I'm so shocked I don't even move for a moment, but Sam, perfect Sam, never misses a beat. He jogs past me, pursuing my mom. Only his concern for her well being keeps him from tackling her to the ground I imagine, but eventually he circles around and blocks her progress with his body. He yanks the journal away, and holds it over his head. Unfortunately, the truck full of guards has nearly reached them.
He glances toward me and then back to my mom, as if trying to decide what to do. She's obviously been brainwashed, but I don't understand why she'd run back to Solomon, now that she's nearly free. Sam tries to pull my mom back toward me and Job, but she struggles.
I call out. “It's okay, Sam. If she won't come, just leave her.”
So many guns pointed in their direction. I want Sam headed toward me, not fighting with my insane mother. My heart crumples a little bit, but I'd pick Sam a million times over between him and a crazy woman I barely know. She didn't care enough about me to even track me down seventeen years ago, or any time in the years since.
My mom spins around and points at the journal clutched in Sam’s strong hands, and idiot that I am, I'm surprised when I hear her yell at the approaching guards. “King Solomon's injured. He needs that book. You must get it to him. Fire freely, as long as you don't hit the book.”
The guards react immediately, not even exiting the truck first. Their guns, clasped in uniformed hands, point out of the truck windows like antenna from some malevolent bug. Six shots fire in quick succession. Sam's body shakes, blooms of red sprouting on his chest. My heart races, and I feel dizzy. My body slumps forward, and only Job's hand keeps me upright.
I breathe in one jagged lungful of air and try to step toward him, my hand outstretched.
Job stops me. “Don't go. You can't help anything, not now.”
Six gunshots. Sam should be lying in a heap on the ground, but he isn't. I blink back tears, shake myself free of Job and run faster than I've ever run before on my way back toward him. Even running at my fastest, Job passes me a second later. I hate this tiny body I'm stuck inside.
Sam pulls his gun out, and stumbles down the road toward Job and me. We're two hundred feet apart, then just a hundred and finally, only fifty. Usually Sam runs twice as fast as I do, but not now, not soaked in blood. He's barely stumbling toward me, and he’s close enough that I can focus on his gun shot wounds. All six are in his torso, and if I had to guess, I'd say heart, lungs, stomach, liver and maybe a glancing wound over his ribs.
In my concern for Sam, I'm not watching my mom, and neither is he. She runs up behind him and snatches the journal back, just as the truck barrels up behind them. Brainwashed or not, abused or not, broken or not, I'll never forgive her for this. My mother deserves Solomon.
Motion behind Sam draws my eye. More vehicles full of armed men roll toward us behind the first, but the first stopped twenty-five feet from Sam. I need to get there faster. My lungs scream, my legs shake, but I push harder still. He's too far away.
Sam fires three rounds over his shoulder before collapsing. The three men who just exited the truck collapse like puppets with cut strings. Job stops and crouches near Sam for a moment, his hand on Sam's neck checking for a pulse for one moment, then another. Time stands still when Job stands upright and runs toward the truck. Why isn’t Job dragging Sam back to us?
Job opens the door and jumps in, and then he drives the truck to where I still stand, dumbfounded. Job motions to me, and I climb inside the cab.
“Are we taking the truck back there?” I ask. “Was he too heavy for you to carry?”
Job shakes his head.
I turn back, expecting Sam to straighten back up. Maybe Job’s giving him a break, distracting the guards until Sam can get the strength for one more push.
But Sam never moves. And suddenly, I realize that Job wasn’t planning to do anything else for Sam. He’s leaving him.
“No!” I yell. “NO!”
I leap from the truck and run toward Sam again, my eyes drawn inexorably to the blood pooling around him. He looks exactly like my dad did that day, more than a decade ago. Except the pool of red is bigger, so much bigger from the six shots instead of just the one. I can’t even see the pavement anymore. His body's an island amidst a lake of red.
I've closed half the remaining distance between us when Job grabs me, but this time he doesn't try to take my hand. His arms encircle my waist and he lifts me into the air. My arms pinwheel and my legs flail as he carries me to the truck and stuffs me inside. I can't breathe, and my hands are shaking so bad that at first, I think that's why I can't open the door. I claw at the handle over and over, cursing and shouting. “It’s broken. Why is this broken?”
“It's locked, Ruby. You can't get out. There's nothing we can do, and they're coming. We have to go.”
I hear a gunshot then. It hits the back of our stolen truck. Job locked the door and he's putting the truck in gear.
I claw at the handle in despair, and look desperately for a lock to lift. Ignoring my efforts, Job slams on the gas, and the truck peels out, wheels screeching against concrete. I look behind us and I can barely make out Sam's shape. I watch in horror as the pool of red grows larger and larger around him, and as we drive away, his body shrinks.
I try to call for him, but my words emerge as a croak. “Not again,” I try to yell. I can't fail someone I love again.
If I can't open the door, I'll stop the driver. I claw at Job's hands on the wheel. I clear my throat and force words, though they're hoarse. “Stop the truck. Stop it, please! We have to go back.”
Job doesn't hit the brake or even slow down. He speaks clearly, detached, and his words sound foreign to my ears. “He had no pulse. You took anatomy Ruby, so you know I'm telling the truth. You can't survive gunshots like that, no one can. Not even Mom could help him now.” He chokes up, barely getting the words out. “Sam's gone, but we still have a chance, and without that journal, what's in your brain may be Mom and Rhonda's last hope. I won't let you throw your life away and theirs in the process. Besides, there's a war going on in case you didn't notice.”
I slump into the seat. Job doesn't know how right he is. My blood's the cure. I can't risk the one thing that might save all the Marked to go after Sam's corpse. That truth sinks deep into my soul, and I know what Sam would say, what he'd tell me to do, but it hurts so bad I can't breathe. Job is still talking, trying to soothe me I think, but with my heart exploding inside my chest, it's hard to hear anything else.
I look ahead at the line of people standing near the midpoint of the bridge. Hundreds upon hundreds more stand at the land near the edge of the bridge. As we draw closer, the Marks on their foreheads stand out starkly. I may be the cure for all of them, and it’s earth shattering and miraculous.
Except, I don't care anymore.
I only want to save one person, and he’s the one person I can't do a single thing for. I suddenly feel a little empathy for my dad, for Donovan Behl. He didn't save the world, but he saved me, and maybe in the end that was enough for him.
I bang on the door and pull on the locked handle again, but this time, I don't pull as desperately or as hard. Job won't let me out, and I can't even see Sam anymore. Josephine has Dad's journal, and I guess that means my mom doesn't care about me, because no one's following us. Dozens of trucks have reached the part of the bridge where Sam was shot, but none of them have driven any further.
I pull one last time, half-heartedly, on the handle of the door. It still won't open, and I can't get out. I'm stuck on the truck seat, fingernails bloody and broken, sobbing wordlessly. I can't let him go too. I can't.
But I don't have a choice.
2
I'm utterly unprepared to greet anyone when we reach the Marked kids. My eyes are puffy, I croak when I try to talk, and tear stains streak both my cheeks.
Job stops the truck in front of a line of kids who are all pointing guns at us. I'm sick of people pointing guns at me. I stop crying and hiccup a time or two. “What's goi
ng on?”
“I doubt they can see through the windshield, with the sun at our backs. They probably think we're from WPN.”
Job unlocks the doors and opens his. He steps out with his hands up, palms forward. “We mean you no harm. We barely escaped WPN ourselves.”
Not all of us escaped. I choke on a sob.
“Job!” His twin sister Rhonda rushes forward and hugs him. Even knowing I can cure him, I still feel sick at the thought that he's hugging someone who's Marked. When she lets go, I peer at her face through the front windshield of the truck.
I blink several times to make sure, but she isn't Marked. I jump from the unlocked truck, startled into action. “Why aren't you infected?”
“You left me a vial of your blood, remember?” Rhonda smiles.
My heart constricts. “How did you know that would help?” I ball my hands into fists to stop the shaking. Somehow Rhonda knows what I only just discovered in my dad's writings. How can she already know what Sam died to find out?
My breathing accelerates again and I need to hear her answer, but I don't want to hear it at the same time. I want to run away screaming, or tear off down the bridge toward Sam's body. I missed my dad's funeral, and now I won't be at Sam’s, either. Will they even hold a funeral for the boyfriend of the girl who shot their king?
Before Rhonda can answer, a tall young man with dark hair steps forward and waves at me shyly. “You're a hard gal to catch.”
Wesley Fairchild.
I was in love with him for three years, or at least I thought I was. What did I know about love? Seeing him today, I barely recognize the face I spent so much time dreaming about. He's still tall and just as handsome. His hair is longer, but that's not the real difference. I can't put my finger on why, but he looks closer to twenty-five years old than he does to seventeen. I'm sure the events of the past few weeks, from leaving his home, his family and me, haven't been easy on him. One thing I don't see on his familiar but different face is a Mark. And I clearly saw the telltale rash the last time I saw him.
I shake my head in disbelief. “How are you Unmarked too?” I hoped I could save Wesley, Rhonda, and Aunt Anne, but it never occurred to me they wouldn't even need my help.
“I was Marked. I saw the rash myself,” he says, “after you told me it was there. I scrubbed on it and rubbed at it and it was real. After that I waited for you at the tree like we agreed. When you still didn’t appear after a few days, and patrols started circling, I ran. By the time I reached the Marked encampment, I hadn't seen my own face in days. With my hair down over my forehead, none of them questioned me when I said I'd been Marked.”
“But you weren't?” I look from Rhonda to Wesley and back again. “I don't understand.”
“I was Marked Rubes, but your blood cured me.” He lowers his voice. “Do you remember our kiss?”
I blush and then I look down at my feet, flooded with guilt for some reason. Which is stupid because I had barely talked to Sam at that point. I'd known him for years, but we didn’t speak much.
Wesley steps closer, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Once we realized I wasn't Marked, even after living among the Marked for days and days, we knew something must've happened. How could I be immune?” Wesley steps aside and a new boy, not quite as tall as Wesley, steps toward us.
He's strikingly handsome, this new young man, with a strong jaw and beautiful green eyes. His russet hair is spiked up in a mohawk, at odds with his classic good looks. He grins at me like we aren't standing on a bridge in enemy territory, like there's still good in the world, like the person I care most about didn't just die. Of course, he knows nothing about Sam.
“Hello.” His voice is far too deep for someone on the suppressant. The voice matches the intensity of his eyes, but not the coltish body. His arms and legs are too long, too gangly, and too thin for the timbre of his voice. “I'm Rafe.” In fact, even from just a few words, his voice sounds familiar for some reason, but I can't figure out why. I wrack my brain for memories of a Rafe, trying to remember if maybe I knew him back at Port Gibson. Maybe he was someone's son. I glance at Wesley, but his face shares no clues.
Rafe's nearly as tall as Wesley, and he carries himself with a quiet assurance. The other Marked kids watch him, waiting for some kind of reaction. They track his movements in much the same way David Solomon's people watched him, waiting to see how he greets me, observing how he treats me. No one has said so, but I'm positive that Rafe's their leader.
“I might never have pieced it together,” Wesley says, “without Rafe. My Mark appeared, and then you and I kissed. You split your lip, remember? I must've ingested your blood. Somehow, something about your blood cured me.”
Job grunts. “A lot's happened since you left. Ruby sat in quarantine for days. She read her dad's journals, and discovered that her father created the virus we know as Tercera many years ago. That's why we came to Galveston. To find his research and to figure out whether he finished the cure he began.”
Wesley raises his eyebrows. “I could've saved you all the trip. I tried to tell you, several times, actually.”
Job cocks one eyebrow. “Are you saying her dad did something to her? That we didn't need to deal with WPN at all?”
Rafe tilts his head sideways. “Rhonda told us about Ruby's father. What did you find at his lab, or did you make it there at all?”
“We did,” Job says, “but I'm not sure exactly what we found. Ruby was reading the journal, but her mom-”
“Wait, Ruby’s mom?” Rhonda shakes her head. “Are you kidding?”
“No, we found out her mother survived the Marking, and Mom and Dad probably guessed at least that much. Then her mom helped us off the island until she realized Ruby switched our blood for the test, and then she grabbed the journal and ran, but Sam stopped her-” Job makes a choking sound, probably not quite ready to follow that thought through. My mom screwed it all up and Sam died. Plus, we don’t even have the journal anymore. Job clears his throat. “The point is, I don't know exactly what the journal said. Ruby?”
“It said that my dad. . . Well, you're right, Wesley, that I—”
“Maybe this isn't the best place to talk.” Rhonda glances behind me and I turn to look.
No one's driving our direction yet, but WPN troops are milling around the second guard tower. I glance back at the truck we took and notice several bullet holes in the truck bed, and back window. I only recall hearing one. How out of it was I for that last mile?
Rafe nods. “We need to move, but tell me something simple first.” His eyes lock on mine, lit by a strange light. Again, I'm reminded of someone, but this time something clicks inside my brain and I finally realize who.
Sam.
Which makes no sense at all. I shake my head. I'm tired, and scared, and desperately sad. This boy looks nothing like Sam, my Sam. Tears spring up again, and before I break down in front of them, I say, “What? Just ask me.”
Rafe looks around at the other kids. They've slowly inched closer to us and I can feel them all hanging on his words. “Did you find an answer? Is there a cure?”
These kids have lived their entire lives hand-to-mouth, taking hormone suppressants that lock them inside of children's bodies they should have long since outgrown. They've been frozen in hell on earth. Sam’s gone, and I feel numb, and cold, and shaky. I want to collapse in a heap never to move again, but they deserve the answer. They deserve a little hope after a lifetime of despair.
“Maybe. I think we may be able to figure something out.”
The cheer that goes up around me from the two dozen kids close enough to hear is almost deafening. Clusters of kids from here to the base of the mainland begin to cheer as well. I wish Sam could hear it.
For the first time, it hits me that if I'd been brave enough, if I'd insisted on telling the truth, the Marked would have taken me and not Rhonda. We'd already have known without going into Galveston that my blood healed Wesley, if not quite why. And if we didn't go to WPN, I
would have no idea that my biological father might be the awful David Solomon. I could have avoided Galveston entirely, and if we did that Sam would be alive right now.
He died for nothing.
Actually, the worst part is that, like my dad, like millions of people around the world, Sam died because of me.
My heart cracks in two, and my breathing speeds up. Before blackness consumes me and I feel my body sink away, strong arms catch me. And then nothing.
3
When my eyes flutter open, the world around me overpowers my brain. I blink rapidly against the rays from the setting sun.
“I think it would help her to see it. We should wake her up.” Rhonda's voice is soft, but urgent.
“I agree,” Wesley says. “She should see what's at stake if she's as devastated as you say. It may help her to recognize the joy that she’s bringing along with her.” He knows about Sam. He must.
I choke a little and push myself up in what turns out to be the backseat of the truck we stole from WPN. I know because I can see the clawed plastic that mars the front door handles, where I tried to escape when they were locked. When I try to speak, barely a whisper emerges. It’s like I swallowed jagged glass shards. Or like I screamed it raw when I lost someone, I suppose. I wince in pain when I clear my throat to try again. “Where are we going?”
Rhonda's head swivels like an owl. “You're awake, oh that’s good. I'm so sorry about Sam.” Her eyes well up and I know she's as broken up as I am. “It wasn't your fault, you know. It really wasn't. None of us knew about you, or about your immunity I mean. We all did what we thought we had to do so you could reach Galveston and find your father's lab.”
I nod, too numb to do anything else. “I did know Wesley was looking for me.”
This time it's Wesley's head that swivels. “So he finally told you?”
The car jerks left until Job reaches over and steadies the wheel. “Easy Wesley. Watch the road.”
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 28
