by Seth Fishman
The pieces of the puzzle clink into place, sending a bout of rage shooting across my skin. “No way,” I say, but Jo just shrugs, weary and resigned. I feel the urge to pull off my jacket I’m fuming so much. Rob takes my wrist, but I shake him off.
Brayden comes down the steps toward us, a small smile on his face, looking as charming as ever.
“What are you doing?” I ask through gritted teeth.
“We’re gonna be okay,” he replies, genuine relief in his eyes. As if he doesn’t care at all for what these men have done to us. “They’re not going to hurt us.”
“How do you know?” Jimmy asks, readjusting Odessa in his arms.
“Mr. Sutton said so. He’s bringing us into the house.”
I am blind. I am boiling. Even if Brayden isn’t one of them, he’s betraying me anyway. I move before I think and push Brayden into the snow.
“You asshole!”
He doesn’t try to get up, he just sits there, arms raised in defense, shaking his head. “Mia, I swear I don’t know why they’re here.”
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
“Of course he is!” Jimmy shouts, egging me on. He’s angry too, his round face bright and shiny. He’s holding Odessa up, but she’s limp, her lips pale and her head lolling to the side, leg streaked red against her fitted suit. A new set of guards arrive, clearly there to handle us. They’re watching, momentarily surprised by the infighting.
“Mia, please,” Brayden begs, and his face is so pale the scar there brightens white. His yellow bracelet dangles like an inexplicable lie.
“You show up out of nowhere, you move into this place and then you’re sent as a mole to spy on me. You fucking bastard!” I’m so angry I spit, spraying his face, but he doesn’t retaliate. Instead he starts to tear up. For some reason, that makes it worse, and the instant before the guards recover, I kick Brayden in the face.
11
THEY LOCK US IN AN EXTRAORDINARILY LARGE ROOM, what might have been a ballroom if Fenton were known for balls. The floor is polished wood, and there are two enormous fireplaces and mahogany chairs with bird-patterned cushions lining the wall. There are windows, but we’re four stories up. At least we overlook the entrance, so we can see what’s going on outside. It’s four in the morning, and the darkness hints of day. I’m so completely wired I couldn’t sleep if I tried. Rob, the only one of us who even bothers to try to find cell reception, pulls out his OtterBox, but can’t find a signal. My phone can’t go more than a day without charging, so it’s probably dead anyway. I stuff myself onto a window ledge, draw my knees up and look into the courtyard. I’m having a hard time calming down, partially because I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. Two times in twenty-four hours I’ve smashed in a boy’s nose. What am I doing? I’m barely the type to speak up at a dinner, much less retaliate.
A snowmobile starts up outside, catching my attention. I try to zoom in on the soldiers. I don’t see Brayden. And they didn’t bring him in with us. So I must be right. He is working with Sutton. Surely that justifies a kick to the face.
Odessa’s on the floor, her head resting in Jimmy’s lap, and I want to focus on feeling sorry for her, because I do, but my stomach is so knotted that I can’t focus. I rest my head against the glass and close my eyes and try to think of the pool, of my even breaths and of the nothing in the water below me.
“Hey,” Jo whispers near me. She runs her hand lightly on top of my head.
I sniff and shake my head. “I can’t believe it. Why set us up like that?”
“I bet that’s why he went out for food back at the barn,” Rob offers, coming close. Jo shoots him a look that I see, and he makes a face. “What? It’s true!”
“Guys?” Jimmy says; Odessa’s red hair is pressed against his chest. He’s looking tired. Bigger. His hair is longer, not much, but definitely noticeable. “Des needs help,” he begs, like there’s something we can do about it.
Rob moves toward him, but I grab his arm. Rob’s taken off his winter coat, and his arm feels thin and reedy. He looks down at my hand, then at me, his small nose flaring. I shake my head slightly, and he’s still confused, but then Jimmy coughs. A deep, retching cough. He looks at his hand, terrified, but there’s no blood. Not yet, anyway.
“Yeah, you’re right. Stay over there, okay? Don’t come near me.” Jimmy’s face is serene, not a wrinkle of worry, and he speaks so calmly and with such bravery that my heart aches. I shove all the pain of the betrayal into my body, far away, and jump from my seat. Jimmy’s dark skin pales, like I’m coming over to him or something, but I’m not. I feel bad skirting him and Odessa, but I have to, and soon I’m banging on the door.
It opens pretty quickly, a big white door designed to blend into the wall. A soldier, unsuited, with a brown buzz cut peeks in. His tan, pimply face makes him seem young enough to enroll at Westbrook.
“What?”
“He’s sick”—I nod at Jimmy—“and she needs a doctor.”
The soldier’s eyes widen, and he slams the door in my face. But I can hear him on his walkie-talkie, speaking frantically. I skirt Jimmy and Odessa again and go back to the window. We all sit expectantly, but nothing happens. Jimmy coughs some more, but never with any blood—each time he shows us his palm, and it really does give me a sense of relief. Like each cough is a game of Russian roulette that he keeps winning. And for a while, we don’t say anything. And then we don’t say anything for even longer, now afraid to speak. Rob moves to another window and starts outlining the snowmobiles and trucks in the fog.
“Where are they?” Jimmy finally asks. I don’t know, I think, but I only shake my head. He gently puts Odessa down, resting her head against the floor, and then moves to the door, which he starts to kick, shaking its frame, sending a deep boom around a room clearly designed for great acoustics.
“Let us out!” He screams and kicks, his big body moving almost rhythmically, like a logger against a tree. Again, scream and kick, the tendons on his neck get rigid and tight. The door makes a splintery sound and actually gives, but not in a serious way. Toying with him. He keeps going, breathing hard, his red-and-white ski jacket soon comes off, and his tan muscles flex underneath his tight gray Under Armour. He looks like he could break open the walls with his bare hands, and even though we’re just watching, dazed, it’s slightly disappointing that this huge specimen of a guy, our best shot to protect us from harm, can’t kick open this door.
I gaze around the room. Rob’s chewing his nails, eyes purposefully elsewhere, Jo’s face is set, staring at Odessa. They hear his kicks, of course. Both of their shoulders flinch with each one, but they’re detached and gone. I wonder where? Rob, maybe, is thinking of his parents in Fenton. Jo is probably trying not to think at all.
“Jimmy,” I say, but he can’t hear me. My throat aches. “Jimmy!”
He glances over, a bloom of red on his round cheeks. He doesn’t stop kicking.
“Stop that! It’s not helping.”
“Screw you, Baby. I’ll do what I want.”
I stand up, pissed now. “Baby? I’m the baby? You think kicking the door like that is going to get us out of here? Real matu—”
But then there’s a click, and the door on the opposite side of the ballroom opens.
Jimmy stops, his foot resting on the door he’s been kicking. He pulls back, looking smug. I’d laugh or hug Jimmy if I thought it was safe.
Three men walk into the room, their boots striking the floor in deep, matching thuds. Two are in hazmat suits, probably newly donned, both of which are adorned with the Darkstorm logo. One has a gun, an automatic of some type, and it’s trained on us. The other has a medical kit, a doctor. And the third I’ve seen before. He’s not in a suit. He’s not very tall, but he’s imposing, even with his vaguely receding hairline and his simple black fleece and jeans. I find it strange that I’ve only spoken to him twice, that I know
nothing about who he really is.
The three stop about fifteen yards away. I can feel Jo tense beside me. She should be tense. My mouth’s dry, a by-product of the helpless anger I feel enveloping me. Sutton’s staring at me, a friendly smile on his face, and he gives me a little wave. As if he’s passing me on the street, as if we were neighbors. “Who are you?” I ask, my voice ripe with venom. His smile vanishes.
Sutton’s gaze lingers on Odessa and Jimmy. Closer now, I can see that his face is rigid and dark, and it’s clear that the past two days have taken a toll. There are heavy bags under his eyes, as if he’s been up for a week straight, yet those weary eyes don’t seem like a weakness. They look like he doesn’t have to sleep, like he’s never had to sleep at all.
“I know you won’t believe me,” he says, his mouth twisting with regret, “but I’m sorry to be seeing you again this way.”
“Funny enough,” I reply, almost automatically, “I don’t.”
He stares at me for a moment, seemingly to gauge my anger. His dark eyes roam my face. I will not make this easy for him.
“Mia,” he says, his voice sounding sincere, “you don’t understand. I need to contact your dad; he’s the only one who can help your friends. This is all one huge mistake.”
“You shooting kids at Westbrook was a mistake?” Jo asks, and I’m happy to see she’s here at my side, not lost in grief. I give her a grateful smile.
“You’re right,” he replies, walking toward Odessa. “We should have gotten there sooner and sealed the exit, but we only meant to deter those boys. They ignored our warnings.” He bends and examines Odessa’s wound, not touching, just peering. Then he waves over the medic, who hurries to kneel at her side. “The thing is,” he continues, moving now to Jimmy, whose face goes dark at his approach, “I set up that interview between us for a simple reason: it was meant to be a way of saying to your dad, ‘I can get to your daughter, so you have to let me into the Cave.’ Nothing more should have come from it.”
“So to threaten him?” I say.
“I was obviously wrong,” he goes on, paying no attention to me. Instead he reaches out a hand toward Jimmy’s face. “Oh, yes—the virus is advancing to the tipping point.” Jimmy flinches, but Sutton’s persistent. He opens Jimmy’s eyelids, peers into them one at a time. Then checks his pulse.
“What’s the tipping point?” Jimmy asks from his perch on the floor. I want to know too, but I’m not about to offer my interest.
“Tipping point is a term that references the moment when the virus stops aging the body to any beneficial effect,” he replies, his voice straitlaced like a doctor’s and full of the same type of jargon. He pats Jimmy on the knee and rises. “I’m not sure if his heritage carries any genetic anomalies that withstand the virus more, but I doubt it. But don’t worry. This means he’s barely contagious. Good news for you all.”
“Dude, I’m third-generation American,” Jimmy says.
I catch Rob’s eyes, which can’t help but have a touch of accusation. They sense a missing link to this story. Why haven’t I told him everything? I can see the question blazing.
“What about you?” Jo asks. She’s been tracking his movement like a cat might a dangled treat. Except there’s nothing fun about Sutton. “You aren’t afraid of catching the virus?”
Sutton touches his forehead with the back of his hand, almost absentmindedly, as if routinely checking his body temperature. “I’m afraid, Miss Banner. I’d be foolish not to be.”
I want to ask why he’s standing here with no hazmat suit but Odessa grunts painfully on the floor, distracting all of us. The medic cuts off her pants, exposing the bulbous wound splattered against her pale thigh.
“During the meeting with your father, Mia,” Sutton says, regaining his train of thought—he barely looks at Odessa—“he clearly wasn’t getting the point.” He shakes his head, smiles at me, his teeth showing this time, bright against his tired face. “Stubborn guy, your dad. Always has been. You too, of course. When I saw how he reacted to my visit to Westbrook, how he made it clear he wouldn’t help me, I knew I couldn’t rely on him to make this easy, and that I’d have to use my men to contain the outbreak.”
“But how?” Rob blurts out. “You only interviewed Mia a day and half ago. How did you know there’d be an outbreak?”
My veins go icy. I remember walking down the hall after my interview and seeing him in the dean’s office. He was there, talking to Mrs. Applebaum. Holding her hand.
“You gave it to her,” I say, my voice wooden. I remember how the meeting ended so quickly, but then this stranger stuck around campus, was just spending time in the office. Why would he do this? What does my father have that this man so desperately wants?
Sutton’s eyes go dark. “I told you I didn’t want to do that. But your father forced me to.” I shake my head in denial. “Yes, he did,” he hisses in frustration at me. He sounds more like a whiny kid than an angry mastermind. “Mia, you have no idea what’s going on here, so please stop pretending. Did you know I told your father about the outbreak? That I called him up at the Cave and said his Baby Mia would get infected if he didn’t let me in?”
“What’s he mean, Mia?” Jo asks, confused.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “He knows Dad somehow. But he’s lying now to get me to help him.”
“Help me do what?” Sutton laughs. “Don’t you get it? Your father told me he had taken you from Westbrook. He lied to me, maybe to buy you time, maybe not. And then he left you there in the middle of a viral outbreak. To die.”
My hands clench. Dad had told me to leave the school, yes. But I had called him, not the other way around. He never tried to warn me.
“But the announcement asking for her,” Rob puts in. “You knew she was at Westbrook.”
“Not for sure.”
“You had your hostages anyways,” I say, my voice dull. “If not me, you’d just take the entire school captive.” Even my running away didn’t help. The only person who could have prevented this was my dad.
Sutton nods in agreement. He rubs at his eyes; his fingernails are long and dirty. “You’d figure a school loaded with kids, even without his daughter, would force Greg Kish to buckle. But nope, not at all. The virus spread more powerfully than I thought, I admit—some of my men have been infected, despite precautions.”
That’s why they’re this far away, I think. It has nothing to do with Brayden? They just needed to outrun the virus they let loose?
“And now that some of my men are infected, we have to work faster so that we can save them too.” He sees the look of disbelief on my face. “What? You think I wanted this? To kill innocent people? To kill my own men?”
He lets out some air, a sigh, and his body seems to deflate. I hate thinking this, but the thing is, he seems truly regretful. Like he really didn’t want to. Like he had this master plan that just kept getting messed up and out of control and now people are hurt. Because of him, because of my dad.
“After your father refused to play ball, I had to cut the signals to Westbrook and the Cave to make sure they couldn’t communicate with the outside world. And now the irony is, I can’t even call Kish up to negotiate if I tried.”
“Then what do you need her for?” asks Rob.
Sutton glances my way. “The Cave has cameras, lots of them. I just need to borrow Miss Kish here and have her wave to Daddy. That should be enough.”
My stomach aches. I’m supposed to be his little puppet.
The medic clears his throat.
“I have to take out the bullet. It’s fragmented.”
Sutton waves the medic on. Jimmy rushes over to hold Odessa’s head, stroking her hair. It’s surreal, watching a soldier in a baggy suit dig into a bloody wound right in front of you. Jo’s not looking, she’s gone white, and I’m grateful to see Rob take her aside. Odessa’s eyes are glassy, and I realiz
e she’s still in shock, still entirely dazed and unaware of where she is. She moans. Fair enough. I would too if someone were probing the inside of my leg with a tweezer, pulling out bullet fragments. He drops them into a little sack and puts that in a pouch.
“Will she be okay?” Jimmy blurts out.
The medic doesn’t answer, and I catch Jimmy’s gaze, trying to show some encouragement. But I might have twinged seeing the antiseptic—what might be iodine—come out. Good for you or no, that stuff hurts more than anything. My dad swears by iodine, though. I get a cut, iodine. I get a pimple, iodine. A mole looks too big, iodine. I remember countless times I sat on the dresser in his bedroom while he put the dropper against a scab or wound. I’d kick my leg back hard against the wood, again and again, probably shouting more than I needed to. But it always ended up a good memory, because then he’d blow on the iodine to dry it, to make me feel better. And we’d eat ice cream afterward while watching TV.
I do admit, though, I’ve never had iodine thrown on a bullet wound. And I certainly know this guy isn’t going to blow gently on the hole in her leg. When the liquid hits, Odessa jerks completely awake and screams so loudly that foam flicks from her mouth. Jo, still huddled against Rob, starts to cry. “Don’t,” she says, reflexively. Everyone in the room looks at her, but she didn’t mean to speak. Her tears drip with mascara in a thin line down her cheeks.
“Please, please stop,” Odessa shouts. And the medic does. The skin around the wound is copper-colored now, and the edges of the entry hole are jagged, puckered up, gawking at everyone in the room. Odessa’s gulping ragged gasps of air, and Jimmy’s trying to softly shush her. Sutton watches with detached interest as the medic pulls out a needle and thread and stitches the wound in nice zigs; it all looks way easier than I thought it would be, especially considering that he’s wearing gloves. Odessa sucks hard and moans each time the needle goes through the skin, but she doesn’t scream again, and I’m impressed. I’ve had stitches before and, honestly, I don’t remember them hurting, but that was with some local anesthetic.
