Miles passed. There were no cars to get in Granger’s way and no cops to pull him over. I became angrier as I passed exits for Acworth, Kennesaw, and Marietta. When I saw signs for the bypass, the truck was well ahead of me, and I was beginning to lose hope.
Then I saw smoke. Black plumes rising in the distance. Up ahead, brake lights let me know the interstate was blocked and people were waiting to get past. Luck was finally on my side because there was a concrete median on the left and a hill topped by a thick band of trees on the right. Granger would be stuck.
It was a pile up. A Walmart semi had jackknifed, and several cars had crashed into each other. Three police cars with flashing lights were blocking most of the inside lanes, and a slow trickle of vehicles was using the shoulder to go around. A helicopter hovered a little distance away, and it took me a few minutes to realize that the cops weren’t taking care of the wreck, they were in a standoff with a group of men stealing the truck’s contents. Several bystanders stood on the hill, watching. Others were lying down, possibly injured.
This might be my one and only chance to stop Granger. He knew it too, because he started to move around the line of cars to get by on the hill. I followed him and pulled out my pistol, struggling to steer across the steep embankment. My car wasn't nearly as efficient as the truck, and Granger was about to reach the clear side of the interstate. It was now or never. I rolled down my window and shot at the truck's tires before it began picking up speed. I fired until my magazine was empty. Then I awkwardly reloaded, worried I'd shoot myself trying to multitask. But I'd hit a tire, and Granger’s truck came to a stop on the shoulder beyond the wreck site. The Walmart truck robbers must have thought the cops had shot at them, because they all started shooting – two from inside the trailer and two from behind wrecked cars. The policemen fired back, and people started screaming, bumping fenders trying to get past each other.
As I threw open my door, a man jumped out of the driver’s side of the truck with a weapon aimed. I ducked, using my door as cover and praying for my life as bullets pinged into the metal. At the pause in his gunfire, I leaned out and shot back. The man went down. Another guy shot at me from the opposite side of the truck. I crouched, waited for a pause, and then I popped up and fired. The man had moved into the bed of the truck and was fumbling with something. My third shot hit him and he fell over the side. The third man took off running up the hill toward the woods. I ran to the truck and checked the cab. No one was in there, but neither was Iggy. Had I been wrong? Was she back at Target? Had I just shot two men for no reason?
“Iggy!” I yelled her name as if she might miraculously appeal.
Someone banged on the metal toolbox that stretched across the bed of the truck just beneath the rear window. “Cael! I’m in here!”
I hoisted myself into the bed of the truck and pulled the tool box lid. It was locked. I dived through the back window and snatched the keys from the ignition, then I returned to try several keys before feeling a satisfying twist. I threw back the lid and Iggy lunged toward me, wide-eyed and sucking in gulps of air. Just as I grabbed her and hauled her out, someone shouted at me to put my hands up in the air. I turned around slowly to find a man with a beard and a baseball cap aiming his gun at me. The cops were still shooting it out with the thieves.
“Hands up or I’ll shoot!”
“Does everyone have a gun down here?” I raised my arms in the air on a heavy sigh. What a shitty way for this to end: me going to jail while the rest of the world fell apart. I’d never thought I’d be arrested for anything save associating with my pot head friend.
“I said, raise your hands!” he yelled again.
“They’re up!” I looked at Iggy and realized the man was addressing her and not me. “Put your hands up, Iggy.” Cars honked. People either shouted each other to keep their cars moving, or they ducked low to avoid getting shot. Where were the cops? Had they been killed? Were they coming after us now?
“We are not giving up,” she told me with a shaking voice. “I’m not letting you get arrested.”
“Maybe they’ll dismiss the charges because I stopped a kidnapping.”
The man shouted, “I’m not gonna let you get away with shooting those people."
"Why does he have to be a hero?" I grumbled.
Iggy pointed at me. “This man saved my life. You saw him pull me out of that toolbox, right?” The guy looked confused. “Please,” she continued. He didn’t lower his weapon. “Do you feel that?” she asked him. He winced and rolled his shoulders. “If you don’t put down the gun, I’ll hurt you.”
I looked at Iggy. I was obviously missing the big picture. Did she have a plan I didn't know about? A hidden weapon?
“I’ll count to three,” she told him. “On three, you’ll go down. One.” The man gritted his teeth. "You can feel it, right? It will only get worse. Put it down!" But he didn't. “Two.” He sucked in a breath and grunted, and his hands started trembling. "Three!" He suddenly clutched his chest, his eyes widened, and fell to his knees. His face contorted in pain before he dropped onto his back, his gun clattering to the pavement.
“What the hell. Is he having a heart attack or something?” I glanced at Iggy, but she was staring intensely at two other armed men who were approaching. They took up positions behind two vehicles and aimed.
“Get down on your stomach and put your hands behind your head!” one of them ordered. Then, he too dropped his weapon, cried out in pain, and fell to the ground. The third man didn’t even get a chance to open his mouth before the same thing happened to him.
I stood there with my mouth hanging open until Iggy tugged my shirt. We jumped down to the ground and Iggy ran for the passenger’s side of my car. I was a little slow to follow, stunned by what had just happened. Then Iggy shouted my name and I snapped out of it, diving into my car and taking off.
Chapter 8
Cael
Iggy said the cops might be looking for my Nissan now. I stared at her open-mouthed as she hot-wired a Honda in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel. She didn’t want to drive, so I slid behind the steering wheel and plugged Lakeside Marketplace into the car’s GPS. Once we were back on Highway forty-one, I called Wesley and told him we were on our way. He asked to speak to Iggy, but she shook her head.
“Tell him I just need a few minutes to calm down and think.”
I relayed this to Wesley who said he understood before ending the call.
Iggy pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “Thanks, Cael. You don’t know how much what you just did means to me.”
"Where'd you learn to hot-wire a car?"
She smiled. "Wes taught me. Are you disappointed you have a thief for a cousin?"
"Are you disappointed you've got a murderer for a cousin?" And then it hit me. I took a deep breath and pulled off the road into the empty parking lot of a hotel. I cut the engine and stared out the window, embarrassed to be shaking all over. I could feel Iggy's eyes on me but she remained silent. "I shot two people." I slumped back in my seat. “That’s the first time I ever shot a human being. I don’t know if what I did was right or wrong. I don’t even know why this whole incident happened." I squeezed my eyes shut. "Oh, god. I think I just killed two people. They never got up."
Iggy laid a hand on my forearm. "You saved me.”
"Did you see them? Could you tell if they were still breathing?"
She shook her head. "Cael, you had to do it. They were shooting at you. They could have killed you. And if you hadn't done it, I'd be at the CDC compound right now."
I gripped the steering wheel and squeezed. "I think I should turn myself in." The more I thought about it, the more I believed it. "Iggy. You take the car. I'm going to find a cop."
She squeezed my arm. "No."
"It's the right thing to do."
"You'll be stuck in jail, Cael. The law is so busy right now, you won't get a trial for forever. You'll sit in prison and rot whe
n you're not guilty of anything but defending me."
I twisted my hands on the wheel. "I'm glad I helped you, Iggy. But if I killed someone, I deserve to go to jail."
She made a sound of frustration. "You are not turning yourself in. Not right now. Think about it. Who will look for your parents if you go to jail? What if they need help and you can't help them because you're sitting in a cell?" She bit her lip, then licked it and added, "We've both done bad things, but we're not bad people, Cael. Let's just get through this and then you can talk to my dad about it. If you want, you can turn yourself in to him."
"You don't understand," I told her. "You didn't just kill someone."
"Maybe I did," she snapped. "I may have caused a heart attack and killed some guys back there who just thought they would be heroes by capturing the bad guys."
"Those three guys back there? The ones that dropped to the ground? Iggy, you can't blame yourself for that. I admit it was a freak coincidence, but you didn't cause them to have heart attacks."
“A freak coincidence?” She swallowed and gave me a sad smile. “I caused it. You saw it. Are you going to deny I did something to them?"
I frowned. "Maybe I should call Wesley. I think you’re in shock. Are you feeling okay?" I reached out to put my hand on her forehead and she swatted it away.
"Stop looking at me like I've lost my mind. I told you I did it. That's what Jensen wants me for." She tucked some hair behind her ear and sighed. "You hurt people. I hurt people. We're both feeling bad. Now let's go get Wes and Cody and give ourselves some time to think."
There was no doubt I was now a criminal in the eyes of the law. But I was suddenly upset about the reason I was in trouble. The girl next to me was claiming she had some kind of power that the CDC was after. Maybe this was why my parents stopped visiting Kim and her family. Maybe they were all screwed up in the head. When I went on trial for murder, it sure wouldn't help me if Iggy told the judge I was saving her from being kidnapped by the CDC who wanted her because she could make people have heart attacks. That was insane. "Do you know how crazy you sound right now?" Maybe I'd just shot innocent people who had come to take Iggy to a psych ward.
“I know it sounds crazy. And I think you deserve to know the truth. I just don’t know if you can accept it.”
“I’m having trouble accepting a lot of things right now. I can’t accept that all this trouble is about a vaccine. I can’t accept that you could disappear in a CDC building and no one would be able to do anything about it. I can’t accept that Granger and those three guys on the interstate had heart attacks because you wanted them to.”
"I can prove it to you."
"How?"
"I can...um, I can hurt you. I mean, I won't give you a heart attack, but I can try something smaller."
A corner of my mouth lifted. "Okay. I'll bite. Prove it to me." I held up my index finger. "Here's something small. Maybe you can give my finger a heart attack."
"Well, maybe what I do isn’t exactly a heart attack..."
I rolled my eyes. "Can you prove it or not?"
Iggy stared at my finger. I was one second away from laughing at her, but I knew it was wrong to make fun of the mentally ill. Then the muscles in my finger seized up, wrenching the digit straight and stiff. I gasped and grabbed at it with my other hand. Then just as suddenly, the pain was gone.
"There. Now do you believe me?"
My eyebrows drew together. "It was a muscle spasm. It happens to everyone." Wasn't it? Surely Iggy couldn't really do what she was claiming. Stuff like that only happened in the movies. I picked up my cell phone. "Let's call Wesley and tell him you're coming alone and that I'm giving myself up. Then you can — ." I yelped. My hand felt like every bone was cracking. I dropped the phone and clutched at my hand with the opposite one, crying out again, watching my own fingers bend at an unnatural angle as the joints bulged through my skin. Then the pain disappeared and I was left panting.
Iggy sniffed and whispered, "Please don't make me prove it anymore. Please believe me."
I stared at her like she was someone I didn’t know. “How long?” I swallowed. “How long have you been able to do this?”
“Since my early teens.”
“Why? How?”
“It has something to do with the vaccine I told you about.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “Impossible.” I looked at her. “Do your parents know?”
“Of course. Why do think your parents stopped coming down for the holidays?”
My eyes widened. “Wesley knows?”
“He’s like me. He got the vaccine too.”
“He makes people hurt?” This was unbelievable.
Iggy winced and bit her lip again. “No. He can control something in people’s lungs. The alveoli or some certain cells. I don’t know. Breathing. He can mess with breathing.” She squared her shoulders. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m sick or evil or a freak.”
She looked scared and tired, and she had a bruise on her jaw, but my curiosity was more important than anything. I wanted to know without a doubt why I’d just thrown away my freedom. “Prove it one more time. One finger.” He held up his right pinky finger.
“Stop it, Cael. Stop asking me to hurt you.”
“One more time, and I promise I’ll believe forevermore.” It just couldn't be true, even though my fingers still throbbed. Something like this was life changing. If Iggy actually had this power, my view of the universe would change. If she could do this, then maybe aliens existed. Area 51. The Loch Ness Monster. Bigfoot.
She looked like she was going to be ill. “No.”
“You had no problem back on the interstate.” Maybe I'd just imagined the pain or imagined she'd caused it. Was it possible for a hand to have a seizure?
“That was different. That was self-defense.” She wiped her wet eyes.
“Come on, Iggy. One more time. I won’t ask again. One finger. You have to prove it to me.”
“I did. Twice! That's enough.”
“Do it!” She looked at my hand and then it happened. There was a jerk and pop, and I cried out. This time I knew my finger was broken.
“Stupid bastard!” she yelled and jumped out of the car.
She was halfway through the parking lot before I caught up with her. I grasped her shoulder, but she jerked away and started jogging. “Stop, Iggy!”
“You’re just like them!” she yelled over her shoulder. “I’m not their lab rat, and I’m not going to be yours either!”
“I just needed you to prove it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She stopped so suddenly that I nearly ran into her. She spun around and I felt like a complete asshole when I saw the tears trailing down her cheeks. She jabbed a finger in my chest and said, “That’s exactly what Jensen said. He just needed me to prove it. Over and over and over. On dogs and cats and monkeys. Why don’t you go to work for him! I’m sure he’ll give you a job if you just drive me down to the CDC.” She shoved me. "You masochistic asshole!"
I looked up at the sky and dragged my palms down the sides of my face as she ran away. I hadn’t been thinking about how hurting me would make Iggy feel. It was my body, my request, so I thought it was that simple. But how would I like it if the situation was reversed and she wanted me to hurt her? I wouldn’t do it. I’d think she was crazy for asking. “I’m sorry, Iggy.” I ran to catch up and fell into step beside her. “It’s just so hard to believe.”
“Well, newsflash, Mr. Masochist. There are a bunch of us out there who can do stuff like this. In fact, there’s probably all sorts of shit happening in this world that we can’t even imagine. Personally, I don’t care whether you believe me or not. But I’m sure as hell done proving myself to you. Go turn yourself in. You obviously want to be hurt. You'd probably love prison. Maybe they can starve you and beat you up. You'd get a real kick out of that.”
She swiped at her tears with the back of her hands. "Go away!"
“God, you have no idea how sorry I am.” Suddenly I wanted to hug her. "I was a callous asshole. I'm sorry." I pulled her toward me but she resisted.
"I don't care if you think I'm crazy."
"I'm the crazy one," I admitted. "And stupid. I mean, what kind of guy asks three times to get his fingers broken?"
"A mule-headed idiot," she said, but her voice was calmer and I knew I was making progress.
I tugged again. Iggy sniffed and stared at the ground. Then I pulled her into my arms and hugged her. She was stiff. After a minute she said, “Please don’t let this change how you see me. I’m still the same person you’ve known since we were little kids.” And then she wrapped her arms around my waist and laid her head on my chest.
I felt like a bully. She seemed so small just then; her head barely reached my chin. And she’d had more to deal with than I could possibly know or understand. This wasn’t about what I needed to have proven or what I felt or I believed. I already believed in Iggy, and I had proven it when I’d shot two men to save her. And if I had it all to do over again, I would make the same choices.
After a minute, I said, “So this is why Jensen offered five thousand dollars to have you brought in? I’m surprised he didn’t offer more. That is the strangest side effect of a vaccination that I’ve ever heard of.”
“It’s kind of complicated. I don’t even understand it completely myself.”
I didn’t want to let her go, but Iggy pulled away. “Do you still want me to come with you to look for your parents? Or are you going to act all weird around me now?”
I gave her a crooked smile. “Of course I want you to come. But I’ll be honest and admit that it’s a lot to take in. I have all these questions, but I’m scared to ask you any of them. I don’t want you to feel like I think you’re a freak show or something.”
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