by Angel Lawson
The Hybrid slaps me across the face with the back of his hand so hard I reel. The Hybrid leers, his breath near my neck and says, “Give me a reason. I’ll call it an accident.”
“Shut up,” Hayes says, dragging Wyatt, who seems to be unconscious. I wonder how many Hybrids they had to use to subdue him. “You’ll do it, Alexandra. We will not lose this base.”
Clarity rings in my head and I realize we must be winning outside the fence. Hayes must be afraid and it’s not just of me. He has orders to hold the Center. Orders from higher above and he’s terrified of the consequences if he fails.
We’re nearing the office when I hear a whimper behind me. I look back and find the soldier guarding Paul on the ground and him twisting his wrists in a way that snaps the plastic ties binding his hands.
In a blink there’s a gun in Paul’s hands, aimed at the next closest Hybrid and he jabs him in the head with the butt of the gun. The soldier falls to the ground in a thud, blood oozing from his ear. Hayes turns and fires at Paul, who ducks and moves with incredible speed.
“Get him!” Hayes screams and the Hybrids follow on instinct, leaving us unguarded. I’m stunned in my spot, watching one man, my friend, fight six Hybrids without breaking a sweat. He takes two down with the gun, shooting them before they can aim their weapons. Paul dives to the ground, lifting a knife off the Hybrid’s hip and using it to slash the tendons behind both of their knees.
I cringe as the men scream in pain, writhing on the grassy lawn. The grass grows slick with blood and their cries are muffled by the approaching battle. Explosives rattle the fence and building around us. Singularly focused, Paul races to me and cuts the binds off my wrist. He does the same for Jude, who lunges for an abandoned weapon by one of the dead Hybrid’s bodies.
He shoots another in the chest and we watch, stunned, as he crumbles to the ground. “Get her gun,” he says, shoving me toward the body. I lunge for the weapon and pop it against my shoulder.
“I got it,” I say, trying to keep up with his speed.
Armed and ready, we find Paul face to face with Hayes who clutches my father’s small body to his chest, using his body as a shield. The black nozzle of a gun presses into his temple. Wyatt lays unmoving on the ground.
“I’ll kill him,” Hayes says, eyeing Paul. “Don’t you take another step.”
Paul’s eyes dart around, calculating the odds, but I grab his arm before he can act. I face Hayes. “He’s one of the brightest minds we have left! He created the vaccine! Do you really think my sister will approve of you killing her father?” I ask, finding the whole thing incomprehensible.
Hayes glances at my father and it’s the only clue I need. I blurt out, “She doesn’t, does she? You took him on your own?” I actually laugh. A real laugh. “God, you’re so screwed.”
Hayes wavers, dropping the gun an inch, but it’s all we need. Paul dives for the man and I lunge for my father, but another force comes into play. Wyatt bursts to life from his spot on the ground. He wasn’t dying—just biding his time. Before I can reach my father, Wyatt pulls him to safety, away from the ensuing fight between Hayes and Paul.
Paul struggles with Hayes, who is strong by human measures. I watched him in that cage, I know what he can do, but Paul’s amped up system is not the same as a mere infected. He’s triple that, because of his ability to control his own impulses and aggression, and it only takes a moment for him to get Hayes on his back, wrists tight in Paul’s vice-like grip.
“What are you?” Hayes asks, frowning at the man holding him down.
“One of the options in the Director’s future,” Paul replies. “Whether she knows it or not.”
I push the sweaty hair out of my eyes and level my gun at his head.
“Why didn’t she give you the Hybrid vaccine?” I ask, curiosity getting the best of me.
He spits on the ground. “She was testing both of us,” he says, looking at Wyatt, who is once again unconscious lying on the ground with my father nearby. “She wanted him but was unsure if he was loyal. She knew he had sympathies for you but wasn’t sure how much. My job was to bring him in and capture you. I did both and my reward is supposed to be the EVI-2.”
“You picked the wrong side,” I tell him. “You’re just a power-hungry lunatic in the middle of a fight you don’t even understand. My sister doesn’t want men like you under her command. She wants true fighters like Wyatt. Jane thinks she’s right about all of this. You just want to dominate. There’s a difference.”
He smiles and his white teeth are stained with his own blood. “You’re right about one thing—you sister isn’t going to win this war, but I definitely didn’t pick the wrong side. Open your eyes, Alexandra. You think this is about right and wrong and getting everything back the way it was. Those days are done. Finished. Only the strong will survive, and unless you’ve got a shot of the juice like your friend does, you’ll never make it.”
I try to come up with a retort, something to argue against his lunacy but Paul lays two hands on his neck and in a blink snaps it to the side. The light goes out of Hayes’ eyes.
“I wasn’t finished talking to him!” I shout, staring at the dead, slumped-over body.
“All he was trying to do was get in your head.”
“You didn’t think I could do it. Kill him,” I say.
“I know what you’re capable of, but I didn’t want you to carry that,” was all he said, brushing his hands on his pants. There are bodies surrounding us but the two most important lay nearby, still breathing. My father pulls himself up on unsteady legs but Wyatt doesn’t move.
“We’ve got to get him out of here,” I say, kneeling by his side. His head is feverish and his breathing shallow. The battle rages on and it’s right outside the walls. Jane’s Fighters up on the fence abandon their posts and jump to the ground. My sister and Chloe are about to lose their hold.
“Take him to safety,” Paul tells me. “Jude and I will find Chloe.”
“What? No. That’s not the plan!” I argue. A whizzing explosive lands near the dumpster and we all crouch down, holding onto each other as it explodes, showing dirt, metal, and debris through the air.
We’re just past the fallout but another one will be coming soon.
“I’ll help,” my father says. Together we lift Wyatt off the ground, each of us bearing an arm across our shoulders.
“Get him to the bunker,” Paul says.
We part and I have the most terrible feeling I’ll never see either of them again. More explosives zoom overhead and Fighters don’t even notice us as they run for their lives. We reach the area behind the building where the small island of shrubs cloaks the bunker entrance, and I hoist Wyatt’s arm over my shoulder again. He’s conscious now, barely holding up any weight, but I talk to him anyway. “Ten more feet. That’s all we’ve got. Ten more feet. I may have to shove you down the stairs, but at least we’ll be out of the war zone.”
He graces me with the tiniest of smiles but any sense of relief is cut short when I look up and run into someone blocking my path.
“Hello, Alexandra,” Chloe says, as though the battle raging around us is nothing more than a gnat buzzing around her face. “I see you’ve brought nothing but destruction and disturbance with you.”
Before I can react, she’s unsheathed an arrow and a sharp blade releases from her compound bow. I push my father and Wyatt behind a bush and hit the ground. It lands in the grass, inches from my foot. I ready my gun.
“Going somewhere?” Chloe asks. Her hair has grown out some since I last saw her, but it’s still close to her head. She seems completely unaffected by the fact all hell is breaking loose around us. I guess it’s easier to feel confident when you’re a genetically modified soldier of the apocalypse. Some of us don’t have that luxury.
“I don’t have time for this,” I shout, squatting behind an electrical box and checking my ammo. It’s been a long night.
“Time for what? You started this.”
I shak
e my head. “No. Jane started it.”
“Yeah, well I’m ending it.”
Another arrow zips past my cheek, sharp feathers cutting across my skin. I duck and try to get an eye on her.
Wyatt groans behind the bush and I wave for my father to cover his mouth. He does so but it’s too late. Chloe starts in their direction. I jump from my hiding spot and take a shot. Her arm jerks backwards and she screams in incredulous shock, more than pain.
“You little bitch,” she seethes. Her face contorts into one of rage and with all amplified speed, she races toward me.
Like a deer in headlights, I freeze, unable to process the force charging at me. Chloe isn’t human and it shows in this moment. Her body is sleek. Her muscles firm. She flies off the ground, kicking me in the gut feet first, and I flail backwards.
She knocks the breath out of my airways and I land hard on the ground, gasping for air while bracing for her wrath. The earsplitting screeching of metal buckling brings me to a sitting position and I watch the fence come down as a huge tank flattens it to the ground. I pat the grass, searching for my weapon, and see Chloe nearby, rolling in the grass with a larger body pinning her to the ground.
“Go!” Cole screams, punching her in the face. She hits back and his jaw snaps to the side. He lunges for her throat, wrapping his hands around her neck. “Go, Alex. Go!”
I do as he says. I race to my father and start pulling Wyatt toward the shelter. With shaky hands and unsteady breathing I push back the fake grass and find the handle. “Get down there,” I tell my dad, who sure enough, basically drops Wyatt down the flight of stairs. He’s exhausted. So am I.
“Come with us,” Dad says, tugging at my arm.
I glance back at Cole fighting with his sister, their voices drowned out by the thundering sound of boots and soldiers coming our way. I just don’t know which soldiers they are—mine or theirs, and who will ultimately win this fight. It feels like the wrong thing to do but I lower the door and the last thing I see before shutting out the world is a pack of Hybrids swarming the area and dragging Cole’s still-fighting body off his sister.
Chapter 18
The sounds of the battle seem far away even though I know it rages right over our head. The earth provides solid protection, even though occasionally an explosion hits close enough that our electricity falters. With my father’s help, we manage to get Wyatt into a bed.
“Strip him,” my father says, already down the hall and in the tiny kitchen looking for medical supplies.
“What? Why?” I ask. The majority of the injuries seem to be to his head and face.
He returns to the room with a bowlful of bottles and rags. The glint of stainless scissors and a knife sit on top. He points to Wyatt’s body. “He was favoring his left side.”
I push up the hem of his shirt and swallow back a wave of nausea. The whole left side of his body is black and blue. With my fingers I trace the mottled outline of a boot print.
“Good God,” I breathe, and reach for the scissors. I cut away the shirt and then move to his pants, unbuttoning and pulling them over his hips. I eye the trail of hair on his belly and the dip of his hips and leave his shorts on. I glance up at my father, who is snapping on a pair of latex gloves and say, “Tell me what to do.”
It’s weird to see my father in action like this. Most of his doctoring is done tucked away from people and with his eye pressed to a microscope. But he’s proficient and hasn’t forgotten what he learned in med school. I guess now we all have to be more than one thing in life.
While he works, checking Wyatt for internal damage and inspecting the cuts on his face, I boil water on the stove and find soap. My father stitches the cut over his eye. I wipe down Wyatt’s face, his arms, and gently clean his broad chest and the muscular dips and curves of his arms and shoulders. Despite his mass, he’s too skinny, his belly lean, and tan cheeks gaunt. In our world of darkness and brief encounters it’s the most I’ve seen of him in months.
“That’s all I can do for now,” My father says, applying ointment to a cut on his jaw. He shines a flashlight in Wyatt’s unmoving eyes. “I’m sure he’s concussed. One of us should stay here tonight.”
“You can rest first,” I say. “I can sit with him. I’m too wired to sleep anyway.”
He takes off his glasses and cleans them with the hem of his shirt. “Come get me if you need me.”
The air is tight between us and the emotion of the day rolls over me like a freight train. A sob escapes even though I’m trying so hard to keep everything in. “Thank you for helping him.”
“Oh, Alexandra,” he says, opening his arms. I step in for a hug and for the first time in months, I feel like I’m home.
*
I find a canister of instant coffee in the kitchen cabinets and make myself a pot. The water has the tinge of metal, but I’m on my third cup when Wyatt shifts in the bed.
Seeing him like this takes a toll on my psyche. He’s supposed to be the strong one—invincible. He’s the one Jane cherry-picked traits from that she then used to mold her precious Hybrids. I stare at his body, the sheet only up to his thighs. His shorts are gray—Army-issued, if I had to guess—and I can’t help but absorb every inch of him. The loss in weight makes the angles of his muscles harder. Sharper. Even now, completely vulnerable, he’s absolutely intimidating.
He moves again, this time opening his mouth, and I’m standing over him by the time he blinks and cracks an eyelid.
“Jesus,” he mutters, flinching a bit at my closeness.
“Sorry.” I exhale but don’t move. “You’re awake.”
He blinks again, wincing, and false starts a move with his hand to his head. “I feel like I got run over by a truck.”
“A truck named Hayes.”
He closes his eyes and I press my hand against his cheek. “It wasn’t him, it was those freaking Hybrids, although he was the one that gave the order. Bastard.”
“Well, he’s dead. Paul killed him.” I was one second from doing it myself. “I don’t know exactly what happened before we showed up, but one of them tried to kick you to death. Your ribs are a mess and you’ve got a nasty concussion.”
He opens one eye. “Hayes is dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn. I was hoping to do it myself.”
“We also took the Center, or are in the process of taking it, I guess.”
He tries to look around but his neck is stiff and sore. “Where are we?”
“Down in the bunker.”
He holds my eye and a million questions run through his head. He’s trying to assess our situation. Calculate the risk. Plot our next move. All he needs to do is heal.
“Chloe knows about the bunker. We’re not safe.” Again he tries to move and this time manages to get a couple inches off the bed. I gently push him back down.
“We’re okay for now. And you’re in no shape at all to move.” I haven’t heard fighting for a couple of hours and I’m dying to know what’s going on above ground.
“Who else is down here?” he asks.
“Just us and my father.”
“Your dad?”
“Yeah, he’s resting in the other room. He patched you up and gave me orders to keep an eye on you.” His eyes flutter and I reach for the medication my father left on the bedside table. “Take these and go back to sleep.”
“Since when do you tell me what to do?” he mutters, but opens his mouth and allows me to give him a little water to wash the pills down. I wipe the dribble of water off his chin and again he grimaces.
I drag my chair closer so I can take his hand in mine. I stare at his battered face and think of all the things we’ve gone though. His fingers lace though mine and he drifts off. I’m sure he can’t hear me, but I tell him anyway, “Get well, Wyatt Faraday, because the battle isn’t over and I’m sure as hell not done with you yet.”
Chapter 19
I eye the game board, my pointer finger lingering over a chess piece. Across the tab
le my father’s face is blank, but he tents his fingers together in a recognizable tell. He’s counting moves. If I’m reading him right, he’ll probably take my queen in three.
I switch pieces and hastily slide the black piece across to an empty square. Without changing expressions, he leans forward and assesses the board. A familiar feeling of frustration builds in me and it’s like I’m eight years old again, sitting at our kitchen table.
I try not to pout when he beats me in one move.
“What do we do now?” I ask, leaning back in the seat. He picks up the game pieces and places them back in the box we found in a closet.
“I saw a pack of cards in there,” he replies.
I shake my head. “No, I mean what do we do now? About everything. How long do we stay down here? What do we do about Jane and the Hybrids.”
“Oh,” he says, fitting the lid on the top of the box and resting it on the table. “I’m not sure.”
Of course not. God forbid someone else have a plan. Or think of a plan, or have a freaking clue as to what to do next. I run my hands through my hair, which I left down after my shower to air dry. Without frequent haircuts, it’s developed into a grown out, tangled mess.
“Well, we can’t stay here much longer,” I say, mostly because I’ve got a mixture of cabin fever and obligations I can’t turn my back on, but most importantly, I need to know if my team survived the battle.
“I’m sorry about all of this, you know,” my father says suddenly.
“About what, specifically?” There’s a long, unspoken list.
“My role in all of this. At the beginning I had no idea what her motives were. I thought she just needed me to create the vaccine. And I did. But I underestimated her desires to maximize on the Crisis and turn it into something else. I always knew she was determined and opinionated politically, something that scientists try to leave at the laboratory door, but I didn’t know the extent.” He sighs. “I spend hours every day wondering if I could have done something different, if there was some way I could have stopped her.”