I wanted to yell at the rebels fighting the carriers with sticks and pans and bats. It was too risky to shoot into the fray with so many people, and we were losing.
Hands shaking slightly, I took aim for a knot of carriers who had cornered two older women near the woods. I aimed conservatively toward the carriers and missed. Adjusting my aim, I took a deep breath to fire, and something huge collided with me from the side, knocking me off my unsteady leg.
A sharp pain rippled up from my lower back, and the weight of my attacker crushed my chest.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t have to look to know it was a carrier. The stinking rot of his flesh filled my nostrils and curdled my insides. I choked, feeling the fear surging inside my chest. There was no one to help me — no one to pull him off.
Flailing wildly, I struck him hard on the head with the butt of my rifle. He groaned but did not back off. I couldn’t shake him. He was the size of a fully grown man and just as strong. He was staring down at me with those horrible eyes, and I could see the skin peeling off the corner of his mouth. He was going to rip into the soft flesh of my neck and dismember me.
Without thinking, I reached up and shoved my thumbs into his eye sockets, fighting the urge to vomit as I felt the wet, round softness against my fingertips and heard the carrier’s scream of pain.
He fell off me, and I took the chance to hit him with my gun again and struggle to my feet. He was writhing on the ground in pain, clutching his eyes. When he turned, I stomped on the back of his neck as I’d seen Logan do once and heard the sickening crunch.
He stopped moving.
My throat contracted, and I bent over automatically and vomited into the snow. It was too much.
This time, I heard the carrier crunching through the snow behind me. The sick rattle of his dying breaths made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I whipped around, my injured ankle throbbing in protest, aimed, and fired. He was so close I could feel the mist of blood on my face, but he was still coming at me. I backed away, tripping over the carrier I had killed, and fell back onto my elbows.
Another two carriers were ambling over, and I struggled to stand as the one I had shot slowed to a stop. He was too close to shoot again, so I hit him as hard as I could on the side of his head.
I turned to the other two carriers. It was hard to tell from their deteriorating faces and fluffy bald heads, but their features looked eerily similar; these two were twins. I raised my rifle, but my hands were shaking too badly for a clean shot.
Instead, I flung it over my shoulder and felt for the knife at my belt. One of the twins flew at me so quickly that I wasn’t entirely prepared. Her bony fingers wrapped around my throat, pushing down hard on my windpipe. I froze, my brain fighting the sudden lack of oxygen. I whipped the knife through the air — grazing her shoulder — but she didn’t even seem to notice.
Choking for air, I let myself collapse back onto the ground. She fell forward with me, and I took the opportunity to drive the knife into her back with as much force as I could muster.
It hadn’t been a clean shot to the heart, but she screamed in pain. It was an eerie, tearing sound of sinew in her throat that made my stomach turn. I shoved her off and tried to sit up, but her sister flung herself onto me. Out of breath, I fell back again and dropped my knife. Swinging wildly at the side of her head, I watched her sister twitch slowly out of the corner of my eye. The other twin holding me down had a mad look in her eyes. She drew her shoulders back like a snake preparing to strike its prey. I groped behind me for the knife.
Nothing.
My hands shook as they pushed into her rotten flesh, holding her off me. I was exhausted, but she was about my size. I could win this fight. Glowering down at me with her bloodshot blue eyes and wild, drooling mouth, she continued to struggle. She chomped her teeth together, and they made a horrible clicking sound. I shut my eyes — wishing I could shut my ears — and suddenly she stopped.
The twin looked around as if she had lost her train of thought, and I saw the blood blooming on the front of her shirt like a boutonniere.
She let out a horrible shriek, as though she knew she was dying, and I took her distraction as an opportunity to shove her off me and get to my feet. I looked around wildly for the sniper. It had to be Logan, but she was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed my knife and the rifle that had fallen off my shoulder and looked around. There were so many carriers. Some rebels were still fighting, but many were injured or helping those who were get to safety. Without Logan or Greyson or Amory fighting by my side, I felt completely alone.
Undeterred, I threw myself into the fray and picked off one of the carriers who had cornered a woman by the med tent. Once his comrade fell, the other carrier turned and lumbered toward me. As soon as his back was turned, the woman drove her knife into his neck through the carrier’s jugular. I winced as blood spurted from the wound. I hadn’t used that method to kill a carrier, and since watching Amory do it in Sector X, I didn’t think I ever would.
Just as I was about to stab the fat, pale female carrier hovered over a man on the ground, I saw another carrier running toward me. I turned, but it was too late. It collided with my ribcage, and I fell to the ground, smacking my head against something hard hidden under the snow. The stink of death was everywhere.
The carrier holding me down was not as far along as the others. There were no sores around his mouth, and he still had some of his thin, mousy brown hair. Fresh blood coated his mouth like a vampire, and his yellowed eyes had a murderous gleam I’d never seen before. It wasn’t the look of pain and desperation I saw in most carriers’ expressions; this carrier had been a man who liked to inflict pain before he was infected.
I wielded my knife, drawing back my arm to stab him through the chest, but he snatched my wrist and held it down. This carrier still had his sharp human reflexes. I bucked and squirmed, trying to get him off me, but he was too heavy. I swung my non-dominant fist toward his head, but he grabbed that wrist, twisting it painfully to the side. This carrier was definitely too strong, even at this stage in the virus’s progression.
Fear pounded in my chest. I couldn’t fight him off. He was going to kill me — bite into my neck and tear out the tendons and rip me limb from limb.
He lurched forward. I twisted to the side, and I felt his sharp teeth connect with my shoulder. I cried out. The bite stung — more than any normal cut should — and I imagined the virus ripping through my veins, poisoning my bloodstream. I was vaccinated, but I felt sick and disgusted as he drew his mouth away for a second strike.
This time, he connected with the tender flesh between my neck and collarbone. His teeth ground together, tearing the skin. The pain emanated from the wound down through my chest, and I screamed in pain.
He was enjoying this. He was going to rip the flesh from my body slowly. I twisted away, sickened by the feel of my own blood soaking the front of my shirt.
A shot rang out, but it did not connect with my carrier. The pain throbbing from my wounds was making my vision go fuzzy, and I fought the urge to pass out. The carrier’s eyes gleamed yellow, like two headlights at the end of a long tunnel. Blackness rippled in my line of sight, and I could have sworn I saw the carrier smirk in satisfaction.
I heard more shots and the screams of dying carriers, but mine was still alive. I wanted to yell for someone to shoot him, but I couldn’t find my voice. It was as if he had ripped out my vocal chords when he tore into my neck.
Then an arm wrapped around his throat from behind, jerking his chin upward. A knife sliced across his throat, and someone shoved him off me. I saw a guy with short black hair and caramel-colored skin appear over me. His expression looked grim as he took in my wounds.
I closed my eyes. The loud noises all around me were giving me a headache. I suspected I had hit my head hard when I fell to the ground, and now that the adrenaline was burning off, I could feel the throbbing on the back of my skull.
“Well? Are you just going to leave her there?”
The second voice was a woman’s. It sounded strangely familiar, calling back from a distant place in my brain.
I heard the crunch of snow near my head, and when the woman spoke again, her voice was triumphant.
“Get her to medical right away. This one’s going to live. She’s been vaccinated.”
I opened my eyes, squinting up for my savior. A curtain of silvery hair shone in the sunlight, and a pair of huge rectangular glasses stared down at me.
“Ida!” I tried to sit up, but everything hurt.
The man who’d wanted to pronounce me dead held me under the shoulders and helped raise me into a seated position. I looked around.
The death all around was astounding. Carriers lay bleeding every few feet in the snow, and plenty of rebels were dead or wounded, too. Those I recognized who weren’t badly hurt were huddled in groups, crying or tending to the wounded. Over a dozen new people in black were picking their way over the dead bodies, searching for survivors.
“How did you —”
“Plenty of time to talk later, dear,” said Ida. “Right now, you need to get those bites taken care of.”
“Where’s Logan?”
Ida’s puzzled expression hit me hard, like a wave of icy water. If everything was fine, she would be climbing out of her sniper perch to find me.
I allowed the man to help me stand and limped off into the tree where I thought she was hiding. I squinted up into the branches but did not see the glimmer of her golden blond hair.
I looked all around the ground. Nothing.
I stumbled through the snow over dead people and carriers, calling her name. I tried not to look too hard at the faces of the dead; I couldn’t bear to see anyone I knew.
Then I saw a puddle of golden waves spilled out over the ground. I fell, tripping and running on my sprained ankle toward her. There she was near the edge of the woods, her blood clashing brilliantly with the snow.
“No!” I whimpered. I fell to my knees and placed a shaky hand on her shoulder.
Logan’s eyes were closed, and she had horrible gashes running from her neck to her shoulder. It looked as if a whole chunk of flesh near her jugular had been ripped away, and precious blood was seeping from the wound onto the ground.
I felt the tears overflowing in my eyes, and I pressed my ear to her chest. Unbelievably, I could hear the faint beat of her heart.
“Help!” I cried. “Over here! She’s alive! Help!”
Crying uncontrollably, I placed my hand over the wound, trying to assuage the flow of blood.
Why was no one coming?
I put my hands under her shoulders and tried to heave her up, but my arms were shaking too badly with shock and fatigue to drag her myself. I fell down to my knees, ignoring the cold wetness of the snow.
I waited for what seemed like a very long time.
My head felt fuzzy. Someone pulled me off Logan and scooped me up out of the snow. I wanted to fight them, whoever was taking me away, but I was too weak to lift my head. I didn’t want to let Logan out of my sight for fear that someone would pronounce her dead, but my brain was sluggish, and my lips were chapped and raw.
I couldn’t form the words. I just let them carry me away.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Slowly, painstakingly, I regained consciousness.
I was lying on something scratchy. There was a sharp sting of antiseptic in the air, and the soft glow of lantern light flickered behind my eyelids.
Opening my eyes, the light beige interior of the medical tent came into focus. I was lying on one of the cots, and I was right about the scratchy brown canvas sheets. There were many more cots crowded in here now than I remembered, all of them occupied.
Shriver’s partition had been drawn back to fit in more beds, and I could see the remnants of her life crowded into a corner. There was a fuzzy purple robe, a teetering stack of books, and a small trunk she was using as a nightstand. Perched on the trunk was a goofy hand-painted frame with a picture of a scruffy bearded man with a Dalmatian.
“You’re awake,” said Shriver herself.
I looked around. She was hovered over a man covered in bandages. By the looks of it, half his face had been torn off, and he had a deep gash in his abdomen.
“You’re lucky,” she said. “You’re in much better shape than most of this lot. Just some blood loss and probably a mild concussion.”
Logan. I twisted my head around desperately, trying to find her, and felt a sharp pain in the base of my neck.
“Easy!” snapped Shriver.
I felt my neck, where a large bandage was covering the chunk of flesh the carrier had ripped out.
“Where’s Logan?” I asked.
Her eyes flitted toward the partition, which was drawn around the bed just across from my cot. A dark cloud settled over her face. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”
“Will she . . .” I struggled to form the words. “Will she be all right?”
“It’s lucky she was vaccinated, but she’s in shock. And we don’t have any blood put away for this sort of thing.”
“Give her my blood!”
“You aren’t in any shape to lose more.”
“Will that fix her?” I could feel the tears in my throat again, and I swallowed hard to clear the mucus.
“If the transfusion is successful and she doesn’t contract an infection . . . then yes, she may live.”
I didn’t like her emphasis on the word “may.”
“Can I see her?”
Shriver regarded me for a moment and then seemed to decide I was strong enough to handle it. She drew back the partition.
Lying under a mound of blankets bandaged up to her chin was Logan. Shriver had cleaned all the blood off her face, and her hair was pushed neatly to one side of the pillow. She looked like a broken doll: deathly pale and still.
The flap of the med tent rustled, and Ida stepped inside. I hadn’t noticed before, but she was dressed as a rebel. She still wore one of her billowy skirts with the burlap patches that looked like pieces of carpet sewn together, but she had a utility vest on over it, a baggy coat, and a holster of weapons around her waist.
“Haven! So good to see you’re awake.”
“How did you —”
“We were in the area on a mission listening to the PMC frequency. They reported a horde of carriers headed this way, and I already knew half your camp was fighting the PMC soldiers sent out to scout for rebels.”
My heart raced. I didn’t want to think about Amory and Greyson out there fighting the PMC.
Ida looked down at Logan, wearing the same concerned expression as Shriver.
“How is she?”
“She needs a blood transfusion,” said Shriver.
Ida held out her arm. “Take mine. I’m O negative.”
Shriver seemed to brighten at this. “Are you sure? It will be painful.”
Ida nodded. “Anything I can do to help.”
Shriver pulled another cot up next to Logan’s, and Ida lay down. With her long, silvery hair spilling over the side, it was almost creepy; she could have been a much older version of Logan. Shriver donned a new pair of gloves and bent to swab Ida’s arm with alcohol.
“I’m going to apply a local anesthetic. A direct transfusion will be fastest. I have to cut into your arm to expose the artery. You’ll have a permanent scar.”
“I already have one.” With her sleeve rolled up, I could see she already had a jagged X-shaped scar where her CID had been cut out that looked a lot like Amory’s.
“You defected?” I asked in awe.
She nodded. “It was the only way. And now that the farm is gone —” Her voice hitched, and I could hear the pain there.
I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her to hand over her farm to the PMC.
I couldn’t see exactly wha
t Shriver was doing. She was hovered over Ida on the cot. I knew it had to be painful, but Ida didn’t make a sound. When Shriver moved over to Logan to cut into her arm, I could see there was a plastic tube that would run from Ida’s artery to Logan’s vein, transferring the blood.
“Field transfusions are less than ideal,” Shriver murmured. “It’s difficult to know exactly how much blood is going to the patient.”
“I think what you’re doing here is phenomenal,” Ida replied.
Shriver beamed.
“You may have your hands full in a while,” she added.
My heart contracted. I knew she was referring to all the rebels who had gone out to fight the PMC.
“We’ll have to convert another tent,” said Shriver in a strained voice. By the look of her, I could tell she was exhausted. The rebels desperately needed another doctor.
“I’m more worried about all the dead afflicted,” said Ida. “How many of you have been vaccinated?”
Shriver’s eyes darkened, and I knew the answer. Almost all the rebels were undocumented, meaning almost none of them had received the vaccine that protected against the virus. It took a long time for the meaning of that to sink in, and when it did, I felt the panic rising up in my throat.
“Greyson shouldn’t come here!” I said. “He hasn’t been vaccinated.”
“You rescued Greyson after all?” Ida looked proud. “That’s wonderful.” Her eyes flitted to the ground, as if she didn’t dare ask more for fear of shattering this happy revelation. She turned her head toward me. She had to know. “And the others?”
My heart sank. I did not want to be the one to tell her whom we had lost. “Not all of them,” I said. My voice shook. I couldn’t look at her. “Amory is with us. Roman ran off to join the PMC, and Max —”
It was too much. I couldn’t say it.
“Max is dead,” I choked. “The PMC killed him during the riots. He sacrificed himself so the rest of us could escape.”
Ida’s face fell, and for the first time since I’d known her, she looked old. Her eyes darted around the tent without really focusing on anything, glistening with tears. “He was practically my own son,” she whispered. “I . . . I can’t believe he’s gone. But I guess . . . I guess I should have known. He never would have left Logan’s side for a minute.”
Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) Page 13