by JA Konrath
“She’s here. Thank you for bringing her back where she belongs.”
I looked up at the camera. “You’re the VIP, aren’t you?
“VIP?”
“The one who requested this operation. The one with ties to the DoD.”
“Weapons are the purview of the defense department, it’s true.”
It was neither a confirmation nor a denial, but I didn’t need either. I knew the answer.
“What is your name?”
“Pembrooke.”
“I want to see Julie, Mr. Pembrooke.”
“It’s Dr. Pembrooke, and she’s serving her country. You two have an opportunity to do the same.”
“An opportunity?” Kirk guffawed. “Does that mean we can refuse?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
“You both had injuries. Being in close proximity to Miss James meant a very high likelihood of infection.”
“So now you’re watching us to see how well your new biological weapon works?”
“All weapons must be tested.”
“So that means what?” Kirk asked in a dry voice. “You kick back and watch us die, while chomping on popcorn and Raisinets?”
“We aren’t doing this because we find it entertaining, Mr. Kirk. This is science.”
“Maybe we weren’t infected,” I said.
There was no reply.
Then I understood.
“You son of a bitch. You made sure we were infected. Didn’t you, Pembrooke?”
“Why?” Kirk asked. “To keep us quiet?”
“The genie can’t be put back into the bottle, Mr. Kirk. Our concerns are more immediate than you spilling government secrets. We have a weapon, and we need to know if we can properly manage it.”
“Manage it? How can you manage a …”
But then I knew. I knew it sure as anything.
“You’re testing a cure.” As soon as I’d said the words, my hands began to shake.
“Yes, we are testing a cure. A DNA vaccination, to be more specific.”
“Well, what’re you waiting for?” Kirk said. “Shoot us up.”
“We administered it while you were unconscious.”
I scanned Kirk’s body, my own arms and legs. “And is it working?”
“We’ll see.”
I wasn’t very attentive in middle school, but I did remember a few things from science class.
“If this is an experiment, there has to be a control group.”
“Yes.”
My stomach dipped. “So you only gave one of us the cure …”
“And the other was given a placebo shot. That’s correct.”
I closed my eyes. Pressure assaulted my chest, making it hard to breathe. I wanted to look at Kirk, see how he was handling this, but I was afraid if I did, my shaking would increase. Or worse yet, I’d start to cry.
Kirk was the one who summed up the obvious. “So one of us will die and the other gets to watch.”
“That will be true if the vaccine works.”
“And when one of us starts showing symptoms? Will you give the vaccine then?”
“That will be too late. Once the virus has replicated enough to be symptomatic, the vaccine is no longer effective.”
“You’ve done other tests?”
“Only with chimps. The vaccine was not effective once symptoms began.”
I forced my eyes open, remembering the dead doctors and nurses Julie had described. I had to wonder what the prick on the intercom had done with the bodies. What excuse he’d given the families to explain why their loved ones weren’t coming home from work.
“How do you know the vaccine will be effective if it’s given earlier?” Kirk asked.
“We don’t.”
“So we could both die.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Unfortunately?” I let out a bitter laugh. “I’m sure your heart bleeds.”
“I’m defending our country. Defending our way of life from those who seek to destroy it. Every war has casualties.”
“Don’t give us that war on terror bullshit, Pembrooke. And don’t give us that goose-stepping just following orders bullshit, either.”
“If we didn’t do things like this, the other side would.”
“If you didn’t do things like this, the other side might not hate us so goddamn much. You’re a monster.”
I wasn’t naïve. I’d done a lot of morally questionable things, murdered a lot of people, all in the name of my government and keeping my country safe. But I killed players. Politicos. Military. We all signed on for it. Creating a biological weapon, which would no doubt kill millions of innocent civilians …
I reached under my gown and pulled the sensors off my chest, causing the machine to flat line. Then I ripped the tape off my hand and pulled the IV needle out of my vein.
“The morphine drip is to help you with the pain. And we need to monitor your vitals to—”
“You need to shut the fuck up.” I slung my legs over the side of the bed.
“You really should—”
“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Kirk said.
I didn’t feel any effects of morphine. My head was clear, my body as achy as ever. Even so, my first steps were wobbly, a few remaining effects of whatever they’d gassed us with. I was steady by the time I reached the door.
Locked.
“There’s no way out of that room, not until we come in and get you.”
“You’d better hope not, Pembrooke. Because if I get out of here, the things I’m going to do to you will make Ebola look like hay fever.”
I tried the door with a couple of kicks, then moved on to the perimeter of the room, testing walls, ceiling, and floor until I had no sane option but to acknowledge the voice was right. There was nothing left to do but die.
Or watch the other die.
My stomach felt hollow.
I walked back to the bed where Kirk had just disabled his heart monitor. He was a few years older, a formidable man, a mercenary forged by the same type of red-hot violence that had hardened me. And when I looked at the calm in his eyes, I wondered how many times he had recognized the possibility of his own death.
“Ever dreamed it would happen like this?”
He gave me a crooked smile. “Never thought about it.”
“Not once?”
He shrugged.
“It doesn’t bother you to die in a laboratory as part of some sick experiment?”
“Better than a men’s can in the subway.” He gave me that bedroom eyes stare. “And I couldn’t ask for better company.”
I let out a small laugh at his bravado.
It had to be bravado.
He couldn’t be serious.
Right?
I looked at him, studied his face.
Jesus, he actually was serious.
My stomach jittered again, but this time it was a good kind of jitter.
“I took a picture of you,” I said.
No reason not to be brazen.
“What for?” he asked.
“For me. If I never saw you again.”
“But you don’t need a picture. Here I am.”
“Here you are.”
I stepped close and circled my hands around his neck. This morning I hadn’t known him. Just a few hours ago, I’d been ready to kill him. Now it felt like we were the only two people in a brutal world, and only one of us would see tomorrow.
I brought my lips to his.
He opened to me, his hand cradling the back of my head, pulling my mouth hard against his.
Heat spiked my blood.
Lust.
Life.
I wasn’t sure how long the kiss lasted, but when we broke apart, I knew it wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Needed more. If I only had minutes left on this planet, I would damn well make them count.
“I know how I want to go out,” I whispered.
He tilted his head to the side, studying m
e, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “And our friend on the other side of that camera?”
I glanced up at the lens peering down at us. “Let the bastard break out his popcorn and Raisinets.”
I thought Kirk’s little grins and sideways looks were sexy before, but I didn’t have words to describe his expression now. He pulled me tight against his body and kissed me again, hard, needy. Beyond the river water, his skin still smelled of that Armani cologne, and a warm scent that was all his own.
I breathed him in, wanting to take everything about this man deep inside.
Our hospital gowns were off in seconds, and our battered bodies intertwined. At first we just clung to one another, kissing, probing. A dusting of hair covered his chest, and I ground my breasts against him, the sensation zapping through my nipples like an electric charge.
Then I was pushing him back on his bed and climbing on top of him.
He was erect, and I rubbed against him until I was wet enough to take him inside. I came on my third stroke, waves shuddering through me. I arched my back, still thrusting, and he buried his face in my chest.
I hardly knew Jonathan Kirk. And now I never really would.
But right then, he symbolized everything to me.
Sensation.
Connection.
Life itself.
I wanted to explore all of him, feel things I never had before. I wanted this to last forever, and knowing it wouldn’t made each second, each moment, each thrust and sigh and whimper all the more profound.
I sensed the muscles in his thighs tensing, trying to hold back the coming release, and slowed my motion.
Nuzzling my breasts, he looked up at me.
“What do you like most?” I breathed.
His smile was a wicked thing. “Let me taste you.”
“Me first.”
I moved down his body, littering kisses over his chest, his belly, my hair fanning over him in my wake. I trailed my tongue up the length of him, then took him full in my mouth. I tasted myself on him, the flavors and scents mingling, intoxicating.
We were good together, me and him. I’d sensed it from the first. So much alike, yet different enough to add spice. It was a cruel joke that our time together would be so short.
I didn’t let myself think of that, though, but only of the sensations. The feel of him in my mouth. The hair on his legs rubbing rough on my skin.
Our first time together.
Our last time together.
When he’d reached his climax, he found my arms with his hands, guiding me upward until I was straddled over his mouth. He teased me at first, going too slow, pulling back, torturing me with gentleness, until the tension built and built and I was thrusting myself on him, trying to capture his fluttering tongue, begging for release.
“Please …” I gasped. “Please.”
He grabbed my hips, pulling me closer, taking me firmly.
Devouring me.
I shuddered, the pleasure so intense it was almost pain, the first ripple in a building, rising wave that reduced me to nothing but pure sensation.
I could only hope the taste of me, the sound of my screams, gave him as much satisfaction as he gave me.
When my leg muscles could take no more, I moved back down his body and brushed his lips with mine.
He peered at me, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright.
I slipped next to him in the bed and fitted my body against his.
“You were amazing,” I breathed. “Just as I thought you’d be.”
“You, too.”
I shook my head slowly, the sadness creeping in. “I wish we had more time …”
“Time?” He grinned. “Babe, we got the rest of our lives.”
His hand moved between my legs and began to stroke.
I had no idea how my body had any more to give, but again I began to respond, despite the specter of death around me.
Or maybe because of it.
Sex affirms life.
He shifted, moving on top of me, keeping his weight on his elbows. I wrapped my legs around him, sighing as he entered me, burying my face in his neck as he began to thrust.
We were the only two people in the world.
Only one of us would see tomorrow.
I couldn’t think of a better way to go out.
When we finished, we held each other.
Held each other, and looked at each other.
The afterglow faded.
Dread crept back in.
The looking at each other became watching each other.
I saw it first, and it felt like a punch to the gut.
Just a small bruise on the back of the hand.
But it hadn’t been there a moment ago.
Small. Black. Harmless looking.
Then it began to grow, spreading out, taking only a few minutes to double in size while we both silently stared.
The nosebleed came next. A trickle at first. Then a steady stream.
“Aw … Chandler …” Kirk said.
I reached for the IV needle.
Hooked up the morphine.
Tried to be brave.
“It’s okay,” Kirk said, staring at me so hard he must have seen my soul.
The whites of his eyes were bright red.
Subconjunctival hemorrhage.
“It’s not okay,” I said. “Not at all.”
I held his head to my chest.
After that, things happened quickly. The progression of the virus, which normally took days, unfolded in under an hour, right in front of my eyes.
Coughing.
Coughing blood.
Vomiting blood.
Kirk didn’t despair. He didn’t complain. He didn’t cry. He didn’t do any talking, other than two softly whispered words.
“Kill him.”
I promised I would, wanting to squeeze his hand, not being able to because his skin tore as easily as tissue paper.
By the time I moved to sit on my own hospital bed, Kirk didn’t even notice. He stared into space, his red eyes blank, the muscles of his face slack. The parts of his brain that made him who he was were gone, liquefied by the virus. Only the illness’s final stage remained.
Death.
That word echoed through my mind as I witnessed the last moments of Jonathan Kirk.
“When it comes to survival, violence often isn’t the best option,” said The Instructor. “But when you choose to use it, strike hard and fast and destroy your enemy. There is no winning and losing in a fight, only living and dying.”
The room smelled like a slaughterhouse.
There was a sink, and I did my best to wash Kirk’s blood off me.
I checked myself for new bruises.
Didn’t find any.
Chilled, I pulled my hospital gown around my naked skin. My hands trembled, events of the past day catching up to me, overwhelming me. Tears brimmed my eyes, turning the world into a blurry mosaic of white and red.
I blinked them back.
Focus.
I am ice. Cold. Hard. A blow torch couldn’t thaw me.
The camera eye stared down from the ceiling. The heart monitor had been turned off, the room silent now except for the drip of Kirk’s blood on tile.
And a soft hiss …
A soft, smoky hiss, coming through the overhead vent.
I scooped in a breath, held it, then staggered and collapsed to the floor.
The hiss continued, long after my lungs had started to scream for oxygen. But I was damn good at holding my breath, and soon the tone of the sound changed to the hum of a ventilation system at work.
I let my air out slow, made my lungs take in big, deep breaths like I was asleep.
A short time later, the door opened, and four people in full, pressurized hazmat gear lumbered into the room. I heard the soft sound of wheels, as if they were pushing a tray or gurney, and the suck and release of their SCBA.
“Put her on the bed. I need some blood.”
The
voice was muffled, but I could tell it was the same voice that had spoken to us over the intercom.
“Then where do you want her?”
“In the room with the girl.”
“And him?” another asked.
“You can clean that mess up later.”
Two sets of hands lifted me from the floor and dropped me onto the mattress. I caught a glimpse through my lashes, a tray filled with needles and vials. One of them grabbed my arm and wrapped a rubber tourniquet around my biceps. I felt the sting of a needle on the inside of my elbow, then a clumsy shifting as they filled tubes with my blood.
“Okay, got it. I don’t want her waking up. Stick that IV back in and get her sedated. And tie her hands to the bed rails this time. No sense in taking chances.”
I would have preferred to let them take me to Julie before making my move, at least then I’d know her location, but I couldn’t let them put me under. Still if I could bide my time, take them by surprise, hope that some left to perform other jobs, I’d have a better chance. If even one stepped out of the room, I’d increase my odds by twenty-five percent.
I stayed put, picturing the room around me in my mind’s eye, cataloguing what tools were at my disposal. Once the man at my bedside replaced the catheter in the back of my hand, he would have to reconnect the drip. For a second, he would be facing away from me, and that’s when I would make my move.
He stuck the needle in the back of my hand, and I braced myself against the pain. For several seconds he poked and jabbed, searching for a vein. Finding none, he slid the needle out and tried again.
Still no luck.
And no one had left the room. Although my eyes were closed, I could hear four distinct respirations, four sets of shuffling movement. I didn’t know if these guys were medical personnel, lab techs, or soldiers, but judging from the skill set of the one prodding me, I was leaning toward soldiers. They would know how to fight.
But when he stuck the needle in for a third time and started digging around, I knew I couldn’t take it any longer.
Focused on poking the hell out of my left hand, my torturer didn’t see my right until it was too late.
I brought the heel up fast and plowed it into his nose, driving upward.
CBRN suits are designed for soldiers to wear in combat. Hazmat suits, like these, were not.
The face shield collapsed under my blow. The guy made a grunting noise and flew backward, hitting the floor hard.