him for some time. He didn’t feel great, but he felt a little more like himself.
Having nowhere else to be, the group went back to the lab to see how Elaina was doing. Only four hours had passed, but everyone was anxious to see how she felt. Not only did they want the virologist to make it so she could continue working on the cure, but if she felt fine, that meant that they were close to seeing a cure for the Vincent Virus.
“Who wants to check on her first?” Thomas asked, trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone. As curious as they were about her condition, no one wanted to put their life or her life in jeopardy.
Everybody put their head down. The unknown risk on the other side of the door was too frightening to fathom.
“Or, we could just give it another hour,” Thomas said quickly, looking at the door.
They all agreed. Little was likely to change for Elaina’s condition, but, perhaps by then, someone would build up the courage to face their fears.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Growing anxious from waiting, the group found a doctor’s lounge on the third floor and set up camp. It had been ransacked, just like every other room in the place, but at least it was devoid of dead bodies. Their standards for what made a space livable had plummeted in the past few months.
The atmosphere in the room was uncomfortable, at best. Alec didn’t know any of the new companions, yet they had made important decisions and buried a body together. When he thought about it, he hadn’t even known Will for very long, yet he felt a strong connection to him. With Natalia gone, his urge to keep Will safe grew.
The group dynamic wasn’t set up to deal with awkward silences. Alec was soft spoken to begin with, relying on others to start the conversation. His social skills involved listening more than speaking. As a cop, he learned that a keen eye and good observation skills could be more powerful than a gun at times. He did his best to keep things cordial, but it wasn’t really within his skill set to entertain.
Thomas was a shy kid with trust issues. His old group had taken him in and given him protection, but forced him to do the jobs they didn’t want. That meant that when he wasn’t on watch duty, he was scooping dead bodies off the streets and cleaning the portable toilets. As the youngest member, he hadn’t been treated fairly. He felt more at home in his new group because no one forced him to do anything he didn’t want to do, but they weren’t his friends. He didn’t feel like the others had anything in common with him. That was the saddest part, because he so desperately wanted to connect with others and be a respected member of a group.
The Morgan Strain Series (Book 2): Point of Proximity Page 21