Dark Demise

by Rebecca Royce

“We’re wasting time.” He walked toward the back door. “See you very soon. You can hold off getting sick for eight hours. I know you can.”

  And just like that, the screen went black again. I sighed. This was becoming a thing. Canyon kept shutting off that view screen, purposefully or not, but it was making me want to throw something.

  I didn’t have gloves or a mask anymore; although considering this was an engineered illness, I doubted it would matter anyway. I steeled my back. I had a job to do. These people needed me. I was going to take care of them, end of story.

  They were all dead.

  There hadn’t been a damn thing I could do for any of them. They remained nameless, and their bodies were covered in soot. Or at least what looked like soot. I covered them up and fought back weeping. They were gone, wiped from the universe, and my skills hadn’t been up to saving them.

  When I’d first been learning to be a nurse, I’d studied with a woman named Geroma Destin. She was kind to me, probably the first person to be so since my mother died, and I’d followed her around, learning at her side while she visited the poorer parts of Sandler One.

  In addition to being a nurse, she was a midwife. It was there I’d learned my love for babies. She’d have known what to do. I’d gotten lazy, careless, counting on the med machine to have a solution. There were strains of flu, strains of plague, things that could kill us despite that, but I’d been so lucky in the last ten months to be around really smart doctors that I’d all but come to believe I wouldn’t have to worry about this.

  Between Dane, Cash, and Lewis, they’d cured the zombie disease. Or at least made it manageable. Cash had eliminated a whole strand of flu. Dane, it was rumored, once invented a machine that wiped memories. Ari was the best practitioner I’d ever seen. He’d say he wasn’t—he’d been trained as the now no longer acknowledged field of psychiatry. I didn’t know what he’d be like in that way, but seeing him treat patients, I always believed they’d be cured.

  I sank down in the comm room and listened to the sound of air systems turning on and off for ten minutes. My tablet’s power was gone. I clicked the button on the view screen, hoping to get Dane. Instead, the only person sitting in the room was Paloma.

  “Hey,” I called out to her, and she jumped, her hand going to her heart.

  “Hey, back.” She smiled at me. “We’re all taking a round here in case you pinged us. The system shows your tablet dead.”

  I sat down in the chair. “It is.” My head felt a little foggy. “My patients are, too.”

  Saying the words opened the floodgates. Paloma and I were alone. My guys were who knew where in the universe of space and time. I didn’t have to hide this distress from anyone.

  Paloma dissolved into tears, and between the two of us, we sat there and wept for five straight minutes.

  “Waverly.” She seemed to be trying to get herself under control. “I am just so happy I met you.”

  Actually, I was acutely grateful I’d have this moment to tell her something. “Paloma, I owe you an apology.”

  She scrunched up her face. “How so?”

  “I didn’t get you out of that cell the first day on my father’s ship.”

  I’d wanted to, but I’d thought it was impossible. People didn’t escape from Garrison Sandler, or I would have done so years earlier. Ultimately, I’d helped my brothers get out of there, but I hadn’t done it soon enough. Fear had made me slow and stupid.

  “Waverly.” She stood and pointed at the screen. “You saved my life. I’d have been dead. What would you have done before you did it? Stop it. Don’t you dare hold onto that guilt for one more second.”

  I nodded. I didn’t think she was exactly right, but I guessed we were okay if she felt that strongly about it.

  “I’m supposed to ask you if you have any symptoms, and if you do, I’m to report them to Dane.” She sat back down. “Do you?”

  Did I? “My head feels a little thick, a little clouded. That might just be because I haven’t slept and because six people just died on my watch. I’m also terrified, so it could be that, too. Otherwise, none of the things Dane particularly wants to know. I don’t have any of them.”

  She tapped her hands on the side of her chair. “Okay.”

  “I guess I should go.” I didn’t usually have trouble coming up with things to say to Paloma. This whole set up, me on the end of this screen, Paloma over there, it made my inner introvert come out and demand attention. It was probably better if I just kept to myself.

  My sister-in-law leaned back in her chair. “Your guys love you so much. You know that, right? I know it’s new, but it’s real.”

  I did know that. I’d actually said something similar to them myself. “I do.”

  “Good. I thought Tommy was going to have a fit when Ari told him he’d be done with him if he said they shouldn’t go look for a cure. Tommy was never going to say that.”

  I hated seeing it. If I could think, if I could conduct myself in any kind of manner that made sense, I’d have told Ari that the last time we spoke. “He shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Tommy gets it. If he thought someone was trying to stop him from getting to me, he’d be furious, too. All has been forgiven.”

  That was good. “Paloma, I’m relieved to hear that. He will need them when this doesn’t go well.”

  I hoped she understood I was trying to avoid saying when I die a horrific death and end up covered in soot. I hoped she understood that without me having to spell it out.

  “Don’t think like that.” She sighed. “Okay, maybe do. I mean, I’ve never been a real believer in the power of positive thinking. I don’t think we affect change like that. At least, I don’t. I’d rather know I see the universe how it is, if that makes sense. None of us will abandon Ari, no matter how angry he gets, in the event of a terrible thing happening. Or any of the others. I think they’d be fun in-laws, by the way.”

  My life had sped up, but marriage hadn’t occurred to me yet. Jackson wanted to work toward that, and I thought the others did, too. We’d have to work it out if I didn’t die and turn to soot.

  “Go back to Ben and my brothers. Don’t sit in that room.” I smiled at her. “Life is short.”

  “It is,” she agreed. “That’s why I’m sitting here talking to you.”

  I must have fallen asleep after I finally got done talking to Paloma. I looked at the clock on the comm. I’d been out of it for maybe an hour, the guys had been gone five, and the sad truth was that nausea rolled through me, letting me know that things had just picked up speed. My throat was also sore.

  I sat up. It was possible I had fever. I rubbed my eyes. Dark spider veins covered my hands. I gave myself a moment to digest this. I’d caught the illness. Whether it was airborne remained to be seen. I hadn’t had the right equipment to be sure that I didn’t contract it through touch. They’d have to see if anyone in the other ships in this bay got ill.

  That would be the real determination. If it was airborne, how fast did it move?

  I took a deep breath. I was going to start puking, and it wasn’t going to be pretty. I clicked the button, this time Dane and Cash were both in the room. That was great. I loved Paloma, but I needed them to see. It might have been too late for me; they could at least know what they were dealing with and how it progressed.

  I held up my hands to the screen and both doctors darted forward to their viewer like they wanted a better look.

  “How long?” Cash asked first, still looking at my hands. I kept them upright so they could continue to stare as long as they wanted.

  “I fell asleep an hour ago without this, woke up now with it. Also, suspected fever—I can’t take it so I don’t know—sore throat, and nausea. I’ll be vomiting soon.”

  Even as I said it, my stomach turned. “It won’t be very much longer. After that, I may not be very communicative. The woman who could talk to me could only say help. You know what? I think my first symptom was my head feeling cloudy. And I think t
hat was five hours ago.”

  Why hadn’t I realized that? Well, because my head was clouded, that was why. I rubbed at my eyes. They burned.

  “Got it,” Dane answered me.

  “I’m going to turn off the screen. You guys don’t need to watch me do this.”

  Cash hissed in his breath. “Don’t do that, Waverly. We’re not going to leave you alone.”

  I swallowed. It was getting harder. By the universe, perhaps it was a gift my patients had been all but unconscious and gone so fast if their bodies hurt this much. Everything burned. That had to be whatever was happening to my veins.

  “I…” It was hard to talk through the pain. If asked to categorize, I’d rank it at a ten. Only, I thought this was likely to get worse. “Cash, I’m going to lose the ability to communicate. I might scream, cry. I’m going to throw up any minute.”

  “Then go ahead.” He sat down on a chair and scooted over toward the screen. “Your guys are out there taking care of business in a way I can’t fathom. If I wasn’t here, I think Ari and Jackson, and Canyon and Rohan now that I know them slightly better, wouldn’t leave Diana alone in the same circumstances. I’m going to do that for you. We’re all family here. Not to mention the whole I’m a doctor thing.”

  I nodded. Okay, I wasn’t really in a position to say anything about it anymore. I ran to a bin I thought was supposed to store something but was currently empty and vomited. I didn’t have anything in my stomach, and it hurt, burned. When I could pull my head up, I stared at my arms.

  The black was spreading. It was up my wrists now. I yelled out. Everything hurt. If Evander Corporation wanted to kill us, couldn’t they have done it instantly? Something to stop our hearts?

  Oh, I knew the answer. They were sadistic bastards who wanted to cause pain. Fuck. I might have said that aloud. I didn’t know.

  Cash and Dane were speaking in low voices. I didn’t know what they said, but I had to admit I did appreciate hearing the sound of their voices. I had to hold on as long as I could. The guys would be back with the cure.

  If I held on to that idea, perhaps I would believe it.

  I couldn’t breathe. That had to mean I was near the end. It had been hours since I’d picked up my head. My eyes were slits. What was the last thing I was going to see? My own puke on the floor. A noise sounded nearby. Or maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe that was something that happened, too. Men in yellow suits were around me. They looked like monsters. Someone was talking.

  A sharp pain hit my arm. What was that? I couldn’t even raise my head to look. Maybe these strange men in yellow suits were here to make it all end. Maybe everyone saw strange men in yellow suits when they died.

  I closed my eyes, and I saw nothing at all.

  I walked toward my father. He sat in my childhood home, staring out at the landscape. He was almost never here anymore. Due to his absence, no one spoke to me unless they had to. I’d come to enjoy the silence.

  “Waverly was your mother’s idea.”

  I didn’t understand. “I’m sorry, sir, what?”

  “Your name was your mother’s idea. It belonged to your grandmother. I hated it right away, but I didn’t care what they called you. Such an ugly baby. I was hoping you’d die at birth.”

  I sucked in my breath. I… I…

  “Waverly,” Canyon called from behind me. I whirled around. “Don’t leave me, Waverly. The whole universe is lit with your light.”

  I ran toward him. I didn’t want to be Waverly, the girl my father wanted to kill at birth. I wanted to be Canyon’s light. Instead of reaching Canyon, Rohan picked me up in his arms. “I’m trying to be better to be worthy of you.”

  “You’d never need to change for me, Ro. Stay just like you are.”

  I was yanked from his arms. Jackson held me tightly to him. “I should have died on the other side of the black hole. I’m so glad you’re here, Waverly. I want to love you until you believe like I do.”

  “I want to believe. I’m so glad you’re here.” Tears streamed down my face.

  Ari came to my side. “Someday you’ll see what I do. You’ll see that we were always supposed to be together and what we are together goes beyond beauty; it speaks to forever.”

  My father yanked me from him. “If I break something, no one will care, Waverly. No one will care ever.”

  His fist hit me square in the face.

  Blackness surrounded me.

  15

  Recovery

  Pain.

  I woke up in pain. I’d never known the like. How could I have thought the other discomfort rated a ten? I’d just had no clue how badly I could hurt. This was wrong. People in yellow suits had come to get me. I should be in a med machine.

  I wrenched open my eyes. Someone in a yellow suit stared down at me. I wasn’t in a med machine but on a table in a Med Bay, and through the helmet on the suit, I could see… Lewis. He stared down at me.

  “Waverly, can you hear me?”

  I tried to answer, but it hurt. He took my hand in his, glove to my skin. “Listen to me, we know how to save you. And we can’t put you in the med machine to do it, not yet. You’re in a ship in the same dock you were in before. A ship with a med machine and a fully working Med Bay. One of Tommy’s best designs. The people on the other ships have all been evacuated, and no one got sick. You saved them. Now we’re going to save you. But first we have to stop the overreaction of your immune system. The machine isn’t going to be able to do this. Evander was very nefarious. But we know what to do.”

  He held up my hand so I could see it. There was an IV sticking out of it. By the universe, this was caveman medicine. I nodded, which sent electricity up my spine.

  Another voice called out to me. “Waverly?” It was Canyon. He also wore a yellow suit. Was I contagious to him? The Super Soldiers didn’t usually get sick.

  Lewis jerked around to look at him. “How are you awake?”

  He always came when I needed him. Tears burned my eyes. Canyon’s beloved face stared down at me. “You aren’t to die. Do you understand? They will fix you. It is doable.”

  Doable but not guaranteed. They’d traveled through time and come back with an answer for me. He took my other hand. “I’m not going anywhere, Waverly. You stay here with me.”

  I closed my eyes. Blackness again.

  Voices would drift into my nothingness reminding me that I was alive. Otherwise, I felt nothing at all. They had to be giving me something in the IV in my hand. I realized that and then naught would filter in to my brain once more.

  Calm voices—all muffled through the masks they must have been wearing—Cash, Dane, Lewis… Ari. Yes, I’d hear him occasionally. He spoke in his doctor voice. Calm, reassuring. He’d say my name. Touch my face. Maybe I imagined that part.

  Other voices were not so calm. I heard them less frequently. Canyon was not happy. They sent him away. Rohan came. Also, not calm. I didn’t hear Jackson. Where was he? Had he not come, or did I simply not register when he was there? My brother Tommy yelled something at Dane. Quinn. Then the darkness again.

  It could have been minutes, hours, days, weeks, years…

  Finally, light filtered through my eyelids. I was on a medical bed. A beeping noise didn’t let me drift back into unconsciousness. Across the room, Dane and Cash sipped coffee, talking quietly. They weren’t wearing their suits. I must not have been a risk to them anymore.

  I quickly raised my hand. No black veins. Relief washed through me like a calming balm. This had to be good news. I struggled to sit up, and a hand came to my back. Rohan stood next to me, his head tilted slightly to the left.

  “Are you awake? Or are you fooling us again?”

  I touched his arm. He felt strong, real, present. “I’m awake. I think.”

  “That’s more than you’ve uttered before, so I am going to believe you.” Rohan helped me into a sitting position. The room spun and then righted. He never moved his hand from my back. Dane came fully into my vision.

 
; “Welcome back, Waverly. We’re mighty glad to see you. Scared us. You also saved everyone with your quick thinking. Pulling the quarantine. Staying put. That was all smart and brave. You’re going to be okay.”

  That was kind of him to say. “I’m… weak.”

  “Yes and will likely be for a long time, I’m afraid. The write up your guys got from Evander’s mainframe indicated those that were given the disease for the purpose of administering the cure to see if it worked had a long recovery in front of them. You’re just in the beginning stages. The med machine has to be coded to deal with this stuff, and your brothers have tackled the task. In the meantime, you’re going to have to let yourself get better the good old fashioned way—rest, food, hydration, and rest some more.”

  Cash came over, a bowl in his hand, and gave it to Rohan. “Broth.”

  Ro nodded like he understood what he was supposed to do with that. “I’ll hold it for you, you sip.”

  “No.” I shook my head. My stomach turned at the thought. “Not ready.”

  He turned to Cash, and the doctor nodded. “We’ll try again in a little while.”

  Rohan apparently interpreted that to mean two minutes because that was how long he gave me before the broth was in my mouth. I drank it down slowly. It was hard to deny Ro anything when every sip I took of the broth made his smile appear broader. I’d officially gotten it down ten minutes later. I wasn’t at all sure that was a good thing. I didn’t want to puke. I felt like doing so might break every bone in my body.

  Rohan rubbed my back, which helped. I breathed through my nose. “How long have I been sick?”

  “Long time,” he answered me in a quiet voice. “Too long.”

  Dane looked over his shoulder from where he studied readings on the med machine. I wasn’t inside the device, but it still monitored me. “Remarkably short amount of time, considering you were pretty much a goner when he got you in here. A week.”

  “Too long,” Ro uttered again.

  I looked up at him. “Thank you for finding the cure.”