“Come on, Shy!” Carmen yanked Shy toward the water.
Just before they dove in, Shy saw a mass of people storming the edge of the river, cheering wildly. But he wasn’t able to make sure his dad surfaced, because he was now underwater himself. He held his breath and closed his eyes as he and Carmen swam through the cold water as far as they could without lifting their heads. When he finally had to come up for air, he began dog-paddling toward the stretch of unguarded border.
They swam in silence, Shy looking up every few seconds to make sure they were still on track. There was another commotion in the distance. Shy lifted his head, saw a motorboat with two military guys racing through the water, toward the spot where his dad had landed, the crowd jeering them from the river’s edge.
Shy wanted to stop so he could try to see what was happening with his dad, but he couldn’t. He had to keep swimming before the guards made it back to their post.
Soon he locked into a rhythm. He kicked his feet furiously underwater and paddled underwater, too, so he wouldn’t splash. And as he made it past the halfway point a thought occurred to him: this was how it had all started. The cruise ship sinking and him thrust into cold water, searching for Carmen. Except she was beside him now. And they weren’t in the Pacific, they were in the Arizona desert.
By the time Shy and Carmen made it to the other side, Shy’s shoulders were burning. He and Carmen climbed up onto the riverbank and moved to the wall, which was only a few steps from the water. It was slightly taller up close, but Shy managed to boost Carmen high enough for her to grab the top, and she pulled herself over. Then he leaped as high as he could, catching the top with his right hand, and he slowly pulled himself up. He hooked his leg over the side, rolled over the lip and fell to the dirt on the other side.
Two guards started toward them immediately, one shouting through a megaphone, the other aiming an assault rifle. But he didn’t shoot.
Shy and Carmen dropped to their knees.
Shy reached down and unzipped the wet duffel and quickly took out all the remaining syringes and the comb-over man’s letter and held them over his head and locked a few fingers and looked all around the other side of the border. They were in some sort of park, full of lit-up trailers and parked cars and well-groomed people milling around in a civilized way or sitting around barbecue pits.
“Don’t move!” a guard shouted from fifteen yards behind them. He wore a dry suit. A second suited guard emerged from a trailer in front of them. The rest kept their distance. Carmen put a hand on Shy’s shoulder and then held her hands up, too.
“I said don’t move!” the guard shouted.
Shy turned to Carmen and locked eyes with her as they waited for the guards to descend upon them.
Day 53
67
The Other Side
Shy slept through most of the next day.
When he finally cracked open his eyes, the sun was already setting. He could see it through the small window of his room inside the medical trailer. He sat up and sucked in a deep breath and studied the intense colors swirling around the sky. They gave him chills. Because he wasn’t supposed to still be here.
As he climbed into his dirty jeans, which had been left folded beside his cot, details from the night before came trickling back into his consciousness. He and Carmen had spent several hours in the “disease control” holding cell while scientists tested the contents of the syringes. And when the vaccine came back as legitimate, everyone in camp suddenly wanted a piece of them. Reporters begged for interviews. The police needed official statements. Doctors insisted on thorough physicals complete with blood work.
Shy refused to do any of it until he knew what was going on with his dad.
Minutes later, the deputy director of the FBI led Shy into an unmarked trailer and sat him in a metal folding chair. They were in the middle of a thorough search of the river, the man explained. Every resource would be exhausted. They’d find Shy’s dad. And no matter what condition they found him in, they’d bring him directly into camp. At the end of their short conversation, the man stood up and gave Shy a firm handshake, saying: “Thank you for everything you’ve done, son.”
Shy nodded, thinking how surreal it was that people were now thanking him. As opposed to trying to kill him.
“We’d eventually like you to write out what you’ve been through. As much as you can remember. Can you do that for us?”
Shy nodded.
There was a long pause then, and Shy noticed that the FBI man’s eyes had become glassy. “I have family near LA myself,” he finally said. “My sister and her two daughters. All of us over here…we just want this nightmare to end.”
Shy must have fallen asleep soon after he left the FBI trailer because he didn’t remember anything else.
—
Without the duffel bag, Shy felt naked as he began searching the camp for Carmen and someone who could update him about his dad. Authorities had taken nearly everything from him, including the comb-over man’s letter. All he had left was the diamond ring in his pocket and the key around his neck. Shoeshine’s key. It didn’t seem right that the person most responsible for them getting the vaccine into the hands of scientists wasn’t here to take credit. Then again, Shy couldn’t imagine Shoeshine putting up with all the attention.
Shy slowed near a group of nurses sitting at a picnic table, huddled around a radio. The volume was low, but Shy was still able to recognize DJ Dan’s voice. He moved closer and bent down to retie his shoe so he could listen.
“…and as most of you know, that first version of the vaccine turned out to be ineffective. Which is why these new rumors are so encouraging. To recap, a group of teenagers allegedly snuck across the Avondale border last night carrying a briefcase containing a second Romero Disease vaccine. We still haven’t confirmed whether the teens created the vaccine themselves or acquired it some other way. Perhaps even more important than the vaccine, they also handed over to scientists a written chemical formula, which will allow for much quicker production and distribution. Some are saying the Avondale border could come down in as few as three days.
“In a strange twist, we’re also hearing that LasoTech, the pharmaceutical company responsible for the original vaccine, is now under investigation, although we still don’t know what for….”
When Shy noticed that the nurses had begun whispering and pointing at him, he moved deeper into camp.
He felt incredibly relieved at what he’d just heard. The formula, including the last page from Addie, was in the right hands. And they were taking the comb-over man’s letter seriously enough to investigate LasoTech. But that was nothing compared with the relief Shy felt when he spotted his dad. He was standing beside a food truck, eating a taco and chatting up a female reporter.
Shy hurried over and gave his dad a quick, awkward hug before stepping away. “You’re alive,” he said excitedly.
“Of course I’m alive,” his dad said. He glanced at the female reporter, then focused on Shy. “See, boy? My plan worked to perfection. I was just telling Sarah here how I came up with it after what, ten minutes of being in Avondale?”
“It’s true,” Shy said. He wasn’t surprised the reporter was pretty. Even after everything that had happened in California, his dad still couldn’t resist dropping game on a good-looking woman.
“You’ve been through so much,” the reporter said to Shy.
“My son’s a hero,” his dad blurted out.
“Do you think we can sit down and talk?” the reporter asked. “I understand you started out on a boat? Tell me what that was like.”
“Maybe later,” Shy said coldly. He wasn’t trying to be mean, but he’d just spotted Carmen across the yard. She was standing with some GQ-looking dude in a blazer who was reaching for her hand.
Shy’s stomach began to cramp.
His dad nudged him with an elbow. “Hey, don’t sweat that. Like I said, you’re a hero now, son. There’ll be plenty of women. I promise.”
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Shy shrugged. “It’s not like we’re together or anything.” Secretly, though, he felt kind of stupid for rushing out here to find Carmen. Actually, he felt like a punk.
“She the one you were traveling with?” The reporter had a notebook out and was jotting things down.
“Anyways,” Shy said, backing away from his dad and the reporter. “I’m happy you’re good, Pop. How about I find you later. Right now I’m supposed to check in with some FBI guy.”
“Hey, Shy,” his dad said, locking eyes with him. “We did it, boy. We made it.”
“We did,” Shy said. And when he actually stopped to think about it, he got chills again. He felt proud.
Shy’s dad pulled him in for another quick hug, and this time when Shy tried to push away, his old man held him for a few long seconds. When they finally separated, Shy’s dad turned back to the reporter. “It’s my second chance with my boy. I told him way back in Cali, everything’s gonna be different now.”
Shy nodded as he slowly backed away. “It really was my pop’s plan that got us over here,” he told the reporter.
Before Shy was able to duck out of the courtyard, he heard Carmen calling his name. He pretended not to hear her and kept going, but a few seconds later, she grabbed him by the arm.
“Hey,” she said, spinning him around. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
“Oh, hey,” Shy said, acting surprised. “Actually I can’t hear too good right now. I think my ears got plugged up from all that swimming last night.” He knocked the side of his head a few times, noticing an older man and woman now standing with Mr. GQ. The three of them looked related.
“See that guy over there?” Carmen said, pointing.
Shy nodded. “It’s your boy Brad, right?”
“Brett.”
“That’s what I meant—”
“I know what you meant.” Carmen crossed her arms and let out a little sigh.
“I see it’s one big happy family again.”
“Shy,” Carmen started, but then she didn’t say anything else.
He took a breath and told himself to chill the hell out. He’d known all along this day might be coming. And after everything they’d been through, it seemed stupid to get hung up on this one little detail. “Look,” he forced himself to say. “I’m happy for you, Carm. For real.”
“Oh yeah?”
He nodded. “But only ’cause I know you’re happy.”
It was Carmen’s turn to nod. She looked back at her man, then focused on the ground in front of her.
“Anyways,” Shy said. “I’m supposed to go talk to this FBI guy—”
“I am happy,” Carmen said, cutting him off. “But I also found out he basically left my family behind.”
“He told you that?”
Carmen shrugged. “Right after the earthquakes, I guess, his parents arranged for him to get helicoptered out of San Diego.” Carmen paused to smooth her reckless hair behind her ears. “My mom’s place was only two blocks away. He didn’t even check on them.”
“Damn,” Shy said. He wanted to sound supportive, though, so he added: “I’m sure shit was pretty messed up at that point, though, right?”
Carmen looked at her fiancé, standing there with his parents. All three of them were now watching Shy and Carmen. “Yeah,” she said, turning back to Shy. “But you know me. Family means everything.”
Shy knew.
“Look,” Carmen said, taking Shy by the wrists. “Brett and his folks have a hotel like twenty minutes away. They’re letting me shower there. And I promised I’d get something to eat with them after. But can we meet here later and talk?”
Shy shrugged. He wasn’t so sure Carmen would make it back. He wouldn’t come back if he didn’t have to.
Carmen looked at her fiancé again. She held up a finger and mouthed, One minute.
“Anyways,” Shy said. “I gotta go.”
Carmen turned back to him. “The FBI guy, right?”
She knew Shy was making stuff up. “Something like that,” he said.
“So are we not gonna meet up later, then? To talk?”
Shy gave another shrug. “We’ll see if you actually show up.”
“Hey,” Carmen snapped. “Why you acting nasty?”
“How am I acting nasty?”
Carmen rolled her eyes. “You know how you’re acting, Shy. I thought you were gonna love me no matter what.”
Shy froze.
Those were the exact words he’d shouted at her on the dirt bike. “You heard me?”
Carmen grinned. “Every single word, Sancho.”
Shy lowered his head, embarrassed.
“Anyways,” Carmen said, chuckling a little. “I’ll find you later. I promise.” She turned to leave, but then spun back around, holding out her right hand.
“What?” Shy asked.
“My ring.”
Shy stared at her, confused.
“Maybe if I take my ring with me, you’ll believe I’m coming back.”
Shy pulled the ring out of his pocket, butterflies stirring in his stomach. “But you said you’d never take it unless—”
“I know what I said.”
“So does this mean…?”
“Just give me the ring already,” Carmen told him. “The sooner I go, the sooner I can be back here with you. ’Cause maybe…I feel the same way.”
Shy dropped it in her palm, his brain spinning as he watched her turn and start back toward Mr. GQ and his parents. He felt hopeful all of a sudden. Not just about Carmen, but about everything. The wall coming down. The vaccine being distributed. The government sending teams of people into California to begin the rebuilding process.
Shy felt his empty pocket. The ring was finally with Carmen, where it belonged. But at the same time, he didn’t want to leap to any conclusions before they talked. He pushed all Carmen-related thoughts out of his head and moved back over to his old man, who was still talking to the reporter.
“Hey, Pop,” Shy said. “You think you’d wanna get something to eat with me later?”
His dad glanced down at his half-eaten taco. “Sure,” he said, dropping the taco back onto his Styrofoam plate. “Yeah, that sounds great. Just come get me whenever you’re ready.”
Shy turned to the reporter. “Any chance you have an extra notepad I can borrow?”
The woman smiled, pulling her satchel off her shoulder and unzipping the front pouch. “I have about five extra notepads, actually.” She pulled a brand-new pad out and handed it to Shy.
“Thanks,” he told her.
The woman nodded and dug back into her bag, saying: “I’m assuming you’ll need a pen, too.”
68
The Hunted
Twenty minutes later, Shy was sitting on top of the makeshift border, between two armed guards in military fatigues, staring at the blank notepad in his lap. He was supposed to write stuff down for the FBI director. But there was so much. He had no idea where to start.
He lifted his head and looked out over the river. The sun had fallen behind the desert to the west, but the sky was still light enough that Shy could see the calm waters and the masses of people still suffering on the other side. They were sitting in groups around bonfires near the river’s edge, waiting for the vaccine to be distributed, waiting for the wall to come down. But it wasn’t only the survivors Shy saw now, it was those he’d lost, too. Friends from the ship like Rodney and Kevin and Marcus. His entire family, aside from his dad. Miguel. His sister and grandma.
A lump climbed into Shy’s throat as he pictured his mom waving goodbye to him from the couch.
Shy suddenly didn’t feel so good about being on the safe side, removed from all the suffering. He may have dogpaddled across the night before, but he’d left his heart on the other side. He glanced at the camp behind him. People dressed in clean clothes and moving leisurely around large tented areas. People eating and drinking at picnic tables near the food trucks. Talking.
Shy pushed away the
guilt and uncapped his pen and held it over the first page of the pad, trying to imagine how Shoeshine had decided what to write. He remembered the title that started the man’s journal, and he wrote down two simple words of his own and stared at them. Then he wrote about the ocean’s whispering, and the sailboat, and the excitement he felt when he first spotted the California shoreline. And he wrote about Carmen and Marcus and Shoeshine.
Soon he had filled half a page, and he looked it over, fingering the key around his neck. He glanced up at the people stooped over fires on the other side, then stared at the river again. It was about twenty-five feet below where he sat, but he could still hear its subtle whispering. Something Shoeshine told him popped into his head. All along, the man had said, people had been following Shy. It still seemed pretty hard to believe, but what if Shoeshine was partly right?
Shy pulled Shoeshine’s map out of his pocket and stared at the spot just outside of Blythe where they’d left the man behind. He drew in a single line where he and Carmen had continued on. Then he smoothed out the map and stuck it inside his pad and looked at his words again. They didn’t seem quite right. But like Shoeshine had said about his own words, no one person can own the truth. Shy looked at the two guards. And he looked back at camp. Then he did something that surprised even him. He tucked the notepad under his arm and stood up and peered down at the river, butterflies suddenly flapping around in his stomach and chest.
“Hey!” one of the guards shouted.
They both started lumbering toward him.
Shy sucked in a deep breath and held it and leaped off the fence.
And on his way down he could hear the guards yelling, and he could smell the bonfires, and he could still picture Carmen’s hand reaching out for the ring, which he knew was important. He had no idea what he was doing, or how he’d explain it, or what he planned to do once he got to the other side. He just knew it was where he had to go. To see if anyone would follow. To see if anyone would help fix this. And suddenly his body slapped the river’s surface and he let go of the notebook and pen and concentrated on the familiar cold that spread its arms out around him, pulling him home.
The Hunted Page 25