Fallon was quiet until she had finished dosing herself. Then she lowered the device to her lap. “I was going the other way this time,” she said. “Tamping it down.”
“You can really do that?”
“That was the original concept. Diagnose and treat.”
Lilith looked at the thing as if it had just performed a miracle.
In a way, maybe it had.
“You want to try?” Fallon asked.
“Not . . . not now,” Lilith said. “I gotta think about it. I’m all empty inside. Worn out.”
“I understand. It’s okay. Whenever you’re ready, Lilith. Just say the word.”
Lilith shot her a smile. Even with the filth and ash and the bruises she’d taken, when she smiled, she looked her age. Not so psycho at all. There was hope for her, Fallon thought.
Then they were landing on the helipad marked on the raceway’s infield, and a welcoming committee was waiting for them. General Robbins, Soledad Ramirez, Jack Thurman—most of the assembled brass stood at attention in the morning sunlight, along with a contingent of soldiers and equipment to cart the containment pod into a sterile facility, where the meteor could be safely examined. They were optimistic of being able to create a vaccine, Thurman said, based on work they’d done with captured Infecteds. Having the actual source would make the research go much faster.
Book waited there, too. He looked like he hadn’t slept since they’d left. He probably hadn’t, and Fallon knew she more than likely looked worse. Just the same, he broke into a huge smile when he saw her step off the helicopter, and she felt her own face doing the same. He walked toward her, fast but managing not to run. When he was close, he said, “Fallon,” and she only heard it coming from his mouth, not that disembodied voice in her ear. She wanted to say something back, even if it was just his name, but she couldn’t. Instead, she opened her arms and he came into them, and his hug was fierce and warm and real, and she liked it.
Finally, she was able to say, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here. For being there. I don’t think I could have done it without you.”
“Oh, hell no,” Book said. “You wouldn’t have had a chance.”
They both laughed at that, but then a sad look washed away Book’s jubilation.
“What?” Fallon asked.
“Somebody’s waiting to see you.”
“Robbins, Thurman and those guys? They can wait a few minutes.”
“No, not them. Over there.” He nodded over her shoulder, past the helicopter. She turned but had to step around the helicopter to see anyone.
When she did, Jason spotted her. He tore his little hand from Mark’s, and his face lit up as though the morning sun had brightened just for him, and he ran to her, arms out, laughing by the time he reached her. She dropped to a crouch and swept him up, held him, felt his arms around her, and she was laughing and crying at the same time, once more unable to speak.
Mark came next, moving more slowly than Jason’s sprint. Reluctantly, she put Jason down so she could hug him. “Welcome home, honey,” he said. He kissed her, but her lips barely responded, and he felt stiff in her arms. That was her, she realized, not him. He was trying, but all she could see when she embraced him was the past. Like an artifact from a lost civilization, he was something from before.
And this was after.
She wasn’t the same woman he had known, had married. And he wasn’t part of her tomorrow.
She looked at Jason again, standing, hands at his sides, watching her, still smiling. She wanted to raise her son, but not with Mark. She wanted to take care of him.
She wanted to make sure he was not a psychopath and never would be.
Then he coughed. Fallon knelt beside him. “Are you okay, baby?” she asked. She looked up at Mark, then back at Jason. “His face is flushed.”
“It’s just a little cold he picked up somewhere,” Mark said. “Maybe a flu, I don’t know. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing,” she said. She wrapped her arms around her son again and held him, tighter and tighter, until he started to wriggle and writhe, struggling against her grip.
Until she had to let go.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors offer great thanks and appreciation to some of the people who helped bring this book to fruition: agent Howard Morhaim and Kim-Mei Kirtland, for finding it a home; editor David Pomerico and Rebecca Lucash for inviting it in and making it comfortable; Erica Wilson and Autumn Chartier, for service above and beyond; Catherine, for inspiration; James Fallon, author of The Psychopath Inside and Dr. Kent Kiehl, author of The Psychopath Whisperer, for information, and our family, for putting up with us.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
MARSHEILA (MARCY) ROCKWELL and JEFFREY J. MARIOTTE have written more than sixty novels between them, the most recent of which include The Shard Axe series and a trilogy based on Neil Gaiman’s Lady Justice comic books (Rockwell) and Empty Rooms and Season of the Wolf (Mariotte). They’ve also written dozens of short stories and comic books/graphic novels, separately and together. Some of their solo stories are collected in Nine Frights (Mariotte) and Bridges of Longing (Rockwell). Mariotte is also editor-in-chief of Visionary Comics.
You can learn more about upcoming projects, both collaborative and solo, at marsheilarockwell.com and jeffmariotte.com.
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COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
7 SYKOS. Copyright © 2016 by Marsheila Rockwell and Jeffrey J. Mariotte. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780062434913
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062434920
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