Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy)

by Benner, Tarah

  “I k-kept thinking one day he might just stumble into camp. I thought maybe he survived somehow and that he would find us. Now that we’ve left . . . there’s not even a chance I could see him again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  Her teary voice broke into a higher octave. “What if he comes back and we’re not there?”

  “Logan. He’s gone.” It sounded as though I was pleading with her, but I could feel the tears welling up in my own eyes. “He’s gone. We all saw him.”

  My tears burned hot where they pooled in my eyes, and I couldn’t contain them anymore. The memory of Max in his ridiculous apron was too fresh. He was so happy and pleasant and funny. And he loved Logan. It wasn’t fair. Of all of us, Max deserved death the least.

  Grief wasn’t what I expected. You didn’t feel all the sadness and anguish at once. It crept up on you when you were least prepared for it.

  My tears dried up before Logan’s. The door creaked open, and Greyson poked his head inside. He froze when he saw Logan crying and looked panicked, wishing he hadn’t come. I blinked furiously to hide the fact that I’d been crying, too. Greyson had never known how to deal with this sort of thing.

  “I’ll just —”

  “Can you get us some bedding?” I whispered. “She needs to rest. She’s burning up.”

  He nodded, grateful for an excuse to leave, and disappeared.

  After several minutes, Logan’s sobs seemed to dissipate. Greyson reappeared in the doorway carrying a pile of quilts and sheets, but he was not alone. Behind him stood an old Native American woman dressed in a heavy coat that fell to her knees. She was carrying a large woven basket. Slightly withered with leathery copper skin, she had to be nearly eighty, but her eyes were bright and her gait was quick and effortless.

  She padded across the room on tiny feet in furry boots and placed her hands on either side of Logan’s face.

  “Don’t cry, child,” she said in a voice like a bell. “You’re going to live.”

  Greyson helped me make Logan’s bed. These quilts looked the same as the ones on the other beds. The fabric was soft and worn, but the tiny stitches along the seams were strong.

  Outside, I heard the clang of a bell signaling morning mess.

  “Run along,” said the woman without looking up. “She’s in good hands.”

  Hesitantly, Greyson and I backed out of the cabin. Logan was already half-asleep in her new bed. Her face glistened with perspiration, but she looked calm.

  “What was that about?” Greyson asked as soon as we were out of earshot.

  “She was just upset about Max.” I hoped he hadn’t noticed my tear-streaked face. I hated crying in front of Greyson.

  “Oh,” he said. He sounded dejected.

  I looked at him funny, but his disappointed expression cleared instantly.

  “I’m worried about her,” I said.

  “Why is the virus affecting her like this but not you? You got bitten, too.”

  I shook my head. “I guess her immune system wasn’t strong enough to fight it off completely. She lost a lot of blood. That’s why it’s come on so quickly.”

  “But she’ll be okay, right?”

  “I hope so.”

  We followed the steady flow of people trickling into the mess hall. They were all dressed like Murphy in heavy fur coats, and they had his rugged look. Most of them were older than those at Rulon’s camp. The majority were over forty, and some looked as old as seventy. The men’s faces were hidden behind heavy beards, and the women were stronger and stockier than the rebel women, with silvery gray hair and leathery skin.

  Inside, the mess hall looked just like a hunting lodge. The rafters were visible in the high vaulted ceiling, and the lanterns were situated in deer antler candelabra on the walls. Several trophies were also mounted around the room. I identified a black bear, a few deer, and even an elk. Everyone had crowded inside around the long wooden tables that stretched from one end of the hall to the other.

  Amory appeared at my elbow, and we followed the line around the back of the hall to where the cook was serving food. She gave us each a plate of biscuits and gravy and a cup of weak coffee. We found a table and joined the others who were bent over their food, eating with enthusiasm.

  The biscuits were hot and fresh, and the gravy had a taste I didn’t recognize.

  “It’s venison gravy,” Amory whispered.

  I gagged reflexively but took another tentative bite. It was good. Whoever had made the gravy clearly knew what they were doing.

  I heard a thud like a gavel, and I looked up to see Murphy standing at his table. Every head turned up to look at him, and the chatter subsided.

  “Good morning, friends,” he said. “I wanted to let you know that the scouting mission was a success. As you may have noticed, we’ve brought in some new folks. They are our guests from Rulon’s camp, and they will be staying here as long as they would like. Please make them feel welcome — and put them to work!”

  He laughed a hard, old-man laugh, and several people around the hall joined in.

  “On another note, I’ve received some disturbing news. We’ve come to understand that the PMC is being run by World Corp International. They’re more powerful than we initially realized, but we may have intelligence as to the whereabouts of their leader, Aryus Edric. Our next step will be to terminate Edric and weaken the corporation. Please stand by for details.” He paused slightly. “That is all.”

  A wave of chatter rippled through the crowd. No one was eating anymore.

  “Aryus Edric? I can’t believe that old nutcase is behind all this.”

  “World Corp controls everything. It makes sense.”

  “I’d love to take him out. Let me at him.”

  “If we dismantle their supply line, the PMC goes down.”

  Amory shifted uncomfortably beside me, and I knew why. No one here knew who he was, and he was just waiting for someone to ask his name and link him to his father. I squeezed his hand under the table, and he returned it just as forcefully.

  Before we had finished our meal, Murphy appeared at the head of our table. I noticed that all the other rebels from Rulon’s camp seemed to have gathered around us.

  “Let’s go, you lot. Work is starting, and we need all hands on deck here.”

  We followed him back out into the snow. He turned to us, did a quick head count, and cleared his throat.

  “All right. We need somebody to apprentice under Seneca in medical. It’s mostly basic first aid, patching up cuts and the like.”

  I looked expectantly at Amory, who was staring at his boots with determination. Finally, a wiry older man raised his hand.

  Murphy continued. “We could also use a few more folks on rotation for carrier watch, especially evening guard. I know it’s not the most appealing job, but there’s the added perk of sleeping through the day.

  Nobody said anything.

  “I’ll do it,” said Amory, raising his arm.

  “Wonderful. Can you shoot?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Perfect. Report to me before evening mess.”

  I elbowed Amory in the ribs and gave him a look. I didn’t like the idea of him out there guarding the camp against carriers, especially with his uncontrollable rage.

  “I’ll go too,” said Kinsley.

  “Can you shoot?”

  “Yessir.”

  “How old are you, son?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Murphy nodded gruffly. “That’s good enough for me, even if it’s not good enough for the great state of New York. I’ll be needing someone else to go on the hunt — preferably someone who’s a good shot. I don’t want to be wasting ammunition.”

  Jared’s hand shot up, and Murphy gave a gruff nod. “We’ll take you to Miller and get you outfitted for tomorrow. The rest of you . . . I need someone else to help with supplies — inventory and going along to the Exchange to barter for goods we need.”

  My hand shot up. Ev
er since Ida first mentioned the Exchange, I’d always wanted to go.

  Murphy looked taken aback. “All right. It’s at your own risk. You’ll be traveling with large amounts of contraband. Think you’re up for it?”

  I nodded.

  Amory bristled beside me, but I felt a surge of grim satisfaction.

  I barely heard Murphy giving out the other assignments, but I knew the rest were fairly tame. Greyson took a job with camp operations, which surprised me. His duties would include maintaining the fires and doing simple repairs around camp.

  We all scattered to go to our jobs, but Amory grabbed my elbow. He looked agitated.

  “Why did you take that job?” he asked. I could hear the anger in his voice. “After everything we’ve been through, you want to go back out there and risk your life?”

  “I didn’t know it would be dangerous.”

  “Of course it’s going to be dangerous!”

  “What about you? Why didn’t you take the first aid job?”

  “I just didn’t want to.”

  “You’d rather kill carriers instead? This isn’t like you.”

  Amory raked an impatient hand through his hair. “I know!” He sighed in frustration, eyes burning. “I just want to. I feel like . . .” He trailed off, looking as though he felt foolish finishing the statement. “I feel like it’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  I stared at him. “You think killing carriers is your purpose in life?” I felt the fear rising up in my chest. It alarmed me that his time imprisoned at Isador had changed something so fundamental about his personality.

  “You hated killing them on the farm.” I lowered my voice and held both his hands in mine. “What about being a doctor? I thought that was your purpose.”

  “Even that was a lie. I was in training to be a PMC physician. I was enrolled at the Academy.” He looked disgusted with himself. “They’re not the kind of doctors that heal people, Haven.”

  I stared at him, sensing I had not heard the worst of it.

  He sighed. “They specialize in behavior modification and CID insertions. They’re the type of people who tortured me in Isador.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The next day, our new roommates were gone before sunrise.

  When the early morning light fell across my pillow, I poked my nose out from under the covers and felt the chill in the air. Reluctantly, I swung my legs over the side of the bed and into my boots.

  My eyelids felt heavy. It had been a restless night. I couldn’t stop thinking about Amory and his newfound passion for slaughtering carriers. And I was thinking about what he had trained for at the Academy.

  Logan was still curled up in a ball under a layer of quilts, her hair fanned out over her pillow. Sinking down carefully on the edge of her bed, I brought my hand to her forehead. Before it even touched her skin, I could feel the heat coming off her. When I touched her with the back of my palm, she was boiling. A thin layer of perspiration coated her usually perfect skin, and her face had lost its rosy hue.

  She stirred, twisting around in her covers uncomfortably, and opened her bleary eyes. “Haven?”

  My mouth hung open, a cold vise choking off my airways.

  “Haven, what is it?”

  Her bright green eyes stared up at me unfocused, and around the edges, I could see a yellowish tinge spreading out around the iris.

  “Oh my god. Logan!”

  “What?”

  Not wanting to tell her, not wanting to confirm my own suspicions, I pulled off the covers and yanked the neck of her sweatshirt down. She still wore the neat gauze bandage Shriver had put in place over her carrier wound. Gently, I peeled back the tape to reveal an ugly, gaping gash. Though Shriver had disinfected it religiously and given Logan antibiotics, it was festering around the edges.

  Hands shaking, I dropped her bandage and pulled away.

  It wasn’t possible. Logan was vaccinated. Murphy had said the sickness was just her body fighting the virus, but I knew the signs of early infection. I took a deep breath.

  “Logan . . . the carrier who bit you . . . What did he look like?”

  “I don’t know. He was, uh . . .” She closed her eyes as she remembered, her lip trembling. “Bald . . . miserable . . . rotting like a walking corpse. And his mouth . . . it was oozing with puss and blood from the sores.” She covered her eyes with her hands, pressing into her temple.

  My stomach dropped. “He was stage five. You’re sure?”

  She shook her head once, and I could tell she was crying. “I don’t know. He looked like it.”

  Her shoulders started to shake as she succumbed to tears, remembering the attack. I smoothed her hair back, not knowing what to do.

  I swallowed. “Logan . . . I don’t think your body’s fighting off the virus.”

  She nodded. “I haven’t felt right. Ever since I woke up from the attack, I’ve felt really weak. At first I thought it was just my body recovering from the transfusion, but . . . I think I’m infected.”

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want it to be true. Then Logan said something I didn’t expect.

  “You have to kill me, Haven. When the time comes . . . I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to be a monster.”

  “What? No.” I shook my head, but even as I did so, I could imagine no other likely scenario.

  “You have to. Soon I’ll be contagious. I’ll lose my mind, and I’ll kill people.”

  “Not for a while. We still have time.”

  Logan let out a muffled, watery sob.

  “I don’t understand,” I muttered. “You were vaccinated.”

  “Roman used to say the PMC could have been lying about the vaccine.”

  “But Amory was bitten back at the safe house, and nothing happened to him.”

  “Haven.” Logan pulled the covers away and looked at me seriously. “You can’t tell them yet. They’ll make us leave camp. Just give me a few days. I-I’m —” Her voice broke. “I’m not ready to die yet.”

  I nodded, willing myself not to cry. I wanted to grab Logan and hug her as hard as I could, but I forced myself to keep her at arm’s length. I couldn’t get emotional — couldn’t break down. I had to make a plan.

  If Logan was infected, we had weeks, maybe a few months before she would have to be put down. It just depended on how quickly the virus spread. I tried to remember how long my mother had been herself after infection, but my memory of that time was fuzzy.

  Then another thought occurred to me: We needed to warn the others. Everyone at Murphy’s camp thought they were safe because they had received the vaccine, which made them vulnerable. I couldn’t delay the truth for long.

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

  Logan shook her head.

  “I’ll tell the others you still aren’t feeling well. We should have a couple days before anyone gets too suspicious.”

  Her eyes were puffy and watery. The yellowish hue mixed with the pale pallor of her skin had a startling effect. “Thanks.”

  I closed the cabin door behind me and almost smacked right into Greyson, who was sauntering up the steps to check on Logan. His easy grin and the bounce in his step made my stomach ache.

  “Hey,” I said uneasily.

  “Hey yourself. How’s Logan?”

  “Oh, you know . . . she’s still got the chills. In and out. She’s sleeping again.”

  “Right.” The way he said it, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, I could tell he knew something was off.

  “You want to get some breakfast?”

  “I already ate.” Greyson paused, still eyeing me suspiciously. “But I’ll go sit with you. I’m just going to go in and check on her real quick.”

  “She’s sleeping,” I repeated too quickly.

  Greyson glanced around to make sure we weren’t being watched and took a step toward me. “Haven, what’s going on?”

  I sighed. There was no point trying to hide anything from Greyson. He always knew when I was
lying. Grabbing his arm, I pulled him away from our cabin and into the trees until we were out of sight.

  We stopped, Greyson staring at me expectantly.

  “Logan’s infected.”

  He backed away, blinking in confusion. “What? No. Is this a joke?”

  I gave him a serious look, bracing myself for his reaction.

  “No. She’s vaccinated. Murphy said her fever was just her body fighting off the virus. She was weakened by all the blood loss from the attack . . .”

  I shook my head slowly.

  “Haven . . .”

  “My mom was infected. I knew something was wrong with Mariah before anyone else did. I recognize the signs. It’s all in the eyes, and hers have already turned.”

  He stared at me, flabbergasted. “What?”

  “Her body isn’t fighting it off.”

  Greyson shook his head, struggling to process the information. “But that means . . . the vaccine doesn’t work.”

  “I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

  “Haven! We have to tell Murphy! All these people . . . they think they’re safe with the vaccine. If nobody is really immune, they can still get infected.”

  “We don’t know that. When Amory and I got trapped in Sector X, the safe house was attacked by a horde of carriers. Amory got bitten, but he didn’t turn. Aren’t you curious why Logan is infected and he’s not?”

  “Yeah, of course. But we need to tell him what’s going on.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Haven, we have to!” Suddenly he looked seven feet tall — angry and intimidating. “You can’t keep this from them! It isn’t just about us anymore. People’s lives are at stake!”

  “Just give me a few days.”

  “To do what?” he snapped. “You know better than anyone how this ends.”

  Cold helplessness shot through my chest, and I took a step back, shuddering at the finality in his voice. “I can’t kill her.”

  He swallowed, looking helpless and devastated. “Do you see another way?” His voice broke on the last word, and I felt hot tears burning in my throat.

  For a long moment, we just stared at each other. My heart was breaking, and Greyson was wound so tight I thought he might be close to tears, too. His warm brown eyes had turned to stone, and he was breathing heavily.