“I still don’t get how Dr. Solis knows there are fifty strains.”
“When the plague began, Titan’s CEO, Isla Prejean, made Titan’s research available to the scientific community. She was hoping that someone could find a way to stop the spread of infection. That’s how we know there are fifty strains.” Everson’s jaw tightened. “If we’re ever going to reclaim the eastern half of our country, we need a vaccine. Better yet, a cure. And we’re never going to develop either if someone doesn’t go deeper into the Feral Zone and find people infected with the strains that we’re missing.”
“Then what? You’d bring those people here?”
“No. All Dr. Solis needs is a sample of their blood.”
My brows rose. “Good luck collecting that.”
“It’s dangerous, yeah. But I’d go. I volunteered.”
“The patrol won’t let you?”
“The brass won’t even consider it. They say our job is to secure the quarantine line, not cross it.”
“Why doesn’t the president send in the army?” Even before I finished asking it, I knew the answer. “Because our military is a joke.” Anyone who wanted to enlist these days usually chose to work for a private security force, like the line patrol. Not only did corporate militias pay better, they also had state-of-the-art weapons, equipment, and training centers.
“The national armed forces aren’t a joke,” Everson said sternly. “Every branch lost more than half their people during the outbreak because they were stationed in hot zones, trying to contain the spread of infection.”
And clearly he admired them for it. “Are you sure you’re not a guard on the inside?”
A flash of something dark crossed his features and he glanced away.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “Why did you join the line patrol instead of the army?”
He tipped his head back against the door and stayed silent for a moment. Just as I thought he wasn’t going to answer, he spoke, his voice low and rough. “You know how everyone says their parents are overprotective?”
“Yes, because they are.”
“Okay, take that paranoia, multiply it by a thousand, and you have my mother. She lives in terror of catching Ferae. My father died in the first wave of the plague and she never got over it. When I was growing up, she wouldn’t let me go anywhere or do anything with anyone.”
“Join the club.”
“No, I mean literally.” He turned to me, his expression serious. “She has blowers set up in every room. Plastic sheeting over all the windows and doors. She works from home, so the only people she sees are her employees, who have no choice but to put up with her insane rules. Even my tutors had to change into sanitized clothes before they could come near me.”
“Tutors, as in teachers you met with in person?”
He nodded stiffly. “When I was seven, I tried to sneak out. That’s when my mother told me that I was born with an autoimmune deficiency and that if I ever left home, I’d die.”
I struggled to understand. His mother had lied to him about having a birth defect just to keep him at home? “But it’s not true?”
“Obviously.” He gestured to the air around us.
“Whoa.” And I’d thought I had it bad. Suddenly my dad’s obsession with survival skills and self-defense seemed almost sane. “That’s … um, pretty messed up.”
“Yeah.” He rubbed his forehead like he’d downed a slushy too fast.
“When did you find out that you’re fine?”
“A year ago,” he said, dropping his hand. “I left home that day and joined the patrol. I’d read that there was a doctor on Arsenal working on a cure, so I got myself assigned here. I’d rather fight Ferae head on than spend my life hiding from it.”
“I didn’t know line guards got to choose their assignments.”
“I’m not your average guard,” he said offhandedly. “For one thing, I’ve completed all of the undergrad science courseware and passed the exam.”
“Undergrad as in college?”
“Yes.” At my incredulous look, he shrugged. “I was locked inside for years. What else was I going to do?”
It was possible. Now that school was held online, you could move at your own pace, fast or slow. Even I’d skipped a grade. I sighed inwardly. So what if Everson was smart? He was also a guard who was supposed to keep the quarantine line secure. He was not about to help me find a way to get across the river, which was all that mattered right now.
He nudged my knee. “You’re handling all this really well. That or” — he shifted to see my face — “you’re great at hiding your feelings.”
“Showing them doesn’t change anything.” You just ended up looking pathetic, like when I’d called my supposed friends after my mom died, begging them to play with me, sobbing on the view screen when they’d refused. Dad and I moved to Davenport a year later, and I never saw any of them again, but I still cringed thinking about it.
Everson waited for me to say more, but I just shrugged. What else was there to say? Of course I was wrung out with worry for my dad and scared sick just thinking about crossing the bridge, but I could handle it — would handle it — because seeing my dad get executed … That I couldn’t handle.
“So,” Everson said after a moment. “What does that director want fetched? Must be important if she’s willing to risk her career to cut a deal with Mack.”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t opened Director Spurling’s letter to my dad. I pulled the messenger bag across the floor and took out the envelope. I held it flat on my open palm. It was wrong to open other people’s letters.
Everson plucked the envelope from my hand and tore it open unceremoniously. So much for holding it in the steam of a teakettle so I could open it without having to admit it later. I pulled my ponytail tight as he unfolded the letter, written on heavy cream-colored paper that matched the envelope.
“Dear Mack,” he read aloud. “I’m told that’s what your clients call you, and that’s how you should think of me, as a client — only I won’t be paying your exorbitant fee in money. There is something I left behind in Chicago that I want very badly. If you can find it and bring it to me, I will erase the recording I have of you entering the checkpoint chamber and delete the files I’ve been amassing for the past several years on you and your clients.
“If you do complete the fetch, rest assured it will be your last. I know that your wife’s cancer bankrupted you, but surely you have enough now to live on until you find honest work in your field. If you value your life and your freedom, you will never again after this fetch cross the quarantine line. Say good-bye to the East, Mack, for good, for your own sake and for your daughter’s.”
Everson held the letter between us and pointed to what Spurling had written at the bottom of the page. An address in Chicago and “Arabella Spurling, age 6. Brown hair, blue eyes. Any photo in good condition.”
Arabella Spurling. She must have been Director Spurling’s daughter. I actually felt a little bad for her for a moment, until I remembered that she was the reason my dad was on the run in the Feral Zone.
Everson let the letter drop to the floor. “What kind of person sends a clueless girl into the most dangerous situation possible for a photo?” There was as much venom in his voice as in a bucket of chimpacabra spit.
I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I thought about it anyway. What kind of person did such a thing? A desperate one. I wondered if her memories of her daughter had begun to fade. I could still remember what my mother had looked like, because I had file upon file of digital video of our family. I could still see her face and hear her voice any time I wanted to. Except for right now, of course.
What I couldn’t do was feel her arms around me or her kiss at the edge of my hairline. I could still remember how she smelled — like honey, somehow — but there might be a day when I couldn’t conjure that up. If that ever happened, I could imagine feeling quite desperate.
I picked up Spurli
ng’s letter. Wait. What had Everson just called me?
“I am not clueless,” I said, sitting up straighter against the door. “In fact, my dad has been telling me about the Feral Zone for years.”
“But he never mentioned the grupped ferals who live there?”
“He did. He just didn’t call them grupped ferals.” They were the were-beasts, mongrels, and manimals from his bedtime stories. Only now I knew that they weren’t fiction. Dad had been describing his day at the office, which happened to be in a forbidden quarantine zone. “And yes, okay, he may have sugarcoated things a bit. But it doesn’t matter because no one forced me to come here. And even after being attacked by an infected guy and seeing a man bleeding to death in a wagon because he’d been mauled and finding those horrible photos of mutated body parts, I’m still glad I —”
I couldn’t breathe.
I put my head down and tried to take in air, but my lungs grew stiffer by the second. And then the gasping started and I heard myself suffocating.
Everson held something up to my face, commanding, “Inhale.”
A prickly scent blasted up my nose and into my brain where it switched on strings of fairy lights at the back of my eyeballs. Choking, I shoved his hand away. “What was —” Then I saw the dark-blue inhaler in his palm and my bones melted.
“It’s Lull,” he explained. “I didn’t press long enough to put you out. It’ll just calm you down.” He tucked the inhaler into the front pocket of my pants. “If you’re still anxious, take another hit.”
Another hit? I fell back against the door.
“Okaaay … ,” Everson said, surprised.
The air around me turned into gelatin as I dripped down the wall.
“Actually,” he said. “Let’s keep it at one.”
Sure. Whatever. The door lolled against my back. My cheek dipped onto my shoulder. I tried to straighten up, but had lost my sense of up. Much easier to let gravity do the figuring so I let it pull me down. My head landed on something that wasn’t the floor. Not too soft, not too hard. “Just right,” I murmured.
“Oh crap,” said a voice, warm on my ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be so sensitive.”
“S’okay.” Rolling to my side, I snuggled down for the night. My fingers curled into the sheet and pulled it to my chin. “I like the scary ones,” I assured him. And I did. I also liked it when he stayed until I fell asleep. I reached up and cupped his cheek, firm and warm. “You need to shave,” I murmured, tracing a finger down his sideburn, and then wondered why that would make my father gasp.
I couldn’t place what was wrong with the scream. The note. The pitch. Something was off. The person screamed again, which dragged me into consciousness. He didn’t sound scared…. I rolled onto my back, listening to the drawn out howl.
“It’s Bangor,” said a voice so close I flinched.
Sitting up, I searched the darkness. As my eyes adjusted, my memories came flooding back. I was still in the supply-room closet. Twisting, I found Everson seated behind me. My gaze narrowed on his lap. “Did I —”
“I’m sorry about the Lull. I didn’t mean —”
“How long was I out?”
Everson rose, avoiding my gaze. “A couple of hours. I’m not sure. I fell asleep too. Look, I didn’t —” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry.”
A couple of hours — that was all? The muddy flow of my thoughts felt like the result of a weeklong coma.
A gunshot rang out, startling us both, followed by another scream — agonized this time. Everson dropped his face into his palm. When boots sprinted into the supply room beyond the door, I rose on usteady legs.
The chair wedged under the knob was flung aside with a crash and the closet door opened.
The infected guard, Bangor, stood before us, wavering on his feet, though his yellow-eyed gaze seemed sharp enough as it settled on me. When he lunged, Everson shoved me back and grabbed Bangor by the shoulders, holding him at arm’s length.
Where were the other guards?
I had to help Everson. I snagged the tranq gun from his thigh holster. Who knew if the safety was on or if the thing was even loaded? Still, I aimed it at the yellow-eyed guard.
“Lane, don’t” Everson said.
What? I stepped aside to see his face, but his gaze was locked onto Bangor.
“Help me, Ev.” The man clutched at Everson’s shirt. “Don’t let them put me out there. I’m okay. The fever’s broken. I’m going to be okay. Tell Dr. Solis he can try anything on me. Just let me stay here.”
The guards arrived then, and Bangor bellowed as they dragged him backward out of the closet doorway. A guard knocked Bangor’s hands off of Everson so that the others could force him to the floor. Everson took the tranq gun from me, reholstered it, and stepped out of the closet. I stayed as far back as possible and pulled on my cap.
“You shot him?” Everson stared down at the scuffling men.
I followed his gaze and found the hole in the thigh of Bangor’s pants, the growing aura of blood around it.
“What were we supposed to do? He ran.” The tremor in the guard’s voice matched the one in my stomach. His gaze flicked to me and then back to Everson. “What are you two doing in there?”
“We were locked in.” Everson pointed at the chair Bangor had flung aside. “Rafe.”
Another guard shot to his feet and looked around the supply room. “Is he still here?”
“Long gone.”
“I hate that guy,” the guard muttered, rubbing his side as if he’d just taken a punch.
Bangor wept as the guards set to work binding his wrists and ankles with leather straps. I edged into the doorway of the closet. No one seemed to be paying me any attention at this point. Not with a crying, bleeding man on the floor. “Where are they taking him?”
Something dark flickered in Everson’s expression. “He’s infected. He can’t stay in camp — patrol rule.”
Once Bangor was trussed, a guard put on latex gloves and gingerly wrapped a hospital gown around Bangor’s thigh. He began to struggle, trying to get away, but there were too many of them. “I’m okay now. I’m not going to infect anyone. Just leave me here and let the doctor study me.”
Without a word, the guards hefted him up and carried him from the room.
Everson went back into the supply closet and threw some things in a cloth drawstring bag. Then he took off after the guards, skirting the puddled blood on the floor. I snatched up my dad’s messenger bag and followed. If they were going to force Bangor into the Feral Zone, they’d have to open the gate. This could be my chance to cross the bridge. But did I really want to?
I caught up with Everson at the infirmary’s entrance where he stood, blocking the guards from going through the doors. “At least let the doctor take the bullet out of his leg,” he said to them.
“Listen to him, guys, please. Just take me to Dr. Solis. And I’ve got to call my wife. You know she’s pregnant. Let me call her. I’ve got to call her!”
The glass door opened behind Everson. “Move aside, Cruz.”
Everson glanced over his shoulder, took in the balding, middle-aged man, and stepped out of the way. From the insignia on his jacket, I guessed that he was an officer or something.
The guards carrying Bangor pushed past Everson, who followed right behind.
“Captain Hyrax, sir, if he’s going to have a chance of surviving in the zone, he can’t go in with an open wound.”
“I hear Solis is whiffed out,” the captain said, sounding disdainful. “Two guards tried to wake him. I’m not keeping an infected man around while we wait for the good doctor to rejoin the conscious.” Under the floodlights, the captain’s face seemed abnormally pale. Only his eyes burned dark.
“Then let me take the bullet out,” Everson offered. “You know I can.”
“So you get your hands wet with infected blood?” he snapped. “That’s sure to go over with corporate.” With a jerk of his chin, he ordered t
he guards to take off with Bangor.
“At least let me give him some supplies. Hold up!” Everson hurried after the guards, the white cloth sack in hand. I ran after him, hoping the captain didn’t notice me. Was I supposed to salute or something?
“There are some bandages in here and some hydrogen peroxide,” Everson said, bending to look into Bangor’s yellow eyes. “If the bullet is close to the surface, try to pull it out with the surgical tweezers I put in there. Get to the quarantine compound in Moline if you can. You know where it is?”
Bangor turned his head away, and Everson tucked the bag down his shirt.
Captain Hyrax watched this coldly. “Cruz, if you want to protect the population, you gotta stop seeing the people. There’s a greater good at stake here.”
I couldn’t believe that they were going to force a sick, wounded man into the Feral Zone. Everson followed them, his fists clenched, while I trailed behind like a zombie until they reached the bridge. There was no one on the other side of the gate now, and as far as I could tell, the bridge was empty. I could barely make out its eerie silhouette through the cold morning fog.
As the huge gate rolled open, the captain stepped in front of Bangor, who had begun to sob. “Please let me talk to my wife. Our baby is due next month. I need to tell her —”
“I’m sorry about this, son,” the captain said. “Truly, I am. But you’ll have to find another way to live now. I’ll see that your compensation check gets to your wife.”
He moved aside and nodded to the guards, who then cut Bangor’s bindings and heaved him through the open gate. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming at them. I’d never seen anything so deliberately cruel in my life.
Bangor hit the bridge hard and lay there, moaning. Here was my chance, and yet I didn’t move. I couldn’t just step over Bangor, who looked like he’d gone crazy again, rolling side to side and howling his despair to the sky. The sound made me want to claw out my ears. Then without warning, Bangor shot to his feet and threw himself at the diminishing gap in the mechanized gate, but as hard as he yanked, he couldn’t stop it from clanging shut. Skin glistening, he leapt onto the gate. He had a bullet in his thigh, his pants were soaked with blood, and yet he started climbing the fence effortlessly.