“Yes.”
“But this is at someone’s house,” Dara said.
“Yes.”
With one last look, Dara tried to memorize the faces. Then she handed the picture back to him. Her hand shook a little. His was incredibly steady; it shied from her touch. The knot rose in her throat again, and Dara rubbed at the weight in her chest.
“What happened to them? Did they kidnap you?”
Picture reclaimed, Cade folded into himself again. “No. Everyone was dying. We went into the woods to be safe. The best way to avoid a pandemic is to avoid people. Far away, so you don’t get infected, too. Far away so the survivors don’t hunt you down . . .”
A chill swept through Dara’s blood. What he was saying was crazy. Completely insane, but she didn’t dare tell him that. Instead, she nudged him with a neutral, “I don’t understand.”
“That’s what my mom told me,” Cade told her. He went away in his eyes, a light fading. A connection dying. When he spoke again, it was obvious he was quoting someone else. Someone he’d believed in. “‘We left at the apex of statistical inevitability.’”
Dara reached for him. “Cade . . .”
Very quietly, he said, “I think she lied.” And then, instead of reaching back, he turned away.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
THIRTY-NINE
That evening, Dara watched.
She huddled in her bed, hooded by her comforter. Remote in hand, she clicked through the six o’clock news on every station. Her bedroom looked like a slow motion rave. Light blared from the screen, then a blip of dark as she moved up the guide.
They all had it, clips of Cade standing over the reporter.
That’s what they played in the background while they talked: Cade rampant, teeth bared, eyes black with fury. It looped on the screens behind the anchors, again and again. If they showed the whole clip, the whole truth, she thought bitterly, it was only once. The part that made him a monster, that was all they cared about.
“Serious concerns tonight,” one anchor said. She did look seriously concerned. Because hey, it was completely possible that Cade might break into the studio at any minute.
Next station. This anchor wasn’t so much concerned. He looked like he might be fighting a smile, actually. Touching the desk in front of him, he peered into the camera. “ . . . revealed a darker side to the story today . . .”
“Bite me,” Dara said and changed the channel.
“—rumors of a psychiatric hold—”
“. . . close to the investigation say they’re closer tonight to IDing the John Doe known as the Primitive Boy.”
Sitting up stiffly, Dara raised the volume. She wasn’t even sure what station she was on anymore. It played the monster video clip, too, but then it faded into a picture. The picture, the one Cade had held in his trembling hands at the station.
Dara slid to the end of the bed, leaning in like she might get the news faster if she was closer to it. She clung to the footboard, nails grating against the wood.
“This undated snapshot may be the key to unlocking the mystery. Though not confirmed, our sources indicate they have positively identified at least two people in the picture, Dr. Jupiter O’Toole and Dr. Liza Walsh.
“A leading epidemiologist at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. O’Toole reported his partner, Dr. Walsh, missing in 1999. Now police believe that Dr. Walsh may have disappeared voluntarily with her family—including a toddler whose age and description purportedly match the description of the Primitive Boy.
“Details are sketchy at this hour, but we’ll be following the story as it develops.”
Dara snapped the TV off. Rolling off the bed, she snatched up her phone and dialed her father. A vicious mix of emotion roared through her. Anger, because why couldn’t they play the whole clip? Why didn’t they tell the whole world that a grown man had tried to grab her just to get a quote? Humiliation, because instead of decking the guy herself, she froze.
Pacing past the windows, Dara listened to the line ring. Outside, the reporters swelled. Hungry for more, their lights turned the front lawn into a movie set. Inside the house, tension reigned. Everything was on the verge of explosion. One wrong word, one snide look, would strike the match.
“I’m busy,” Sheriff Porter said as a greeting. He wasn’t lying. Dara heard the tumult on the other line. Loud voices, all buzzing at once.
“Somebody leaked the picture,” Dara said abruptly.
“I don’t have time for this, Dara.”
“Make time! Oh my god, listen to yourself!”
Sheriff Porter sighed. “I have to go.”
“Aren’t you going to do something about it? I know Cade didn’t tell them, and I sure didn’t. That means somebody there is . . .”
“We leaked it.”
Going numb, Dara clutched at the window frame. “What? Why?”
“Dara,” Sheriff Porter said. His irritation came through the line just fine. And with it, his exhaustion. He sounded so weary when he said, “All they do, all day long, is dig for information. They run one story, everybody else will pick it up. All the amateur hour detectives on the internet will get in on it.”
“But you’re making it worse!”
“No, sugar, I’m getting answers as fast as I can. I’ve got six guys on this, and that’s all I can spare.”
Wordlessly, Dara hung up. When she closed her eyes, she heard the reporters outside. They hummed and hummed, ever present. Layered over that, her mother’s footsteps on the stairs. Lia’s music playing tinnily from her room.
The rest was the roar inside her own skin. Her heart. Her breath. It killed her that Cade was blocks away all by himself. Barricaded into a house full of things he didn’t know how to use. Smothered by systems he didn’t understand.
The whole world was staring at him. Stripping him, carving him into pieces, to get what they needed.
She tried to think of her happy place, her imaginary darkroom. But tonight, she couldn’t summon the scent of developer that she’d never really sampled. The process wouldn’t come to her; she’d read about it online, but never done it. She didn’t know what it felt like to wash color prints in pure darkness. The red of the imaginary safety light kept transforming, becoming Cade as he bled for her.
He suffered, and she suffered, and there was nothing anyone could do to fix it.
Ms. Fourakis forced Cade to come out of his room.
Standing at the door, she talked to his back when he refused to look at her. Gentle, but persistent, she told him that everything was screwed up, but it would get better. Everything was scary, but it would get better.
“And I’m going to show you the best movie ever made,” she finished. “You’re going to watch it. Tonight, we’re chilling. Nothing hard. Nothing important. We’ll tackle the big stuff tomorrow, all right?”
Looking back slowly, he refused to move. “I’m fine here.”
“Hey kid, I get it. But you can’t do anything about it tonight. And I can’t let you sit in the dark on top of my nana’s antique dresser. So come on.”
Cade jumped down. He didn’t look at Ms. Fourakis as he passed her. She couldn’t see through his skin. She didn’t know that he was full of poison, right now. That it ate him from the inside, twisting his guts and burning in his throat.
Because Ms. Fourakis wanted him to, Cade took a bowl of stew. The ceramic warmed his hands. Steam rolling from it touched his skin, a bright, hot spot when everything else was numb.
“Doing okay?” Mr. Anderson asked. He clapped a chestnut hand to Cade’s shoulder. With a gentle shake, he waited for an answer. Actively. It was so obvious now that they’d been working hard to listen all this time, waiting for him to say something important.
Cade didn’t feel like participating. He shrugged, then Cade settled into his favorite place in the living room. There was a co
rner where the pothos cascaded down the wall. The plant’s leaves smelled faintly sweet, like freshwater and life. The forest smelled that way sometimes, when there was rain in the air.
Mr. Anderson stepped into the couch, sitting on his feet beside Ms. Fourakis. They leaned toward each other, naturally and unconsciously. With gentle fingers, he stroked her hair back, so nothing lay between them. Though their attention occasionally strayed toward Cade, mostly, they stayed in their own circle.
The stew cooled in Cade’s bowl. After a while, he set it aside. Pulling his knees to his chest, he watched the movie by default. None of it registered, really. In his head, he was somewhere else entirely. A middle world, one that only existed inside of him. Because this place wasn’t home. And what he used to think was home wasn’t real.
“This is, watch this, watch,” Ms. Fourakis said, her gaze fixed on the screen.
Mr. Anderson laughed. “Shh. I am.”
Quiet only a moment, Ms. Fourakis drew a sharp breath. “No, but watch. You can see it, the exact minute he falls in love with her. Watch, watch.”
“I am,” Mr. Anderson replied.
Even though they weren’t doing anything but eating dinner and watching the best movie ever made, they were joined. In an invisible way, by threads no one could see. But somehow, Cade was sure, threads no one else could sever.
He turned his attention to the screen, too. What did that moment look like? Who were these people? Were they really falling in love?
Rain beat down on them, was it real rain? he wondered. These people were actors, he knew that. At the end of the day, they stopped pretending. They went home to their own lives. Did that mean they knew who they were?
“Watch,” Ms. Fourakis wheezed, tense with anticipation.
There was a look. Cade tightened his arms around his knees, watching the actors. Watching them make something up on the screen. It didn’t exist until they made it exist. And it fooled him, just like everything else. When the actors kissed, he felt the currents that rose up when he touched Dara.
They were fainter without her. More like a memory of the sensation. A rush and relief, a spark and then the darkness. Cade turned his head. Not to look away, but to feel the thin, jade leaves of the plant brush against his cheek. That was real. He knew that for sure.
He was healing. Faster than he expected, definitely faster than he might have at home. His chest still hurt, but he could raise his arm again. The pain in his foot had faded entirely. If he had to, he could fish. It didn’t take all of his strength to forage.
Dara was the only reason to stay. Sometimes he got lonely in the forest, but he’d never been hunted. His parents had lied to him, so what? Frustrated, Cade thumped his head against the wall and wondered what kept Dara here.
He’d lived in her world. What would it take to lure her into his? The right way, he thought sullenly. Not the way idiot Josh had done it, too stupid to tie up the food. Too dim to light a fire. It would be different with him.
He could show her the places deeper in the forest that no one had seen but him. He’d watched her at the falls. They’d consumed her, left her trembling. Even when she wasn’t taking pictures, she was drinking it in. Every detail—he was sure if he asked her, she would have been able to describe it down to the last glimmering drop.
Beyond the falls, a two day walk from the old mining village, there was a valley full of wild orchids. Their buds would open soon, turning pink-and-white faces to the sun. There were thousands of them.
After a rain, they shivered. Their stems were so thick, their leaves so stiff, that they whispered. It sounded like words; Cade had lain there with them before, trying to make out their words.
There was that secret place, and he could imagine Dara in it. And in the mining town; in the shadow of the cliffs. Among the stone ruins of the last people to disappear from the earth. Those weren’t lies. Those people really had lived and loved and then ceased to be.
“Did you see it?” Ms. Fourakis said. It wasn’t a question; she sounded drunk and sweet. Leaning into Mr. Anderson, she looked over at him.
And Cade did see it, again. Better than in the movie, natural and alive, just like the plants and trees and rivers back home. The question was whether Dara would see it when he looked at her next.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
FORTY
Dawn streaked the horizon, a fine scarlet line that promised rain later. Though the airfield smelled of diesel, the trees that surrounded it threw off the scent of coming rain. Leaning against his police cruiser, Sheriff Porter watched the puddle jumper land at the municipal airport.
When the small, white plane finally stopped, a door popped open to reveal stairs. They sank slowly to the ground. Then, after what seemed like hours, Dr. Jupiter O’Toole emerged. He walked like he talked, thoughtfully and slowly.
Time to meet and greet. Sheriff Porter approached him, hand already out to shake.
“Thanks for coming all this way.”
“Anything I can do to help,” Dr. O’Toole said.
He was much older than the man in the picture. Afro shot with silver now, Dr. O’Toole also boasted bifocals. Fine lines traced the edges of his lips. Though his face was still smooth and round, the seventeen years that had passed between the picture and this moment were unmistakable.
Leading him to the cruiser, Sheriff Porter took the box Dr. O’Toole carried off the plane. “Hope you don’t mind going right to the station.”
“No, of course not.”
“Since he recognized the picture, we’re hoping that talking to you will get him to open up. I’ve gotta tell you, anything would help. Especially now that it looks like he was telling the truth.”
Dr. O’Toole slid into the passenger seat with a sigh. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Me either.”
Sheriff Porter packed the box into the truck. It rattled a little, and he looked forward to opening it. Dr. O’Toole, being a meticulous man, had cleaned out his partner’s desk when it was obvious she wasn’t coming back. And very neatly, he taped it closed, and marked it with the date and her name.
The last of her worldly effects, perhaps. Maybe something they could swab for DNA, to make the ID on Cade stick. More important, Sheriff Porter hoped to find a connection. A scrap, a name, a number. Somebody living who was related to the kid.
Because if he really had spent all this time living in the middle of nowhere, he needed someone to take over. Get him therapy. Get him integrated, and into school. Teach him how to get along before he turned eighteen and the system cut him loose.
He got behind the wheel, and looked over at Dr. O’Toole. “Hungry?”
“I could eat,” Dr. O’Toole replied.
The cruiser purred when Sheriff Porter started the engine. Because he had the sirens and the lights, he could leave through the back roads. Leaking the picture to the press was going to make things easier in the long run. But it gave them a blood trail to follow, and he wanted to keep the doctor to himself for the time being.
Drumming his fingers against the wheel, Sheriff Porter glanced over. “Can I ask you something? Off the record?”
“Of course.”
“What do you think happened?”
Dr. O’Toole brushed his hands down his slacks. It was obvious he wasn’t trying to deceive with the hesitation. More like he wanted to say the most accurate thing possible. Sheriff Porter appreciated that. After all these messy, hazy half truths, he looked forward to some nice, concrete facts.
“You must understand, Liza is a wonderful woman. I enjoyed working with her immensely. But I think it started to overwhelm her. If you can’t separate yourself from your work, that happens sometimes. As soon as you know how much can go wrong, you anticipate it. I’m sure that happens in your line of work, as well?”
“Oh yeah,” Sheriff Porter agreed.
�
�So, you really must understand. We spent—I still spend—all day thinking about a catastrophic viral event.”
“An epidemic.”
“Pandemic,” Dr. O’Toole corrected gently. “In the 1600s, disease could only travel so far. It decimated cities because that’s where all the people were. But it was contained in cities, for the same reason. If you got cholera in London, sheriff, I would have been perfectly safe in Edinburgh. Your contaminated water would have never crossed my lips.”
Turning onto a gravel road, Sheriff Porter slowed to keep the ride as smooth as he could. He wasn’t sure, exactly, where the doctor was going with this. But he’d hear it through, and that meant saying just enough to keep him going. “All right.”
Dr. O’Toole nodded, as if agreeing with himself. Then he went on. “This morning, I was in Ohio. If I have a virus inside me right now, a perfect mutation that will spread because we shook hands, I just gave it to you. To everyone on the plane. To everyone in the airport.
“Are we going to have breakfast in a restaurant? I’m going to expose all those people. Then we’ll go to your place of work, and I’ll infect the deputies there. The people in the hotel.
“Then, they will go home. Perhaps this perfect virus has no symptoms for . . . two weeks. So you feel fine when you go on vacation with your family to Florida. The pilot who flew me here flies to Juneau to go whale watching. Our waitress honeymoons in Singapore.
“When we finally get sick, all of us, it’s not just our enclosed community. When we start to die, this perfect disease won’t burn through our neighbors and die out. It will grow and grow, because we carried it farther and faster than we ever could have in our history.
“If this virus truly is perfect, it will have a little more than a fifty percent mortality rate. If it kills too many, too quickly, it will die too. So imagine, then, sheriff. Half of everyone you know is dead in a month, simply because I got up this morning and got on an airplane.
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