by A. M. Geever
“And they’re not going to turn down the line?” Smith asked. “You’re sure? Because a bunch of zombie monkeys are all we need.”
Alicia shot Mario an amused look. Oh God, please don’t laugh, Doug thought.
“That’s not how it works with the non-human primates, Anna,” Alicia said. “If the serum doesn’t work, they die. They don’t turn like we do.”
The straight line of Smith’s mouth finally cracked a smile. “So what’s next?” she asked.
“A human trial,” Mario said. “In the old world, it would be a couple more years before human trials, but…”
Smith nodded. “How many people do you need?”
Mario looked surprised at the question. “One, to start.”
“We don’t have a lot of people to choose from if we stick to the plan to keep this within the current need-to-know group,” Doug said.
“That’s still the plan,” Smith said. “The last thing we need is this getting out, and then it doesn’t work. Will this make whoever gets it ill, like Miranda was?”
Doug saw Mario wince. Any time Miranda came up since Mario had gone back to the Institute ten days ago there was something—a wince, a tightness around his eyes, the corners of his mouth turning down, or a discouraged sigh. Some were more obvious than others. Everyone had seen this one but Smith, and that was only because she wasn’t looking in Mario’s direction.
Alicia put her hand on his shoulder before saying, “It shouldn’t. Certainly not to that degree. Miranda’s immune system was fighting off an active infection from direct exposure to the virus. Vaccines are supposed to trigger the immune response for protection without causing significant disease.”
“There have been instances of vaccines causing the disease they were meant to cure,” Mario said. “We know what it does in our test subjects to date, and we know what we want it to do, but we won’t know for sure until we run the trial. But I think it will work as we expect.”
Alicia added, “We can’t include Doug and Mario, since they’ve received the San Jose vaccine. Or Miranda, obviously.”
“Okay,” Smith said, looking around the room. “Skye, Rocco, let’s go through the list of everyone already involved in the project, to make sure we aren’t missing anyone, and then we’ll ask for volunteers.”
“I’ll do it,” Rich said, the lilt of his southern drawl making the comment sound offhand. “I wouldn’t mind going down in history as a lab rat that lived.”
“Oh,” Smith said, her surprise evident. “I think you should at least talk to Mathilde first. If my husband had agreed to something like this without talking to me first, I’d have killed him.”
“You have two kids, Rich,” Skye said. “They need you. I’ll do it.”
Doug felt the room lurch and begin to spin. He turned to Skye.
“What?” he said.
Skye glanced at him but didn’t answer his question.
Smith asked, “You’re sure, Skye?”
Skye nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I’m young and fit. There’s no one who depends on me to take care of them, and there’s nothing I do that’s so specialized that someone else can’t do it. Rich has a family; Alicia has skills we can’t replace. Most of the people on the project fall into one or both of those categories. And if it works, then Rich can go next if Mathilde will let him.” She looked to Rich. “Sound okay to you?”
Rich nodded. Doug felt Rich’s eyes on him, then Rich shrugged. I tried, the gesture said.
“Okay,” Smith said. “If Skye wants to do it, she’ll be the first.”
Around the room, conversation buzzed. Mario and Alicia received congratulations and pats on the back. Smith pulled out a bottle of Scotch, and Rocco left to get more glasses.
Doug turned to Skye, horrified. “You can’t do this. Please don’t do this.”
She put her hand on his cheek. Her eyes were filled with resolve, and something that looked a lot like love.
“I can. And I am. I’ve been thinking about this for a while. We can talk, later. Okay? Right now, we need to celebrate Mario and Alicia’s work. They deserve it.”
She stepped away. Doug stood frozen, his heart pulled out of his chest, his cheek tingling where her hand had touched it. Rocco returned with the glasses.
“Doug, push the door shut,” he said.
Doug crossed to the door like an automaton, his body moving but his mind untethered. But instead of pushing the door shut, he left and pulled it closed behind him.
Skye entered the community room where the rock-climbing wall was located an hour later. Doug’s pulse sped up when he saw her. He had been waiting for her, since the only other options were loitering outside her apartment, or the lobby of the Nature Center where everyone would see them. Once he had been able to think straight again, he figured she might check for him here before she left the building.
“Hi,” he said, rising to his feet.
“Hi,” she said when she reached him.
An awkward silence stretched between them. Doug wasn’t used to feeling awkward around Skye. He hated it.
“Thanks for blindsiding me.”
“I should have told you,” she said. She bit her lip and looked at the floor. When she met his eyes, hers were so blue they almost didn’t look real. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t want me to do it. That you’d fight me on it.”
“Because it’s dangerous,” he said, utterly flummoxed. The danger alone should be enough to dissuade her. “Mario’s a brilliant scientist. He’s probably the smartest person I know, but the first vaccine didn’t work right at the start. The first few people turned, Skye! They turned into zombies, and we had to kill them. No one talks about that.”
“What you’re forgetting is he’s done this before and learned from those mistakes. And Alicia is working with him. Mario said she had insights that he had never considered. You were sitting next to me when he said so.”
“I don’t give a shit if he’s working with Einstein. It’s too dangerous. You can’t do this.”
She cocked an eyebrow at him. “You do know Einstein was a physicist?”
Doug’s hold on his temper evaporated. “I’m a fucking physicist! How can you joke about this?”
Skye took a step back, her eyes wide and lips parted.
He hadn’t meant to yell at her, but she thought this was funny? Doug turned on his heel and stalked to the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the back lawn, trying to get his temper under control.
“Crying for fuck’s sake,” he muttered angrily, dashing the tears in his eyes away.
He wanted to shake some sense into her. Tie her up and throw her in a goddamned closet. Something, anything, to get through to her. To protect her from herself.
Skye’s reflection appeared in the window over his shoulder. The paleness of her skin and hair made her look like a specter. Like she was already gone. She leaned against his back, arms sliding around his torso. He sunk into the comfort of her body against his and her warm, soft breath that caressed the nape of his neck.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, or scare you, or leave you,” she said softly, her voice filled with a tenderness that tore at his heart. “This is something that I need to do. And if you could find a way to be with me on this,” she said, her voice becoming tight. “It would really help.”
Doug shook his head, and the tears did start to fall, getting stuck in his eyelashes and making the world look sparkly. He took a shaky breath.
“If you felt about me the way I feel about you, you wouldn’t do this.”
Skye sighed, so long and deep it seemed to come from the center of the Earth.
“That’s not fair. You know it’s not.”
He turned to her and took her face in his hands. He could feel the thin line of the newly healed scar along her jaw, from when Brock had attacked her. From when he might have lost her forever.
Doug searched her eyes. A dark band of blue rimmed the outer edge of her iris, wi
th a gold band inside it. Tiny flecks of gold and amber sparkled from where they nestled in the lighter blues. Her butter-soft skin was warm under his hands, and he realized that he should have told her weeks ago. It was the only thing he could think of that might stop her.
“I—”
The door to the Community Room banged open. Alicia’s high voice said, “I’ve been looking for y— Oh…”
An undercurrent of nervousness accentuated the grating, high-pitched giggle that followed. The giggle that set Doug’s every nerve on edge. He wanted to punch Alicia.
Skye turned away from him.
“What’s up, Alicia?” she asked.
“Um, I, ah…need to do a blood draw to get a baseline on you. But…I can come back,” she squeaked.
Skye looked back at Doug, her smile sad. Then she turned away.
“We can do it now.”
Her voice sounded calm compared to a moment ago. Doug watched her walk away, dumbfounded. His declaration stuck in his throat like a too-large lump of bread he had swallowed that hurt going down. When Skye reached Alicia, she followed her out the door.
“I have to support her? That’s your advice? I thought you were on my side, Miranda.”
Doug paced the living room of Miranda’s townhouse like a tiger. The pressure continued to build inside his head, making his hammering tension headache worse.
“That’s your problem right there,” Miranda said. “There are no sides here. It’s not Team Doug versus Team Skye.”
He stopped pacing and faced her. “Yes, it fucking is!”
Miranda shook her head and pursed her lips. She had the Catholic guilt thing down, because despite the sheer nonsense she spouted at him, he felt guilty for disappointing her. He threw himself down on the couch beside her.
“I need a drink.”
“That is the last thing you need,” she said.
“I didn’t know what else to do to change her mind, so I started to tell her I love her and—”
“You started to tell her you love her?” Miranda said, interrupting him, so incredulous that her mouth hung open. “You were going to tell her you love her to manipulate her? Do you know how fucked up that is?”
Miranda’s reaction brought him up short. Not because she was right, but because he couldn’t believe she would accuse him of doing such a thing.
“No! No! That’s not what I was doing at all.”
Miranda chuffed, disbelieving. “Then I’ve got a bridge to sell you, buddy. Yes. It. Was.”
He let his head drop back onto the couch cushions and stared at the ceiling.
“There are cobwebs around the light fixture,” he said grumpily. “I’m stuck in the middle of a female conspiracy to drive me crazy.”
Miranda said, “Hmmm… I see we’ve moved on to the pity party portion of the afternoon.”
He turned his head on the cushion to look at her, then said, “You suck, you know that? You are a sucky best friend.”
She got up and walked to the kitchen. He heard her pouring water into a pan, then the click of the stove. He lifted his head.
“You’re making tea?” he asked irritably. “Are you seriously making tea?”
“It’s what Father Walter does in a crisis. It makes no sense, but it helps.”
A few minutes later, she handed him his tea. Black, with honey. It wasn’t bad despite being stale. Miranda sat down at the end of the couch sideways and stretched her legs over Doug’s lap.
“You have no concept of personal space, Miranda.”
“One of my many charms.”
He drank his tea, starting to feel the tiniest bit better. He would never admit it, of course. Not even under torture.
“Tell me what to do,” he sighed, resigned, finally ready to listen. To quit raging against everything she said to him.
“Support her. It’s all you can do. You can’t fix it, and you can’t change it, and you can’t kidnap her.”
“Is it that obvious?” he said, half laughing.
Miranda smiled. “Yeah, but I understand wanting to snatch her up and take her somewhere safe. Somewhere not here, but you can’t. What you can do is support her.”
“But I’m scared,” he said, his throat getting tight, tears in his eyes for what felt like the millionth time.
“Tell her that, too. No matter how much she’s set on doing this, she’s got to be scared to death. If you really love her, support her. Make it easier, not harder. And don’t pull away to protect yourself because it won’t work.”
He almost retorted that she ought to take her own advice, then thought better of it.
“When did you get so smart?”
Miranda smiled again. “It’s easy to give advice. I’ve made every mistake there is. You might as well benefit from it.”
“Staying a priest would be so much easier than this,” he muttered.
“Braaaaack, brack, brack, brack, brack,” Miranda said, imitating a chicken.
He did laugh then. “Fuck,” he said softly. “Fuck, fuck, fuck me.”
Miranda’s voice was teasing. “Only if you play your cards right.”
By the time he was halfway to Skye’s, Doug had worked himself back into full-blown righteous indignation. Now he wandered in the Big Woods, not paying attention to what path he took. Miranda’s advice kept rattling back and forth from one side of his skull to the other, infuriating him.
“She’s scared to death… That makes two of us.”
What about me being scared to death, he thought. What about what he wanted? How was he supposed to support her when all he wanted to do was tie her up, throw her in a truck, and drive as far away from here as he could? Doug had never thought of himself as a creepy kidnapper kind of guy, never mind a betrayer of every feminist principle he had ever believed in, but he found himself having sympathy for the creepy kidnappers. They must have their reasons, surely.
I’m giving up everything for Skye. I don’t even know if she feels the same way about me as I feel about her, and now she’s doing this.
Doug stopped in his tracks.
“Oh my God,” he said. “I’m sympathizing with kidnapping predators and blaming Skye for my choices, and then acting like she owes me. I did almost tell her I love her to manipulate her… I’m an asshole.”
In a few days, Skye would be injected with an experimental vaccine that might kill her. And if she wasn’t here, wasn’t part of his life…
The next thing Doug knew he was leaning against the rough bark of a tree along the path. Acid burned the back of his throat as his last meal forced its way up through his esophagus. He retched until there was nothing else refusing to stay put in his stomach.
He looked up, finally paying attention to where he was. Otter Pond, Skye’s favorite place. A splash from the creek caught his ear. The romp of otters glided through the water, sleek forms glistening as they twisted and dove. The male and female curled around one another, spinning in the gentle current, while their pups splashed one another in a teenaged otter version of Marco Polo.
Doug turned away, running down that path. He had to find Skye, tell her, because he couldn’t wait another minute. He checked his watch as he left the Big Woods. Three thirty. It’s Wednesday, he realized. She might have decided to still teach her class, which meant she wouldn’t be free until four. He’d gone the wrong way, running toward the housing plan, not the Nature Center. He was just about to turn around when he saw a flash of silvery-blond moving in the direction of her apartment.
“I have barf breath.”
Doug scoured front yards for a mint plant. He knew there was one nearby. When he found it a few houses away, he stuffed a handful of leaves into his mouth and chewed for a minute, then spat them out. His heart pounded in his chest as he walked to her place. He felt disoriented, like he was in one of those movie scenes where the background moved at a different rate of speed than the people in it. He knocked on the door, feeling like he was going to pass out. He could not remember being this nervous in his
entire life.
The door swung open. When she saw him, Skye sighed.
“Can we talk, Skye?” He couldn’t believe his voice sounded so steady.
“I don’t want to fight with you, Doug,” she said, sounding drained.
She looked pale and drawn. And scared. The little anxious line that had only recently begun to take some time off had taken up residence between her eyebrows again. How had he not seen how much she needed him?
“I want to talk with you. Not at you.”
She shrugged, the gesture noncommittal. “I’m not fighting with you. If you start, I’m kicking you out.”
He followed her into the living room, then stopped. He had no idea where to put himself. It must have showed, because Skye tapped the barstool next to her where she sat at the counter between the living room and kitchen.
“I’m not going to bite.”
He sat down next to her. This close he could see the softness of her skin, the shine of her silvery-blond hair that hung loose over her shoulders.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “I’m sorry I argued with you and acted like such a jerk. I was scared. I am scared.”
She nodded, then said, “I understand, I do. It’s okay.”
He shook his head. “No, it’s not.”
Doug slid to the edge of the stool, just inches from her now. He pushed her hair back from her face. Ten weeks later, the faintest remnants of sickly yellow bruises were still visible under her eye and along her elegant cheekbone if you knew to look for them.
After the attack, the last thing Doug had wanted to do was rush her. He wouldn’t have wanted to rush it anyway. The time just before, when you hoped the other person could tell but you had not worked up the nerve to say it yet, was the part of falling in love that Doug had always found sweetest. He loved Skye and had shown it in every way he could short of telling her, or showing her with his body.
He thought she loved him, but she had not said it, either. There was still the chance he was wrong. Still the chance that he might be projecting his feelings onto her, seeing what he wanted to see. That bit of not knowing combined with not wanting to rush her made him cautious, but so hungry to know. Hungry to know what she felt like, tasted like, to hear the soft noises she would make when they made love. He had let himself sink into the slow, lush dance of lingering touches and too long looks, of longing so deep that it ached, of wanting to know so much and being almost afraid to find out.