“Today is a monumental day! You are about to see your newest weapons being put to use against human beings,” Flint says. He clasps my brother’s shoulder. “You all know my successor had the brilliant idea to start injecting dogs with the bee flu vaccine.” The crowd nods and hollers. “He started with three dogs. It has been ten months. You already know they’ve been biologically altered. What you don’t know is that for five months, he has been breeding an entire army of these biologically altered animals, and they are all starting to turn.” The raiders look at my brother, eyes wary.
“Why do we want a whole army of them when we can barely control three?” someone calls.
Flint takes off his hat. His gray hair is matted to his head, and his eyes are sharp. “You all recall that the possession of guns by civilians inside the wall is illegal, right?”
“So what?” someone calls. “It’s not like we can get past the militia.”
“Well,” Flint continues, “we are going to set the dogs loose in the militia’s tent cities. When they’ve killed the militia, we will let the dogs into the walled city. The citizens of the city won’t be able to defend themselves. Hastings has trained the dogs for a special purpose.” He glances at my brother. “Why don’t you tell the boys about your pets?”
Dean nods and yells, “I have trained the beast-dogs to listen to no one but me, and to kill only men. They hate men. They will be brutal toward men. When the men are gone from the walled city, we will shoot the dogs and you will have your choice of women. You will get to rule. You will be the founders of a new society!”
The response nearly flattens my eardrums. I wonder if the roof holding the raiders can handle such a ruckus. They are jumping, stomping, screaming.
A gunshot rumbles, mixing with the raiders’ noise. The men quiet down, but their bodies are tensed with pent-up energy. “We want women!” a raider standing behind Flint yells. My brother turns and grabs the man and puts him in a headlock. He starts pounding the guy’s face and I am seeing the volatile, violent Hastings I have heard about. I am seeing the raiders’ way of life.
The raiders whoop and holler at my brother and make vulgar gestures. They are like a plague, destroying everything they touch. I look at my brother, still beating the man, and know I am right. Dean would not let me die like this if the raiders hadn’t poisoned his mind. He would be trying to save me.
Dean stops pummeling the raider and shoves him back with the others. He wipes his bloody knuckles on his jeans.
Flint waves his cowboy hat in the air and the raiders tone down their excitement. “And now, let’s celebrate this news with a little entertainment! Gentlemen, meet the secret weapons Hastings has been creating for the past ten months: Speranza, Futuro, and Fede.”
I gasp and look at my brother. I know those words, those names.
Dean gives someone a hand signal and a pair of double doors leading to the courtyard are opened. And so it begins.
Chapter 36
My family has a motto. It has been part of our heritage since my mother’s Italian grandparents immigrated to the United States and my great-grandma embroidered it onto a piece of white linen. Fede e Speranza per il Futuro. It means Faith and Hope for the Future.
My heart starts to flutter with hope. And faith. For my future. I glance up at my brother again and his eyes meet mine. He nods, the slightest bob of his head.
I squeeze my knife hilt and grit my teeth. As if they can sense my resolve, three dogs come tearing out of the open doors—the German shepherd that tried to eat Kevin yesterday, a Doberman, and a husky. I am ready for them. Ready to fight. And then Jonah steps in front of me, blocking my view. Something flashes in his hand, metal and glass catching sunlight—and I expect to see a knife.
He is holding a syringe.
Jonah doesn’t wait for the dogs. He digs his feet into the ground and runs. He’s inhumanly fast, running at the Doberman. He leaps the last few feet and rams the needle into the animal’s sleek black neck, wrapping his other arm around its head. They hit the ground and skid on the dead grass.
A massive weight slams into me and I face-plant into the dirt that was dug up by dog claws the day before. I roll over and swing my knife at a pair of forelegs. The knife hits, but the German shepard is oblivious to it. It jumps onto me, knocking me flat on my back. My head snaps against the ground and pain blurs my vision. I blink and my sight clears just in time to see the German shepherd’s dilated pupils and sharp teeth as it lunges for my neck. I scream and throw my right arm in front of my face, and the animal’s mouth closes over it.
“Imporre!” I shriek. Lie down! The dog growls. “Goccia!” Drop! The dog doesn’t respond.
My arm feels strange—like I have an itch deep inside that I can’t reach. I look at it and want to faint when I see the animal’s teeth sunk deep into my flesh and my blood mixing with foamy drool. My hand goes numb, and the knife slips to the ground as I wait for the creature to snap my bone and swallow my wrist and hand whole.
But then something happens. The German shepherd’s nostrils flare. It eases its teeth out of my skin and sniffs me. The animal’s pupils shrink. Trembling, I pick up my knife from the ground with my left hand and stand, ready for the next attack. The shepherd crouches and then lunges toward me. I lash out with my knife, and air and dirt whip against my skin. But the dog doesn’t touch me again. It soars over me. I turn and watch it sprint toward Jonah.
On the other side of the tree, Jonah is pinned to his back, struggling against the husky and Doberman. Two empty syringes gleam on the dead grass beside him.
My gaze moves beyond Jonah to the open door the dogs came through. I could run. I could leave. I could live. Relief spills through me like a waterfall. I take a step toward that door, and then force myself to stop. A sob rips at my throat. Freedom is so close that what I am about to do physically hurts. Turning back to Jonah, I clench my teeth, tighten my hand around the knife hilt, and run to his side.
He’s barely visible beneath the pile of dogs. I stand a foot away from him, staring, not knowing what to do. He swings his forearm into the Doberman’s face, and the animal yelps and falls to its side, dazed.
“Jack! The German shepherd,” Jonah gasps. He thrusts his blood-covered hand out of the mass of snarling dogs. He is clutching a full syringe. I take it from him. The glass is slippery with blood—his and mine. I ram the needle into the shepherd’s thigh and depress the syringe, injecting clear liquid into the animal. The dog doesn’t notice. I drop the empty syringe to the ground with the others.
“Is it done?” Jonah asks. He’s got his hands wrapped around the snout of the husky, keeping the animal’s teeth from his face. The Doberman, still dazed, stands beside Jonah, shaking its head. The German shepherd’s teeth are clamped around Jonah’s forearm, and I’m terrified it will chew his arm off—until I remember he’s wearing the electromagnetic cuff. The dog’s teeth don’t sink in.
“Yes! It’s done!” I say, wondering why he even cares when he’s being thrashed by massive, viscious dogs. Jonah knees the German shepherd in the side, throws the husky off him, and lays his head down on the brittle grass. Peace softens his scratched face, and I realize he’s resigned himself to the fact that he is going to die today.
“Jonah! Get up! Fight!” I yell. His eyes meet mine and he shakes his head a tiny bit, as if it’s all he can muster. And then all three dogs lunge at him.
I stand and hold up my knife. “Come and get me!” I scream. “Venire! Get me!” The dogs don’t even flick their ears in my direction. Jonah’s eyes are closed. I step into the brawl and start kicking and slashing at the dogs. I might as well not exist—the dogs are so intent on Jonah.
“Why won’t the dogs attack him?” It is Flint’s voice, carrying over the noisy raiders. “I thought you said these dogs attack everyone but . . .”
Except for the sound of the dogs, the courtyard goes dead silent, and all eyes focus on me.
“The dogs attack anyone but a woman,” Soneschen states.<
br />
“But the dog attacked him at first,” says Flint, studying me.
“Until it got a good smell of her.” Soneschen rubs his chin, and a slow smile spreads over his face.
My hands slowly fall to my sides, and I hold my breath while my eyes sweep over the men standing on the roof. I never thought this morning could get worse. I was wrong. The raiders are staring at me like … well, like I’m a woman. The only woman alive on the face of the earth.
Flint laughs and rubs his hands together. “I think we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes, boys!” He turns to my brother. “Call off your dogs and get them out of here. We’ve got ourselves a female in our midst.”
“Vieni!” Dean yells. It means come. The dogs pause and look toward the voice. Slowly, muscles bunched beneath their fur, they back away from Jonah. With their lips peeled back from their bloodstained teeth, they trot toward the building Dean is standing on. Dean’s eyes meet mine. He knew all along—Dean knew they wouldn’t attack me.
I crouch beside Jonah. His clothes are damp with blood and shredded in places. I press my hand against his cheek, and he groans and rolls onto his side.
“Gentlemen,” Dean calls. I shade my eyes and squint up at him. “Take a good, close look at these dogs. They are made to tear men to pieces. They listen to no one but me. They are an unstoppable weapon—it takes a bullet straight to the heart to slow them down, and more than one bullet to kill them.” He smiles—a real, true smile. “I have made them for a very special purpose.” Soneschen and Flint both step up to the edge of the building and peer down at the dogs. Dean looks at the two men and his smile grows wider, making his eyes mere slits. And then he puts a hand on each of their backs. And shoves.
Chapter 37
Flint and Soneschen land with an audible thud, side by side on the courtyard grass twenty feet away from me. A blanket of silence seems to smother the world. The raiders stare down at the two men. Even the dogs freeze and focus their black eyes on them. Flint groans and rolls onto his side. Soneschen springs to his feet and starts to run to the nearest door. The dogs’ hackles bristle, and their bodies bulge with tensed muscles. And then they start running, dead grass flying under their feet, until the Doberman gets Soneschen by the arm, and the other two dogs pounce on Flint.
Flint’s cowboy hat falls from his greasy head, and he curls into a ball as the dogs tear into him. I cringe and look away. When Flint screams, I plug my ears.
A shadow falls over me, and icy hands clasp my wrist. I swing my knife up, ready to fight, and find myself staring into a pair of dark-blue eyes.
“Dean.” The word barely comes out of my constricting throat. He nods and shoves me at the nearest door. While I walk in a daze toward the exit, Dean runs to Jonah and lifts him to his feet. Jonah can barely stand. Blood covers both of his hands, and there are claw marks gouged on his cheek and neck. Dean loops Jonah’s arm over his shoulder and they stumble across the courtyard.
“Jack, open the door!” Dean orders.
I put my hand on the door and shove. It leaves a red print on the glass. “Zeke! Help him.” Dean unloads Jonah’s massive body into Zeke’s waiting arms. “We got Bowen out with the backpack—he won’t leave until he knows Jack makes it out alive. You. Get her out of here now!” Kevin steps out from behind Zeke. “I’m going to let the rest of the dogs out to finish this!” Dean thrusts something into my hands—a folded piece of paper—and then goes back to the courtyard and starts propping open the glass doors that lead into the building. On the other side of the courtyard, all three dogs are intent on Flint, but Soneschen is gone. Sickened, I turn away and am pulled against a hard chest.
“I thought I’d never see you again!” Kevin says, holding me tightly. Dazed, I look up at him. His bottom lip is split and swollen, and on his belt are two guns—his Glock and my dad’s Glock. “Come on. We have to run!”
I turn and look over my shoulder. Men are jumping off the roof, into the courtyard, weapons in hand, their attention focused on me. In their effort to reach me, they’re throwing each other down, trampling each other, and hitting each other out of the way with baseball bats. The first raider reaches the door I am standing behind, and his dark eyes lock on mine. It is Striker. He smirks and licks his lips, and then he lifts his blood-covered baseball bat to smash the glass.
Someone slams into him, taking him down to the ground. “Get her out of here now!” Dean shouts, wrenching the baseball bat out of Striker’s hand and swinging it at his head. Kevin yanks me away from the door just before the bat makes contact.
We take two steps away and pause. “Look,” Kevin says. I turn and peer over my shoulder. All the doors leading into the courtyard except the one I am standing behind have been propped open and big dogs are pouring into the open space. The animals lunge for the raiders, pulling them down to the ground like prey. I look at my brother, standing in the courtyard with the dogs, and whimper. Kevin pulls me away. “You don’t want to watch,” he says.
We run down the hall behind Zeke and Jonah, to a pair of glass doors that lead to the parking lot. Zeke shoves them open. There are three four-wheelers in the parking lot. Two are empty, and Bowen—wearing the backpack filled with the cure—is sitting on the third. Zeke helps Jonah onto a four-wheeler and climbs on in front of him. I step through the doors, into fresh air, and dig my feet into the ground. “Where are we going? We can’t leave my brother in there!”
“Jack, it’s what he wants.” Kevin tries to pull me away from the doors but his fingers slip against my bloody skin. “You got bit?” I nod and two deep creases form between Kevin’s brows. “How hurt are you?” he asks, lifting my arm for a better look. Blood is dripping down my arm and splattering on the ground beside my foot.
“I don’t know,” I say.
He takes Dean’s folded note out of my bloody grasp and starts poking and prodding my arm. My stomach roils and I close my eyes. It is one thing to look at other people’s wounds. But when they’re on my own body, the sight is too much.
Kevin sucks a breath of air in through his teeth. “You’re losing a lot of blood. If the dog hit an artery, you could die. We need to stop the bleeding.” He guides me to the third four-wheeler.
“Is she all right?” Bowen asks.
“I don’t know, and I’m not going to risk her losing too much blood,” Kevin says. “I’m going to put coagulant on her wound and then we’ll be right behind you.”
“You sure you don’t want us to wait, Kev?” Bowen asks.
“No. Get the cure out of here! This won’t take me more than a minute or two. Zeke, you remember how to get into the tunnel through the wine cellar?”
“Of course I do,” Zeke says. “Let’s get moving!”
Bowen revs the four-wheeler, and as he peels out of the parking lot, I look at the giant backpack on his back. The cure—what’s left of it after using it on the dogs and the raiders’ beasts. Zeke cranks the other vehicle, and he and Jonah follow Bowen.
“Climb on,” Kevin says, straddling the four-wheeler.
“But my arm . . .”
“We need to put a little distance between us and the raiders first.”
I climb up behind him. We drive two blocks and then Kevin pulls the vehicle into a gas station with rusted gas pumps. He climbs down and gets his backpack and rummages through it until he finds a small square packet of coagulant.
Even this far from the raiders’ compound, I can hear the sound of dogs barking and men fighting. I squirm in the seat of the four-wheeler and try to ignore the sounds. “Why did we use the cure on the dogs?” I ask. “If the raiders are just going to kill them, why go to the trouble? Why waste it if it’s so precious?”
“If a single infected dog got loose, it would terrorize the city, preying on anything that moved. It would kill lots of innocent people before it was stopped because the dogs are nearly impossible to kill.” He tears the coagulant open and pauses. “This will hurt. Are you ready?”
I nod and watch as he sprinkles tiny
white coagulant beads onto my bleeding wound. My blood starts to bubble and then turns hot like it’s on fire. The pain is bad but not that bad. Until the coagulant seeps down into my arm, reaching the deepest spot where the teeth sank into my skin. It burns like I’ve put my raw flesh into a pan of boiling oil. The coagulant starts to expand, so each puncture wound feels as if it is getting a flaming briquette of charcoal wedged into it.
I scream. I scream and scream, and Kevin holds me in his strong arms. Sweat beads over my entire body. The pain reaches a plateau and then starts to fade, and as the pain eases, my body begins to quiver and tears pour down my face.
“There. All done,” Kevin whispers, gently wiping the tears from my cheeks with his callused thumbs. Something moves behind him, and ex-governor Soneschen steps out from the shadowed side of the gas station. His face is splattered with blood, and the left sleeve of his white shirt is torn off. His left arm is dangling lifeless at his side and so bloody I can’t tell if there’s any skin still on it.
“Get off the machine and I won’t kill you,” Soneschen says.
Kevin whips around and backs up until his body is pressing against my thigh. He takes his gun from his belt, but the governor is inhumanly fast. He sprints to us before Kevin has his gun aimed. A blood-streaked hand slaps the gun from Kevin’s grip, sending it skidding across the parking lot, and Soneschen’s right hand cinches around Kevin’s neck. Tremors wrack the ex-governor’s body, and purple veins pop out on his neck and forehead from the effort. Slowly, Kevin’s feet come up off the ground. Kevin thrashes and claws at the ex-governor’s hand, but the man doesn’t loosen his hold.
I jump off the four-wheeler and kick Soneschen’s knee, trying to knock him down, but his leg feels like steel against my bare foot. He doesn’t even look at me. And then I think of the blood that was on his teeth, and the beasts kept at the compound. He’s been drinking beast blood. He’s as strong as Jonah.