The Plague Box Set [Books 1-4]

by Jones, Isla

  Summer suited what looked like a costume on me. And by the smirk that danced on her lips, she had the same thought.

  Though, she didn’t say it outright; “Look at you, Winner.”

  Noah stole my smile with a hoarse moan. My gaze snapped to him, but he stared blankly at the ceiling. Summer paid him no mind and went back to assessing the blood slides.

  I watched his bloodshot eyes drift from ceiling to vent, ceiling to vent, over and over again.

  “Do you think he knows?” I asked. “Like … where he is and what you’re doing? Why he was put through seven months of hell?”

  Summer hummed, then followed my gaze to the boy.

  “I’m not sure.” She returned to the blood slides. “Come see this. It’s marvellous.”

  I peered through the microscope at the blood slide. “What am I looking at?”

  Summer switched the slides.

  The only difference I could spot was the ... nothing. I couldn’t tell the difference. Blood looked all the same to me and my non-doctor eyes.

  With a hum, I pretended to understand and drew back from the microscope.

  Summer hardly noticed and spread her arms. “Amazing, isn’t it? Patient Zero is, by general understanding, supposed to hold the clues. Yet, the interesting part is—” She held up her hand and strode over to a bunch of glass vials and whatnot. “—the virus has latched onto all of his active cells. The second sample … Now, that sample shows blood cells bonding with the virus, which, if you’d asked me a few weeks ago, I would have declared it impossible.”

  Jibberish.

  Jibberish that bored me so much that all I could do was sink into her empty chair and pretend to listen as she rambled on.

  “Your handsome delta might be our key,” she said. “Don’t quote me on that just yet. It’s too early to tell. But his cells have bonded with the virus, embraced it.” She levelled my gaze. “This bond prevents him from becoming like the other infected specimens.”

  I scoffed and clicked a fancy pen that I thought about stealing. “What do you know about the infectees? Down here, all safe—you can’t know that much, can you?”

  Summer slid off her goggles and studied me. Then, she tugged off her gloves.

  “I’ll show you what I know,” she said.

  *

  Summer led me through the halls of the Lab Maze. Mason carried Cleo for me.

  We stopped at the door the deltas had gone through. Summer’s thumbprint was too sweaty for the reader, so she huffed and slammed in her code. I watched her out the corner of my eye. I caught the last couple of digits and at the sight, my heart twisted as if wrung out. The anniversary of our parents’ death.

  With the code and her ID card, the door granted us access to corridors that ran like rivers of glass rooms. Most of them, I found during our walk, were empty, other than some standard offices and conference furniture.

  Then we reached those rooms, beyond another sealed door—a door so solid and thick that I doubted the deltas would be allowed through. This door was different. It didn’t keep people out. It kept things in.

  Through it was a single corridor with a dozen rooms on each side—and a rotter in every single one of them.

  Most of the rotters were restrained, either chained to the walls, or wrapped in straitjackets with rubber devices looped over their heads to gag them. A few of them had been soldiers—if their uniforms were anything to go by—and the soldier-rotter who wore all black still had his badge sewn to his bloody uniform. I couldn’t be sure, but from the corridor, it looked like it spelled ‘SERGEANT’.

  Most of the others were white coats.

  A shiver ran down me at the sight of them all. Suddenly, just by looking at them, I was outside again. I was trapped in a Jeep, listening to the growls of rotters; I was weeping in a cabin, hearing their desperate howls—I was wearing a person’s blood to camouflage myself.

  I cleared my throat and tore my troubled gaze from the rotter-prisoners.

  My breath shook as I asked, “What happened to them? How did the virus get in? It’s meant to be safe down here.”

  Summer pointed to a glass room with a white coat in it. “Dr Stevenson happened.”

  I frowned at her. “The doctor you went on a date with?”

  She’d mentioned it on our last phone call, the morning before the outbreak. Before the lines went dead—before everything started to crumble.

  “He was the first to turn,” she explained. “It was chaos, Winter. The day of the outbreak was the worst day in the history of this facility.”

  She and Mason shared a look filled with regret and sorrow. I shifted on the spot, uncomfortable.

  “Not everyone could be allowed entry,” she said, bringing her gaze back to mine. “Some had been infected on their way here. Others tried to bring in their infected family. We couldn’t let that happen—Dr Stevenson was especially adamant about the decision to go into lockdown. We received our final orders before our communications were cut.”

  “What orders?”

  “The outbreak was orchestrated, Winter. Media was controlled to focus on their own states—and the virus was released all over the world on the same day.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  At my shocked face, she reached out for me.

  “I had no idea, Winter. Most of us here were not informed of this decision. What we know is that every underground facility in the US—and further—are occupied by those chosen.”

  “Chosen?” I spat.

  “Must I tell you again that I had no part in this, Winter?” she snapped, but her hands still cradled my shaky ones. “I learned of it moments before the entire facility went into complete lockdown. Dr Stevenson released this facility’s patient zero—as did every CDC facility across the country—nights before the outbreak reached the news and national panic. Shockingly so,” she added bitterly, “he failed to mention that in the process of releasing patient zero, he was scratched.”

  “He was infected,” I whispered, my horrified gaze swerving to the docile rotter.

  “The payload your deltas transported here is valuable to my research. But that specimen was never supposed to arrive, Winter. Not to here, not to any CDC.”

  We were never supposed to live. None of us … The whole world, wiped out by a bunch of old crooks in government to repair the damage they did the world. Billions of innocent lives for a few rich, greedy, corrupt ones.

  I felt sick.

  “So…” I choked on a shaky breath peeled my hands from hers. “Why … Why were we let in?”

  “Dr Wong made a snap decision. Neither she nor I are comfortable with what occurred. We might be the only doctors left in the world who will dedicate the rest of our lives to righting this wrong. To do that, I need every tool available to me.”

  Dazed, I nodded. “Noah.”

  “Noah,” she agreed with a tight smile. “And the others, who were unfortunately infected by Dr Stevenson after the virus took over. But I need more than that, Winter. If I want to repair a piece of this world, I need more.”

  “Like what?”

  Summer’s smile turned soft and she rested her hands on my shoulders. “How would Leonardo respond to assisting my research?”

  “Leo?” I shrugged, still lost in the storm of what I’d learned. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess I could ask him?”

  Summer beamed at me. “Thank you, Winter. He’s essential to my research. If he’s comfortable with assisting me, I would grateful. His blood could change the world.” She drew back and looked to the glass cell with the Sergeant in it. “It is entirely Leonardo’s choice. After all, he’s not quite a guest, is he?”

  My face scrunched up. “What is he?”

  Summer sighed and gestured for me to follow her gaze to the Sergeant.

  “Your deltas are the ranking officials here,” she said. “There is one official who outranks Corporal Hill, and we are looking at him. For now, I’ve told your friends that their Sergeant is indisposed in the lower
levels, but … it won’t be long before they figure it out, if they haven’t already.”

  She shook her head and turned her pleading gaze on my stunned one. Mason, holding Cleo a few paces behind Summer, studied me intently, waiting for my declared loyalties.

  “You can’t tell them, Winter. You have influence over two of those deltas, which—here—is a monopoly. I need you to utilise that influence for the time being. Can you do that for me?”

  Her eyes searched mine.

  I couldn’t give her much with everything tangled in my brain. I had the simpler issues to worry about, Castle and Leo mainly, then the revelation that mass worldwide genocide had happened, that survivors lived underground all over the world, and a political war in an underground facility which plonked me between the men who broke my heart and my sister who’d had a part in the end of the world.

  But Summer meant more to me than anyone else in the world. Except maybe Cleo. That was a close tie. Sorry, but it’s true.

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked in a whisper.

  Gently, she squeezed my hand. “Bring your Leonardo to me and convince him to join my study. I need blood from him daily, plasma—some bone marrow, perhaps. He can be eased into all of this, but to begin, I need his consent.”

  Uneasily, I glanced at Mason whose fiercely loyal gaze glowed at Summer’s back.

  Summer stared at me with such hope that it stirred a warm, nervous feeling in my heart.

  “I don’t have control over what he does …” I licked my lips, casting my gaze downwards. “But I’ll try.”

  Summer warmed and drew me in for an embrace. Mason winked at me, a pleased smirk pasted to his handsome face.

  Into my plaited hair, Summer whispered words that assured me I’d made the right decision; “That’s all I’ve ever asked of you, Winner.”

  22.

  It was surprisingly easy to manipulate Leo, while declaring my loyalty to Summer.

  I found Leo in the dining hall after dinner that night and asked for a moment alone with him. (Castle’s glares were starting to give me rashes). Leo came back to my room with me, where I stayed quiet for a while. He stewed in the silence with me, watching me from the edge of the bed where he perched himself.

  Finally, I turned to him and wrung my fingers together. “My sister needs something from you, but after all you’ve done to bring the cargo here, she’s not comfortable asking you herself, and I talked to her, and it seems really important to finding the cure, and so I said I’d talk to you, but then I remembered the way our last talk went and how most our talks have gone lately and—”

  Leo smiled; it touched his moss-green eyes. “Stop.”

  For added effect, I bit my lip and shifted my weight from one leg to another. It seemed to work. I’d really discovered something in that.

  Leo reached out for my hand. I hesitated, but then I rested mine in his. The touch of our palms shook my breath a little.

  Leo pulled me closer, then slid his hand down to my outer thigh. His foresty eyes found my troubled ones.

  Absolute sincerity slicked his voice; “What do you want me to do?”

  I let his hand linger on my leg. Inside, I ached to punch his hand away from me. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to kick him and spit on him. But I reined in all the lashes of rage and kept his gaze.

  “It’s just a brain study,” I said. “You’ll look at a bunch of pictures and Summer will study something about your brain chemistry or whatever.” I shrugged and wiped my clammy hands on my sweatpants. “She needs the data to compare with Noah’s.”

  Leo frowned. “Noah?”

  “Oh, uh…” I avoided his gaze and murmured, “I gave him a name … the cargo. I call him Noah, now.”

  Leo sighed and rose to his feet. His body almost slid up mine, and soon, he was standing over me. But there was nothing intimidating about the way he looked down at me with those eyes, so deep and rich that I felt a sudden urge to explore them.

  “Offer me a deal,” he said.

  “Wha … What kind of deal?”

  “I’ll do this for you, if you do something for me.” He grinned and pinched my chin. “That tends to be how a deal works.”

  With a guarded glare, I asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  The implications in my wary voice were left to hang between us.

  Leo rolled his eyes, but his smile relaxed his face.

  “Not that,” he said. “Unless it’s on offer, in which case I will most certainly not decline.”

  At my increased glare, he held up his hands in surrender.

  “I only want you to hear me out,” he said. “There are things I think we should talk about without theatrics. No storming out, no tantrums. I want a mature discussion between two adults.”

  The sketches in Castle’s book sprung to mind and how he sort of declared his almost-feelings for me. Now, Leo’s heated stare pleaded with me and … I didn’t know what to feel.

  There were too many emotions battling inside of me. The mere thought of peeling them apart filled me with a nauseating sense of dread. It was obviously smarter to ignore the feelings altogether. I’m incredibly mature that way.

  “Ok,” I agreed. “After you do the study, we’ll talk.”

  I needed time. I’m a staller, all right?

  Leo considered it a moment, then nodded. He leaned closer and kissed a warm, softly spoken word to my forehead; “Deal.”

  *

  I’ll forever remember that day. The day after I made a deal with Leo. The day that carved a hole in my heart where it will forever live among the painful memories I can’t ever rid myself of.

  It started with a trip out of the Common Halls.

  I hated leaving Cleo alone in my room. To make up for it, I left her with a generous tray of breakfast meat before I shut the door on her giant, round eyes. Even as I walked beside Vicki and listened to her worried ramblings about Mac, Cleo’s innocent gaze followed me through the halls. Since the outbreak, there had never been a time until then that I’d left her completely alone.

  Unfortunately, Summer had made herself pretty clear about where Cleo could and couldn’t go.

  Mason held up to his promise and let us into the ICU. It was just off our wing (or the ‘Common Halls’), but we needed a card-swiper to gain access. Dr Wong sometimes let Vicki through, but the white coats were hard to track down here.

  They still had jobs at the end of the world.

  We took a turn and the corridors shuddered my skin. The sterile atmosphere, the clinical look, echoing halls, stench of bleach.

  “I hate hospitals,” I muttered to Vicki. “Don’t they give you the creeps?”

  Vicki arched her brow at me, but her arm stayed looped through mine (a desperate grab for support that I overlooked).

  “Hospitals save lives,” was all she said.

  As a proud coward, I have a lot of fears. Dying in a hospital is one of them. I’d rather die in the outdoors … A cliff’s edge maybe.

  I hugged closer to Vicki’s side.

  “I hope he’s awake,” she said, her voice a breathy sigh. “Dr Wong said he was lucid for a few minutes last night. He asked for me before falling back asleep.”

  Falling back into a coma.

  I studied the back of Mason’s shaved head. “If he is, do you want me to stay?”

  Vicki licked her lips in the heavy pause.

  “I can come back in an hour to give you some time with him.”

  Vicki nodded. “That would be nice.”

  I smiled at her just before we stopped at the already open door. I glanced from Dr Wong and a random soldier with their backs to us, to the capsule in the centre of the room.

  The bubble-like contraption encased Mac in a sterile embrace.

  Another shudder raked down me.

  Tubes were attached to his oxygen mask and poked out from the capsule, and escaped into a blinking machine on the wall. Dr Wong faced the blinking wall, holding a clipboard.

  Mason was quic
k to knock on the doorframe before we could huddle inside.

  Dr Wong spun around at the sound.

  I tried a smile for the doctor, but it came out like the rest of them. She didn’t notice. Her stunned face settled on Vicki. For a moment, she was frozen in the form of a goldfish, with lips parted and eyes bulging.

  Then, she spoke in a husky voice; “I’m sorry, Victoria. I did all that I could.”

  I frowned and looked at Vicki.

  Her slack features betrayed nothing, so I turned my attention on the capsule. A ripple of tension came from the woman beside me, frozen in the doorway. The loudness of the sudden silence pressed down on us.

  There were no sounds. No beeps of the heart monitor, no heavy wheezes from the oxygen mask. The capsule was as still as the body in it.

  I reached for Vicki, but I was too late.

  The silence shattered.

  Her scream curdled the air around us; she collapsed to the floor. I shut my eyes at the wretched sound for a moment. But the scream never stopped.

  All I could do was kneel behind her and hold her shoulders.

  They’re not necromancers—and Mac’s already dead.

  *

  When I think back on that day, it’s not Mac’s motionless body in a capsule that glues itself to my brain, or the silence that came before the break. It’s Vicki’s scream.

  I’ve only ever heard that scream once before. Mine. Even now, it brings me back to the farmhouse when I’d thought I’d lost Cleo to savage packs of rotters.

  So in that doorway, I knelt behind Vicki and held her. When Mason tried to pick her up off the floor, I warned him away with my lethal glare.

  The doorway embraced us both for so long that my kneecaps squeaked for a whole day after and my spine ached from top to bottom.

  But I stayed to hold her until her screams withered into sobs. And I stayed long after.

  Dr Wong gave her some pills. Probably like the ones she gave me. And when Vicki was ready, Mason helped us back to the room where I spent the night with her.

  We ignored the knocks on the door all day and night.