Outbreak

by Tarah Benner

  Unfortunately, Miles seems to have lost his talent for telepathy.

  As soon as Jayden strides into the room for my debriefing, I can tell from her air of irritation that she’s already spoken to him. He must have let it slip that I’d been shooting at the snipers who got Lenny to make me look good, but Jayden isn’t happy.

  “I just received word from Cadet Horwitz’s doctor,” she says. “Apparently, they were able to repair the damage to her organs in suspended animation and restart her heart.”

  An odd sense of relief cuts through my dread, and I let out the breath I’d been holding since she walked in. “Is she going to be all right?”

  “She’ll need several weeks to recover before she can train again, but yes.” Jayden flashes a tight smile. “She’ll be fine.”

  I nod and meet Jayden’s cold, dark gaze.

  “Congratulations,” she whispers. “Once again, you manage to fend off death on the Fringe and return from your mission early with absolutely nothing to show for it.”

  Indignation flares through me, and the spark ignites all the pent-up rage I’ve been suppressing. “I took out one of Malcolm’s men who was shooting at our people. And I wouldn’t have needed to return early if they hadn’t been sent out in the first place!”

  “Parker —”

  “What were they even doing out there?” I ask, cutting through her protests. “Miles wasn’t due for deployment, and I never cleared Horwitz for combat.”

  Jayden makes a small jerky movement with her head — a gesture of superiority that’s become something like a nervous tick.

  “Do I need to remind you who’s in charge around here? I’ve given you free rein in training your cadets in the past, but that ends now. I believe I’ve made it clear that the speed at which you’re preparing them is unacceptable, so now I’m forced to intervene.”

  “They aren’t ready!” I say. “And sending them out isn’t going to make them ready. You give me a bunch of twenty-one-year-olds who have never fired a gun or thrown a punch in their lives and expect me to turn them into trained operatives in three months? It’s fucking ridiculous.”

  “That’s not your call to make anymore.”

  “I need more time with them!”

  “We don’t have time!” snaps Jayden. “The Desperados have five hundred people waiting just a few miles from this compound. Do you have any idea what would happen if they attacked us?” She tucks her chin and glares up at me with menacing eyes. “Let me put it in terms you can understand: Your little cadets would be the first bodies the board throws outside to take care of the problem.”

  She leans forward — so close I can see through her heavy layers of makeup to the tired bags under her eyes. “I need — to know — what they’re planning.”

  “Well, I can’t help you,” I say, trying to keep my expression neutral.

  It’s half true. I don’t know what the Desperados are planning. I might know the location of their new base, but I’m not giving that up before I have a chance to find Owen and warn him.

  “Don’t lie to me, Parker,” she says in a deadly whisper. “Don’t you fucking sit there and lie to my face.”

  Something in Jayden’s expression changes, and I realize suddenly that this is no ordinary debriefing. Jayden has come unhinged.

  I swallow. I’m not sure what she knows, and I don’t want to speak first and risk revealing more.

  “Let’s watch a movie,” she says.

  The uneasy feeling in my stomach intensifies, but I try to look nonplussed as Jayden clicks her interface and projects an image onto the blank wall across from my bed.

  She taps her interface again, and another clip of surveillance footage appears. It shows me and Harper following the drifters to the pawn shop.

  My heart sinks. She knows we found their base.

  We disappear down the alleyway, and Jayden fast-forwards several minutes. When she hits “play” again, Malcolm strides into view, and Jayden’s expression sours into pure, unadulterated fury.

  “You and Riley went on a little field trip today, I see. You played dress-up and pretended to be drifters?” she growls indignantly. “It’s not enough that you completely abandoned standard operating procedure. You were in the same room with Martinez, and you let him walk right out the door!”

  She shuts off her interface, and the image on the wall disappears. “I’ve grown used to your bullshit, Parker, but you’ve outdone yourself this time. You’ve got to be the most worthless, irresponsible lieutenant I’ve ever trained.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to separate my feelings of loathing from what I’m about to say. “We didn’t have a choice. That town was crawling with drifters. We only dressed like that so we would blend in, and it worked. They led us right to the base.

  “We would have killed Martinez right then, but there were way too many of them. We never would have made it out alive if we’d opened fire in that store.”

  In one swift motion, Jayden picks up the vase of flowers from the table behind her and chucks the entire thing at my head.

  I slip out of the way, and the vase hits the wall behind me. I hear it shatter into a million pieces, sending a splash of cold water down my back and showering my bed in flowers.

  “I don’t give a fuck! News flash, Parker! One dead drifter is worth ten of you! I gave you direct orders, and you completely disobeyed them.”

  “I’ll get it done,” I growl, balling the blanket in my fists to prevent myself from grabbing Jayden by the throat.

  A second later, a petite blond nurse rushes through the door looking alarmed. “What’s going on in here?”

  Her head snaps back and forth between me and Jayden, and the crease in her brow deepens as she tries to figure out what happened.

  “Get out!” Jayden whispers, turning her piercing glare on the nurse.

  The poor thing clearly isn’t one of the regulars in the postexposure wing — everybody who normally works with Recon operatives knows to steer clear of Jayden. The nurse opens and closes her mouth a few times and then backs awkwardly out of the room.

  Jayden slams the door behind her and wheels around to face me again. Her slim chest is rising and falling rapidly, and the dread in my stomach intensifies.

  “I’m done messing around, Parker. Our intelligence tells me Martinez has disappeared again, and Jackson hasn’t showed his face around that town in weeks. Our mystery man has gone off the grid, too.

  “The second one of them shows his face again, you and Riley are going back out. And when you do, I don’t want to see either of you again unless you’ve got a dead drifter to show me.”

  “Got it,” I snap.

  “I don’t think you do, so listen closely,” she snarls. “I want you to stay out there until you get the job done, Parker. I don’t care if it takes six days or six months. If you come back from deployment with nothing to show for it, Cadet Riley is going to take another trip to the dead level. And this time, she won’t come out. Do you understand me?”

  At those words, my blood turns to ice in my veins. Jayden can’t possibly mean what I think she does. She plans to send us out to the Fringe indefinitely. And the only way we can come back is to deliver Jackson, Malcolm, or Owen.

  “And don’t even think about lying to me again,” she murmurs. “I have eyes everywhere.”

  I don’t say anything. I can’t speak. I can’t think. My hands are trembling with fury and indignation — just itching to reach out and wring Jayden’s scrawny neck.

  She struts past my bed in her too-tight uniform, snatching up a wilted orange lily with a seductive sweeping motion. “I heard about Riley’s little trip to 119, so I know you know she doesn’t have anywhere to run.”

  Jayden pauses and turns toward me with a cool, half-disinterested look in her eyes. She holds the petals to her nose, inhales deeply, and then shifts her grip on the stem and whips it across my face like a switch.

  My face stings as the stem cuts across the skin just below my eye, but I
just grit my teeth and glare up at her.

  Jayden offers me a cold smile and then cups her hand gently around the flower.

  At first I think she’s going to start yelling again, but she just sighs and plucks lazily at a stray petal. “If you fuck up and lie about it again, I’m not just going to kill your little girlfriend.” She closes her fist and twists her hand so all the petals fall away in shreds. “I’m going to enjoy it.”

  thirteen

  Harper

  The medical ward is never completely quiet. Nurses’ hushed voices float between the seams of the frosted glass walls. The metal cabinet across from my bed rattles as a gurney blazes by my room.

  Every few minutes, the air kicks on. It fills the room with a low whirring noise and makes me shiver under my thin, overbleached sheet.

  But around oh-three hundred, everything grows eerily still. The air conditioner shuts off. The nurses trickle out of the postexposure wing.

  I can’t sleep. The small amount of light coming through the six-inch window in my door is enough to stimulate my senses. After spending three days in the medical ward for “observation,” I’ve had about all the rest my body can take.

  A dark shape moves across the wall. Then the light from the tiny window vanishes, throwing my room into total darkness. Through the curtain of hair falling over my eyes, I can see someone looking in, blocking my view of the rest of the tunnel.

  Someone is watching me.

  I hold my breath, waiting for the nurse or doctor to see that I’m sleeping and leave. But a moment later, I hear the door handle turn.

  The visitor steps inside and shuts the door quickly. I don’t move a muscle.

  It could be medical ward personnel, but they always flip on a light and apologize profusely when they come by to check my vital signs in the middle of the night.

  Suddenly, a horrible thought pops into my head: What if Jayden sent someone to finish the job? Maybe she doesn’t plan on giving me and Eli a chance to complete the mission; she intends to have me killed before I even leave the medical ward.

  “Harper?”

  I jerk up in bed at the sound of the whisper. “Who’s there?”

  “It’s me!”

  Sawyer.

  The figure in front of the door moves closer, and the side of Sawyer’s face comes into view under a shiny curtain of hair.

  I let out a sigh of relief and put a hand over my racing heart. “Shit. You scared me half to death.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I thought you were Jayden or . . . some assassin Jayden hired to get rid of me.”

  “Oh my god. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have sneaked in here like that. I didn’t even think.”

  “No, no. It’s okay. What’s going on?”

  Sawyer plops down on the edge of my bed, and I scoot toward the headboard to make room.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  This sounds serious, but I can’t read her expression in the dark. “Okaaay . . .”

  She hesitates. “I’d like to tell you and Eli together.”

  A slight surge of panic ripples through my body. “Is Lenny okay?”

  “Lenny’s fine,” she says quickly. “She’s regained consciousness, and her vitals look good. She’s just a little groggy.”

  “Did you find out more about the 119 virus?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Jayden hasn’t been pushing to keep us here longer, has she?”

  “No, no. Come on. Let’s just go get Eli.”

  I climb out of my bed and follow her into the tunnel. I’m not used to this side of Sawyer — the Sawyer who sneaks around the medical ward in the middle of the night and breaks all the rules.

  I kind of like it. It feels as though she’s finally coming into her own, rather than lying down and taking whatever crap people throw her way.

  Back in higher ed, the other students would constantly ask to borrow Sawyer’s notes or to get “help” on assignments. They weren’t her friends, and they didn’t want her help; they just wanted to copy her work. Sawyer was too naïve to realize it back then, but this new Sawyer doesn’t take shit from anybody.

  She leads me around the corner to the room where Eli is staying, and we let ourselves in without making a sound. I open my mouth to announce our presence, but the words die on my lips when I hear a low groan from across the room.

  I squint through the darkness. A lumpy shape is thrashing around on the bed, but I can’t tell what’s going on. Then Eli cries out.

  I panic and run over, ready to body slam his attacker. But when I flip on the light, I just see a shirtless Eli sprawled across the bed with the sheets tangled around his ankles.

  A deep crease appears in his forehead, and his eyebrows scrunch together. His free hand grips the bed tightly, creating deep indents in the cheap mattress.

  I glance at Sawyer, feeling guilty about intruding on Eli’s nightmare.

  She throws me an awkward shrug and gestures at the door. “Maybe I should . . .”

  “Yeah. Just give us a minute.”

  Eli’s going to be upset enough that I’m seeing him like this. I don’t know what he would do if he woke up with Sawyer staring down at him.

  Once she’s gone, I lower myself carefully onto the mattress and reach for him. My left hand skims over the warm, soft skin of his taut stomach, causing his abs to tighten reflexively. That sends a little jolt of electricity through me, and I continue my trail up his chest. He stiffens at my touch but doesn’t wake up.

  A tiny, selfish part of me just wants to sit here and look at him for a few more minutes; it’s less intimidating than doing it when he’s awake.

  But then his jaw stiffens in pain, and I reach out with my other hand to touch his cheek. I stroke my finger gently down his face, feeling his smooth skin disappear under a fine layer of stubble.

  “Eli . . .”

  He jerks awake, and I tighten my hold on him.

  “Eli.”

  On instinct, his arm flies up to snatch my hand off his face, and a jolt of fear shoots through me. He’s in full attack mode, and I’m in a very bad spot.

  Luckily, his eyes snap open, and his harsh gaze softens at once.

  “Harper?”

  “Hey,” I murmur, not sure what I originally planned on saying.

  He loosens his death grip on my wrist but doesn’t let go.

  “What’s going on?”

  “What were you dreaming about?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

  He closes his eyes for a brief second, as though he’s suppressing a shudder. “Nothing.”

  I tilt my head in disbelief and caress his smooth stomach absently with my free hand. He glances down, distracted, and I tighten my grip on him a little. As though my touch has magical powers, he begins to talk.

  “It was just a nightmare . . . about the Fringe . . . you and Owen. I could only save one of you.”

  That tugs at my heart. Without thinking, I reach out and run my fingers through his dark hair. He relaxes into my touch but still doesn’t let go of my other wrist.

  “It was just a dream.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  We’re startled by a soft rap on the door, and Eli shoots into a seated position.

  “It’s okay. It’s Sawyer.”

  He looks puzzled, but I don’t have time to explain. A moment later, the door opens halfway, and Sawyer slips inside.

  Eli clears his throat and straightens up, trying to look all tough and imposing even though he’s still sitting shirtless in bed. I smile to myself and have to fight a full-on grin when he shifts his grip from my wrist and threads his fingers through mine.

  “Hey,” says Sawyer, looking painfully awkward. She has the good sense not to stare at our interlaced fingers, but Eli’s move wasn’t lost on her.

  “Hey,” says Eli. His voice is the deep one he uses in training, but his gaze is attentive rather than harsh.

  “Sorry to do this in the middle of the night,” she begins. “But I nee
ded to talk to both of you, and I didn’t see another way. The attending physician is discharging you tomorrow, but there’s something you should know . . .”

  Eli and I glance at each other, both of us wondering what news could possibly top everything we’ve discovered in the past few weeks.

  “You know we’ve been taking lots of blood samples to check for signs of radiation poisoning . . .”

  Dread settles in the pit of my stomach. This is it. This is when Sawyer tells me my life is about to be cut short. It just doesn’t make sense.

  “I feel fine,” I murmur.

  Sawyer nods. “Your latest test results came back, and neither of you is showing signs that the radiation affected you at all.”

  Eli’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “That’s good, right?”

  Sawyer opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again. “It is . . . except it’s weird because it should have. I pulled your dosimeters right after you were admitted. Both of you were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation, and Eli went without his mask for a good part of the time. Anyone else definitely would have suffered some adverse effects.”

  “Just got lucky, I guess,” says Eli.

  The crease under the bridge of Sawyer’s glasses deepens, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek.

  I can tell she’s caught in a struggle between what she wants to tell us and what she’s allowed to tell us. A few months ago, I think rule-following Sawyer would have won that battle, but tonight, she’s in full badass-Sawyer mode.

  “Look. There’s a branch of Health and Rehab that spends a lot of time looking at patient data . . . especially unusual patient data. It’s called Progressive Research.” She looks at Eli. “You’ve been on their radar for a while. You’ve been exposed to as much radiation as anyone, yet you’ve never gotten sick. Not many Recon operatives your age can say that.”

  Eli shrugs. “I grew up out there. Maybe I’m just immune.”

  “That’s the thing. You aren’t the first person brought in from the Fringe Program who doesn’t seem to be affected by this. I looked into it. Progressive Research has, too.”