With his eyes steely, cutting into Scott like a saw, opening him piece by piece, Huck sat in his chair. He turned his body away and after a lingering moment of awkward silence, Scott nodded, turned, and let himself out. Once in the hallway, a safe distance from the man he had followed into the underground System, Scott took a shaky breath. He put his hand out against the wall to steady himself and let all the ramifications of his choices wash over him.
He knew what he needed to do next.
Chapter Twenty
Cass and Lucy sat on the couches in the Center and watched the others around them with idle curiosity. They looked like the picture of teenage apathy: faces drawn in tight-lines, nary a smile in sight, their slender legs hanging over the edges of the cushions, swinging and bouncing to imaginary music.
While the energy of the other System occupants filled the room with the sound equivalent to a hive of tireless bees, the girls sat in silence. A book from the lending library, next to the movie theater, lay open on Lucy’s lap, open and cracked along the spine. She tried to read and reread the first paragraph at least a dozen times, but her mind drifted to her breakfast with Huck, her fight with her family, and her last moments with Grant. Everything continued to slip into an even more unreal version of itself and Lucy just closed her eyes and tried to pretend that she was back at her real home, in her own gym at Pacific Lake; in this reality Salem was by her side, and they were listening to the boys play basketball during lunch.
She had just captured the perfect level of transcendence, when she felt the shift around her; there was a disruption in her daydream. Lucy opened a single eye and saw her father standing a few feet away, watching her.
Cass didn’t move from her spot on the couch. She too looked up at their visitor and before she could say hello, she yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Good afternoon, Mr. King,” Cass said. “Pop on down for a bit of darts?” she added with a wink.
“Lucy?” Scott questioned ignoring Cass’s question, and Lucy rolled her head to look at him. “I was heading to the lab…” he paused and ran his fingers through his hair, then he looked to Cass and then back to Lucy. “Do you want to come with me?”
Swinging her legs down off the edge, Lucy turned. “To see Grant?” She caught a glimpse of her friend in the corner of her eye, who offered her a sly smile.
Her father nodded.
She pivoted again and looked at Cass for permission, and the bubbly beauty blew her a kiss.
“Amuse-toi bien,” Cass said. “Give the boy an extra hug from me…from a friend he’s never met,” she added. And Lucy swung off the couch, her book tumbling to the ground. Tossing it back to the couch, she reciprocated the air-kiss – smacking her hand and waving goodbye to Cass. Lucy’s heart pounded with excitement and an ounce of trepidation—could this be the moment she had hoped for? Had Huck’s words carried any power with her father? Or was her father merely allowing her a proper goodbye? She reserved celebration until she knew for sure, until Grant was free.
“Does this mean what I think it means?” Lucy asked her father as she walked over to him. She tugged on the back of his shirt. “Does it?”
“I need to examine some results,” was all her father said and he led the way, picking up his pace. Lucy skipped to keep up. They exited the gym area and made it halfway down the hall before he slowed his stride.
“Dad—” she continued to press, and Scott spun: he looked so tired and weary, that Lucy hesitated. There were dark circles under his eyes that she had never seen before and his hair seemed peppered with gray. His cheeks were sallow and saggy. She realized that he had aged more in a month than in an entire decade. He seemed like a mere shadow of the man she remembered from their life in Portland. And Lucy’s throat went dry and she started to speak, but no words came out.
Her father had always been a handsome man. She was young, in elementary school, when she first noticed the way people looked at him—as if his ruggedness, his youthful face, seemed out of place with the rest of his life. They watched him—the attractive scientist, with the ever-growing family—and talked about him behind his back. Then he’d speak, and he’d fumble a joke, refuse a handshake, his neuroses glaring to those who knew him best. It was those small details of her dad that made him so special to her. So real.
Her hero. Her rock.
And he ruined everything.
In an instant, he was nothing like the man she thought raised her. Somewhere, deep down, the Scott King she idolized was still living and breathing beneath the shell, but something else had taken him. He was lost to her.
It seemed like a lifetime ago when she was sitting in Wyoming, playing with the flowers, reluctant to leave the beauty and tranquility of the mountains to join a family forever altered. Deep down, even then, she knew this would happen. Seeing him, facing him, accepting him. She couldn’t forgive him.
Scott opened his mouth, as if he were to tell her something, then he stopped and turned his head. He measured the way she was looking at him. And his face fell. Then it flashed, with something unrecognizable: fear or scorn, confusion or anger. She braced herself for scolding; prepared for him to unleash the deluge of his pent up emotions. But instead Scott took giant steps back to her and without warning enveloped Lucy in a hug, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.
“Dad,” she whispered, but Scott hushed her.
She sunk into him. They stood for a long moment in the hallway just holding each other—a few people scooted around them on their way to the elevators or into the Center, but neither of them minded. Scott pulled back and held Lucy out from him at arm’s length, his hands still on her shoulders.
“There’s something I have to say—” he started.
Lucy looked at the ground and pushed her eyes shut; she tried not to cry. When she looked up, she saw the worry on her father’s face. “Just say you’re sorry,” she whispered.
He flinched at her words and then he drew her back into him. “I’m sorry,” he replied. “There are so many things I wish I could explain. But please know…I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Will you save Grant?” she asked next, her cheek still pushed against her father’s chest, his heartbeat thumping in her ear.
There was a period of prolonged silence and Lucy could taste the apprehension in the air. Her father wasn’t convinced Grant was worth saving? Or: he was simply scared. It dawned on her in that moment how fear was the ultimate motivator and perhaps she had spent so much time angry with her dad that she hadn’t been able to recognize his own worries. Still, Lucy didn’t fully understand, and couldn’t rationalize how there was any other option. He had to free Grant.
“Yes,” he answered. “I will save him.” Then he paused and shook his head. “No, that’s not right. We will save Grant. Or rather, I will save Grant because of you.”
Lucy was afraid to move, afraid to breathe. She was afraid to think that this was just another trick before she encountered another setback.
But her father leaned down closer and tucked a piece of her blonde hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I haven’t caught the ball yet.”
Lucy threw herself into her father’s chest and smiled into the folds of his soft, cotton shirt.
They stood and watched as Scott gathered up the files. He spread them out over the metal bed and shook his head. He flipped through pages and pages of data, examining and crosschecking, mumbling to himself. Lucy watched, but she knew better than to say anything. Grant, released from his closet, stood by her, his hand intertwined with hers. His Romero poster had been rolled up and Grant carried it under his arm. He had asked Scott if he’d have to give the poster back, but Scott had only laughed in reply. Unwilling to part with it, he held it to his body with such force that his bicep began to ache.
“Well,” Scott finally mumbled. He turned back to the kids and gave them a weak laugh. “Here’s to undoing some science.” Gathering back up the papers, Scott walked over to the counter. He opene
d the lower cupboard and searched around until he found a box of matches. Then walking over to the sink, he lit the match and began to burn the papers. Letting it ignite, he then ran the water over the flames, creating an ashy, chalky mess. One by one, paper by paper, he destroyed everything in Grant’s file.
“It’s genetic then,” Grant said when Scott was done.
Lucy’s dad picked up the remains of his work and plopped the soggy mess inside a plastic container. Then he shoved the plastic container into the bottom of one of the freezers. And he shrugged.
“Without another comparative sample, it’s all conjecture. But yes. I think your immunity is inherited.”
Lucy turned to Grant and searched his face. They seemed to all understand the ramifications of that analysis immediately: both within the System and beyond its walls.
“Does that mean? Could he be…” Lucy started, but Grant gave her hand a squeeze, silencing her.
“Look,” Scott said to them, his face intense. “Listen to me carefully. Repeat this…repeat it in your head, imprint it on your heart…you can never utter those words again. Your immunity has no known cause. You are a miracle.”
“I understand,” Grant said. “If he thinks there are others like me, he’ll use me to get to them. Right, I know.” He nodded once, his eyes on Scott—an understanding passed between them.
“He may use you to get to them anyway, Grant. But this is your only hope. Say it, please,” Scott instructed.
“I am a miracle,” Grant echoed. He turned to Lucy and grinned, flashing his teeth in a brilliant smile.
Scott clapped Grant on the back. “Just keep telling yourself that. Let it sink in.”
“No, I got it, Mr. King,” Grant nodded. “I’m a miracle. Back from the dead.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Ainsley ran her hand over Ethan’s forehead. She wiped his bangs off to the side, but some of the hairs stuck to the sweat. His cheeks were flush, red and splotchy, and he moaned with each exhale; there was a throaty growl with murmurs of pain. The house was quiet and waiting, each of the survivors entering the den at intervals to take a turn to sit with him. He’d deteriorated rapidly in the last few hours, slipping into a state between sleep and wakefulness. Occasionally he’d mutter something, and once Darla heard him call for his sister, Lucy.
It pained her to hear him. Lucy and Grant had been gone for weeks now, but it felt like so much longer.
Ainsley turned to Darla, her look a cross between weary and pleading. Her mother walked into the room holding a new array of drugs raided by Joey, she counted pills into her hand and sighed. It wasn’t enough.
“Mom,” Ainsley said turning to Doctor Krause. “You have to do something. Tell me those will help him.”
But Doctor Krause just closed her eyes. “Don’t you think I’m trying? We’re doing everything we can do. I’m not electing to neglect my Hippocratic oath here…I’m trying.”
“He has to live, Mom,” Ainsley rose to her feet. She walked over to her mom with clipped steps and she grabbed her by the wrists. Doctor Krause startled and dropped a bottle, the pills spilled to the floor. “We came here to save him. So, save him.”
Darla, sitting at the desk, turned away. She had lost all of her energy and all of her fight. In some ways, it was encouraging to see Ainsley take up the cause. The girl still wanted to take on the world while Darla was ready to beat a hasty retreat from the stress and angst of a home waiting for death. She looked at the spilled pills and wished for someone else to make a move to pick them up.
“I can’t help him anymore,” the doctor admitted and pulled away from Ainsley’s grip, but then she reached back out, and her daughter walked away from the outstretched hand. “Without the proper medicines or care…what can I do, Ainsley?”
“He can’t die,” Ainsley said. She looked straight at her mother, “We made it this far. He can’t die now.”
Dean entered the room. He looked down at Ethan and scratched his temple. “Can you make him more comfortable at least?” he suggested. “It’s a shame. He seemed like a good kid.”
“Don’t you dare use the past tense,” Ainsley seethed. “If we can get his fever down…if Darla or Joey can do another run for antibiotics. We can search more houses…”
“Stop,” Doctor Krause said. She leaned against the bookshelf.
“We’ve pilfered through everything in our radius,” Darla added. “Some of the things on the shopping list just don’t exist.”
“What? There’s only one hospital? One pharmacy? Please,” Ainsley rolled her eyes. “I feel like I’m the only one who is still trying.” She pointed a finger at Darla. “Don’t make excuses just because you’re tired.”
“Damn right I’m tired,” Darla replied and she lifted her legs and rested them atop the desk. “But could we stop with the pity party? I cared about that kid long before you showed up.”
“Dean is right,” said Doctor Krause in a loud voice and Dean turned at the mention of his name. “Making him comfortable is the most important thing.”
“Mom—” Ainsley challenged. But her argument was cut short by the sound of the front door slamming shut. Spencer rounded the corner, and he banged his hand against the door to the den for emphasis.
“Quiet!” he yelled, putting a finger to his lips. “Everyone shut up.”
The group turned to him.
Joey appeared on the landing from upstairs, fresh from an afternoon nap. His brown hair stuck up in a clump along the crown. He stretched and yawned; then his head slowly rose and he peered at the ceiling. His hand rose and he pointed. Then he opened his mouth to say something, but Spencer raised his hand to silence him.
“It’s them,” Spencer whispered. “I thought I heard a plane overhead about an hour ago. But now…”
“Helicopters,” finished Dean.
Spencer nodded. “Two. From the west. And close.”
After months of silence—no sirens, no engines, no roar of engines in the sky—the whirl of the helicopters was upon them and they were as loud as a clap of thunder in a Midwestern storm. It was difficult to hear anything else.
“How do we know it’s them? The Nebraska group?” Doctor Krause asked in a whisper.
“Who else could it be?” Spencer spat and he reached for his gun, checking it and readying it. “Go. Go. Everyone into position.”
Ainsley hesitated and looked between Ethan and the group. “Let me stay with him,” she begged Spencer. “Please let me stay with him.”
“Positions!” Spencer yelled again and as the helicopters gained ground.
“I want to stay—” Ainsley tried again, approaching Spencer, her curly hair flying.
“We had a plan. And you will honor the plan,” he said in a hushed voice. Then he raised his gun at her and held it steady. “Non-negotiable.”
Joey rushed into the closet bedroom upstairs and grabbed the sleeping Teddy. Tucking the child into his arms, he bounded down the steps.
“What’s happening, Mama?” Teddy said sleepily.
Darla took her son from Joey and kissed his head.
“Buddy, remember what we talked about? You and Ainsley are going to hide in the dark for a bit. It’s a game and you need to stay quiet,” Darla said to him, her voice catching. She swallowed and watched as Joey and Spencer moved their arsenal of weapons into reach. Darla shook her head. “I love you. Be good.”
“No,” Teddy whined. “I want to stay with you.”
“You can’t, Theodore. You can’t stay with me. It’s dangerous.”
Ainsley walked up to Spencer and touched his arm. “Please,” she said in a whisper. “My mom can sit with Teddy. He’d want me to stay. I want the chance to go with him…it’s only fair—”
Spencer raised his gun. He held it steady against Ainsley’s head, pushing the metal barrel between her brows. She flinched and a single tear rolled down her face; her breathing became rapid and unsteady. The whirl of the helicopters had died down. Close-by the enemy had landed. Ainsley star
ed down into the barrel of Spencer’s gun, and she took a step backward. Then without another word she grabbed Teddy’s hand and together they rushed into the basement.
Darla watched her son until he had disappeared. She gripped the banister tightly, and pressed her eyes closed for a single second, before spinning around and sprinting upstairs to the second-story.
Spencer’s plan was detailed. It involved a meticulous action plan, and each of their roles had been drilled into their heads. Spencer and Dean’s incessant distrust had seeped into daily conversations and during their days and evenings they plotted against this unknown enemy who they singularly held responsible for the death of mankind. Only Darla, fueled with loyalty for Ethan, challenged the plan. But in the end, she was outvoted and outnumbered and tired of feeling like she was the only voice of dissent, she abandoned her rebellion and settled into her role.
It was a simple course of action: Spencer would put himself front and center. Joey would act as his backup. They would lead or keep the enemy in the front yard, where Darla and Dean, positioned as snipers in the upstairs windows, would respond to any act of insurgence by unleashing violence upon them. Ainsley and Teddy would hide in the fruit cellar until given the all clear.
Ethan, unable to be moved, would stay in the den, with Doctor Krause by his side.
Spencer’s entire plan was to negotiate Ethan’s release. Darla saw the flaws in this logic: it made the Oregon survivors enemies from the start and assumed that those coming from Nebraska were both terrorists and reasonable negotiators.
Now, with Teddy gone from sight and the impending threat bearing down on them, Darla felt more than just anxiety crawl across her skin—her instincts told her to run, hide, leave everyone else to deal with this on their own. She and Teddy could make it on their own out there. There was a small wooden door in the basement that opened up to the backyard; she could easily leave Dean, overpower Ainsley, and take her child and run.
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