Born (The Born Trilogy Book 1)

by Tara Brown

  I open the door to the garden and let Leo in there. He leaps in and hides in the garden.

  The nurse goes through another doorway and I break into a run. I arrive at the first door and open it.

  "Get up and wake up the girls next door."

  A very pregnant redhead wakes with a start and looks at me, startled. “What?"

  "The infection has gotten inside. Everyone needs to go to the pool. Immediately. We're doing a lockout."

  She waddles out of the bed and starts banging on doors.

  I walk until I get to another door that needs my pass. On the other side of the door there is another hallway with a kitchen and garden like our side. I run and open the first door. “Wake up and help wake the other girls. You have to tell them the infection has reached us. We are all going to the pool. RUN!"

  Two women get up and start gathering their babies. This is the baby hallway. I hear babies starting to cry as I make my way to the next door with a scanner on it. When I open it, there’s a man talking to a young girl on a couch. He's rubbing her leg and shaking his head. I raise my gun and take aim. They don’t see me. His hand squeezes her thigh and my finger pulls the trigger before I reason with myself. His head jerks back. Blood seeps down between his eyes. She sees the blood spray on the back wall and screams. She screams louder when she sees me.

  I put a finger to my lips. “The infection has gotten in. Tell everyone to wake up and get to the pool. Hurry. They're destroying the building."

  Silent tears roll down her cheeks. “He was such a kind man,” she whispers.

  "If you want to stay here with him, feel free. You will be dead shortly if you do. Then you can be together. Forever.” She's up and running before I have to say another word.

  I knock on another door, just in case she decides to be a moron, waking a young girl with a swollen belly. She can't be older than Anna. I gag a little. “Everyone needs to wake up. The infection has spread here. Everyone to the pool. Wake everyone and go there now."

  I go to swipe the card to open the next door at the end of the long hallway, but it opens. A shiny woman with a pretty face frowns. “Who are you?"

  I lift the gun and pull the trigger before she has a chance to scream. She drops to the floor. I step over her and see another nurse. I know I am in the little-kid section. I shoot the nurse in the back of the head. I look back and see a girl with brown hair who has a slightly swollen belly. “Come and help the small kids get out."

  She follows me but stops when she sees the dead nurse.

  "They were going to leave us here to get the infection. The alarm is going to sound in a minute or so. They plan to blow the building up. The pool is the best bet, apparently."

  She bites her lip hesitantly. “You are a doctor?"

  "I'm one of you. I was on the women's side. They were going to let us die."

  She steps over the nurse. “I never liked that nag anyway.” She smiles at the small girl in front of her. “Hey, you need to come with me, okay?"

  I turn and walk back. Every hall I pass through has women running scared. Nurses are on the floors trying to calm everyone. I shoot the few I can hit without injuring anyone else. It makes the screaming worse. I round a corner and hear a woman speaking. “When the alarm sounds, we know then that it's an evacuation. Not until then.”

  I sneak my way behind her and run to the garden where Leo waits and get him. We leave together through the other door and I think I’m lost. I leave the doorway and enter into a staff area where I find a map on the wall. I smash the glass and pull it off before walking to a set of stairs that I climb to enter another hallway.

  "Hey, you. Where do you think you're going?"

  I turn and shoot without thought. It’s the only way I am going to be able to do this, by turning everything off and letting the cold mean settle in.

  The man in the lab coat drops. I know the guards will be coming soon. Normally, they aren’t allowed in where the women are, but dead doctors and nurses are going to alert someone.

  I look down at the map again to see where the elevator is and smash the glass it’s encased in and pull the paper out. I fold the small map and put it in my pocket, as I sneak through the hall, rounding the corners with stealth. I shoot one doctor who is on the phone. He drops it onto the desk and collapses. I scan my way onto the elevator, pushing B and assuming it means basement.

  When the door opens, fear instantly hits me. It's dark and steamy. The place makes noises I've not heard in a long time. Noises motors make.

  Leo is afraid—it’s obvious in his stance and the hackles on his back.

  I peer out into the dim light. No one is there but I am terrified. I step out with Leo next to me. We walk slowly, looking all around us. My stomach is knotted tighter than when Will touches me.

  A hissing noise blasts beside us. Leo and I jump as steam is released from a valve. I almost laugh when it happens, but I’m mildly nauseated for a moment. My injuries are clearly not gone.

  A red light starts flashing and a loud alarm goes off. In the flashes of red light, I see the far left corner where the detonation place is. I run to the corner, looking at the red flashes and wonder if the dead doctors and nurses have been found.

  The panel is something I've never seen before. It's huge and covered in buttons and diagrams. The wall above it has a list of steps:

  1. Open the beige metal lid.

  2. Press the number of minutes you wish to allow for evacuation.

  3. When the red light flashes, re-enter the number of minutes and press the green button to set the time.

  4. Lock out the doors you wish to seal.

  The lid is already opened. I look at it and press the one and the zero. The red light flashes. I press the one and the zero again, then I press the green button and look at the labels. I push the black button next to the doctors’ lounges, nurses’ rooms, and the guards’ desks. The remainder of the doors I leave open.

  I fire several shots at the number pad and ruin it. There is a slot for a key card so I shoot it too. The bullets ricochet off the walls and pipes that hang low. Steam starts to come out of several of the pipes above me. Water comes out of one.

  I look at Leo. “We need to go now."

  We run to the elevator, but I have a bad feeling about it. I catch a glimpse of an exit sign and run for it. The door has no scanner so I push it open and listen. There is no sound, but I wait one more second. I hear men shouting in a stairwell above me. I climb a flight of the stairs and listen for the men, but they are not in the stairwell. They’re in a hallway next to it. We climb the stairs. On the second floor I scan my way out but poke my head out to see the hallway I’m in before leaving the doorway. The broken glass from the map is on the floor next to the dead doctor.

  Leo growls. I sense it too. I scan the area but see nothing. The alarms sounding have doubled and now there’s a red light and an orange light flashing opposite each other. My heart is in my throat.

  There is something around the corner and through the doorway that is bad. I can feel it.

  I raise my gun and glance quickly around the corner. Several men stand in a group.

  "Rebels in the halls and on the grass” is all I can make out. I glance at Leo and nod at the door next to us. When I open it we slip inside and wait. I know we have about eight minutes if we're lucky. The office is empty, but it has a window. I peek out and see several gardens. There are four. Each wing has its own garden. The building is a giant rectangle with the four gardens in the middle. Each has a glass roof over it. The kids and moms all get natural light from them, like greenhouses.

  I stand at the door and listen. I hear footsteps and voices. When they pass, I almost open the door but I wait ten more seconds. I hear someone run past the door. I open it and look out. No one is there so I slip back into the hallway where the stairs to the lower level are. The hall is empty. If they are trained like I was, they won't double back. This section is cleared. I reload my clip. Thank God for the seventeen shots. I get
why Mary loves this gun.

  We have minutes, at most. I start making my way back to the office where the doctor/spy is tied up. Girls and women are running every which way. Nurses are telling them to go back to their rooms but they fight them. I raise my gun and shoot one nurse who is dragging a young girl to a room. The girl looks at me and smiles.

  "Get to the pool. The building is about to blow up. The infection is here. We need to get away. The pool is the only safe spot.” I shout but it only makes them scream and run more. I run through the building to where I locked the doctor in. I scan his door open to see him sitting looking terrified and annoyed. He snaps at me, “About damned time! Jesus! What kind of plan is this? We have three minutes until the building implodes, for crying out loud!"

  I untie him and wince when I see how swollen his eye is. “Your eye is swelling pretty bad."

  He shakes his head. “If they had opened my door, it would have saved me."

  We sneak out of his office and run down the hall to where the women's side is. I scan the door and we run into the main kitchen area.

  "Get to the pool. Please run now or you will die. The building blows up in three minutes. Hurry, please.” He is herding them. I am scanning the crowd for one face.

  In the chaos, I don’t see her. The doctor leads us to the pool. The room is huge. There are windows on one whole side of the pool.

  "Get into the pool.” He tries to talk normally.

  He jumps into the pool and starts shouting, “COME AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!"

  There are far more women than I imagined there would be. I smile, imagining there are three other pools that look like this one. Pools full of women and children about to escape.

  "Emma."

  I turn and see Muriel. Her face is beaten up a bit, but she is running toward me. I run and hug her. "I'm so sorry."

  "No, the infected. What could we do?"

  I shake my head. “No. I should have been prepared for them too. I never even gave them a thought."

  She hugs me tight and talks over the loud women panicking in the water. “Is this chaos you?"

  I nod. “It's all I could think of. The building is going to be destroyed in a few seconds. The pool is supposed to be the best bet."

  She grips my hand. I grab Leo, who is starting to freak out, by the scruff of his neck and drag him into the water. It's cold and not inviting. Leo starts his splashing as he enters. He loves the water but he is more nervous than normal.

  People are looking at him and me and raising their eyebrows.

  "To the deep end, ladies. If the ceiling collapses, it's our best shot at surviving.”

  Those of us who can swim, all swim in a chaotic horde for the deep end. The others cry and scream at the shallow end. The noise is unbearable. Leo is panting and panicking. He wants out of the pool. I let him go. He knows best. His instincts are better than anyone's. He swims to the edge and climbs out. He slinks to the corner and sits there. A girl who doesn’t look much older than me follows him. She curls against him and cries.

  The noise is too much. Suddenly another noise rises over everything and shakes the building around us. I blow my air out and let myself drop to the bottom of the pool. I look up at the feet above me. They seem calm and collected for a second. Then it looks like red ink has been spilled into the pool. The water starts to froth and churn. I can't see above me anymore. My chest is crying out for air, but I stay down there and watch. A woman is shoved under. I grab her hand and pull her down to me. I swim, towing her to the shallow end. The frothing water is everywhere. It looks like the rapids of a river. When I pull her out of the water, I am elbowed in the face. I see stars for a second but keep moving. I am shoving people out of the way. I drag the girl to the shallowest part and start smacking her on the back hard. She chokes out the water and starts coughing. I am tripped and pushed under. Feet trample me. I grab the girl who was coughing and push her up out of the water. I am under water and drowning but holding her out of the water.

  A hand grabs the scruff of my neck and lifts me from the water. I look up to see the worried face of the doctor. He points to the broken windows that lead to the outside.

  "Freedom."

  Leo is already out the window. He is watching me from the other side.

  I shout. “THE WINDOWS. BREAK THE WINDOWS MORE SO WE CAN ALL GET OUT!"

  The women rush at the windows and start smashing the lounging chairs against the already damaged glass. One window is broken and a girl is pushed through. Her skin scrapes against the glass, making her scream.

  They are panicking. I unscrew the silencer and fire a shot into the cracked and ruined ceiling. The women stop and look at me. I walk to the dark-haired girl on the ground bleeding. “THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT? TO KILL EACH OTHER? SINGLE FILE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE!”

  The doctor picks her up and climbs out of the jagged glass. The women leave, obviously calmer, but still in a hurry. I climb out and ready myself with my gun. There is no one on the brown grass.

  The doctor shouts looking back, “RUN FOR THE WOODS!" He is running across the grass with the girl in his arms when I hear a shot and he drops. The girl screams.

  I look up at the roof to see a sniper team and I aim, firing several times. The first four men drop off the roof, making the women and girls scream more. The fifth man sees me and shoots. There’s a hot burning feeling in my left arm but I ignore push away the pain and aim, fire, and knock him back. He's too far for me to kill, but I know I winged him.

  "RUN NOW!” I scream, making them all scramble. I grab the girl under the dead doctor and help her. Leo is running ahead, showing them the way. I look to the left and see a group of women with screaming babies fleeing for the woods. Some fall as gunshots ring out. Their babies fall with them.

  In my mind, I hear my father whisper to me. You can't save everyone, Em.

  I shout at the women with me, “Run and break the branches. Stay together. I will follow the broken branches and find you. I will lead you to safety."

  "Emma, I will lead them to the trail of the camp.” I see Muriel and I nod. “I'm right behind you. I gotta get the young ones and the babies."

  She nods and starts shouting at the crying women.

  I head across the forest. I hear a crack and turn to see Leo standing beside me. “You came back, huh? Ready to kill some things?” He pants. I know he's freaking out.

  Through the woods, I can see the building is on fire. The ledge where the snipers are is the only part still standing. Everything else looks blown out and in ruins. It warms my heart a little.

  I run to where the screams are coming from. When I get to the women who made it to the forest, I point to where I just came from. “Follow the tree line, until you come to a bunch of broken branches and follow them. Safety is that way."

  They run holding babies and small children.

  I run through the herd and come out at the opening. A man is grabbing a woman. I shoot him and hit his ear. He grabs it and I fire again, hitting him in the throat. The lady grabs her baby and runs from the dying man. I fire at the last few men on the ledge, hitting one as the other two duck. I keep shooting as the women make their way across the grass and into the woods.

  One man pokes his head up and I fire, skimming his head.

  Something grabs my arm. I turn, looking for Leo, but he has a man on the ground and is tearing out his throat. I look at the hand on my arm as I point my gun, but I stop myself when I see Will's blue eyes glaring at me. He doesn't say a thing, just turns and drags me into the forest. Tufts of grass blow up into the air behind me as shots are still being fired at me. I fire back at the men on the roof. "Let me go, Will. I need to save the girls. There is another side where the young children are. They need help.” I pull at him.

  He doesn’t speak. I kick and claw at him but he doesn’t budge.

  The fight must look like a bratty two-year-old being dragged by her father. He has no problem dragging me into the forest. I kick and fight as tears of frustration blind m
e. "LEO! LEO, HELP!"

  Leo comes running in with fresh blood on his muzzle. He sees Will and stops running.

  "Leo, bite him." Leo licks his lips and falls into stride with Will. He senses no danger or he just plain old agrees with Will on this decision.

  I try to keep up but my feet stumble on a log and I lose my footing. Will drags me for a while. My legs bang on sticks, branches, and rocks, but still he drags me. My arm feels like it's coming out of my socket.

  "Just let me go back, please. I promise I won't ever run again. I promise. Let me save them, Will."

  He stops and picks me up. He throws me over his shoulder. I am defeated. The children are dead. He let them die. I let them die.

  I will never forgive myself.

  I wish I hadn’t even cared in the first place and that makes me feel even worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Back at the spot that we camped the night before, the sight is beyond what I can comprehend. Children are everywhere. They're toddling about in every direction or breast-feeding. They cry and make noise.

  I smile at the sight. I have no idea how he did it, but I know it was him.

  "Thought you hated kids?” Will smiles sarcastically.

  I take the water he offers, drinking slowly. I am starved and dehydrated and probably still very sick from the head wound I got the day before. "How?"

  He looks angry. No—pissed. He looks pissed. “We followed your trail this morning. When we figured out what you had done, we couldn’t get in so we decided to wait outside and see which exit you came out with guards gunning for you."

  I am amazed. "You sat at every exit?"

  "We paired off. It was pretty obvious what you had done when the blast happened and the smoke started filling the sky."

  "So many made it. Did we lose any of us?” I ask.

  "We lost two yesterday in the giant screw up we called an ambush. They were shot trying to save Muriel.” His eyes flicker on mine. I feel sick. I add them to the list of people whose deaths I am responsible for.