Outbreak

by Tarah Benner

  “Sawyer told me there was no record of my parents ever being admitted to the medical ward.”

  “What?”

  “They have my records from my exam and admittance, but there’s nothing on my parents.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “I know. They’d have to be examined before they were integrated into the compound. So I went to Shane. I knew if anyone here would know what really happened, it would be him.”

  Celdon smacks a hand to his forehead to emphasize my stupidity but doesn’t argue. “And?”

  I drag in another breath. This is it — my last chance to back out and spare him the awful truth. Maybe he would be better off not knowing, but he’d never forgive me if he learned I lied to spare his feelings.

  “There’s no record of my parents being admitted to the medical ward because they never got that far,” I murmur. “They were probably killed as soon as they got to the compound.”

  Celdon’s hand drops into his lap. “They killed your parents? Just invited them in, took you, and . . . killed them?”

  I nod.

  He sinks back against his chair to process that information and then looks up at me with a twinge of sadness in his eyes. “Do you think . . . do you think that’s what happened to my mom? Was the ‘finding me outside the compound’ thing just a story they made up?”

  His hopeful tone breaks my heart in two. And despite my earlier resolution to tell Celdon the truth, I find myself waffling.

  I have the rare opportunity to tell a lie that could make his life better, not worse. I know he would probably prefer to think his mother was killed unjustly than think she handed him over for a little bit of cash. Plus, there’s no way to know for sure what happened to her.

  “Most likely,” I choke.

  “They just killed her?”

  I nod slowly, feeling a rush of relief that drowns out the guilt. “They killed my parents to get to me.”

  To my surprise, Celdon grabs the takeout container sitting on the desk and chucks it at the wall. It hits the glass with a dull splat, and the green-and-yellow mush smears down the wall in slow motion.

  “They can’t do this,” he growls, shaking with rage.

  “But they have.”

  “Who the hell do they think they are?” he yells.

  I don’t know what to say. I’ve never seen Celdon this angry, so I have no way of knowing how to calm him down.

  “Is there any part of this compound that doesn’t run on a bunch of fucked-up shit? Everything they’ve ever told us is a lie!”

  “I know.”

  “We should just let the drifters bring down the compounds,” he snarls. “It would certainly even the score.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “The hell I don’t! We shouldn’t even be here, Harper. This place only exists because the founders decided who deserved to live and said ‘screw everybody else.’ I can’t stay here! I can’t live here knowing that other people had to die so I could live the good life.”

  “You can’t tell anyone,” I warn.

  “Why not?” he yells. “People deserve to know! This is bullshit. If people knew the truth, that would solve all our problems. Constance couldn’t just kill us to keep it quiet. There’d be no containing a story like this.”

  Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t said anything. Celdon deserved to know the truth, but I hadn’t expected him to react like this.

  “Stop! Stop! Listen to yourself. Are you out of your mind? Of course they would kill us!”

  “Not if it’s all out in the open!”

  “Even if we got the story out there, they’d just lock us up and pretend we were insane,” I say. “Constance controls Information. We’d never get the story out on the feeds. Telling people isn’t even an option.”

  “How can you be so calm about this?” Celdon huffs. “Doesn’t it bother you that they murdered your parents? Or are you so deep in this that you don’t feel anything anymore?”

  “Of course it bothers me!” I yell. “I never even got to know them! I could have had a family, and now I have no one.”

  A look of hurt flashes across his face, so I try to rein in my furious tone. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  Celdon just stares at me, breathing hard, and I look away so I don’t burst into hot, angry tears.

  For several minutes, I just stare at the monitors, watching the scenes of the Fringe change one by one.

  Every once in a while, I see a building that seems familiar, but then I realize it’s just another abandoned town that looks remarkably similar to the one Eli and I visited.

  Then the screen flickers, and a new scene starts to unfold.

  A lone figure is striding purposefully down the sidewalk toward the pawn shop, wearing a faded gray baseball cap. He has a pronounced five o’clock shadow that obscures most of his features, but there’s something familiar about his confident stride.

  He stops at the door to pull his hat down lower, and I catch a glimpse of his face.

  It’s Owen.

  eighteen

  Eli

  There’s no getting that orange dust out of your clothes. It clings to your boots and your pants and your hair — even in a dream.

  I’ve left a trail of the stuff across the shiny black tile floor all the way through the tunnel and into this room.

  Everything in Information is painted tuxedo black. The walls and ceiling of my ten-by-ten chamber are as dark as it gets, and the only source of light is emanating from the sharp lines of the crown molding.

  It’s barely bright enough for me to see the outline of a door directly across from the one I came through. Every nerve in my body is tingling — screaming at me to turn around and leave.

  Someone from Constance must be nearby, but a muffled cry from beyond the door captures my attention.

  My hand closes on the smooth handle, and I yank the door open before I have a chance to change my mind.

  I’m instantly blinded by the harsh light of a single florescent lamp hanging from the ceiling. I have to blink several times before my eyes adjust, and when they do, horror flares through me.

  I’m standing in another chamber about the same size as the one I came through, but I’m not alone. Harper is seated in the very center of the room with her hands bound behind her back. She’s got a piece of tape covering her mouth, but I can read the terror in her quivering gray eyes.

  I move toward her automatically, and the door slams shut.

  Before I can even utter Harper’s name, Jayden materializes from the corner to my right.

  “Nice of you to join us, Parker.”

  “What the hell is this?” I growl, bending down to check on Harper.

  “You left your partner here . . . remember?”

  “To give you what you wanted,” I say, tugging on the tape to free Harper’s wrists.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  “Why the he —”

  A slight shock zings up my arm, but Harper’s muffled whimper means it must have been much worse for her. My heart starts pounding from the adrenaline, and my palms break out in a cold sweat.

  I tilt my head to examine Harper’s neck and see that she’s wearing some kind of shock collar. Bastards.

  I reach out automatically to remove it, but Jayden’s harsh tsk stops me.

  “Careful . . .” she croons, holding up a tiny plastic fob.

  “What is wrong with you?” I snap. “I did everything you asked. I killed them, and I stayed away until the job was done.”

  Jayden bats her long eyelashes once in what I can only interpret as a “Gotcha!” gesture.

  “Yes, you did,” she says slowly. “You were a good boy — a good lieutenant. But you left your partner here . . . after all you’ve been through together. What does that say about you? Huh? How much could you really care for Cadet Riley if you just abandoned her at the first sign of trouble?”

  I make a grab for the fob in Jayden’s hand, but she’s too fast.
She whips her arm out of reach and hits the button again.

  Harper makes another pitiful sound, and I feel her pain as if it were my own.

  “Stop!” I scream.

  Jayden just smiles.

  I throw Harper an apologetic look, and a lone tear rolls down her cheek.

  Something inside me cracks, and I have the sudden heartbreaking realization that I’m not going to be able to save her.

  Constance never intended for Harper to leave this room. Jayden is going to torture and kill her right here in front of me so I’ll never step out of line again.

  “That’s what I thought,” she whispers. “You’re a coward, Parker. And now Riley sees it, too.”

  Just then, there’s a knock at the door.

  Jayden doesn’t move a muscle, and Harper’s still staring at me with that hopeless, pained expression.

  The knocking becomes more insistent, and I realize faintly that the noise isn’t coming from my dream at all. It’s coming from my compartment door.

  My compartment?

  Suddenly, Harper and Jayden disappear. I’m no longer standing in the stuffy chamber, but I still feel overheated despite the cool air of my compartment. My sheets are tangled around my legs like shackles, and I can feel a fine sheen of sweat all over my body.

  I’m alone in bed, and someone is knocking frantically on the door.

  I spring to my feet, nearly tripping over my sheet in the process. I yank the door open and see Harper standing there wide-eyed. Her gaze snaps down my bare torso and back up to my face, and a slight flush creeps over her cheeks.

  She’s wearing a sexy black getup I’ve never seen before that shows a lot of skin. I’m not wearing anything except a pair of boxer briefs, but I’m too relieved to care.

  Before Harper can get any words out, I pull her into my arms and crush her against my chest. She lets out a little breath of surprise and then snakes her arms around my waist. I squeeze her tighter and drag her inside.

  Darkness envelops us as soon as I close the door, but I don’t want to let go of Harper even for the second it would take to turn on the light. I know I’m about to lose her, but it’s the right choice.

  Even if she hates me for lying to her and leaving her behind, she’ll be safer here than she would be out on the Fringe.

  “Eli . . .”

  I can’t make out her features, but she feels so warm and so good that I don’t even bother asking why she’s here.

  Caressing her bare arms from where they’re locked around me, I forge a trail to her neck and cup her face between my palms. She shivers, and I have the sudden urge to wrap myself around her and keep her here forever.

  Her skin feels unbelievably soft. And when I bring my lips down on hers, I’m overwhelmed by sensation. Her lips are hot — almost feverish — and her breath is coming in uneven little spurts.

  She kisses me back slowly, and I can tell there’s something else weighing on her mind.

  I should ask her what it is, but I don’t want to think about anything else — not when this could be the last time I hold her in my arms.

  She’s here. She’s alive. She’s with me.

  I deepen the kiss, and she opens her mouth with a tiny groan.

  There’s nothing I like better than tasting her. After a workout, there’s a faint hint of salt on her upper lip, but right now, I taste the sting of artificial strawberry. She must have been wearing lip gloss, though I’m not sure why.

  I take her lower lip between mine and suck a little, pulling away with a tiny bite.

  When she tilts her head back, I tug gently on her silky hair and trail kisses down her neck and throat.

  I can feel her pulse racing under my mouth, and I pull away for a second to nuzzle her neck. Her breath catches, and that spurs me on. My hands wander through her hair and down her back, finally settling on the hem of her shirt. I can feel an inch or so of velvety skin between her tank top and her pants, and I slide my hands back up to feel her smooth stomach.

  Harper’s lips caress mine once again, and this time, she teases me with her tongue. Her hand moves from my cheek to the back of my head, and I see stars when she drags her fingernails against my scalp.

  Her other hand burns a trail down my chest, and her thumb finds the groove in my side between my hip bone and my waistband.

  She pulls her lips away and breathlessly says my name again. I know she wants to talk, but I’m desperate to reassure myself that this is real.

  I kiss her again — softly this time — and whip her tank top over her head with an impatient tug.

  Harper lets out a soft note of surprise but quickly closes the distance between us.

  When she pulls me into her and crushes her chest against mine, a tremor rolls through my body. Something about the dream has awakened a new desperation inside me, and the skin-to-skin contact is almost too much.

  Without hesitation, I pull her off her feet and deposit her onto my bed. She kicks off her boots and inches sideways to make room, but I position myself directly above her so I can feel every part of her body.

  I suddenly wish I had a window looking out onto the Fringe so I could see her sprawled out on my bed, drenched in moonlight. I want to memorize every part of her, but I can only see her eyes reflecting back the sparse light, so I take her in the only way I can.

  This time when I kiss her, she arches up to grind her hips against mine. I groan and push them down onto the bed, holding her in place.

  I want to take my time tonight, and that’s not going to be possible with her doing that.

  I leave a trail of kisses from her jaw to her neck, and a wild desire flares up inside me. My lips have a mind of their own as they skip down to the soft skin between her belly button and her waistband. I tug down her pants and slide my hand slowly up her leg, but then she disappears.

  In the dark, I can see Harper’s shape moving toward the headboard, and confusion swamps me as she withdraws.

  “Eli, wait,” she gasps.

  A new kind of panic spills into my stomach.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  I should have stopped to think for a second before I ripped off her clothes and threw her onto my bed. I came on too strong, and now I’ve wrecked everything.

  “Sorry,” I say in a raspy voice. I clear my throat and try to slow my pounding heart. “I’m sorry. Was that too fast?”

  “No, no. It’s just . . .” She sighs and takes a second to collect herself while I teeter on the brink of a heart attack.

  “What is it?”

  If I didn’t ruin things by jumping her as soon as she walked in here, something else must be bothering her.

  I reach over to turn on the lamp, and it’s all I can do not to let my mouth hang open when I see her sitting on my bed practically naked. She’s perfect.

  Luckily, Harper doesn’t seem to notice my gawking. She’s still flushed and a little winded from our exchange, but her head is clearly someplace else. She takes several more breaths and then says, “I came here to tell you that I know about Celdon’s little assignment.”

  My stomach drops.

  I can’t believe Celdon told her already, the little shit. It’s bad enough that I lied to Harper; I also dragged her best friend into it.

  I grimace, searching for the right thing to say, but Harper keeps going.

  “I don’t like that you got him involved with this . . . hacking into Constance’s feeds . . . but we just saw Owen on camera.”

  It takes several seconds for that information to sink in. I wait for Harper to start yelling at me for cutting her out and planning to fake Owen’s death, but she seems to be waiting for my reaction.

  Finally she grows impatient and continues. “He was at the pawn shop.”

  “You saw Owen on the feed?” I repeat.

  God, I sound like an idiot. But I’m still confused as to why she’s taking the news so well.

  “I looked at the time stamp. It’s live footage.”

  “Was there a clear shot of his fac
e?”

  “No. I just got a glimpse. He looked like he didn’t want to be spotted, but it was definitely Owen.”

  That’s reassuring. If Harper didn’t get a good look at him, it’s unlikely that Jayden will see the resemblance and put two and two together. And judging by her casual attitude, it’s possible Celdon didn’t tell her everything.

  “How long do you think it will take for Constance to identify him on the footage?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure they have someone monitoring it twenty-four/seven. Jayden is desperate to find the gang leaders.”

  “So we’ll probably be sent out soon . . . won’t we?”

  Harper’s use of “we” feels like a round kick to the stomach. It breaks my heart to drop her as a partner, but I don’t want to break the news to her now.

  “Yeah,” I murmur. “Soon.”

  In that moment, she looks so crestfallen it makes my chest physically hurt. I remind myself that I’m only doing this so she won’t have to face an indefinite deployment. It’s the right decision, but it’s still going to hurt her.

  Then there’s the issue of Owen showing up on the feeds. Knowing he’s in that town sets me on edge. He’s in serious danger, and by the time Jayden sends me out, there’s no telling where he’ll be.

  I just wish I’d had a little more time to prepare for deployment — time to figure out the right way to break the news to Harper.

  Suddenly the mood shifts. Harper’s probably wondering if tonight will be her last night in the compound. Impersonating Owen raised the stakes, and now the town is crawling with drifters who probably want us dead.

  I’m thinking about how tonight could be the last I spend with Harper.

  She shivers and crosses her arms over her chest, glancing up at me from under thick, sooty lashes. I don’t want this to end, but I don’t know what to say.

  “I better go,” she whispers, moving toward the edge of the bed.

  Talking about Owen and the impending deployment effectively killed the mood, but I don’t want her to leave.

  “Stay,” I hear myself blurt out.

  Harper freezes. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do, but I don’t want her to go.

  “Stay with me.”