“And go back to the Unmarked, with no idea we're here in Baton Rouge.”
She shakes her head. “He's not stupid. He'll search for us here, and he'll find you. He knew the Marked thought you were the Promised, and he knew they were gathered at the bridge. I don't know what happened between you two, but he's different than he was when he’s around you Ruby, more complete somehow. I saw that much, even if I tried to ignore it. If he feels for you even half of what you do for him, he'll torch the earth to find you. If he's alive, he will make it back to you.”
“I can't sit around hoping he turns up like a lost dog.”
I know the alleged stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. After my dad died, I talked and talked and talked about them with a friend of my Uncle Dan. We spoke on the phone at least once a week for six months, before Tercera burned the world to the ground. In the last twenty-four hours, I skipped right over Denial and ran straight to Anger. After all, I saw Sam die. Denial didn't have much of a toehold.
Until now.
“You have to help me, Rhonda. Promise me you'll help me go after him.”
She shakes her head. “You can't leave here. Your blood, it's too important. We can't risk you for some ill-fated rescue mission.”
“I agree.” Job walks around, sets a glass of juice down on the table near me, and pulls up a chair. “I knew Sam was... different. I've seen the signs for years. I saw him slice his leg on a branch once, and there wasn't even a scab the next day. It healed entirely overnight. I wondered about it yesterday, but I know he would never have wanted us to stick around and get caught. Besides. Even healing fast, six gun shots?” Job sighs heavily. “In any case, Rhonda's right. You can't leave, not now. You have to stay here. I can't leave either, as much as I might like to. Maybe we can send Rhonda.”
I shake my head, but I'm not going to bother arguing with them tonight while I'm recovering from hemorrhagic shock. In fact, if they won't support me, maybe I'm not going to argue with them at all. I can go alone. I will do exactly that if I have to, just like Sam would come alone for me if I were still stuck in Galveston.
“You coming to bed?” Rhonda asks. “I can help you walk to the back if you want.”
I hold up my hand. “I’ll be back in a minute. I think I’m entitled to a few minutes to sip my apple juice in peace while I process the information you two both had and didn’t share.”
“To be fair, Sam didn’t share that information either,” Rhonda says.
I pretend that doesn’t sting.
Rhonda and Job both head back to the two rooms in the back of the building. I should sip my apple juice as quickly as possible and head back to the room I'm sharing with Rhonda, but I can't, not yet. I close my eyes and think of Sam, my Sam. He might still be alive. How could I have left him? How could I have given in so easily?
When I open my eyes, a movement near the door startles me. Wesley stands up, and takes a step toward me, his features hard to make out in the light of a single candle.
“They may not be willing to help you, but I will.”
7
My heart stutters. “How long have you been sitting there?”
Wesley grins a sideways smile. “I snuck in just before Rhonda returned, and with Dax and Sean doing their sweep, well. I didn't feel like you needed more people to deal with just then.”
I bite my lip. At least he didn't hear Rafe tell me I'm a waste of space, but he sat quietly while I described my dream, and how much I longed for Sam to be alive. Of all people, Rhonda and Job won't help me return to Galveston to save Sam, but Wesley will? Why would he do that?
He crosses the room slowly, his dark hair falling into his eyes. My hand itched so badly to shove it back that night during spin the bottle. It feels like years, but it wasn’t even a month ago.
He gestures at the chair. “Okay if I sit?”
I nod.
“I ran over to make sure you were alright. Rafe wasn’t very reassuring. I don’t mean alive, but alright. When Rafe stormed into the main office, fuming, and said you tried to kill yourself—” Wesley chokes. “It took a lot of restraint not to punch him when he told me what he said to you.”
I think of all the times Wesley’s taken care of me. Bringing me something to drink on work projects, making sure I reapply sunblock, helping me with my greenhouse plants. I haven’t been fair to him, not even a little bit.
“I wanted to talk to you, but Rhonda reached you first and you were sort of huddled. I thought I'd give you a minute to recoup. I followed Rhonda all the way over here at a jog, but I don't think she even noticed me. Given the way things are between us, I figured she’d do you more good anyway.” He looks down at the floor and my heart constricts. I haven't been fair to him.
I reach out and put my hand over his. “You've always been my best friend, Wesley. I'm sorry I've been... distant. That was wrong of me. I know the past few weeks have been awful for you.”
When he turns toward me, the wound in his eyes pricks at my conscience. “Can you answer one question for me?”
I nod.
“You've been mourning Sam. Everyone can see it, and I understand why. But when I saw you last, you were telling me you'd liked me for years. You told me if you were Marked, you'd meet me.”
I bite my lip. “Was there a question?”
“Oh yeah, sorry. When you weren't Marked, and I left without you, I was basically dead to you then. Did you mourn me like this? Were you devastated, and I don't know, broken?”
I shake my head. It's not a fair question, but then nothing in life is really fair. Nothing's black and white. That's the biggest lie we tell children, that there's a right and a wrong, when really life is about darker and lighter, and doing the very best you can while painting in shades of gray.
Even so, I can’t lie, not to him. “No. I didn’t.”
He flinches and nods his head a little too many times.
I can at least explain. “You weren't dead, Wesley. You were sick, and I thought I was sick, but you weren’t dead. You had years ahead of you, and I was galvanized to make progress toward something that might save you. I read my dad's journals frantically in quarantine as you know, and I discovered he created Tercera. For the first time I found evidence there might be a cure. You're the reason I was so desperate to leave so I could find it. I wanted to go after it right away and no one would help me.”
“No one except Sam.”
I nod. “If you had died instead of contracting Tercera?” I shrug. “I don't know. Maybe I would’ve mourned the same way, or maybe not. For what it's worth, I'm glad you aren't dead.”
“If I'd been there, and he'd been Marked, I'd have helped you too. I've always believed in you.”
Even when I kept changing sections, and I had no idea what path to take, Wesley supported me. He never cared about my indecisiveness, about my hopping around. He never badgered me or minded my indecision. “I know you would have.”
He bobs his head, pleased I've acknowledged it.
“But I don't get it. Why help me with this? Rafe won't like it, and he’s not the only one. Even if you aren’t Marked, aren’t they your people and isn't he kind of your boss?”
Wesley's cheeks turn red. “He's the Marked leader. Like you just pointed out, technically I'm not Marked.”
“That's not really the point,” I say. “You know what I mean.”
He rubs his forehead, pushing his hair back. “Yeah, I do. Rafe's gonna be pissed. They all are, if they find out their magical cure slipped their cage. I'll help you, but Rhonda and Job are right. It'd be way easier to send Rhonda and a team or something.”
I shake my head. “That won't work. WPN won't let anyone else in.”
Wesley lifts his chin. “What makes you so sure they'll let you inside?”
I shrug. “My mom knows I lied about the blood key, which means I might still be Solomon's daughter.” I shudder. “I doubt he'd kill me outright, even though he's pissed.”
“
Paternal concern?” Wesley's eyebrows rise. “Didn't realize he had much.”
“No, he doesn’t.” I bark a laugh. “I've been thinking about it since we left. He didn't give a crap whether I lived or died, not really. He had an idle curiosity maybe, and a mild desire to see his bloodline continue, perhaps. But no, I'm not operating under the mistaken impression my sadistic, possible biological father cares about me. I know he doesn't, but I think torturing and punishing people is more his way than outright murder, and he still thinks he can mold me into what he wants, assuming I really am his blood.”
“That's messed up. And not reassuring me that helping you to go back is smart, if I'm being honest.”
“The main reason he won't kill me is that I infected him with Tercera before I left, and then I shot him with the accelerant.”
Wesley slaps his forehead. “Once you tell him you have the cure, he'll let you inside.”
I shake my head. “It's more complicated than that, and simpler at the same time. I've been thinking about how he kept Tercera in his drawer, along with accelerant. He's maintained power over WPN all these years, multiple ports with their respective leaders, and he’s consolidated and maintained control over sophisticated regimes with limited communications and mobilization. I imagine there have been numerous power grabs. He's claimed he has a religious right to rule, and he talks about God's will a lot. According to him, the spread of Tercera was God's will, to eliminate the wicked. How handy would it be to have a bit of God's own will that you could use to remove anyone who violated your will from the power structure?”
Wesley's lips part as he thinks and then he exhales heavily. “You think he darted anyone who got in his way, and then denounced them?”
“I imagine if we poked around, we'd find that some of the darted individuals made their way here, if any survived at all.”
Wesley nods. “I think we might. Todd came from WPN. He never talks about who he was or what he did before, but he's remarkably competent and well-educated. I could see him being ambitious enough to require elimination.”
I shrug. “Either way, I doubt King Solomon will tell anyone he's been Marked. I imagine he'll be hiding in his rooms, laid up with an unnamed illness.”
“Because if he's been Marked. . .” Wesley spreads his hands melodramatically.
“That means God's forsaken him, by his own rhetoric.”
“In that case, his troops won't care if you're the cure. They won't even know he's Marked.”
“Ah,” I say. “That's where you're forgetting a piece of the puzzle. My mom took my dad's journal. King Solomon won't need to be told that I hold the cure in my own body. He'll have read that book, and when I show up, his people will welcome me back with open arms by his own edict. I'll even have some leverage to get Sam back if he survived, or even if he didn’t,” I choke a bit, “to demand my dad's journal. I imagine David Solomon will do most anything right now to gain access to a little of my precious blood.”
Wesley leans back in his chair. “It's not a bad plan, but it starts with part B.”
I groan. “I know. I've got to get out of here first.”
“Which isn't going to be easy to do, you know. That's why you'll need me.”
“Why would you help me?” I ask.
His mouth turns up in the way it always has whenever he's going to make fun of himself. “Yesterday, Sam was dead without a doubt. The day before that, I didn't even know you liked him. I thought he kind of annoyed you, which made me happy because he's like some kind of god to the people in Port Gibson. It bothered me he was so close to your family for a while, but you never mentioned him except in passing.”
I think about how I saw Sam a month ago, two. More. “He did annoy me. Actually, maybe I was jealous of him.”
Wesley tilts his head. “Huh?”
“He was Job's best friend, and he worked with Rhonda. We all grew up together, from before we joined the Unmarked. Our families go way back.”
“And?”
“Well, Rhonda and Job were close, like this matched set. When my dad died and I went to live with them, I never quite fit in, not like they did. Then Sam showed up, and he wasn't even related to them, but he slid into the family like a duck into water. He played outside with Job, digging forts in the dirt, and shooting rabbits and squirrels. He and Rhonda ran and jumped and fought with wooden swords.”
Wesley taps his mouth with his index finger. “I can't see you doing any of those things.”
I shake my head. “I read inside mostly, or played piano, or studied with my aunt, and played with the animals. I cultivated plants, even then. I'm not a warrior, Wesley, and I'll never be a warrior. I'm too tiny, and too uncoordinated. Sam though, he did everything they did easily. I was always the odd one out.”
“You wished you fit in with Job and Rhonda like he did.”
“Yep. He never talked much, which aside from piano and reading was kind of my thing. He never played games with me and Job. That was the only area where he sat out, and I interacted with the family on my own terms. I assumed he skipped games because he didn't want to lose. That's probably why I never thought he was very smart, if I'm being honest.”
“But he is?”
I blush this time. “He's smart, yes. He was nervous around me I guess, and he doesn't talk casually, even now. I almost have to pry opinions out of him.”
Wesley frowns. “You asked me why I'd be willing to help. That's why. You have a lifetime of memories with Sam, and a week or two of actually thinking of him romantically and being with him. Those memories are new which makes them all fond and sparkly. You'll probably start to forget anything annoying, and focus on the amazing stuff that never had time to tarnish more and more and more.”
I open my mouth to contradict him, but he holds one hand up. “I'm not trying to pick a fight with you. I'm telling you that even though he's gone, he'll never really be gone if he's dead. Pair that with the fact that you're mad at me for nearly Marking you, and I don't have a prayer.”
I shake my head. “I'm not mad about that, I swear. I forgave you before I even realized I wasn't Marked, and once I wasn't Marked, I had no reason to be mad.”
He puts his hand over mine. “You may not even realize you're still upset and that's okay. You're right to be mad. It was careless of me to go to the Last Supper at all, and worse still for me to interact with you in any way. Selfish, careless, unfeeling. I was an idiot, and your resentment is justified. Believe me, I'm angrier with myself than you could ever be. With Sam gone, but remembered through the lens of a hero, I'd be up against a truly undefeatable foe.”
“Sam isn't your foe, Wesley. Alive or dead, he's not your enemy.”
“Oh you're wrong there, Rubes. Dear, smart, quiet, strong Sam is my enemy, because we both want the same thing. And I really hope he's alive, and we can save him. Because if he's here, boots on the ground, it's a fair fight, and one I hope I can win. Real men forget their socks on the floor of the bathroom. Real men fill the sink with tiny hairs when they shave. Real men eat a sandwich in bed and scatter crumbs that irritate and frustrate. I can't compete with a ghost, but I can compete with a man, even if he's a super human, genetically enhanced, ridiculously good-looking one.”
I flop back against the pillows behind me. “Wesley, this isn't a contest. You're wrong about that. Sam and you and me, we're all on the same side. I want you to help me save him, but not if you're doing it so you can badger me with how annoying he is later on, or lord it over his head that you had to save him.”
“I promise not to lord anything over anyone, but that's all I'm going to promise. Haven't you heard, 'all's fair in love and war?' Well, in case you didn't notice, we're at war with WPN, and I'm in love with you. I'm not planning to lose on either front, no matter what that takes.”
8
I barely sleep. I want my sleeping pills so badly. Every time I close my eyes, I dream of Sam, or Wesley, or Sam with Wesley's face, or Wesley with Sam's voice. I walk to the bathroom to pee se
veral times, and almost trip over Job every time.
“Oh, it’s you,” he says each time, as though he’s not watching my every move.
When the sun's first rays finally light the sky, I sit up in bed and throw the covers back. I need to get out of here and start back toward Galveston. The only problem is, I haven't had a single idea for how exactly I can escape with guards posted everywhere.
Even worse, Rhonda and Job are watching me like squirrels guarding the last acorn tree. They came out and checked on me three times last night before I walked back to my room to sleep. And finally, if I do miraculously escape all the guards and my cousins, there's still hundreds or maybe even thousands of Marked kids tracking my every move. The guards are on duty as much to protect me from overzealous fans as to keep me put.
I sure hope Wesley had some ideas while I tossed and turned.
When I leave my room and walk down the hall, I notice Job's already hunched over a book, making notes on a yellow notepad. That guy's a machine.
“Morning,” I say halfheartedly.
He bobs his head, but doesn't look up.
“What can I do today?”
He points at a stack of books. “I'm going to look through those this morning for anything about antibodies in treatment of active viruses, and the suggested treatment methods.”
“Wow, you’re a nerd.”
He turns back to grin at me. “Nerds are in right now, or hadn’t you heard?”
“And we have approval on all this academic studying? I had the distinct impression Rafe wanted us to start trials posthaste.”
Job shrugs. “He just left, actually. I told him this afternoon we'd have a decision on a number of participants for our first clinical trial, as well as specifics on how far along we want each group in terms of disease process. I'm thinking with the amount of antibodies we have, we need three patients per category, maximum of eight categories, recently infected like newborns or like Wesley, infected in the last two months, infected over a year, and suppressed for years, all varied by the age of the participant, and the amount of the dose.” He scribbles down a few things, and then turns to face me. “Any input on my categories? Do you think gender matters?”
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 34
