“Get off!” I try to yell, but I can’t get the sounds out. I struggle. I have to get out. I have to get out.
“Dax!” cries Ayah. “Lie down!”
Her hair is wild, curling up like snakes around her head.
“No!” I moan. “Leave me alone!”
She’s pinning me down, her hands holding my arms to the floor. I struggle.
“Ayah!” I plead. Summoning strength, I manage to launch up and knock her back.
Dimly I see her body crumple.
“Ayah, I’m sorry!” I mutter, but stagger forwards toward the door. A hand is yanking my arm. I turn and see her pulling me back. “No!” I yell, and shove her out of the way.
I have to get out of here. My head feels empty, sore from where all my thoughts have been scratched out. Except these ones. I have to get out. Why won’t this door open? I tug. Open! Open!
Ayah’s back, wrenching me away.
“Let me go!” I yell.
“Dax, you need to lie down!” I think she says.
I turn and try to grapple with her, but she’s so strong. How did Ayah get so strong? Everything feels weak. I can hardly lift my arms, and can feel her overpowering me.
“No!” I sob. “Please… just let me out…”
I try harder to push her away from me, but I trip and fall.
“Argh!” I thud heavily to the ground and my head bangs against the metal floor. My eyes lose focus. She’s leaning over me, saying something.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” I think she says.
But I just lie there, staring at nothing, watching something silver roll out in front of me and spin to a stop. I stare at it for a couple seconds. It looks like a ring. Where did it come from? It’s shaped like an animal of some kind. I frown, trying to work out what. A horse… no, a deer. I think. Ayah’s feet are in front of me, then I see her lean down and pick it up.
“What’s this?” comes her voice in the distance. I mutter a response. Or at least I try and say words. “It fell out of your pocket.”
She holds it closer to my face. I squint as I try to focus on it. As a spark of recognition ignites in my memory, the scratching sensation in my head gets stronger. Like it wants to shut down all recollection. I try to fight it, but my willpower is fading. I stare at the ring as she holds it in front of my face.
“It belongs… to my birth mother,” I find myself saying, feeling the truth of the words but not yet recognizing any connection to them.
“Who’s your birth mother?” Ayah asks gently.
“She’s…” I think, the scratching feeling worse. I frown and fight it. “She’s an incredibly strong woman,” I say. I pause, thinking. “She was a Host to my father and gave birth to all his children.” This feels true, too. Despite the pain in my head, I feel the words start to flow out. “Then she survived the wasteland with my sister…”
“Who’s your sister?”
My sister, who is she? Scratch scratch, goes the thing in my head, fighting my happy memories.
“Skylier. The day I discovered her… I didn’t even know she was my sister.” I start to feel warm inside. “But I immediately felt like I wasn’t alone in the world anymore.” The warmth rises up my chest and I find myself smiling at the memory. Skylier, tough on the back of Hayden’s motorbike. Sharing our first telepathic communication. My head even hurts a little less.
“Tell me more,” says Ayah.
I find myself unraveling the story of Skylier and seeing my birth mother again, and how it brought me hope. I’m still smiling, and find I can sit up.
“You called me Trinity,” she says.
“What?” I reply.
“You’ve been calling me Ayah for days now. Who’s Ayah?” Trinity rocks on her heels, fingering the deer ring. She notices me looking and passes it back to me.
“Ayah,” I say, happier memories coming back. The happier I feel, the more I sense the sickness creeping away. “She’s my love, but I’m so worried about her. She’s a prisoner in Purenet.” I think I catch something fall in Trinity’s face, but she collects herself quickly.
“This is what my father said helped fight the virus,” she says enthusiastically, although her perkiness feels a bit too forced.
“What?” I ask.
“Thinking about happy memories,” she says. “Do you feel better?”
“I suppose I do, a bit. I can think straight for the first time in a while, anyway,” I say.
“This is the most lucid conversation I’ve been able to get out of you in days,” Trinity says brightly.
“I am thinking much clearer,” I agree.
“Come on, we have to help Hayden,” she says.
Hayden. I’d forgotten all about him. But what can I say to help him find his happy memories? I realize I hardly know anything about the guy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Skylier
“We have two minutes to get to the lab where your mother and sister are,” Gavyn hisses.
Rian, it can’t be our father. He’s dead, I say. He left to sell his organs and give our mother a chance to get treatment and never returned. I stare at the monitor, hoping to see what Rian can.
See for yourself, Rian’s mind responds.
“Please, Gavyn, just a minute,” I say, and peer into the monitor. I can see the row of inanimate bodies, but as for my father…
On the left, comes Rian’s voice in my head. Near the end.
I’m sorry, you’re wrong, I think back. I can’t let him get his hopes up at a time like this. They sent us the report of his death a year ago.
And why on earth would they tell us the truth? he demands.
Gavyn shifts uncomfortably. “What’s going on?” Gavyn whispers, looking more and more worried.
The left, right at the back. I’d know that face anywhere. He’s our father, for goodness’ sake.
Maybe I don’t want to believe it because I don’t want to get my own hopes up. Of course, now I know he’s not my biological father—the Chancellor wins that prize. But he’s the only father figure I’ve ever known. He’s my adoptive father, the one that cared for me when I was sick. He sacrificed everything for our family. I’d said my goodbye to him. I—
Then I spot it and know Rian’s right. I feel a knot in my throat. There’s no way that I could mistake that face, even though I was so much younger when he left.
“Our father is in there,” I tell Gayvn.
“What? Are you mad? We’re going to get seen.”
I know we don’t have time to explain.
What do we do?
Rian reacts before I have time to think. He grabs Gavyn’s wrist and taps at the watch.
“Don’t!” hisses Gavyn, but Rian is already whispering.
“Abaven, you have to open this door,” he says.
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” comes Abaven’s voice, sounding distant. “Are you in trouble?”
“There isn’t time to explain,” says Rian. “Can you see our location? We need this door opened.”
“Gavyn, report,” says Abaven. “Why aren’t you at the place we arranged?”
“They say their father is being kept in this lab… some sort of human organ bank,” says Gavyn into his watch.
“The whole operation is at risk,” comes Abaven’s voice.
“This is important; don’t you understand?” Rian is getting worked up. I need to explain.
“We thought he was dead,” I explain. “They told us he’d died. What other families are they lying to? If we could only speak to him, we could learn the truth to so much.”
“He might not be able to speak. It’s very probable he’s brain dead,” says Gavyn. “Kept alive artificially just to preserve his organs.”
“If we don’t try, we won’t know,” Rian pleads.
There’s a pause from Abaven. My heart pumps so fast, I think it’s going to burst. I can hear footsteps approaching from out of sight at the end of the corridor.
“Abaven,” Gavyn warns, n
oticing too.
“She’s right,” says Abaven. “We need to find out more. This affects everyone. I’m opening the door. You have five minutes and then you have to go straight to the south lab. I don’t know how secure my position is here. I—”
The watch goes dead, but the door slides open with a hiss of hydraulics. We rush in, checking behind us that we haven’t been spotted.
“What happened to Abaven?” Rian asks.
“I don’t know,” says Gavyn. “We can’t worry about that now. You heard him. We have five minutes.”
The air in the room tastes metallic and clinical. I shiver upon seeing the ghostly bodies lying like corpses in a line, a faint blip blip coming from the monitors. I gulp. There’s something very wrong about this place. Rian’s already fiddling with switches. I spot the body he said was our father, and run over to him. He just lies there. Nobody stirs. I look down at him and know it’s definitely him. His face is older and hollowed. I pick up his hand and squeeze it, but he doesn’t wake. I start to feel the panic rise. What if Gavyn’s right? What if we can’t wake him up? Rian must have flicked an important switch, because something whooshes; and the background humming, which I didn’t notice until it disappeared, stops. A faint alarm goes off in the distance. I glance wildly around, still holding my father’s hand, startled by the alarm. When I look back at him, I see his eyes start to flicker open. I feel a rush of excitement.
“Father,” I breathe out. “It’s me, Skylier.”
He stares blankly. Does he understand me?
“Do you know me?” I ask. “It’s Skylier, your daughter.”
I think I see a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. I lean closer.
“We don’t have time for that, Skylier,” Gavyn says urgently. I look up and see Rian rushing around the beds, checking the other patients. “Get him up and let’s go.”
“What about the others?” I ask, and see them starting to sit up stiffly in their beds. They look alive now that they’ve been brought out of whatever coma they were being kept in, but their eyes all have the same blank, dead look. I look back at Father, who is giving me a curious look.
“There’s something odd about these people,” says Rian, sounding scared and backing away from the beds.
A couple of them are shaking their heads, scratching them like there’s something loose rattling around in there.
“Kill me,” one crackles through a throat that can’t have been used in a very long time.
“Gavyn, what’s happening here?” I ask, alarmed.
“Kill me,” another says, grabbing Rian’s sleeve with a pleading look in her eyes. He tugs his arm away and backs off.
“What is this?” Rian asks shakily.
“I’m not sure,” says Gavyn carefully. “I think I might have seen it before.”
“It’s a virus,” croaks my father, making me jump. He’s still holding my hand. “You can’t do anything for them.”
“What do you mean?” I ask. Gavyn comes over and starts pulling out tubes plugged into my father’s skin.
“Come on, we need to leave,” says Gavyn. “We can’t bring these people with us.” There’s a clang as one of them walks into the wall, then starts thumping his head against it. I taste bile in my mouth. Gavyn lifts my father out of the bed and helps him to his feet. “Can you walk?” he asks as Father takes a tentative step forward.
“We have to help the ones we can,” I say firmly.
“Some of them can’t leave,” says my father hoarsely. “They haven’t got any kidneys. Turn the machine back on, you’re killing them.” Rian leaps to attention and runs back to the bank of switches.
My father scratches his head blankly for a second, like his mind is completely absent. But then he appears to recover.
“You’re really my dear little Skylier, come to find me?” he asks eventually, a smile breaking across his face.
“Yes!” I cry, feeling tears of joy prick my eyes.
“Great, you’re all reunited,” growls Gavyn. “We have to get going.”
“Come on, Father,” I say, gently leading him by the hand. But he resists.
“I have to stay too,” he says, sounding confused. “I have the virus as well.” My heart drops like a stone. Of course. Why would he be the only healthy person in a room full of infected organ donors?
“You seem fine,” insists Rian. “How do you feel?” Our father pauses for a second, clearly working hard to bring thoughts together in his head.
“I feel like this is the first time I’ve felt something in years,” he says slowly. “Are you… are you my son?” He sounds distant, but there’s life rekindling inside him. Rian leaps to his side and grabs his arm, helping him toward the door, relief all over his face.
“Yes! You know me?” he cries. “We’re getting you out of here.” Gavyn sounds like he’s about to protest, but Rian interrupts. “We’re out of time and he can walk. We have to bring him. We’ve already risked a lot to get this far. We can’t stop.”
There’s a muted roar as one of the patients throws a punch at another. Two more join in the fight.
“OK, come on,” says Gavyn grimly as we help Father toward the door.
“The others,” I mutter weakly.
“They can’t…” says Gavyn. I turn to them.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I say.
My father stumbles and isn’t strong on his feet by any measure, but he makes it over to the door. The fight grows more violent, but there’s nothing we can do for the others. I hate myself for waking them all up, but how could we have gotten Father out otherwise?
“Abaven,” Gavyn is speaking into his watch. “Abaven, can you read me? Report.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Dax
I glance at Hayden, who is tied up a short distance from Trinity and me, struggling as he fades in and out of fitful sleep. He must be having some terrible nightmares wherever his head has taken him. I should know—I’ve been there myself.
“How do we do this?” I ask, not sure of the best way to start bringing some humanity back to my friend.
“You have to think of something we can say to him to bring him out of it,” Trinity says. “Happy memory. You’re his best friend and the only hope he has right now.”
I hang my head in shame. I don’t want to tell her, but I can’t avoid it. I can’t bear to admit that I hardly know him at all. Have I just been completely focused on myself during our whole friendship? Didn’t I care about his past at all?
“I don’t know anything about his past,” I say. “I don’t know what memories I can tell him.”
“How can you not?” Trinity demands hotly.
“It’s just not the sort of thing we talked about,” I confess. “We met the day I was thrown out of Purenet. He’d been thrown out too… He said he was being punished for stealing. I don’t know, maybe it was more. I just never asked. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it.”
“He said he was an addict, like me,” says Trinity. “I think it was more than just stealing. We shouldn’t remind him of that time.”
“We crossed the wasteland together,” I say, thinking back. “It was the worst experience of my life.”
“Well, that’s not going to be any good, either, if we want him to remember happy things,” says Trinity, frustrated.
“I know. I don’t even know how we made it across alive. I suppose I must have had some of my mother’s strength. Maybe it’s in the genes.”
Trinity grunts. “Keep thinking,” she says. “There must be something.” I glance at Hayden as he jerks awake, crying out. I can’t bear to see him like this.
“Please…” he moans. “Please…”
“Hayden was unconscious when I dragged him in. He almost didn’t make it,” I tell Trinity. “That’s the kind of bond you never lose, going through something like that. Even when someone’s responsible for…”
“For what?” Trinity says sharply, narrowing her eyes at me suspiciously.
“Nothing,�
�� I say quickly. I can’t tell her Hayden betrayed us to the Chancellor. That’s my burden to carry, while I work out why I’m protecting him. I know he didn’t have a choice. And if he was an addict… they’ll do anything. He can’t be held responsible.
Hayden starts to thrash against the ropes. Trinity tries to go soothe him, but he kicks out.
“Are you sure there isn’t anything you can think of to help him?” she asks. “What about memories from things you did together?”
“When the Grounders found us, we were nearly dead,” I say. “I remember Ayah…” I start smiling at the memory, but stop when I see Trinity’s hurt look. I refocus. “Reznor was suspicious of us, wanted to chuck us right back into the wasteland.” I pause, thinking. “Hayden loves to be a hero, maybe this will work…”
“You’ve thought of something?” Trinity asks, perking up. Hayden groans.
“I think so,” I say carefully. “This might work.” I shuffle over to Hayden and shake him gently. “Buddy, Hayden, are you there? Can you hear me?”
“Please kill me,” he replies hoarsely.
“Do you remember when we won the right to stay with the Grounders?”
“I can’t take this anymore,” says Hayden miserably.
“Please, you have to think hard and remember. It will help, I promise,” I say.
“You’re from Purenet, you’re useless,” Reznor said, looking at both of us with disgust. “What can the Grounders do with you? You’re weak, you’ll just be a burden to us.”
“We have nowhere else to go,” I said, trying to meet his stern gaze.
“We’re stronger than we look,” said Hayden. “Just give us time to rest and we’ll prove to you how good we can be. Your community could do with some outside help.”
Reznor didn’t like that. He gave Hayden a withering look.
“To survive with us, you have to be strong without rest,” he said. “Purenet has pampered you two. You’re no good to us. Go back into the wasteland and take your chances there.”
Ayah was there, looking at us curiously. She hadn’t said anything until this point, but from the look on her face, she wasn’t impressed, either.
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