Juniper Unraveling

by Keri Lake

  Ripping his fingers through my hair sends a hot searing pain across my scalp, as Albert drags me to the other side of the bed, while I stumble, tripping on the uniform, until I’m facing Rhys.

  Doctor Ericsson shifts Rhys’s head just enough for him to see Albert and me, and the first twinge of shame ripples down my spine, as I stand in front of him naked, gritting my teeth in fury and humiliation. Gun to my head, Albert slides his hand down my belly, between my thighs, and I snatch his arm to keep him from going any further. At the prod of his hips, I buck against him.

  A hard thud slams against my spine, knocking the air from my lungs, and I grip the sheet below me as the intense ache of his punch radiates across my back.

  “That’s it. Fight me. It’ll only piss him off more.” He presses against my head, forcing my chin to the bed. “Do you know what happens if those Alphas get through the door and see you like this? They’ll fight him. To the death. Just to claim you. So get used to this sweetheart. You’re nothing but a vessel for breeding now.”

  “Fuck you!” I jerk in Albert’s grasp, my teeth grinding as he grips my breast, squeezing so hard, the pain springs tears to my eyes.

  “Watch his eyes. See how the pupils dilate? Looks like he’s dead. He would kill me right now, if he wasn’t strapped.” The chaotic noise outside the door is a distraction over Albert’s voice in my ear.

  I snap my head back and steal a moment of joy at the crack of my skull hitting his face.

  Arms band around my waist, lifting me into the air, and Albert slams me against the bed. I flail my arms, as he fights to grab hold of me and one-handedly pulls the leather strap tight across my body to fasten it.

  “Please! I have the cure! I have the fucking cure!” I scream, bringing everything to a standstill, and with his gun still in place, Albert holds me there.

  “What’s that?” Doctor Ericsson lowers the scalpel from Rhys’s head. “What did she say?”

  The air raid continues outside the door, objects slamming into the walls from the other side, rattling the instruments pinned to them.

  “I have a cure. The cure.”

  Doctor Ericsson exchanges a glance with Albert and tips his head. “And what might this cure contain?”

  “The anti-prion antibody. Doctor Falkenrath created a vaccine.”

  “And killed himself.” Doctor Ericsson’s unenthusiastic tone withers my hopes of appealing to him. “I don’t believe you. There is no cure. As he said himself, before he died, it’s an ever-changing protein.”

  “Evacuate the building immediately. Code Triage. Evacuate the building immediately.”

  “It’s true. He left me his journal. Please, the vaccine is yours. Just let us go. You can salvage something. Rebuild.” My words are a lie. My only objective is getting out of here, and I would sacrifice everything to do it—even Papa’s lifelong work. “We can all walk out of here.”

  “The bag, Father. Search her bag,” Albert says, reaching for the second strap across my body. “You’re not walking out of here. None of you savages will live to see the day this world rebuilds. And as for your little friends camping out in the mine? Legion has been dispatched. They’ll be dead within the hour.”

  Doctor Ericsson rifles through my satchel and lifts the syringe into the air, his eyes skating to mine. “Too warm for a vaccine. The proteins have probably denatured. Stupid girl. You’ve undoubtedly destroyed it.”

  Behind him, the door flies open.

  My lungs freeze at the sight of two deformed-looking males entering the surgical suite, wearing the blue prisoner uniforms. Down on all fours, they scramble forward like animals and jump to their feet to charge.

  Alphas.

  Wrapping a bloody, mangled arm around Doctor Ericsson’s throat, one of them drags him away. His legs kick and flail as they head toward the exit, and the second they breach the door, a red spray scatters over Doctor Ericsson’s lab coat. All I can see are his feet lying across the door’s threshold, shaking until they go still.

  The second alpha rounds the gurney toward Albert, who releases his hold on me, and I wriggle free enough of the straps to kick back into a sitting position, watching the monster take him to the floor.

  With skin stretched down over its eye, and silver clamps at each corner of its mouth, torn down to the exposed fascia beneath, it looks hideously inhuman. A true monster.

  Fear paralyzes me, skates down my spine, as I watch the creature wrestle with Albert. Like watching a nightmare come to life.

  Albert’s scream bounces off the walls around me, loud and gurgling, breaking me of my trance.

  I fly from the gurney, zipping up Ivan’s uniform to cover myself, and scramble toward Rhys. A second scream is the warning before Albert’s body is thrown into the air, crashing into an upright machine beside me.

  In the next moment, pain cracks against the side of my head and everything goes black.

  Chapter 42

  A horn breaches the void, constant, loud. “Lockdown will commence in T-minus fifteen minutes. Prepare for decontamination protocol. Lockdown will commence in T-minus fifteen minutes.”

  My eyes flutter open, to the voice that calls to me, and the room blurs, like looking through a lens. Two bodies struggle on the floor across from me, rollicking through my slowly-expanding field of view, and the memory of what’s going on filters in.

  “Rhys!” I call out, and one of the figures twists around toward my voice.

  Not Rhys.

  It crawls across the floor, slithering toward me like a snake, leaving Albert lying in a pool of blood.

  I kick back away from the alpha coming at me, until the wall crashes into my back.

  The roar from above me rises over the horns outside, and the alpha stops in his tracks. Black, lifeless eyes skate from mine to the stretcher, where Rhys lays strapped. Helpless.

  I swipe a scalpel from the tray beside the bed and push to my feet, holding it out with trembling hands. The alpha remains crouched, poised to pounce.

  With slow steps, I round the bed, careful not the incite the alpha with any abrupt movement. I loosen the metal contraption from Rhys’s skull, and unfasten the restraints to free his arms, keeping my weapon where the male can see it.

  He watches me, his eyes following my hands, but doesn’t approach.

  The alpha bares his teeth. His black eyes rolling over to white, just like a shark’s before attacking.

  “Brenin?” Rhys’s voice breaks me of my intense watching, and he pushes to a sitting position, his legs still strapped.

  The alpha’s deformed face tips to the side, the thin faint line of his eyebrows pinching together, as the black returns to his eyes.

  He steps forward on a limp, and his movements remind me of a curious animal. A wounded animal.

  I raise a trembling hand to my mouth, watching Rhys reach out for the monster that was once his brother. One so torn and improperly sewn together, it’s painful to think he was just like Rhys at one time.

  Brenin’s black eyes flick toward me, and back to Rhys, twitching with either confused recognition, or the pain of realization. Tears fill my eyes, distorting him, as he flinches away from Rhys’s fingers, recoiling at the touch of his face.

  Rhys sniffs, and with his hand still outstretched, he wipes his eyes across his bicep. “Brenin, it’s me. Rhys.”

  The shine of tears reflect the light, softening the deep black of Brenin’s eyes. He hobbles forward again and reaches, his fingers just brushing Rhys’s face.

  “I’m sorry, Brenin. I’m sorry I wasn’t there that day. That I didn’t protect you,” Rhys whispers.

  A whimper escapes him, as Brenin inches closer, the corner of his lip lifting to the slightest smile. He reminds me of a child, lost in a mix of emotions, happiness and sadness. For a moment, my thoughts drift to Abel, and the tears in my eyes spill down my cheeks.

  Brenin opens his mouth to a wail, a sound so agonizing, brimming with pain and suffering, and I weep for him.

  A shot bounces
off the walls, and a small black hole explodes across Brenin’s forehead. Eyes wide, his head kicks back, his hand slipping out of Rhys’s, and he falls to the floor in a slump.

  “No! No!” Rhys lurches on the bed, halted by the belts across his legs and the barrel of the gun pointed at his skull.

  Albert pushes to his feet, gun in one hand, the syringe in the other. His shoulder carries the gore of teeth having ripped away his flesh, glistening with dark red clots of blood and bone peeking from beneath.

  “You’ve been bitten,” I say, hoping to distract him. “You’re infected.”

  “Lucky me, I have the cure, right?” Gun trained on Rhys, Albert jabs the needle into his arm, dispensing all of the liquid from the syringe.

  “Lockdown will commence in T-minus five minutes. Prepare for decontamination protocol. Lockdown will commence in T-minus five minutes.”

  “It’s time to part ways. This place is going to seal like a tomb, trapping you inside with them.” He lifts the gun and frowns, grabbing hold of his chest. His head rolls, and he stumbles forward. “Whassa?”

  Beside me, Rhys unlatches the restraints across his legs.

  Falling to the floor, Albert clutches the chair in front of him to prop himself. “Whasapenin t’me?”

  I watch him twitch and tremble, and it all comes together. For years, Papa joked about cyanide being the only cure. He didn’t mean the cure for Dredge, or the savages. He found the cure for real monsters.

  Albert’s skin turns a deathly shade of blue.

  Dies Irae. Day of Wrath.

  Rhys scrambles forward across the gurney and climbs atop Albert. He hammers his fist into the bastard’s face, until splotches of red cover the blue and Albert stills beneath him. What’s left of Albert’s eyes, nose and mouth comes together in a swollen purple mass, no less disfiguring than the alphas.

  Covered in blood and shaking, Rhys takes his brother’s hand and strokes the top of Brenin’s head. He lets out a roar of pain, as he presses both fists against his temple and rocks back and forth.

  “Lockdown will commence in T-minus three minutes. Prepare for decontamination protocol. Lockdown will commence in T-minus three minutes.”

  I nab my satchel with Papa’s journal inside from the floor, along with Albert’s gun, and crouch beside Rhys, cradling his head. “C’mon,” I whisper and plant a kiss to the back of his ear. “We have to go. We have to get out of here.”

  Tucking my arm beneath his, I help him to his feet, and we rush toward the door. Through the window, the alphas fill the hallway, in a sea of blue uniforms. What remains of Doctor Ericsson is scattered among them, each of them feeding on a piece of him.

  Tears fill my eyes once again, as I slide my hand in Rhys’s, and my heart sinks with despair. “There are too many of them. We won’t make it out in time.”

  I don’t know how many bullets are left in the gun, but even if I shot every one of them, it wouldn’t be enough. Albert said they’d attack Rhys to get to me, like bait on a hook.

  I remove my hand from his and choke back the tears. “Go. You have to get out of here.”

  My feet fly out from under me, and Rhys lifts me into his arms. He kicks through the door, and I tuck my head into his chest, arms wrapped around his neck, as he carries me through the crowd of the infected. Every nerve ending across my skin is prickling with volatile energy, and my muscles twitch, poised to fight for my life. The cold hard thumps against my ribs come from my heart, ready to beat right through my chest, as we pass deformed, mutilated faces—like a sea full of monsters. Ones who were once human boys just trying to survive, like everyone else.

  They hiss and back away from him, none of them daring to come near, as we keep on.

  With the clock spinning down the minutes, Six delivers me from of the depths of hell. We reach the dark stairwell, lit only by the incessant blink of a red light.

  “Lockdown will commence in T-minus one minute. Prepare for decontamination protocol. Lockdown will commence in T-minus one minute.”

  A sense of urgency beats in my chest, as Rhys descends the stairs, the echo of screams from below rippling along my spine. At the landing, two figures sit hunched in the shadows, and as the light blinks, I can just make out the legs of a Legion soldier in his black uniform sticking out between them. A wet tearing sound hits the pit of my stomach, as Rhys takes careful steps around them, keeping to the edge of the railing. One turns, it’s eyes glowing white, face deformed by poorly-sewn patches of skin, and it lurches.

  It swipes out at a mangled hand at me.

  “Oh, God!” I squeeze Rhys’s neck, muscles burning with tension, and hold my breath.

  Rhys bats its hand away, snarling at the alpha, and a vibration rumbles from his throat. One I’ve never heard before—a low guttural sound, like a growl, followed by the familiar click.

  The alpha flinches, lowering its gaze, and instead of attacking, it turns back to its food.

  A shaky exhale seeps past my lips as we continue on down the stairs.

  Slamming through the door of the first floor, we’re greeted by a macabre scene of Legion soldiers who must’ve been called in. Their bodies are torn and bloodied, lying in heaps and discarded body parts across the floor.

  Two alphas charge toward us, like dogs catching wind of fresh meat.

  I slip Albert’s gun into Rhys’s hand wrapped beneath my legs, and my body shifts just high enough for him to aim before he fires two shots to their skulls. Dead on.

  Their heads jerk back and they collapse.

  Another alpha approaches, emaciated and coated in so much blood it’s nearly impossible to make out its face, baring its teeth.

  Rhys boots it into the wall so hard, it sounds as if its skull cracked on impact.

  The alpha slides down the wall, creating a trail of blood, and falls to a slump.

  Down the hallway, gunshots and screams indicate some of the soldiers are still alive.

  “Lockdown will commence in T-minus thirty seconds. Prepare for decontamination protocol. Lockdown will commence in T-minus thirty seconds. Thirty-nine. Thirty-eight. Thirty-seven …”

  Carrying me in his arms, Rhys jogs down the hallway, toward the exit.

  Everything around me slows. Slower. Slower.

  The surrounding sounds mute to silence, and I stare up at him, taking in the tight clench of his jaw, the blood on his skin, the determination burning in his eyes, undeterred by the terrifying creatures that would easily annihilate me, if given the chance.

  That’s why Calico wanted him. To turn him into a weapon they could control, a savage who could walk among the Ragers and kill at their command.

  The deadliest monster in this hellish place.

  I don’t know if we’ll make it out alive. If I’ll be locked here, where my nightmares flourish. If we die, we die together—a small measure of comfort amid the horror and chaos threatening to pull us under, while the clock ticks off the seconds.

  I won’t die alone.

  Shouts breach the sounds of blood rushing through my ears, diverting my gaze to the soldiers, a half dozen of them, emerging from the darkness at the end of the hallway. A bone-chilling screech drowns out their cries for help. They run toward us, reaching out, their hands and faces covered in blood. Behind them, frightening creatures with pale, translucent skin trail behind on all fours, some climbing the walls to get to the soldiers, their bodies more deformed than the alphas, like wild animals that were once human.

  The mutations.

  The terror in the soldiers’ eyes sends a shudder through my body.

  I tuck my head into Rhys neck, praying that we make it out.

  A force hits my arm as we crash through the exit.

  “Two. One. Lockdown.”

  I open my eyes to the diminishing light of dusk.

  Peering over Rhys’s shoulder, I catch sight of one of the soldiers scrambling toward the exit. I recognize him as a friend of Albert’s who lived in the Villas.

  “Wait! Wait for me!” His shout
s hardly carry over the sound of grinding metal. “Please!”

  Thick steel walls slide together, locking him inside. I can hear his faint screams echo from the other side, as if he’s calling from the very depths of hell.

  With my arms around his neck, I hold Rhys, trembling against him. All around us, Ragers and alphas pace and scramble about, but never breach the halo of safety that Rhys has swathed me inside.

  Legion soldiers ignore us for the bigger threat, as they open fire from the guard towers and their vehicles lined at the perimeter of the building. Some race past us, caught up in the melee, and shoot at the impenetrable steel doors in a futile effort to save their trapped friends inside.

  For the first time, I don’t know whose side I’m on.

  The sound of gunfire reminds me of the stories Papa used to tell, of military forces trying to gain some control after the Dredge first hit. Through smoke and flashes of bullets flying, Rhys stumbles along, shooting the occasional alpha that crosses our path.

  Across the open yard, he carries me toward the fence I once scaled to freedom years ago. “You climb over first,” he says, setting me down, and twists to face the oncoming alphas.

  They hiss and lurch forward, no doubt after me, as I hop over the top of the fence and land on the other side. Rhys follows behind me.

  The alphas scramble after us, at least two-dozen of them scaling the fence.

  Hand-in-hand, we dash across the desert sand.

  Fire burns in my lungs as I try to keep up the pace, the growls from behind urging me faster through the darkness gradually settling around us.

  As a thunderous crash shatters inside my head, the earth shakes beneath my feet, knocking me off balance. I spin around to see flames and smoke where the alphas should be advancing on us. Through fire and debris, a few of them keep charging, one sporting a half-torn limb.