by Webster, K
Something niggles at my brain as my eyes drift to the cold cabinet where we store the blood samples.
What would happen if I did as Zoe did?
She injected a sick one.
What if I did both?
A sick one…and her.
I’m out of my seat in the next instant, making a beeline over to the cabinet. I’ll do both. Her blood is clearly potent and strong. What would happen? I have to know. I feel like the answer is in blood—I just haven’t seen it yet.
It’ll come to me.
It has to.
I find one of the vials marked with her name. Then, I take out Julie’s vial. She’s been incredibly sick. At one point, she stopped breathing, but we forced oxygen into her, bringing her dying body back to life. Since then, I wouldn’t say she’s improved, but she’s certainly stable.
Before I can overthink it, I grab a syringe and press it into Julie’s vial. I suck out the blood and then set the syringe down. Quickly, I peel up the arm of my minnasuit, revealing my dark veins that are visible beneath my pale flesh.
This is quite possibly my worst idea to date.
Or it could be my best.
Time will tell.
I pick up the syringe before pressing the sharp point into my flesh. It’s cool as it surges into my vein as I depress it. My heart rate speeds up with a mixture of excitement at the prospect of finding answers and all out terror of my possible impending death.
Once I discard the empty vial, I do the same with Zoe’s vial. I send her blood chasing after Julie’s infected blood, hoping beyond all hopes it’ll do something.
The answer is in the blood.
I just know it is.
“I thought I told you to…” A sharp gasp and then, “Oh my fucking God. What did you do?”
Turning, I face off with her.
Zoe.
The one who maddens me to no end.
Beautiful, stormy Zoe.
Prowling her way, I suck in deep breaths, inhaling her sweet scent right from the source. She cries out in shock when I grab a handful of her wavy brown hair and fist it in my hand.
It’s the single silkiest and softest thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of touching. I lower my nog to the top of hers, sucking in her scent. Reveling in how wonderfully intoxicating it is.
“Avrell,” Zoe chokes out, rare emotion in her voice. “What did you do?”
Reluctantly, I release her hair and take a step back. “What was necessary.”
“Exposing yourself wasn’t necessary,” she hisses, her voice growing angrier by each passing second. “Put your mask back on. You’re probably fine in this office but—”
“I injected Julie’s blood into my system.” I meet her horrified stare with mine. “This is no different than when you did the same many, many solars ago.”
“You idiot,” she whispers. “You fucking idiot.”
“I also injected your blood into my system.”
She smacks me across the cheek. “How dare you.”
“I assure you—”
“You can’t assure shit, Avrell, because you don’t know!” she shrieks. “We were close, right? This wasn’t necessary!”
“We weren’t close, and you know it,” I growl, rubbing at my cheek that stings from her slap. “We’re too far away. But know what is close? Death. For your people. For mine. For the mortlings. It’s imperative we find answers and quickly.”
“You reckless fucking man!” she bellows. “Just wait until Hadrian and Lyric find out. They’re going to be livid.”
She storms out of the office. I stalk after her, my own fury swelling up higher than the mountains around us. I’m right behind her by the time she shoves through a door into the comms room where Theron, Hadrian, Lyric, and Willow are all standing. Each of their nogs whip our way, slowly contorting from friendly greeting to worry.
“He ruined everything!” Zoe yells, pointing a finger in my face. “Look at him!”
I grip her thin wrist, capturing it in my hold, and pull it away from my face. I don’t let go despite her furious wiggling.
“I did what had to be done,” I grit out.
“Where’s your mask?” Hadrian growls, his eyes flashing with anger.
“I took my protective gear off,” I tell him simply.
“And he injected himself with poisonous blood!” Zoe snarls.
Willow gapes our way, but Lyric frowns at Zoe.
“Like you did?” Lyric asks, making Zoe flinch.
“It’s different,” Zoe hisses. “We need him.”
“We need you both,” Lyric barks back. Then, to me, she asks, “Why?”
“I think there are answers in Zoe’s blood, though I can’t discover them under a magnascope. I need to test it on a live subject. Who better than myself? I can study it in real time and find answers quicker this way.” I rub my thumb over Zoe’s skin, loving the way it feels. “It is the only way.”
Her stormy gray eyes are flashing with fury, but I don’t miss the slight tremble of her bottom lip. She’s upset. For eight solars straight since I arrived, we have done nothing but argue endlessly as we try and understand how to cure this disease. I figure she’d be irritated as per usual, but fine with it so long as we were steps closer to our answer.
“Breccan is going to go rekking mad over this,” Theron says, shaking his nog. “He’ll probably run his big self right over here just to kick your rump, Av.”
“We can’t tell him,” Hadrian barks out. “Least not yet. He wants us home, and eventually, we’ll make our way there. With the new mortlings and the Kevins coming, we can’t burden him with this.”
“So we lie?” Zoe asks, no longer trying to pull out of my grip.
“We leave it out,” I state. “Tell Breccan what he needs to hear. That we’re working on the cure, which we are. I’ll even put my gear on for when we meet over the comms so he doesn’t suspect anything.”
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Lyric asks me, her brows furling. “I need my two best people on this.”
“I don’t,” I admit, “but I will. Zoe is going to help me. She can observe any changes I don’t notice. Together, we’re going to find the cure.”
Zoe plucks her arm from my grip finally and pokes me in the chest. “You just became a patient. I’m in charge now. When you’re done making a plan to lie to your superiors, meet me in the office. We have our work cut out for us.”
She storms out of the room, taking her lovely scent with her.
The room goes quiet. It’s a somber moment. If it doesn’t work, I’ll get sick and perish. I’m not ready to give up my life, but if it gives us answers, it’s necessary.
“Av,” Hadrian says, coming to stand in front of me. “This has to work.”
“It will.” If I’m lying to Breccan, I may as well lie to Hadrian as well. “I promise.”
3
Zoe
Six Solars Until Kevins Arrive…
For someone so smart, Avrell can be so dumb.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I lecture as we head back down to the Medical Bay. “How could you be so short-sighted? There were plenty of ways to go about testing without putting yourself in danger.”
Already, a sheen of sweat paints his brow. His pure-white skin has turned gray with fatigue and the beginnings of the illness. A disquiet settles over me. What if he doesn’t make it? I can’t lose anyone else. I don’t think I can survive it.
He doesn’t need me to hold him up yet, but he will soon. Too soon. I thought I could cure everyone on my own, but what if I can’t? If he dies, what will happen to the rest of us?
To me?
I won’t think about that.
“That would take too much time. Normally, I’d agree with you, but we don’t have the luxury of protocols now. This is the fastest way for me to test my hypothesis.”
I smack the elevator button a little too hard. “And the dumbest. I thought you were supposed to be a genius?”
“I
am,” he says plainly as we enter the elevator. “That’s why I know this will work.”
“What you are is an arrogant bastard! Did you ever think about what it will do to everyone else if your little stunt goes wrong?”
What it’ll do to me? But I don’t say that out loud.
Saying it will mean the real reason for my anger. I care about him. And that can’t be. I won’t let myself care for him. Feelings aren’t an option when we could all be dead in a few days.
“It won’t. I’m certain of it.”
“Of course you are.”
“Hmm…”
I grit my teeth. This whole ordeal puts a very bad taste in my mouth. He was supposed to be curing the disease, not getting infected by it. Now we’re lying to Breccan and the others about what’s happening and they’re all depending on us. If he’s wrong…I can’t even think about it.
If he’s wrong, I guess nothing will matter once all is said and done.
Because we’ll all be dead.
The elevator stops and a leaden weight takes up residence in my stomach. Avrell, however, doesn’t seem to have the same affliction. He strides into the Medical Bay, his broad shoulders squared and his gait confident, if not a little measured. At his desk, he takes a seat and begins to take measurements: his temperature, a vial of his blood for analysis, then he notates his symptoms and the time.
I leave him to it, for now, because helping him at this point would make the situation all too real and honestly, I could use a little ignorance is bliss for a moment. While he studies his blood under the magnascope, I check on our other patients. Two of them are sleeping soundly—I think they’re going to make it. The other two writhe with fever. I give them another dose of fever medication, even though I doubt it’ll do any good. These angry blisters on their skin are mottled against their complexion.
It won’t be long before Avrell is the same. Until fever steals his mind, his big, beautiful mind and boils and sores cover his skin.
The medicine miraculously quiets the two—for now, and I close their isolette doors behind me. I press my back against them and squeeze my eyes shut. It will be over soon, that’s what I have to keep telling myself.
It’s what I’ve told myself since I was sentenced to the prison.
It will be over soon.
I hadn’t expected to live this long. In truth, I thought death was the answer to my mantra. By “it” I mean my life. I was too much of a coward to take it, but I figured the alien planet would do what I didn’t have the courage to. Instead, I found a home I never thought possible. Disease and war may try to steal it from me, but we are strong.
We’ve overcome so much already. I know we can overcome this too.
We have to.
I have to have faith in Avrell.
Which I never thought I’d think, let alone do.
Lyric was right. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if it makes me want to peel my skin off. The only way we’ll solve this is together, especially if I want to keep Avrell from dying, too.
As he observes and notates his thoughts on his symptoms, I care for the patients, treating them and tending to their needs. Hours later, I finally get everyone to sleep and collapse onto a cot I store down here for when I’m too tired to go back to my room. Soon, I find myself falling into a fitful sleep plagued by nightmares.
* * *
It’s dark.
Inky, black darkness. A complete void of light.
It consumes me.
I shove myself into a sitting position. Is this another nightmare? A memory from the first days at the prison? Or maybe the overthrow had been a dream. Maybe none if it happened at all and a guard will show up, ready to drag me to whatever horrors they have planned. In my world it isn’t the monsters you have to worry about…it’s the humans.
A siren blares. The same one that had gone off during the first breech. A red light begins to flash, momentarily illuminating the isolettes, the Medical Bay. This is real. It’s real.
Avrell.
I think back to our briefings on the disease. What if he’d progressed more quickly than anticipated? He could have gone mad while I’d been asleep and gone on a rampage.
I’m such an idiot. I should have insisted he isolate himself as well. I’d been so certain he wouldn’t be a threat to me, but I didn’t consider what would happen to everyone else if the fever drove him out of his mind. We should have chained him up as a precaution.
I get to my feet, wishing I’d brought a weapon. There didn’t seem to be a need when the most violent person in Exilium was gone and the rest were too sick to be a threat. I’d been too worried about Avrell to think about anything else.
Through the red haze thrown by the emergency lights, I’m able to pick my way across the office to Avrell’s desk where he’d been working last. He’s not there. My heart drops to the floor. Where could he be? What is causing the emergency lights and siren?
I retrieve a flashlight from a stash of emergency supplies and flick it on. The beam illuminates a face—at least I think it’s a face—of fangs and drool. A stench the likes of which I can barely comprehend wafts from its open maw, making me gag. It smells like it came from the pits of hell. Devil’s breath. It has the body of a dog five times the normal size and a face with no eyes, only teeth.
I choke on a scream and stumble back against the desk. My dream and reality converge as the monster advances. This must be one of those alien creatures Lyric warned me about, only it looks nothing like a bird. It snarls and I shriek, but there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped against the desk as the dog-demon gets ever closer until I can feel the heat of its breath on my skin.
A furtive glance around reveals there isn’t much to defend myself with but medical supplies and a desk lamp. Throwing the lamp will do nothing but piss him off, but I have no other options. I rip it from the wall and grip it tightly between two hands. Once it’s within range, I’ll jam the fucking thing down its throat.
Except I don’t get the chance.
There’s a deafening BOOM and then green blood sprays over my face, coating my tongue, filling my nose, and stinging my eyes. I scream and drop the lamp, which clatters at my feet. Wiping at my streaming eyes with the back of my hands, I try to squint through the sting to see if the demon-dog is coming to devour me.
I’d dropped the flashlight at some point, so I can only see during the brief flashes of red. They illuminate a shadowed lump at my feet and a figure hovering above. It flashes again and the figure moves closer. I press myself back into the desk again, blood dripping off of me, forgotten.
In the next flash, I see Avrell’s face and my knees buckle. He reaches out and catches me before I fall to the ground, but I slap at his hands and steady myself against the desk.
“Are you injured?” he asks above the wailing of the siren.
“Where the hell have you been?” I yell, my voice hoarse. At the bitter, acrid taste of blood, I grimace and spit, uncaring of my audience.
Avrell lifts the zonnoblaster in his hands. “There was a breach. I went to get weapons. Now answer me. Are you injured?”
I see red, and it’s not from the emergency lights. “You could have been killed! You’re sick. You shouldn’t be traipsing around the Medical Bay hunting monsters in your condition. What if it had attacked you?”
“Woman, if you don’t answer my question, I’m going to be forced to strip you down and look for myself.”
“I’m fine! The same won’t be said for you when I’m through with you. I thought you were dead.”
The realization hits me like a zonnoblaster round straight to the chest. What I feared worst of all had almost come true.
But not for the reasons I’d thought.
Not because I was worried about what it would mean for us and the morts if he couldn’t find a cure.
No, I’m struck speechless because of what losing Avrell would have meant for me.
“I don’t believe you. You seem as though you’re sufferin
g from shock. Come, sit down. Let me give you an exam.”
“There’s only one of us who is sick here, Avrell. I’m fine.” But I don’t have any energy left to fight him when he maneuvers me to an exam table.
“Your heart rate is elevated and you’re behaving erratically. You’re definitely in shock.”
“Blah blah blah. Don’t pull that sexy doctor bullshit on me. I’m not the one who should be getting looked at. You look like you’re about to fall over. You should be resting.”
Naturally, he ignores me and begins taking my vitals, even though he’s out of breath and sweating profusely. “We have to inform Hadrian of the breach so they can contain it.” He says this more to himself than to me.
“What is that thing?” I ask, my gaze drifting to the dead hulking beast.
His breath shudders out. “I don’t know. The alarm alerted me, and I went to see what it was. I should have stayed here with you. It could have killed you. When I heard you scream, I got the zonnoblaster and ran as fast as I could. I thought I wouldn’t get back to you in time.”
I didn’t even realize I screamed. “I thought I was still dreaming at first. I thought it was a nightmare. It doesn’t sound like any of the animals you or the other morts have ever described.”
“That’s because I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
We both grow quiet through the rest of his careful examination. I let him take my temperature and heart-rate. He gives me a thorough once-over and I don’t protest. I don’t have the words. Besides, his hands roaming over me, checking for injuries, is soothing. With each brush of his fingertips, my body and mind settle. I fight the urge to pull him closer, to press my body against his to remind myself he’s okay.
He’s alive.
Because I know there’s a chance he may not be for long.
Don’t think like that.
Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.
4
Avrell
Five Solars Until Kevins Arrive…