In the End

by Lunetta, Demitria

  He says this as if it’s somehow a good thing. I’m so angry, I have to concentrate on keeping my breathing even. These people are making Fort Black even more dangerous. As if it needed the help. And I can’t even think about the women they so “regrettably” killed.

  “What . . .” Jacks’s face betrays his horror. “What about the Black Pox? Was that you, too?”

  “No. That’s just an unfortunate mutation of the chicken pox virus. We had nothing to do with that. I’m not responsible for every disease that manifests. Where there are people, there is sickness. There always has been and always will be.”

  “It makes your job easier,” I say with venom in my voice. “When people die by your hand, you can blame some random sickness.”

  Doc looks down and doesn’t respond.

  I give Jacks’s hand a squeeze before releasing it. From my baggy shorts I pull out the sketch of Ken. I hold it up for him to see.

  “Do you know this man?”

  “No,” he answers quickly.

  “He’s lying,” Jacks tells me. I wish Jacks knew sign language. I wish I could take his hand again and have him sign to me, like Rice could. I’d ask him if he really knew Doc was lying or if he was just bluffing again.

  “You lied to us for years, Dad,” he spits out the last word. “About the drugs, about your downward spiral of a career.”

  “I haven’t lied to you about any of this, Jacks. I just didn’t tell you. I thought it would be better for you if you didn’t know.”

  “That’s the same shit you used to tell Mom. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry. No, it’s better to have reality come crashing down all at once. It’s better to find out from a random nurse that Mom ran into in the grocery store, that your father lost his medical license for stealing drugs. It’s better to find out that we have no money when the car is being repossessed and the house is being foreclosed on. It’s better to find out that your father has been playing mad scientist with people’s lives, years after the fact.”

  Doc considers this for a moment then looks past Jacks at me. “Amy, are you sure you want to dig any deeper?” he pleads. “You have many valuable skills. You could make a good life for yourself in Fort Black.”

  “You’re insane,” I whisper. “You all are.”

  But he goes on. “Don’t you want to just go back home with Jacks and forget all this? I was going to contact the New Hope when you first arrived; I had been told to look out for you. But I saw you two together, and I talked it over with my brother. We knew you and Jacks would get along. We thought it would be better for you both.”

  “My uncle . . . He knows about all this?” Jacks asks. “Of course he does,” he mumbles, shaking his head.

  Doc nods, his jaw tight. “The testing has been going on for a long time,” he continues. “My brother sold Fort Black out long before the infection broke. Hutsen-Prime had been using the prisoners as test subjects and paying the Warden a fair price.”

  “When he hired you, I actually thought he was trying to help you,” Jacks says. “He even convinced me and Layla to come here to talk to you. To forgive you. That’s why we came here, really. That’s why we were here when the infection broke out. I thought he wanted to help us patch things up.”

  “Don’t act so naive, Jacks. You know what kind of man your uncle the Warden is. But we’re looking out for you.” Docs turns to me. “I was told if you came here to report it immediately to New Hope and we didn’t. If you back down now, you can live here. You’ll be safe with Jacks. Why get involved?”

  “I’m already involved,” I tell him. Even if I wanted to forget New Hope, I couldn’t. Not with all I left behind there. I hold up the sketch. “Do. You. Know. Him?”

  Doc doesn’t look at it again. Instead he looks at me, his eyes cold. “You’re talking about Ken Oh. He’s a researcher for New Hope. He works on the vaccines and brings them to me when they’re modified.”

  I let out a long breath. Finally I’m getting somewhere. “And where can I find him?”

  “I’ve already let him know that you’re looking for him.” He taps his ear with a sad smile.

  “How . . .?” I start, but then I realize. He contacted Ken the same way Kay contacted me. Through an earpiece. I can just see it glinting in his ear.

  “Ken’s been listening in the whole time,” he says. “He says he doesn’t know what you want with him, but if you’re this determined, he’ll send for you when he has a free moment.” Doc’s eyes narrow as he listens. He looks back up at me. “Go to Jacks’s cell and wait for him.”

  I just stare at him, my head spinning. I’ve gotten to Ken? Finally?

  “Amy, let’s go,” Jack says, glaring at Doc. “We got what we came for.”

  I turn to Jacks. “How do we know he’s telling the truth? He’s lied to you for years—”

  “I didn’t lie. I just kept information from you that was best withheld,” Doc tells Jacks. “Calling the vaccine a flu shot made things simpler.”

  I whirl around, my voice shaking with rage. “Do you think people are too stupid to decide for themselves if they want to be tested on, or do you just not care?”

  “Amy, relax.” Jacks pulls me from the room and hurries me down the hall.

  “Relax?” I ask, my voice a thin screech.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he says through clenched teeth. He looks at me with urgency, and I understand: If I want to keep going, I need to stop making trouble. I look at the pain on his face. He’s just gotten a shock as well.

  “Okay,” I say softly. “Are you . . .?”

  “I’m fine. . . . I mean, I knew Doc wasn’t going to win any father-of-the-year awards.”

  He’s hiding his hurt, and for now I let him. We need to get back to his cell and wait for Ken. I charge forward, into the exercise yard—into chaos. People are running around wildly, trampling through tents and cardboard boxes.

  “What’s going on?” I ask Jacks, but he looks just as confused as I am.

  “I don’t—”

  A woman runs at us, her hands scraped and bloodied. “It’s here!” she screams. “It’s inside!”

  Jacks catches her and holds her arms. “What is it? What’s inside?”

  “A Florae!” she yells, wriggling from his grasp. “Run!” she screams before disappearing into a sea of panic.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I immediately reach for my gun with one hand and pull on my hood with the other, pushing Jacks against the wall. My Guardian training kicks in, and I scan the yard for any signs of nearby Floraes, but all I can see are frightened people, some running around without direction, a few too terrified to even move. One man sits on the ground, sobbing into his hands. A woman is knocked to the hard concrete but manages to regain her footing before she’s trampled.

  “Do you have a weapon?” I ask Jacks.

  He shakes his head. “I’ve never needed one.”

  I grab the knife I keep on my left thigh and hand it to him. “If there’s a Florae, you’ll need this.”

  I’m surprised when I look at him—his eyes have gone glassy with fear. “Don’t think about it. Just go for the neck or try to stab the brain through the eye.” I take a step away from the wall.

  “Where are you going?” he asks, desperation in his voice.

  “I’m going to find the Florae and kill it.”

  “Are you crazy? You’re going to die.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I call over my shoulder. “I’ve done it before. Trust me. Go back inside the wall.”

  When he doesn’t respond, I stop and look back at him. He holds the knife limply at his side, his face slack. I can’t just leave him there. He’s petrified, and I have no idea if he’ll be able to defend himself. But I can find the Florae and kill it before an outbreak occurs. I could save hundreds of lives.

&nbs
p; I go to him and pull up my hood just far enough for him to see my eyes. “Jacks. Go back inside the wall. Circle around to the cellblock and close the door. I’ll meet you at our cell. You’ll be okay in there.”

  He focuses on me, shaking his head. “But it’s a Florae.”

  “That doesn’t matter. If you see one, don’t think about what it is. Think about what you need to do to survive.”

  Jacks nods, steeling his face. “Will you be okay?”

  “I’m trained for this.” I put my hood back down. “You may know Fort Black, but I know Floraes.”

  “Good luck,” he tells me, starting to sound like his old self. “I’ll meet you at home.”

  Home. The word sounds so foreign to me, but I nod. He turns and disappears inside the wall.

  I wade into the chaos of the crowd, searching for a flash of green, listening for the creature’s distinctive snarl. It’s next to impossible to move through the mass of people struggling to escape without the slightest idea where to go.

  “There!” someone shouts off to my left. “He’s changing!”

  I fight through the tide of people fleeing the area and find a group of men beating another man. He’s unconscious and bloodied, but doesn’t look like he has begun to change, or even like he’s been bitten. I try to step in to stop them, but I’m knocked to the ground and someone steps on my arm.

  I roll to the side and up to my feet and again try to stop them, but there’s no reasoning with the mob. Then another man is accused—one of the men who’d been beating the man on the ground. “His hand! His hand!” someone is screaming. I see only knuckles bloody from beating the first man, but the crowd sees a Florae bite, and they’re immediately upon him.

  I leave the fighting men behind, trying to focus on finding the Florae. There could be dozens of them by now, but I can’t find a single one. I make my way across the exercise yard, the tents and cardboard homes mostly trampled under the feet of the panicked masses.

  Through the chaos, I still can’t find a Florae. Did one really get inside? Someone must have seen it to sound the alarm, but then where is it? Feeding somewhere? It could still be consuming its first victim. I scan the exercise yard to see if there is a particular area that people are running away from, but everyone is fleeing without direction.

  I hear a whimper to my left and turn to find a child peeking out of a tent—he’s hardly more than a toddler, tears smearing his face. I dive for him and pull him out just before a man crashes through the tent, dragging it behind him as he runs.

  The child clings to me and my heart leaps into my chest. He can’t be any older than Baby was when I first found her. I search for a parent or anyone who can protect him, but everyone is concerned with their own safety, with fleeing or finding and killing the Florae. I carry the child to the wall, weaving around debris and bodies. Smaller fights are breaking out all over the yard as neighbors accuse one another of being infected.

  I climb the steps to the top of the wall and find several others who’ve come up to escape the violence below. A woman clutching two children eyes me, her face wild with terror. I half-expect her to bolt when I approach her, but she just squeezes her children to her more tightly.

  “Are these your children?” I ask.

  “Yes, we were caught outside the cellblock. They wouldn’t let us back in. My husband’s a guard, I thought to come up here—”

  “That’s fine. Can you look after him?” I place the little boy down onto his feet and move him toward her.

  “What?” she asks, taking him despite the hesitation in her voice. “Is . . . Is he yours?” She sounds like she’s in shock, but she cradles the boy’s head against her breast.

  “No. I don’t know who he belongs to. But he needs you.”

  I look around the top of the wall and wonder why more people haven’t come up here. Out of the corner of my eye I see a man running toward us. I step out of the way and realize too late what he means to do. He takes a flying leap off the wall, landing on the ground outside with a sickening thud.

  I turn back to the woman and see that she’s crouched down and drawn the little boy and her two children tightly into her arms. “Now,” she says, “we’re going to play a little game and see who can keep their eyes shut the longest. No peeking or you lose.”

  I back off and run along the wall for a better view of the exercise yard. Looking down at the erupting violence, the absolute disorder, I realize that it’s a kind of madness. A Floraefueled riot, without the Florae. I scan every inch of Fort Black within my vision and can’t find a single creature.

  I go back down the stairs and make my way along the wall of the exercise yard, keeping my eyes peeled for the phantom Florae and avoiding the many fights that are still breaking out throughout the yard. I’m halfway to Cellblock B when an announcement comes over the loudspeaker.

  “Fort Black. This is the Warden. There is no longer a Florae threat. Please, stand down. The Florae has been dealt with.”

  The announcement does nothing to lessen anyone’s aggression, and the riot continues to rage on. I’m even more convinced now that there was never a Florae, that it was all a mistake—or a calculated lie.

  When I arrive at the cellblock, it’s a different place. People have locked themselves in their cells and wait patiently for the commotion to end. When I reach my cell, though, it’s empty. I should have stayed with Jacks. I’m debating whether to go find him, when he arrives at the cell door, breathless.

  “Amy!”

  I pull off my hood. “Jacks, I’m sorry I left you. . . . I thought I could help, but it was a false alarm.”

  He stares at me for a second, then rushes to me and folds me in his arms. I’m startled, but as confusing as it feels, it also feels good.

  “I should be sorry. I acted like . . . I should have gone with you. You could have been hurt.” He holds me tighter. Through my synth-suit, I can feel his arms, his chest. We’re the right size for each other—our bodies fit together perfectly.

  “If something had happened to you . . .”

  He pulls away and looks at me for a moment, studying my face, his dark eyes shine with a fierce intensity. And then it happens. Jacks is kissing me.

  I can’t say I haven’t thought about what it would be like. Lying in my bunk at night, listening to him breathing, or watching his flexed back, marked with tattoos. I’ve thought about kissing Jacks. Even though I knew I shouldn’t. Any distraction is a bad distraction. And then there’s Rice, who creeps into my thoughts unbidden. I don’t know where I stand with Rice—he hasn’t tried to contact me, hasn’t kept his promise of keeping Baby safe.

  But these thoughts vanish because now Jacks’s lips are on mine, his tongue uncertainly searching. And I can’t help it. I press into him, kissing him back, hard. It feels good. Right. And something happens to my legs—left to stand on my own right now, I know I’d drop to the floor.

  He pulls me closer, his arms moving down my back.

  “Ahem.” Someone clears his throat loudly and I jump back out of Jacks’s arms. My legs do work, but the skin on my face, my body, is hot and tingling. A man stands in the doorway, smirking. “Sorry to interrupt. That looks like it could have gotten . . . interesting.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Jacks demands.

  “I’m here for Amy.” He looks at me. “That’s you, right?”

  “Yeah? What do you want?” I ask, my voice shaky.

  “I’m here to take you to Ken Oh.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “You can’t go,” Jacks says, turning back to me. “Not now. Not with all those people killing one another out there.”

  “I’ll be fine.” I don’t look at him. My face is still burning, but I’ve snapped out of the spell. “I’m not a Florae.”

  “Do you think that matters anymore? They’re out f
or blood. No one is safe right now.”

  “I’m going,” I say forcefully. I can’t waste time right now. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for.

  “What if it’s a trap? What if Doc sold you out to that Reynolds guy?”

  The thought had crossed my mind. “It’s not, Jacks. Doc said Ken would be contacting me. This is it.” And if it’s not . . . I’m willing to take the risk.

  Jacks considers. “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “Sorry,” the man from the doorway says. “I was told to bring her only.”

  “I’m ready,” I say. Jacks grabs my arm, but I wrench it from him.

  “Don’t let your feelings get in the way of what I have to do. You know what I’m here for.”

  Jacks steps back, that stony look returning. “Yeah. I do. Because you don’t let me forget it for a second.”

  “Well, maybe for a second,” the messenger chortles, listening. “She seemed to be concentrating pretty hard on you when I got here.”

  “Let’s go,” I say, before things get uglier. I look at Jacks. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Sure,” he says with a cold nod.

  I follow Ken’s messenger down the stairs and out into the exercise yard. Things have quieted down a little, though it looks to me as though nearly all the makeshift homes have been demolished. The messenger leads me away from the yard, back between the cellblocks. There are more agitated people here, and their screams echo off the concrete. Two men wrestle on the ground and I skirt around them.

  We go all the way to the back wall, where the messenger nods to a guard and opens a door, the same door I saw Ken disappear through a few weeks ago. The door through which they take the Pox victims. I expect to see a dark, dank holding cell, filled with the dead and the dying. Instead, when I step inside, I am blasted with cold air. Air conditioning. The door thunks shut behind me. The corridor is well lit and smells of lemon cleaner. Standing there, you would have no idea of the turmoil raging outside.

  “Where are all the sick people?” I ask the messenger.