The Virulent Chronicles Box Set

by Shelbi Wescott

  “I’d be concerned if you said anything different. Come on. Let’s get back. Ethan has some clothes you can borrow.”

  “I don’t need clothes,” Grant said as they continued walking.

  “I have a rule in my house about nudity.”

  Her frankness flustered him and Grant laughed and gave her an aw-shucks smile, but then he became serious and stopped walking once more. Maxine flew on ahead until she noticed she was walking alone. She spun and looked at him. She wasn’t wearing shoes, just fuzzy black slippers, and her legs were dotted with goose bumps.

  “I heard. I was there. When Huck told Scott he was kicked off the Board.”

  Maxine looked down. “This isn’t something for you to worry about.”

  “I’m scared,” he said before she could say anything more.

  “Me, too,” Maxine whispered.

  Grant nodded. “Yes. But...I think we’re scared for different reasons.”

  “You scared for your life, sweetheart?” Her tone was so motherly, so comforting. Everything about her welcomed him into her circle with such warmth and equanimity.

  “No,” Grant whispered. “I’m scared because the way Huck talked about this place...” he trailed off and looked out the bridge to the tower, lit up from top to bottom with lights and activity. “Why would I want to leave? He makes me want to fight to stay here.”

  “And—”

  “I’m not staying here.”

  Maxine looked at him and didn’t say a word.

  “And Lucy—”

  Maxine exhaled and walked toward Grant and swooped up his hands into hers. Even her hands felt like a mom—slightly dry, but warm, just the right amount of pressure against his palms. She stared up at him for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was soft, “Lucy is my brilliant girl. Tender. Kind. Full of life. Spunky when she wants to be. She’s not anything like me. Or her father. It’s nice...to know she just grew up to be herself. And Lucy will make her own decisions...”

  “And she will,” Grant added with a smile. “But...”

  Maxine moved her hand from Grant’s hand to his face. She placed her palm flat against his cheek and his chin and patted twice. “Here’s the thing, Grant. Tonight, you are going to come to my house, kiss my daughter goodnight if you absolutely must, and sleep on my couch. Tomorrow, you can wax on and on about the risks and rewards of a life lived off the Island. No great mysteries of life and love and loss are going to be solved with just the two of us in this sky bridge tonight. Clear?”

  “Yeah,” he conceded.

  “Good boy.”

  And Grant followed her the rest of the way in silence.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Scott sipped a cup of black coffee and looked at his wife and Grant before turning his attention to Lucy. He set the mug down on the counter and walked to the window; the shades were drawn and the coastline appeared as a single line of green against the horizon. They gave him time to process the entirety of their request, and he did so in pained silence. Upstairs, Ethan stirred in the loft. Downstairs, the little kids and Galen were still resting—whether they were awake and staying out of the way or still tucked up in their beds with sweet dreams, Lucy didn’t know.

  “It’s impossible,” Scott finally answered. He turned to them. Lucy realized it had been a long time since her father had tried to assuage the tension with a one-liner or ill-timed joke. It was an embarrassing idiosyncrasy, one that prompted trying looks from the teenagers. Now that it was gone, Lucy wanted it back. Just one joke, just one bad pun. Just one big, kind-hearted smile.

  Lucy slid down off her chair and started to walk over to her father, but Maxine was there first, putting her hand out behind her back to stop Lucy in her tracks.

  Maxine looked at Scott and grabbed his hands. They stood like that for a long time—communicating with their eyes and twenty-two years of understood expressions. Lucy turned to look at Grant; she wondered if they would ever have the closeness and telecommunication abilities her parents had.

  Grant was pale and his permanent smile absent from his face.

  “We don’t have much time, Scott,” her mother whispered, but her voice carried to the others. “You know that the longer we wait, the chance increases for him to be discovered.”

  “If I had a plan...if I had an ally...then maybe I could get Grant off Kymberlin. Which is absurd when you think of how much getting him on Kymberlin just cost me,” Scott said without hiding his disdain. Lucy felt herself go rigid.

  “I got myself here, Mr. King,” Grant said, rising. He looked at his friend and mentor, and lowered his head. “Don’t get me wrong...I appreciate that you saved my life before, but...”

  “Yeah, let’s not rewrite history,” Lucy interjected, staring at her father. “You left him to die. You created the virus to kill Copia and left Grant underground to die.”

  “I tried,” Scott said in a small voice. “You have no idea how hard I tried.”

  “Sometimes, Dad, just sometimes, you make it hard for me to see how I can ever forgive you for being so weak,” Lucy said. “You were sad yesterday morning at breakfast because you knew that they were killing hundreds of people in the name of progress for the Islands...and you helped them. Again. You keep helping them.”

  “Well, I’m done now, right?”

  “Because they pushed you out—”

  Scott bit down, his jaw line tightened. Maxine, still holding his hands, let them drop. She leaned in close and whispered something in Scott’s ear, and while his body language didn’t soften, he looked at the ground in defeat.

  When he finally turned to face Lucy, it was clear that he was close to tears. “This is our future. This is the reward. Our lives here will be full...rich with possibilities.”

  Seeing her father so close to crying might have been enough to unhinge her, but instead she couldn’t help but feel disgust and anger.

  “Stop with all the lying,” came a voice from the loft. Scott looked up and saw Ethan leaning with his elbows on the ledge. “You’re right. That’s how the Islands will be for most of the people here. I believe that the men and women who are raised here will live a beautiful life, but those people don’t know the truth, Dad. And sadly, we don’t get to live behind the façade. It’s not how you wanted it...you didn’t get everything you wanted. We’re alive, but that’s it.”

  Ethan’s words fell on them and they absorbed his speech. Scott was the first to look away.

  “It doesn’t matter what you feel, Ethan. I don’t know how to get Grant off the Island,” Scott said.

  “This is not up for debate,” Maxine answered after a minute. “You will find a way to make it happen. Grant is leaving. And he’s leaving with Teddy. And—”

  Maxine turned and looked out at her daughter. Lucy held her breath and watched the parade of emotions wander across her mother’s face. In an instant she saw fortitude, worry, and then grief. It was as if she didn’t need to say it out loud: she was wondering if Lucy would join them. And it didn’t have anything to do with Grant, although she was certain that is what her mother thought. Lucy knew in the hospital room, while she listened to Huck try to win her over, her lungs seared and burned in the aftermath of her drowning. She might have known before that, as she watched Salem crumble into a heap in the Pines’ kitchen. But her father’s apathy in the face of Grant’s impending doom, his lack of action against injustice, solidified some of her resolve.

  This world was not for Lucy.

  And the thought of abandoning it also terrified her.

  One minute she knew she would follow Grant to the shore, and the next she couldn’t fathom a life without her siblings, without her mother. And even at her angriest moments, she couldn’t imagine willfully abandoning her father either. Could she choose to never see the young woman Harper would become? Could she look her parents in the eye and choose to say goodbye forever?

  Grant looked at Lucy and then to the floor.

  “I don’t know what to do. I can’t...I
don’t know...” Lucy said. “How can I know? I want to go...I can’t stay here.” She said it weakly and without conviction, as if she hoped that no one would hear her. She looked down. She did not want to see her mother’s face register the announcement, or her father’s determination to stifle her success. As quickly as she said it, she retracted it. “But I can’t leave my family...”

  “Lucy.” Maxine said her name quickly and quietly. It was an expression of understanding, of empathy. “You don’t have time to waffle, child. I love you and I’ll support you...”

  “This is entirely out of the question!” Scott exclaimed, raising his voice. “Entirely, and ridiculously, out of the question. It’s not going to happen. Not Grant. Not the child, and most assuredly not my daughter.”

  “Dad—” Lucy started.

  “You would follow this boy into the wilderness? Do you have any idea what it’s like out there?” Scott flung his hand wildly toward the window.

  “Yes,” Lucy answered in a heartbeat. “I do. Because I’ve been out there!” She blushed and tried to calm the building tide of resentment. How could he not remember that she and Ethan had been left behind? In snippets, he had learned of Spencer’s maniacal reign, and the ever-present fight for food and water. He had heard of her and Grant’s travels across America—encountering the bodies, the flooding, the quiet dissent into a world governed by nature and not man. It was her father who didn’t understand.

  “I’ve been out there, too,” Ethan said as he walked down the steps. Step, wait. Step, wait. His careful maneuvering drew their attention upward. His hands slid down the bannister and when he reached the landing, he walked straight to his sister and enveloped her in a hug, holding her tighter and for longer than he had ever hugged her before. When Ethan pulled back, he turned to his parents.

  “I’ve been out there for longer...and with others who have survived. And the biggest threat we had collectively were the people in this building.”

  “You would have died without us intervening,” Scott said. “It’s simple.”

  Ethan scoffed. “Maybe I would have. Or maybe I wouldn’t have. That’s the thing that you don’t seem to understand. It’s really not as simple as you’d like to believe. It’s a complicated mess...and it’s a mess that everyone in this room is responsible for. There’s no one right thing to do.”

  “We should all go,” Lucy said. “As a family.”

  The offer stood. Maxine looked at Scott, and Lucy thought she saw the eagerness in her eyes, but maybe it was wishful thinking. Her mother had made her views on Kymberlin clear during their date.

  “Am I invisible in my own house?” her father shouted. “I can’t listen to this.” And Scott, still in his pajamas, walked past everyone and out into the hallway, slamming the door behind him. When the echo of his exit had died away, Maxine went to her children. She didn’t say a word for a long moment and then she took Lucy and Ethan’s hands and held them tightly. Grant stayed off to the side, watching and waiting.

  “I used to hold your hands like this when you were little. One hand for Lucy, one hand for Ethan. Ethan always pulled forward, so eager to get wherever we were going, and Lucy never pulled. She would hold my hand until I let go first.” Maxine closed her eyes.

  “Mom—” Ethan started, but she silenced him.

  “You will allow me this. I have earned my right to tell you exactly what I think. Whether you listen or not, I have earned that much. If you leave this place, you will leave me broken, it will leave us broken...”

  “You’re leaving?”

  They all turned to the left. Galen stood shivering in a flimsy pair of shorts and his Beatles t-shirt. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked at his sister and brother, and then his mother, with his eyes narrowed. He looked on the verge of tears, his bottom lip quivering.

  “You can’t do that,” Galen said when no one answered him. “You can’t. That’s not fair.”

  Maxine rushed to Galen and put an arm around his shoulder, but he shrugged her off and ran back downstairs. They watched him go, unable to stop him, unsure of what to call after him.

  Lucy and Ethan exchanged a look. It was Lucy who spoke. “No one can know that it’s a possibility. Not even Galen...we’ll have to talk to him.”

  Ethan nodded with authority. “Huck will come after anyone who leaves...escaping serves no purpose if we spend our entire lives being hunted.”

  “Our?” Lucy repeated. “Ethan...”

  “Lucy,” Ethan said. “You may not know what the future holds for you...and that’s okay. But I’m getting out of this place. I’m going with Grant...I’m taking Teddy to Darla. I’m going to see Ainsley…to my friends. That’s where I belong.”

  Maxine took a step back toward her children and she watched them without interrupting.

  “Mom...” he continued. “I...”

  She put both her hands up and tried to get him to stop. “No,” she said from several feet away. “You don’t have to explain it to me.”

  “I’m working on a plan...I have some ideas,” Ethan said, turning his attention back to the task at hand. “Things that would assure us a clean break. They aren’t foolproof, but they would buy us a chance to escape without a trace.”

  Then, as if it was slowly dawning on him, Grant frowned. “So, then, wait. The only way we get off Kymberlin safely...would be...”

  They turned to look at him. “If they think you’re dead,” Lucy finished.

  From downstairs they heard a door slam and then the sounds of the other kids roused from sleep. Time was running out to discuss the plan freely. In that moment, as Lucy looked around the room at the worn and anxious faces, she saw the reality of their actions. Broken, her mother had said. Escaping Kymberlin would leave her broken, bereft.

  “Mom.” Lucy walked over to her mother and buried her head into her chest. “You should leave. You know this place isn’t safe...don’t stay here...”

  “I have to stay,” Maxine replied. “It’s not easy for me to let Ethan go, but there are the little ones to think of. Lucy, I can’t. This is a decision you have to make without me by your side. No matter which choice you make, there will be goodbyes.” Her mother turned from her, unable to say more.

  Her mind wandered to Cass’s Guedeh card that day in the fortune teller booth back in the System. The card had not told her which heartache she would choose, but one thing was certain: the cost was high. How could she walk away, forever, from the family she had fought to find?

  It already felt like their funeral. A deep and sudden sadness enshrouded them as they left the confines of the King house and ventured out into Kymberlin tower. Ethan, Grant, and Lucy walked in silence. It wasn’t the awkward silence of people unable to strike up any semblance of a conversation, but the deep and penetrating silence of people who knew that whatever they said would be wrong.

  When they reached the elevator, Ethan hesitated.

  “I’ll meet up with you two later,” he said and started off toward the sky bridge. Lucy knew where he was headed.

  “Wait,” Lucy said, she hopped to catch up. “Will you tell her?”

  “Should I?”

  Lucy shrugged. “Would she come with us?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No.” He scratched at his cheek. “I think she likes it here. She can live with a foot in both worlds. Cass knows what she’s doing, Lucy... on Kymberlin, she’ll always have everything she wants. The thing about Cass is that she plays well in this world. She moves fluidly between everyone, and the outside world has no draw for her...”

  “But she won’t have you,” Lucy said, baiting him.

  “She never had me,” Ethan replied lowering his chin. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “You definitely have a type,” Lucy teased. “Cass was too smart for you.” She felt Grant at her elbow and she turned. “So,” she looked back at her brother, “you’re not telling her?”

  “I’m not,” Ethan replied. “It’s better that way. Safer for her.” Then he
added, “But I want to make sure I see her again...she was good to me, Lucy. She was a good friend…and I needed a friend.”

  “I know,” Lucy replied and she smiled sadly.

  He left them standing there and walked off toward Cass. Lucy knew that Ethan must have a plan, but she didn’t want to push for details. The moving pieces of an escape were beyond Lucy’s imagining. At the moment, all she knew is that it had to happen. And that it would have to be final. Once off Kymberlin, they were off forever. Beyond that: nothing. Crickets and cobwebs, and daring ideas cut short by logic and logistics.

  “Come on,” said Grant. “Take me somewhere cool. I need to get out of my head for a minute. I don’t know if I can handle another second of dwelling on what’s going to happen next. I just need someplace…for us.”

  Lucy knew just the place.

  Everything was there. Every song ever recorded, every album ever released. Mozart to Michael Jackson; Etta James, the B52s, and Neutral Milk Hotel. Every genre across the decades, organized into various categories, and available within seconds. Lucy walked Grant over to the soundproof booth and sat him down on the cushioned seat. Then she shut the door and smiled. Slipping into the booth next to him, she could see Grant’s head against the neighboring glass. The world was silent—everything outside had disappeared. The din of people talking, the echo of voices up and down the floors, the buzz of the elevators carrying people about their day.

  She didn’t want to listen to music. She just wanted to listen to the empty, shallow sound of nothingness.

  But Grant had quickly gotten to work pushing the computer screen into action, dialing up artists and songs. While Lucy couldn’t hear what was going on in his booth, she could see Grant’s fingers swiping through categories, adding songs to his playlist, his head bopping along to something upbeat.

  He turned and looked at her and broke into a grin. From beyond the glass, he broke into song: He closed his eyes and crooned upward, a mighty grin on his face. Lucy just watched him, giggling. Filled with inspiration, Grant darted out of his booth. She tried to see where he went, and then he reappeared holding a pen and several sheets of white paper. He scribbled.