Won’t he?
She hated the doubts that crowded in at every side. She hated the way her own misgivings blended into them.
She couldn’t reject her sister. It wasn’t Beth’s fault that she was infected. She hadn’t asked for this, and she was fighting it as much as she could. That was all anyone could expect of her.
But questions still swarmed through Clare’s mind, stinging her like wasps. How long does she have before the rest of the spines break out of her skin? How long will her mind stay intact? How long will she survive? And how long will she still be my sister?
Already, the changes were immense. Clare had credited the new hardness to a latent survivor’s instinct kicking in. Now, she could see it was the thanites. Just like Dorran’s mother, and just like every other hollow they had encountered, Beth’s humanity was seeping away. She’d lost her natural fear. She no longer felt pain. And her gentle nature was being replaced with an obsessive resentfulness Clare had never seen before.
She needed a long walk to get her thoughts into some kind of order, but the trip back to the bus was painfully short. Too soon, she stepped through the candles spaced around the clearing and was faced with the bonfire they had built.
Dorran stood next to the flames, hands in his pockets, his back to Clare. He cast a long shadow across the ground as he shifted his weight. He tilted his head towards her as she moved to his side.
“Did something happen?” Dark eyes, filled with worry, searched her face.
Clare nodded. She hadn’t rehearsed this part. She didn’t know how to start or what to say.
Dorran’s hand rose to graze along her cheek in a gentle caress. “Did you have an argument?”
He thinks that’s the worst that could happen. Until ten minutes ago, I would have thought the same.
“Dorran, something happened with Beth, and I’m going to ask you—I’m going to beg you—to please be patient.”
The worry in his eyes deepened. He kept his hand, soft and comforting, on the side of her face as he turned his body towards her, giving her his full attention. A small nod encouraged her to go on.
The words tumbled out, jumbled and chaotic, a mirror of her thoughts. She was aware she was trying to apologise for Beth but couldn’t stop. Dorran didn’t try to interrupt, but his eyebrows gradually fell lower, and that only increased Clare’s desperation.
She stopped herself when she realised she was repeating things she’d already said. She took a sharp, gasping breath and finished with, “We have to stick together. I’ll figure out how to help her. Just, please, don’t be angry with her, because she can’t change what happened.”
Dorran appeared to be struggling with his thoughts. It took him a moment to voice them. “She is… infected.”
“Yes.”
He turned back to face the fire, his expression grim. She could see the same questions darting through his mind. Is she dangerous? How much worse is it going to get? Where’s the line between human and hollow?
“Please.” Her voice broke. She swallowed, trying to control her emotions. “I can’t give up on her.”
Branches snapped behind them. They both turned. Beth stood at the edge of the clearing, poised between two candles. The wan light bathed her features and shone over the ridges of her scars.
Beth and Dorran stared at each other over the expanse. The silence stretched, unbearable, so awful that Clare wished she could scream, just to break it. Then Dorran took a slow breath. He tilted his head towards the campfire, his eyes not leaving Beth’s. “Dinner is ready. Come and have some.”
Hot gratitude flooded Clare, and she felt like she could breathe again. Thank you, Dorran.
Three chairs were already set up, and a pot of stew hung over the flames. Clare moved to find bowls and fill them. If they could just sit together and have dinner, things might be better. Not normal. They were past normal, and she didn’t dare ask for it. But she needed things to be better.
Beth hadn’t moved from the edge of the clearing. It wasn’t until Clare held a bowl towards her that she cautiously stepped closer. Even when Clare and Dorran had both sat, she still hesitated before slinking into her own chair.
“Here.” Clare’s smile was painfully wide as she added a spoon to Beth’s bowl. Dorran, on the other side of the fire, kept his expression blank at he watched Beth, who looked like she was one sudden move away from flight. Clare returned to her chair between them, hoping the unyielding panic wouldn’t be visible in her face. “I think we could all benefit from some good food.”
Beth didn’t touch the spoon. She kept her attention trained on Dorran as she spoke carefully. “I don’t think I need to eat anymore. I did, before, to make the both of you comfortable. But I don’t need to. I’m not hungry for this kind of food.”
She’s testing him. She wants to see how he’ll react to a more obvious display of the infection’s symptoms.
Dorran stared back, his expression unreadable. “You can eat, though. And I think I would prefer it if you did.”
Beth still made no move to lift her spoon. Clare sensed how much tension was contained in her body. And it wasn’t just Beth, she realised. They were all wound as tightly as springs, ready to explode at the slightest wrong move.
“It would be wasteful.” Beth’s words were soft and measured. “We don’t know when we’ll get more food. We should conserve it for the people who still need it.”
Dorran looked aside then turned back to her, rolling his shoulders. “The hollow ones out there are almost always bone thin. They grow too fast and don’t eat enough. If you’re going to drive me across the country, I’d rather it if your stomach, at least, weren’t hollow.”
“Hah.” Beth’s stony expression cracked as one corner of her mouth quirked up. “Was that a joke?”
“A bad one, admittedly.” His own mouth broke into a smile, then all of a sudden, they were both laughing. Beth cackled giddily then dropped her head to drink her soup. Clare suspected it was a deliberate move to hide the fact that she was crying. She drank straight from the bowl, draining half of it in one go. Clare, grinning, raised her own soup. It was hot enough to scorch her tongue, and she sat back, gasping.
Beth can’t feel it. That was another reminder of how badly her sister was being twisted. Trying not to think about it, Clare blew on a spoonful of her stew to cool it.
Dorran stirred his own food for a moment then cleared his throat, glancing at Beth. “I would like to ask some questions.”
“Sure. I thought you would.” Beth shrugged. “And I’ll be truthful, now. I don’t have anything else to hide.”
“May I see it?”
Beth placed her bowl on the ground, stood, and shrugged out of her jacket. She turned her back to Dorran and pulled her hair out of the way. He stared at the spines raising bumps in her singlet, his expression shuttered. After a moment, he said, “All right.”
Beth shrugged her jacket back on and resumed her seat. Her eyes were hard. Testing. “Thoughts?”
He countered with another question. “It doesn’t hurt?”
“No.”
“But you wash it daily.”
“Mm.” She rolled her shoulders then leaned back in the chair. “At first, before you told me about the thanites, I was trying to stop infection. Now, it’s to keep my jacket clean. And to stop the smell.”
The hollow scent. Clare knew it too well. It turned her stomach and sent fear through her nerves. She’d caught traces of it in the bus. She’d thought it was residue from the creatures that had tried to dig their way inside.
Dorran paused to drink more of his stew. Clare thought he was rehearsing his next question. “Does the infection make you less likely to be targetted by other hollows?”
“It does more than that.” Her lips quirked up into a wicked smile. “It makes me invisible to them.”
Clare frowned, thinking back. Beth had never been concerned about wandering into the mist alone. She’d never shown any fear of the monsters. And, on the first
night, when the pack of hollows had attacked Clare and Dorran, Beth had swooped in and killed them with no resistance. They hadn’t even reacted to her presence.
They recognise her as one of their own. She can walk amongst them, no matter how many there are.
“That’s why you were travelling to the tower,” Clare said, breathless. “People had heard the broadcast, but no one knew what it was about, because no one could reach it. There were too many hollows for anyone to try unless they were suicidal.”
“Or unless they were me,” Beth said. “You got it in one. I could walk right between the hollows. I thought I might be the only person alive who could see what was actually in the tower, and… well, it seemed a better way to spend my last days than any alternative.”
“Mm. I had wondered about that.” At Beth’s questioning look, Dorran lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Clare spoke about you so fondly, and I felt as though the two of you would be inseparable. But, in the days after you left the bunker, you made no attempt to reconnect. You did not seek out a new radio, and you did not try to travel to Winterbourne, even though Clare had told you where it was located. You never had any intention to see her again, did you?”
Beth glanced at Clare, her eyes sad. “I’m sorry, baby. I wanted to. I missed you more than anything. But—” She lifted a hand, indicating to herself and the world around them. “I thought it would hurt you less if it was a clean break. If you never knew what I was becoming.”
“That wasn’t your plan initially, was it?” Dorran’s eyes seemed very dark in the firelight. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have been so distressed in your last radio message.”
She chuckled bitterly. “Right again. Up until I opened my bunker doors, I thought I really, truly was as good as dead. They were right outside, howling, screaming. Clawing to get in. I welcomed death when I opened that door. And they swarmed right past me.”
“You killed some.”
“I did. They were in a frenzy, and I was terrified. I killed two. They didn’t fight back. So I ran. Every minute, I expected to feel teeth dig into me as they caught up. They never did. They didn’t even try to chase me. And it wasn’t until later that night, when I tried to hide in the forest and one of the hollow ones walked right in front of me without reacting, that I realised what must be happening. And that was when I decided I would rather Clare think I was dead than know what I really was.”
“Stop talking like that.” The words came out louder than she’d intended, and Clare frowned at her bowl as she tried again. “You’re still human. You might be more than that, too, but you’re still—”
Beth’s laughter was rough. “I’ll tell you this much. The hollows accept me more readily than the humans do.”
“Can you control them?” Dorran asked. Both Clare and Beth stared at him, and he dipped his head, his gaze piercing. “The other intelligent hollows we’ve encountered—the ones with an AB-negative blood type, the ones who kept their minds—they seemed to have some power over the lesser hollows.”
Like Dorran’s mother, Madeline, and her maids. It couldn’t have been just prior loyalty that kept them tethered to her when they changed.
Beth looked intrigued. “I’ve never tried. I don’t think I’d know how to. But that would be a useful skill to have. We wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked ever again.”
“That’s what I assumed. If you knew how to, you would have used it already to protect Clare.” He tilted his head. “I’d suggest we try practicing, but I’m not sure how we could without exposing ourselves to more hollows.”
“Well, it’s something to keep in mind, at least. Hopefully, it’s an instinctual thing. If they have some kind of language, I have no idea how to speak it.”
Clare swallowed the last of her stew. Her insides ached, but it wasn’t entirely grief. Now, the emotions were tempered with relief. The awful atmosphere had been dispelled. Dorran was treating Beth like an equal. Beth was acting like herself. And, in a rare display, they were getting along.
Dorran waited until Clare had finished her meal before clearing his throat. She looked up, expectant.
“We have a decision to make, I’m afraid.” He put his bowl aside and folded his hands in his lap. “It doesn’t have to be made tonight. But we will need to know by tomorrow. Do we continue to Evandale?”
“Of course,” Clare said. “Why wouldn’t—”
Understanding hit her. Beth met her horrified look with a grim smile.
“That’s why you voted against travelling to Evandale,” Clare said.
Beth shrugged and stared down into her empty bowl. “I’ve reconciled myself to the idea. Maybe it’s the best way to go. Wiped out instantly by some code, rather than having the responsibility of killing myself, being bludgeoned by some other well-intentioned survivor, or waiting for my mutations to finally destroy me. It actually sounds humane compared to the alternatives.”
Clare’s mind turned to the USB in her pocket as the weight of the choice registered. The power to save humanity. The power to kill my sister.
“I’ve changed my mind.” The words hurt, but she didn’t stop. “I want to go back to Winterbourne.”
Beth actually laughed. “I thought you might do this. In that case, I change my vote too. Onwards to Evandale. Long live democracy.”
“Dorran.” She grabbed his arm. “We can’t—”
Beth pointed her spoon at him. “Don’t you dare change your vote.”
“Ah—” He swallowed as Clare tightened her grip on his arm. “Clare, I wonder, if Beth is happy to take that route…”
“No.” Clare pushed away from him, horrified. “No, no! She’s my sister!”
“I know. I understand.” He reached out, trying to comfort her. “Do not be alarmed. We don’t need to make this choice immediately.”
“I won’t let you.” She shook her head as she reached into her pocket. Her fingers tightened around the USB. It was so small. So delicate. Ahead of her, the fire crackled. All she needed to do was open her hand over it, and in a single moment, the code would be lost forever.
“Clare.” Beth shuffled her seat slightly closer. “Sweetheart, listen to me. I’m okay with this.”
Clare continued to shake her head.
“What’s the other path?” Beth spread her hands. “We all go back to Winterbourne. I’ll be there with you for a few days, or a few weeks, or maybe even a few months. But I’m slipping. What would you do? Would you keep me after I’ve lost my humanity? Chain me up, like that mother we found in that house? I would rather be dead.”
“Stop!” Clare stood so quickly that the chair tipped over behind her. An urgent need to escape consumed her, so strong that she felt as though she were choking. She took one step towards the forest, but both Beth and Dorran rose, prepared to follow her. She grit her teeth and turned in the other direction, towards the bus. She jumped onboard and slammed the door behind herself.
“Sure, go ahead, throw a tantrum,” Beth yelled. “I’m so sick of dealing with your moods.”
It’s just the thanites talking. Tears dripped down her face. She scrubbed them away furiously as she stalked to the back seats. Farthest from the windows, the bed was the darkest part of the bus. She curled up on it, facing away from the door.
She was angry with Beth. But she was angry with herself as well. Because she knew Beth was right. Ultimately, her death was inevitable. Only the path that led to it could be altered.
But she wouldn’t agree to it. She couldn’t be responsible for killing her sister.
Quiet voices murmured outside the bus. Clare closed her eyes, trying not to listen. She heard Beth say, “I’ll talk to her,” then a moment later, the door creaked as it opened.
“Clare?”
She pressed her eyes more tightly closed, hoping Beth would take the hint. Her sister sighed, then the edge of the bed depressed as Beth sat on it.
“I’m sorry I yelled.”
“It’s fine.”
Beth’s fingers trace
d over her hair, very light, then disappeared again. She didn’t speak for a moment. When she did, her voice sounded strained.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past few days. You were right—when I first heard about the USB and what it might mean, my gut reaction was to make sure it never surfaced. Even now, my instincts are telling me to destroy it. But I think that’s the machines in me. It’s erasing my morals, slowly, one by one, and replacing them with nothing but the will to survive. But that wasn’t who I used to be. And I’m trying, as hard as I can, not to forget that part of me.”
Clare rolled over so that she could see her sister. The pale light grazed over her fine, shoulder-length hair, her delicate nose, and the scars marring her face. The hardness and angles were still there. But a sweetness had appeared that Clare hadn’t seen since before the stillness.
“I don’t want to lose you,” Clare whispered. “We only just found each other.”
Beth smiled. It was a bittersweet expression. “I know. And I’m grateful for it. We got to see each other again. Spend time together. Make things right… as much as we could.”
“Maybe there’s something we can do to slow it down.” Clare swallowed. “Maybe the people at Evandale will be able to figure something out—”
“Clare, no. If the code works, it will save what’s left of the world. We can’t delay that just for one person… and a person who isn’t even really human anymore.”
“Stop saying that. You’re still human.”
Beth chuckled, then her smile faltered. “That’s kind. But other people don’t think the same way.”
“You don’t know that. Dorran accepted you. Others will too—”
“Clare, you wanted to know why I don’t trust safe havens.” Beth’s smile was fading, and her jaw tightened as she stared at the opposite wall. “I visited one on my way to the city. At first, they welcomed me. They were happy to meet another survivor. They were kind and more generous than I had expected. I was given a bed and food, and many of them wanted to talk to me and hear my story. They were so nice…” She sighed. “I started thinking maybe I could live there for a while. They were looking for people who could help maintain the building.”
Whispers in the Mist: Black Winter Book Three Page 12