Kade had so much he wanted to tell her—how grateful he was for everything she had done for the group. They would never have made it this long if it wasn’t for her. But if she didn’t want goodbyes, he wouldn’t make her face them.
“Get some rest, little sister,” Kade said.
His eyes locked with John’s and he could see the terror in the teen, but he was impressed by how little emotion he was showing. He wished there was a way he could lend him some strength.
Kade left the two and set off through the dorm. He ran his hands along the walls to remember how they felt. It seemed like an eon since he’d last walked the dorm halls. The last thing he wanted at the moment was to be alone—there was too much to process, and even more to worry about.
“Was it worth it?” Jem said from behind him.
Kade turned and faced his old friend. Jem’s eyes were beet red, and he looked like he had aged a decade. “Where are the kids?”
“I lost already. Was it worth it? Scott. Drew. Zack. Grace. All of them would still be alive if you hadn’t come for us. Four lives. Four innocent lives that had nothing to do with any of this, and they paid the price so Mick and I could live—Mick and I who knowingly put ourselves into that position and explicitly told you to leave us in it.” Jem closed the distance to Kade.
They were nearly forehead to forehead when Kade spoke. His voice was low, and he kept his eyes down. “If I knew what the outcome would be, I’d have left you two.”
With his hands Jem mimed his head exploding. “What did you expect to happen? You walked into a military compound. You accepted an enemy’s prisoners in exchange for help. I don’t see the world where you thought this could have ended well.”
“After a couple months of everything falling my way, I felt like Superman, all right? I thought for a moment it would be okay. I figured our transfers would be happy for a new home. I hoped we could just pop in and save you.”
Jem shoved Kade hard, knocking him back a few steps. “My kids’ caretaker is dead. Scott is dead. Meredith is . . .” His voice lowered. “. . . scared. I’d have told Drew to have you come get us if I thought it would be safe.”
Kade regained his footing and held his arms out at his sides. “Swing if you want. I know I can’t make this right.”
“No. You can’t. Argos, Scott, Drew, Meredith. You can’t make any of that right. I’ve been trying to think of somewhere to go with Franklin and Meredith that would be safer for them, but for now this will have to do.”
Jem pulled back to swing. Kade titled his head to absorb the incoming blow.
“James!” a small voice yelled.
Jem tucked his swing, avoiding Kade. His momentum spun him in a full circle. The two grown men stared down at Franklin, who was adjusting his new pair of thick-rimmed glasses.
“Bad things happen. Coach Drew used to always tell me before a swim meet that he’d never be mad as long as I did my best. Mr. Kade, did you do your best?”
“It doesn’t look that way,” Kade responded.
“Did you do your best?”
Kade gave the kid a single nod. The outcome was horrendous, but Kade did believe he’d given his best. He might have failed in his assessment of the risks, but he had given it his best.
“James, apologize to your friend,” Franklin ordered.
Jem faced Kade and had the look of a dog with his tail between his legs. Kade felt the same way after being corrected by the child. They embraced in a quick hug, punctuated by a clap on the back. Kade could feel that wasn’t the end of it, but it was a beginning of forgiveness.
“Can we go visit Miss Ashton, please?” Franklin said.
Jem took the kid’s hand and started down the hallway, but stopped before he passed Kade.
“Thanks for bringing me back, by the way,” Jem said.
Kade let Jem and Franklin continue on without saying a word. Despite how much Kade hated himself for his recent failures, he understood much of Jem’s pain. Other people had given their lives for his—that was a burden that was hard for anyone to bear. It was harder to be a survivor than a casualty. As with all wounds, it would eventually scar over. His cohort would carry a lot of scars after this past week.
* * *
John and Grace had talked the entire time leading up to her coma like it wasn’t about to happen. They talked about memories: the first Christmas of the Primal Age, when Grace had asked him who he thought would have won the Super Bowl, and he said the Yankees, she laughed at him.
Now she was asleep in his bed with her head resting on his chest. He could hardly blink, let alone sleep. He would have been happy to finally have her with him if the reason for her being there were different. In every way John had tried to rationalize that the vaccine wasn’t truly the Feline Flu vaccine, Damian had dashed his hopes.
Grace had made it most of the way into the night before the coma took hold, and now daylight had passed by and the moon was preparing for another round.
Around midnight, before she had succumbed, she had said, “I don’t want you to take this as a goodbye, but I’m sorry I tested you so long. If I had a mulligan I’d have kissed you that first night on the roof.”
John had leaned in and given her a kiss on the cheek. Testing her patience, he had taken another kiss, moving closer to her lips. Then he planted the third right on her lips. She had kissed him back, and he stayed with her lips to his as long as he could.
“We all slip up sometimes. We’ll just start now,” John had said.
A tear ran down his cheek as he tightened his arms around her. It was becoming harder and harder to feel her gentle breaths. He checked her pulse frequently because Damian had told him if she was heading for death it would slow; if she was going to make it out it would spike but then fall to a resting rate; if it spiked and didn’t come back down she would turn. Her pulse had stayed steady through the day, giving him no indication of what would come.
Just before the coma had pulled her into its dark depths, she had said one last thing to John. He hadn’t been sure if she meant to say it or not, since she wasn’t responsive to anything he was saying at that point, but her last words had been, “I’m not ready to die.”
Though the words had come out weakly, he hoped it had been her battle cry before plunging into unconsciousness. He kept telling himself she had the advantage of knowing what she was up against. Maybe there would be some way, somehow, like lucid dreaming, that she could control her path through to the other side.
Grace was tough—tougher than anyone. If any of them could make it through this, it would be her.
As night fell, her pulse spiked. He knew this had to happen sooner or later. He checked her pulse every ten minutes, and always found it remained elevated. Her breathing increased, and sweat ran down her brow in a steady stream. John held on tight, hoping that he could lend her some strength, that somehow his contact would see her through.
Another hour passed before anything else changed. Her eyes opened into the tiniest of slits. John’s hope rose that she was coming out of the coma.
In a lightning-fast roll Grace was awake and on top of John. Her bloodshot eyes bore into him as her lips curled back.
She had made it through, but she was no longer Grace.
Red foam bubbled at the corners of her lips.
He couldn’t believe this monster staring down at him was Grace just a few hours ago. The foamer hauled back and smashed a balled hand across John’s face, then dove in for the kill. Her teeth bared as she attempted to chomp down on John’s neck, but he got an arm under her chest to keep her at bay.
It was a foamer. It wasn’t Grace. He knew he had to defend himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to hurt her.
The bloodlike foam dripped onto John’s face as the foamer pressed in toward John’s neck. Her teeth snapped shut less than an inch from his face.
“Help,” John called out.
The door flung open and Kade rushed in. He wrapped Grace up in a full nelson and took her to the f
loor. Damian was a step behind and injected her with something.
“You’ve done it! You created something to save foamers?” John cried out in joy.
Damian shook his head. “It’s just a sedative.”
John was on his feet. Tears ran down his face. His chest felt like it would explode. “I won’t let you experiment on her.”
“He’s not. I’m going to take her to Alpha. We can’t keep her in captivity but with Alpha she’ll have a chance, and when Damian does find a cure she’ll be the first one we change,” Kade said as Grace’s body went limp in his arms.
Dressed in her overalls, sandy-blonde hair spread out in a sweaty mess, she looked just like the dirt-covered grease monkey John had come to love.
“John, we have to move quick if we are going to get her to the ground before the sedative wears off. If you have anything you want to say to Grace, now’s the time,” Kade said, picking her limp body up in his arms like a groom carrying his bride across the threshold.
“I’ll find a way back to you, Grace,” John said as he collapsed onto the bed. He curled himself into the fetal position, and though he tried to wait until the Zerris brothers had left the room, he couldn’t stop himself. He wept.
* * *
Kade drove the pickup through the slalom of parked vehicles as fast as he could, with Grace still unconscious in the passenger seat. He had donned his traditional gear of ballistic mask, katana, and Judges because he wanted to make sure Alpha would recognize him. One of the characteristics he hadn’t been able to figure out about foamers was if they had a heightened sense of smell or if they were still fully human in that area.
Shooting a glance at Grace to make sure she was still out, he wondered how he could even get her under Alpha’s protection. Unlike the first generation of foamers, she hadn’t had the months to grow claws. He’d rather put her down himself than turn her over to be eaten.
The truck came to a stop along the tree line, and Kade hopped out. He took Grace into his arms and struggled to carry her into the area of woods where Alpha’s pack roamed. Kade’s body ached and itched from all the scrapes and wounds. Each step took its toll on him. With Grace so childlike in his arms, he had no choice but to continue on.
“I know you didn’t want to say goodbyes, and this isn’t goodbye. I’m going to find a way to bring you back.” The corners of her mouth had taken on the red stain, making her look like a sleeping vampire. “A million times out of a million, I’d choose to keep you. None of us would be here if it wasn’t for you.”
Her breath picked up, and Kade hoped he could find Alpha soon. The idea of wrestling with the foamer version of Grace didn’t appeal to him. A growl came from behind him as a pair of arms wrapped around his legs. The impact knocked him to his knees and sent shivers of pain through this body. He rolled into his fall and gently placed Grace on the ground. He swiveled around, landing a fist into the foamer’s face before it could sink its teeth into his legs.
Breaking away from the foamer, he set himself like a linebacker over Grace. He hadn’t paid enough attention when his focus was on her—a pack of foamers had surrounded him among the trees. Most he recognized from Alpha’s pack, but there were a few he hadn’t seen, or perhaps noticed, before.
He spun in quick movements, trying to avoid exposing his flank, but with eight of them circling him it was only a matter of time before they struck. If he was lucky, whichever was the highest-ranking foamer would strike alone, claiming Kade’s carcass for himself. In that situation Kade could just lay enough of a beating on the foamer to drive the others off. Lives would be lost if they all came at once. It would be the same as being dropped into a tank of piranhas.
Continuing his rotation, he kept his eyes focused on the closing group. The one place he wasn’t looking was down. Teeth clamped on the bicep of his left arm. As Grace’s teeth sank into his muscle, his support arm collapsed him on top of her.
The attack triggered the pacing foamers to charge on all fours, whopping and growling as they closed in. Kade had a clear line to land a knuckled fist into Grace’s face, but he couldn’t bring himself to harm her.
He wrapped his arm around her head and tucked it to his chest. Her teeth were still imbedded in his skin, but she couldn’t get enough leverage to bite any harder. Kade rolled them both to the side and whipped his legs like an alligator’s tail, knocking a foamer back. The first foamer to lay claws on him tore at his right arm as it struggled to get to his throat. Kade brought the creature closer and head-butted it with the ballistic mask, then slammed his elbow into its nose. The foamer howled in pain and retreated.
The next came straight at his head. Kade took the clawed hands to his protected face, then ducked forward and snapped his knee back into the creature before delivering a follow-up with the back of his skull.
Grace released her teeth from his arm, and a muffled scream roared from her trapped mouth. One of the foamers had gone for her legs without Kade noticing. With no other way to reach the threat, Kade barrel-rolled their bodies over the attacker, finishing with his knee on the creature’s back.
Now in an upright position, with Grace still pressed tightly to his chest, there was no way he could defend himself hand to hand. Changing the game, he drew his katana and swung it in a wide arc around him. Striking out, he would just try to nip the foamers to cause enough pain for them to leave.
Slashing left, right, down, back, forward, the foamers kept coming at him. They took slow, deliberate steps while they circled just beyond his reach. Their eyes stayed locked on his flashing blade from under their overgrown hair. The only thing Kade had going for him was that Grace seemed disinterested in eating any more of his arm.
Branches and twigs snapped, a sign that something was charging the area. Without paying too much attention to the sound, so as not to create an opening for his attackers, he scanned the area quickly. The big hoss, Alpha, was barreling right for him. The gigantic creature that had been a monster of a man as an MMA fighter in the Old World was gaining speed. He looked like a demon right out of hell with his matted red hair and fight-scarred face.
Kade prepared to strike as Alpha closed in. The beast plowed shoulder-first through the pack of foamers, then skidded right past Kade, clearing a hole out the other side. Spinning to face the attacking pack, Alpha reared back and let out a holler while beating his chest. Slamming his tree trunk–sized arms fist-first an inch into the ground he growled over his pack, and every foamer went down low, keeping their eyes to the ground and backing away from Kade and Grace.
Kade sheathed his katana, released Grace, and dropped to the ground in the same low bow as the foamers. Grace mimicked his pose beside him. The deep nasal breaths of Alpha let Kade know he was getting closer. Kade wondered if he could get to one of his Judges in time if this went south, but wasn’t even sure if the pistol had enough punch to drop a creature the size of Alpha.
Alpha sniffed at the back of Kade’s head, then slid over to inspect Grace. After a few sniffs he dropped his forehead to touch hers. She lifted her head and rose on all fours, but stayed where she was. Alpha moved back to Kade and let a low snarl reverberate from deep inside him.
Slowly, Kade pushed himself up to a height where he could see Alpha. He locked eyes with the monster that had its lip curled back. The moment he held Alpha’s threatening gaze, the creature relaxed, and the hostility left his pose.
Waving a hand toward Grace, Kade patted his heart twice with an open palm. Alpha looked from Grace to Kade, then mimicked his motion. Kade nodded at Alpha, who tossed his head over his shoulder with a snuff.
Taking his cue to leave, Kade rose on two feet and walked past Alpha. He took one last look back at the Grace’s blonde hair, calloused hands, and skin layered in perpetual dirt.
“Until next time, Grace,” he said as he continued for the road. None of the foamers followed him.
When he returned to the truck, he sat in the passenger seat for a long time, unable to do anything. He was too overwhelmed to
even know how to feel.
* * *
John sat on the roof by himself. With the depletion of healthy ranks, guard duty was now held by one person alone. This didn’t bother him since he just wanted to be alone anyway. Grace wasn’t dead, but she was gone. He felt like a person who’d just found out for the first time the world wasn’t flat—only it was the exact opposite, since his world was closing in, not expanding.
He had done all the crying he could do. There wasn’t a tear left he could shed unless he hydrated. Everything he wanted was gone.
In his fingers he twirled a solution. Each second that passed was a chance that he would lose Grace forever. Out there amongst the foamers, she had no guarantee of life. He stopped twirling the tube and looked at the vaccine in his hand.
If he injected himself, the odds were in his favor that he would turn into a foamer as well. Then he and Grace could live happily ever after. At least he could be with her in some way.
But he feared that as a foamer neither would have a recollection of the other. They had found, on too many occasions, people eaten by their own family members. If he couldn’t remember her, the transformation would not be worth it.
The vaccine pinged off the rooftop, and John crushed it like a cigarette under his boot. There was one solution that had only one outcome. John went to the edge of the roof, listening to the dark whispers of the night. He placed his hands on the balustrade and climbed onto the ledge. The north point was the most beautiful view they had. It looked away from campus, over the creek and through a small patch of woods. On the other side of the trees was the prep school that John had been attending when Kade’s group found him, where this had all begun. It seemed a fitting place for the end.
He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the creek, the soft caress of the wind, and the few animals that made the night their home. Gathering a deep breath in his lungs, he cleared his mind. On the empty slate he placed the only thing he wanted: his mental image of Grace. How she looked lying on the roof the first time they ever guarded together, when the moon made her hair look like a halo. Like an angel.
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