The Plague (Book 3): Winter Storm

by Isla Jones

  Leo frowned. “Noah?”

  “Oh, uh…” I avoided his gaze and murmured, “I gave him a name … the cargo. I call him Noah, now.”

  Leo sighed and rose to his feet. His body almost slid up mine, and soon, he was standing over me. But there was nothing intimidating about the way he looked down at me with those eyes, so deep and rich that I felt a sudden urge to explore them.

  “Offer me a deal,” he said.

  “Wha … What kind of deal?”

  “I’ll do this for you, if you do something for me.” He grinned and pinched my chin. “That tends to be how a deal works.”

  With a guarded glare, I asked, “What do you want me to do?”

  The implications in my wary voice were left to hang between us.

  Leo rolled his eyes, but his smile relaxed his face.

  “Not that,” he said. “Unless it’s on offer, in which case I will most certainly not decline.”

  At my increased glare, he held up his hands in surrender.

  “I only want you to hear me out,” he said. “There are things I think we should talk about without theatrics. No storming out, no tantrums. I want a mature discussion between two adults.”

  The sketches in Castle’s book sprung to mind and how he sort of declared his almost-feelings for me. Now, Leo’s heated stare pleaded with me and … I didn’t know what to feel.

  There were too many emotions battling inside of me. The mere thought of peeling them apart filled me with a nauseating sense of dread. It was obviously smarter to ignore the feelings altogether. I’m incredibly mature that way.

  “Ok,” I agreed. “After you do the study, we’ll talk.”

  I needed time. I’m a staller, all right?

  Leo considered it a moment, then nodded. He leaned closer and kissed a warm, softly spoken word to my forehead; “Deal.”

  I’ll forever remember that day. The day after I made a deal with Leo. The day that carved a hole in my heart where it will forever live among the painful memories I can’t ever rid myself of.

  It started with a trip out of the Common Halls.

  I hated leaving Cleo alone in my room. To make up for it, I left her with a generous tray of breakfast meat before I shut the door on her giant, round eyes. Even as I walked beside Vicki and listened to her worried ramblings about Mac, Cleo’s innocent gaze followed me through the halls. Since the outbreak, there had never been a time until then that I’d left her completely alone.

  Unfortunately, Summer had made herself pretty clear about where Cleo could and couldn’t go.

  Mason held up to his promise and let us into the ICU. It was just off our wing (or the ‘Common Halls’), but we needed a card-swiper to gain access. Dr Wong sometimes let Vicki through, but the white coats were hard to track down here.

  They still had jobs at the end of the world.

  We took a turn and the corridors shuddered my skin. The sterile atmosphere, the clinical look, echoing halls, stench of bleach.

  “I hate hospitals,” I muttered to Vicki. “Don’t they give you the creeps?”

  Vicki arched her brow at me, but her arm stayed looped through mine (a desperate grab for support that I overlooked).

  “Hospitals save lives,” was all she said.

  As a proud coward, I have a lot of fears. Dying in a hospital is one of them. I’d rather die in the outdoors … A cliff’s edge maybe.

  I hugged closer to Vicki’s side.

  “I hope he’s awake,” she said, her voice a breathy sigh. “Dr Wong said he was lucid for a few minutes last night. He asked for me before falling back asleep.”

  Falling back into a coma.

  I studied the back of Mason’s shaved head. “If he is, do you want me to stay?”

  Vicki licked her lips in the heavy pause.

  “I can come back in an hour to give you some time with him.”

  Vicki nodded. “That would be nice.”

  I smiled at her just before we stopped at the already open door. I glanced from Dr Wong and a random soldier with their backs to us, to the capsule in the centre of the room.

  The bubble-like contraption encased Mac in a sterile embrace.

  Another shudder raked down me.

  Tubes were attached to his oxygen mask and poked out from the capsule, and escaped into a blinking machine on the wall. Dr Wong faced the blinking wall, holding a clipboard.

  Mason was quick to knock on the doorframe before we could huddle inside.

  Dr Wong spun around at the sound.

  I tried a smile for the doctor, but it came out like the rest of them. She didn’t notice. Her stunned face settled on Vicki. For a moment, she was frozen in the form of a goldfish, with lips parted and eyes bulging.

  Then, she spoke in a husky voice; “I’m sorry, Victoria. I did all that I could.”

  I frowned and looked at Vicki.

  Her slack features betrayed nothing, so I turned my attention on the capsule. A ripple of tension came from the woman beside me, frozen in the doorway. The loudness of the sudden silence pressed down on us.

  There were no sounds. No beeps of the heart monitor, no heavy wheezes from the oxygen mask. The capsule was as still as the body in it.

  I reached for Vicki, but I was too late.

  The silence shattered.

  Her scream curdled the air around us; she collapsed to the floor. I shut my eyes at the wretched sound for a moment. But the scream never stopped.

  All I could do was kneel behind her and hold her shoulders.

  They’re not necromancers—and Mac’s already dead.

  When I think back on that day, it’s not Mac’s motionless body in a capsule that glues itself to my brain, or the silence that came before the break. It’s Vicki’s scream.

  I’ve only ever heard that scream once before. Mine. Even now, it brings me back to the farmhouse when I’d thought I’d lost Cleo to savage packs of rotters.

  So in that doorway, I knelt behind Vicki and held her. When Mason tried to pick her up off the floor, I warned him away with my lethal glare.

  The doorway embraced us both for so long that my kneecaps squeaked for a whole day after and my spine ached from top to bottom.

  But I stayed to hold her until her screams withered into sobs. And I stayed long after.

  Dr Wong gave her some pills. Probably like the ones she gave me. And when Vicki was ready, Mason helped us back to the room where I spent the night with her.

  We ignored the knocks on the door all day and night.

  I just sat on the armchair. Sometimes, I wrote in you. Other times, I watched Vicki’s back shake as she cried into Cleo’s fur. Never once did I tell her that it would be ok or that he was in a better place.

  I’m not religious. I believe in no God, I only believe in the devil—us.

  I told her nothing of my thoughts.

  Words—even hopeful lies—do no good to someone in grief. So I stayed silent and hoped that the quiet was enough.

  CONSPIRACIES AT THE CDC

  ENTRY TWENTY-THREE

  I won’t lie. The following days were slow and bizarre. I’m certain that for much of those days I spoke very little and mostly wrote in you.

  Lotan brought us both meals whenever he could, and—wait for it—Adam brought us the rest. I hated that. I hated that Adam carried trays of fresh fruits and sandwiches to us after how hard he’d pushed for Mac’s death on the road. I made sure that, when he did the meal drop-offs, I slammed the door in his face afterwards.

  Neither Leo or Castle visited.

  Every time someone knocked on the door, my heart skipped—and I hated myself for it. It wasn’t until the morning of the fourth day that one of those knocks actually was Castle.

  I opened the door, expecting Mason, Lotan or Adam. When my tired gaze rested on Castle in the doorway, my breath caught in my throat.

  I looked a mess. My hair was tangled, banished to a bun at the top of my head, and I wore my pyjama pants and a plain singlet. Not that how I looked mattered…
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  Arms folded, Castle ran over me with unreadable eyes. He paused over my stomach a beat—checking my bullet wound. It’d healed over on the outside, but it still ached when I put too much pressure on it.

  Castle’s muscles were starting to come back, I noticed.

  “Do you have a minute?” he asked.

  I drifted my gaze to Vicki, who hugged herself on the bed with Cleo. “I’m not really comfortable leaving her alone.”

  Castle arched his eyebrow, his gaze suddenly readable. I saw my thoughts in his eyes—and he voiced them.

  “Perhaps others had the same concerns about leaving you to yourself. Sertraline should keep her too numb for any rash decisions.”

  I frowned and leaned against the doorframe. “Is that what you did with me? Doped me up so you could have all your little meetings and secret stuff without the worry that I would—”

  He cut me off, sharp. “You’re on those meds because you need them. Dr Wong wouldn’t have prescribed them if she didn’t agree with me on that.”

  I was too tired for this.

  Castle stepped back into the corridor. “Come with me. I need to show you something.”

  I hesitated, but the severity of his hard face made my decision for me.

  “Fine.” I grabbed a cardigan, whispered a goodbye to Vicki—who just grunted in response—then followed Castle out of the Common Halls.

  We walked right by my favourite room with the stone pew and pot plants. My gaze lingered over it until another corridor swallowed us up and stole it from view.

  After a while, I let my complaints fly free; “Long walks through beige corridors don’t really help with my injuries, you know.”

  Castle shot me a side-glance, his hands clenched in his pockets. “It’ll be worth it.” After a pause, he added, “You liked the retreat room. Where I’m taking you is better.”

  My brows unfurrowed as I studied him. Clenched hands, set jaw, averted eyes. Castle was nervous. Normally fidgeting fingers were his tell, but he’d balled up his hands to hide the nervous tick from me. In that, Castle was acknowledging how well I knew him—and when he stopped on a mostly vacant corridor, he revealed how well he knew me.

  “The garden,” I whispered, awestruck.

  Glass doors—like those at malls—slid apart to let the fresh smell waft over me. Leaves, flowers, dirt, grass—it all wrapped into a single alluring aroma that coiled around me. A shaky breath fluttered from my lips as I stumbled into the room.

  All the fresh vegetables at dinner made sense in that moment. Pot plants and little green boxes grew lemon trees, apple trees, vines of tomatoes and strawberries and peppers, herbs. Ahead, at the far end of the massive room, were rows of soil with buds of something (potatoes, maybe) poking out from the dirt.

  An indoor farm of sorts.

  The grass beneath my feet was fake—I felt it the moment I crouched to run my fingers over every blade. Though fake, the sheer touch of it brought a small smile to my lips.

  Castle shadowed me as I wandered inside.

  I strolled between two rows of tables that held plastic trays of small plants. Some had grown already into lush pockets spilling over the edges, but others were tiny to the eye, yet to be nurtured to life.

  As I stopped to dance my fingers over mint leaves, Castle stayed a bit behind me and spoke in such a soft whisper that I suspected he couldn’t bear to hear himself speak those words; “It’s as close to a farm life as I can give you.”

  I snapped my gaze from the herb to his eyes, not unlike the mint leaves. He captured my entire focus for an eternal moment—then he looked at the fake grass beneath us.

  I hugged the cardigan closer to myself. “It’s easy to say things like that when there are only a few women left in the world and too many men.”

  I watched his jaw work a while; it’s a wonder his teeth didn’t shatter.

  Before he could meet my gaze with green-tinted ice blocks, I turned my back on him and let the rows of plants lure me further in. One of the white coats were invaluable, I decided.

  Recovered, Castle crept up behind me. He traced my every step the way he did back at the gun shop with Billy’s leer glued to me. The thought tickled my gut—I had a bad feeling.

  I paused and reached out for a fluffy green plant I didn’t recognise. My fingers gave me away as they trembled.

  I lowered my voice to a shaky whisper, “What’s wrong?”

  Castle came up behind me. His chest brushed against my back some as he caged me between him and the table.

  “Mac was killed.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck prickled from both his words and the brush of his breath against my skin.

  “They said blood clots formed in his leg and travelled to his lung. I checked the data. It doesn’t add up.”

  I bowed my head and traced a circle in the soil. “Is that why you brought me here? To tell me conspiracy theories?”

  His sigh ran from my neck to the curve of my shoulder. He must’ve dropped his head too. Anyone who saw us would see a painful moment between star-crossed lovers.

  “I saw his blood reports, Winter. There were traces of a toxin. I’ve used it before to kill. Quick and painless. Someone injected it into Mac’s system. That is what killed him.”

  “Wouldn’t they just … I don’t know, turn off his oxygen tank or something?”

  Castle shook his head (I felt the brush of his breath move). “Suffocation or failures in the capsule would rouse suspicion. Whoever did this didn’t predict that I would recognise the toxin.”

  I sighed and shut my eyes. “This seems like the sort of stuff you’d talk to Leo about and lie to me about.”

  Castle didn’t argue. “I can’t claim to understand you, but I know that you’re smart, Winter. Smart enough to realise that if I had the option of discussing this with Leo, I would.”

  “What’s stopping you?” I asked, my finger stilling.

  “Leo’s gone.”

  My heart hit my stomach.

  Leo left? He’d gone back to the outside?

  Eyes full of horror, I spun around to face Castle. “Gone? What do you mean gone?”

  Castle didn’t step back—he still caged me in, his warm fruity breath on my face. The sheer closeness of his body sent familiar tingles through me. Castle was once safe. Is it wrong that security warmed my insides more than passion?

  “The day after Mac was killed, Leo disappeared. I thought…”

  He sighed before he could speak the words that I understood.

  Leo had run off for two hours after the whole pregnancy test fiasco. But back on the road, Leo pushed for Mac’s premature death as well. It wasn’t likely that he’d taken time for himself after hearing about Mac’s death.

  “Do you think Leo killed Mac?”

  Even asking the question drained all the blood from my face to my blotchy chest.

  “No.” Castle ticked his jaw, the way he did when drawing on scraps of patience. “I can’t access the surveillance footage, his room has been undisturbed for days, and he hasn’t attended any of our scheduled meetings. The thing is, someone can’t simply vanish down here. There’s nowhere to go.”

  Castle bowed his head; his forehead almost touched mine. Every fibre of me ached to melt against him. I resisted—my stubbornness is stronger than my weakness.

  “Winter.” He spoke my name gruffly. “Nothing is as it seems here. The sergeant should be in charge of this entire operation. The CDC is under Martial Law. Since we arrived, everyone has had an excuse on the sergeant’s whereabouts. He’s dead, and they don’t want us to know.”

  I thought back to the glass rooms of rotters. One of them was the sergeant. A secret I swore to keep. Shame that I’m not as good a liar as I think sometimes.

  Secrets showed themselves on my face. But Castle misread them.

  He pressed on; “Whatever is happening here, they don’t want me to know. As Corporal, my access is limited until the sergeant approves higher clearance. And once his deceased
status is logged into the system, my rank automatically advances. They’re blocking it.”

  “Why would they do that?” I leaned back against the table and gripped hard onto the edge. “I mean, it’s a lot of trouble to go to just to stop you from—”

  “Running this facility?” His voice was as cutting as his fierce eyes. “It’s possible that it’s a mere territorial matter, but I suspect more is happening here. Leo’s gone, Mac is dead. Whatever it is, it has clear targets.”

  My heart thrummed against my chest and nausea was quick to take me.

  Summer had told me all of this, but now that I thought about it, she never told me why she couldn’t let the deltas take charge. Castle would be the last person to object to her corridor of rotters or that she perhaps experimented on them.

  It had to be something else—something deeper.

  I ran my teeth over my bottom lip. “So you think they’re knocking off the deltas one by one? Just to keep clearance?”

  It sounded sillier when I heard it aloud; Castle disagreed.

  “Yes, but to protect more than mere clearance ranks.”

  “Like what?”

  Castle made to speak, but his words silenced fast. His gaze touched to the plastic tray beside my hand—I swerved my own gaze down to see a shadow flicker over the plastic.

  At the same time, we turned her heads to the entrance. Not a second later, the doors slid open. Mason stepped inside, eyes shifting between the pair of us.

  I slid out from between Castle and the table, a smile forced onto my face.

  “Hey,” I said. “Can you take me to Summer? I think I’m done in here.”

  Mason winked, a sudden warmth to his features, and gestured for me to join him. I spared Castle a brief glance before I left with Mason. In that short glance, I told him something. Yet, I’m unsure what I told him exactly. Was it that I would look into Leo’s disappearance or Mac’s death? Had that been what he was asking me? After all, he did tell me more than he normally did—and he knew the type of nosy person I am, how I find ways to the truth no matter what stands in my way. It’s one of my few skills, and it’s one I’m damn proud of.