by Seth Fishman
“See, everyone,” I say to include Jo, who’s calmed herself down, “she’s going to be fine.” Then comes a syringe. I assume it’s finally a painkiller, but only after he sticks the needle into her vein do I realize the chamber is empty. He’s drawing blood.
I frown. “What’s this for?” Sutton puts his finger to his lips, telling me to be quiet.
“What’s he doing?” Jo asks, and there’s panic in her voice. She’s standing very rigid.
The soldier fiddles with Odessa’s pale arm, retracting blood—not at all the way it’s done in the doctor’s office with a small prick and a vial. “Hey!” I say, louder this time. I don’t like this. Sutton keeps his regretful face on, but suddenly I feel like we’re lab rats. The soldier on the snowmobile was right. We are being tested, processed. I imagine students taken directly from Westbrook and kept somewhere else in the camp. Rows of vials, red with blood, line a shelf in a trailer somewhere, and anonymous men spend all day peering at our secrets. If they can take our blood, what else can they do to us?
I think to ask Sutton why he never wears a hazmat suit, but Rob spits out, “That makes no sense. She needs help, not her blood taken.”
Jimmy seems to agree. I hadn’t even noticed, but he’s put Odessa’s head back down, and he’s staring hard at the medic, his forehead so wrinkled he looks like a sheep. Then, without warning, he grabs the medic’s plastic arm. “You want me to take that thing and poke a little hole in your suit, huh?”
The medic doesn’t fight. He doesn’t have to. The other soldier in the room steps forward and levels his machine gun right at Jimmy.
“Please let my man go. He’s only doing his job.” This from Sutton, who’s speaking quietly, no threat in his voice.
“What, to take blood tests?” I ask.
“Yes, actually. She had an exposed wound. There’s a virus going around. Your friend here”—he points at Jimmy—“is clearly at the tipping point. Why wouldn’t we test her? Why wouldn’t we test all of you? You’re the one who asked us in here to help. We need to make sure she doesn’t carry infection. How is that unreasonable?”
I leave Rob and Jo and approach Sutton, stand close enough to smell the spearmint on his teeth.
“Don’t you think that asking us permission might be the reasonable thing to do?”
Sutton’s eyebrows clench in anger. “Let my man go,” he hisses, and for the first time, he actually seems pissed off. There’s even a fleck of frothing spit on his lips. Jimmy tightens his grip on the medic and flips Sutton off. The guard now has his gun touching the back of Jimmy’s head.
You stupid, wonderful idiot.
“You think throwing a tantrum is going to work here? You think I want to hurt you?”
Jimmy takes his idiocy to another level, butting his head backward against the barrel several times. Sutton waves at the guard, who in one simple movement turns the gun on its end and bashes Jimmy in the head. He slumps to the floor, almost on top of Odessa, who is so dazed she doesn’t even notice. I rush forward, so do Rob and Jo, and the medic and guard step back to give us space.
Jimmy’s mouth is open, his tongue lolling gently about inside. There’s already a hefty bump on his head, but at least his eyes are flickering. Jo puts her hand on his chest and leaves it there.
“We can’t just sit here,” I whisper, feeling desperate.
“What we have to do,” Jo replies at full volume, her voice tired and uneven, “is let them take our blood so they will leave us alone.” She looks up at Sutton. “You will leave us alone, right?”
He smiles and raises one hand. “Scout’s honor. It’s all very simple now. I’ll communicate to Mr. Kish that we have his daughter, then he’ll open the Cave and let us in.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Rob asks. “I mean, an entire school of kids didn’t get him to open up the gates. He even thought Mia was there. Why would it work now?”
“It will,” I say, somehow confident. Dad thought I was gone from Westbrook. My absence doesn’t make him not helping the school okay, but still . . . “I’ll speak to him. We’ll stop this now.”
“Good,” Sutton says, clapping his hands once. He tilts his head to the side and peers at Jimmy. “I’d say that your friend probably has, what, twenty, twenty-four hours to live. But that’s the good news,” he adds, nodding at the medic to go ahead. “If the Cave opens up, we’ll find a way to save him.”
“How?” Rob asks.
“Ask her dad,” he replies, but I’m barely focusing on that. The word friend has me thinking of something, a painful punch in the gut.
“Where’s Brayden?”
Sutton waves me off. “He’s with his parents. Friends of the cause.”
I was right, I think, feeling a sudden impulse to punch something. He led them to us. And now he’s somewhere in the house, reunited with his parents, duty done. I’m livid, and I’m sure Sutton can tell, because he’s peering at me intently. Probably watching the vein on my forehead bulge. I feel sick, betrayed, and can’t keep his gaze.
“What about us?” Rob asks, pushing his glasses up his nose. He’s still wearing his ski coat, and the hood bobs behind him, making him look puffy and childlike.
“What about you?” Sutton replies.
“What if we’re carrying the virus?”
Sutton squints at us too, then heads toward the nearest door, the one Jimmy tried to kick down. “Don’t worry,” he says over his shoulder. “If Mia’s daddy doesn’t open the door in the next twenty-four hours, you’ll all be dead anyway.” And then he’s gone, leaving us with two soldiers, one with a gun and the other with a needle. My skin goes tight at the meaning of his threat. The virus is spreading that fast? Or will he just get rid of us with his own guns once we’re useless to him? As awful as he is, the look of real regret I saw on his face has me doubting he’d just kill us. He doesn’t seem the type. As if I know what that type is.
“May I?” the medic asks, breaking me from my thoughts, his voice soft and muffled. I look to Jo and Rob for help, but they just stare. I take off my jacket and hold out my arm. “I’m sorry about this. I wish I had vials. The majority of our equipment is in a mobile lab at ground zero. And now we can’t get to it.”
“That’s okay,” I respond, unable but to be nice when someone apologizes. I wonder what Sutton’s paying these men to have them risk their lives like this. But I guess that’s the point of being a mercenary—loyalty for reward.
He draws my blood, and I feel it. He doesn’t take much, he gives me a cotton ball and disinfects the tiny hole. But I feel it. I slump weakly to the ground and hold Jimmy’s and Odessa’s hands, no longer scared of the virus after what Sutton said about Jimmy’s tipping point. Or maybe I’m not scared because of the inevitability of it all. Twenty-four hours, he said. The medic takes blood from the others, and Jo and Rob stay quiet; we all do. We’re stuck here, watching Jimmy age, waiting for something to happen that we should never have been involved in. I feel overwhelmed, tired, and as the medic and soldier leave, I haven’t ever felt as helpless. Not even in the well.
“We’re going to be fine,” Rob says, in a rare display of straightforward reassurance.
Jo leans in to him and whispers, “We’ll never be fine again.”
12
JIMMY WAKES UP AFTER AN HOUR, AND THE FIRST THING he does is check on Odessa, who’s still passed out. We’ve put our jackets over both of them, and he pulls mine from his legs, then groans and gingerly touches the back of his head.
“The dude clocked me.”
I’m sitting in the window, watching the soldiers come and go outside, and for the past hour, I’ve been wondering if I’d see Brayden. It’s hard to remember that he didn’t grow up here, that this isn’t his house.
“How’re you feeling?” Jo asks Jimmy. She’s used the time to gather herself, and I’ve been catching glimmers of life in her face. I’m
glad she’s taking the lead. Jimmy looks different, like a thirty-year-old version of himself. His voice is deeper, body more developed. I’d say that the virus, whatever it is, has hurried him to his thirties, but kept him in the peak of fitness. It seems almost cruel: it makes you strong before it saps your life away.
“Groggy,” he admits, “but otherwise, yeah, I’m fine, I think.” He stands up and heads to the door. “Gotta piss, though.”
I do too. So do the others. He knocks, and a guard, now fully suited, peeks his head in. Soon we are being escorted one at a time to a bathroom down a hallway lined with ancestral portraits, plush carpet, and Ming or Hong or some Asian dynasty’s vases. I have to go slowly, hobbling, as my foot isn’t feeling any better. Wow, we are a full squad of injured kids. When it’s my turn, I don’t see anyone except my very own soldier, and while I go, I stare longingly at the shower, wishing I could wash the smell of the frozen lake from my hair.
On my way back, I can see that the hall continues beyond the ballroom, but to the right, the wall gives way to a banister and a stairway. My legs itch at the absurd possibility of making a break for it. I even move in that direction, the thick red carpet under my feet giving way, and the guard seems to sense this, because he wraps his hand around my arm and steers me toward the door. I’m still peering at the steps when suddenly Brayden sticks his head around the corner. His face starts upon seeing me, and he ducks quickly back out of sight. I almost scream, but clamp down my throat. What’s he doing? Why’s he hiding? Something inside me says to keep him a secret. Brayden pops his head out again, and motions something to me. I think he wants me to distract the guards. I almost shake my head no—I want to flip him off—but something tells me he wouldn’t be tricking guards unless he wanted to help. My body tenses, and I feel the soldier shift his weight behind me, his gun clicking against his hip. I shake my head. I can’t just mess around here. Brayden looks behind him, then turns back to me looking desperate. He mouths, Please.
It’s quite easy, really, what with the hobble I actually have now. I should have been in drama at Westbrook. I pretend to snag my foot on the carpet, and fall forward to my knees. I even give a little cry. The guard reaches for me, and the one resting outside the ballroom turns my way. I stay on my hands and knees, saying “Shit, shit, shit, shit” lightly and holding one leg up, wincing in pain. Brayden’s biggest problem will be my bathroom escort, so I roll over and grab his leg and squeeze, a pretty horrible thing to do considering that he probably thinks I’m infecting him. Unless he doesn’t know the virus can make it through the suits. Who knows what kind of lies Sutton is feeding his men.
I don’t see anything, but hear the faintest click. I assume the guards do too, but they stay where they are, staring at me, one trying to pull his leg from my grasp. I let go and slowly get up.
“You okay?” one of them asks. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that they’re humans.
I’m not sure if I’m okay. I just helped Brayden sneak into the ballroom, and I’m terrified to have to confront him.
“Hey,” the soldier repeats, “I can get the medic.”
I shake my head and answer weakly, “No, I’m fine. I’m just tired.” I keep my eyes down and open the door, and they let me enter without another word.
Brayden’s feet are dangling above the ballroom floor. Jimmy’s holding him up against the wall by the shirt, like in a comic book. I can see the veins, fat and thick like worms, on his arms. I knew Jimmy was strong, but this is ridiculous. Brayden looks afraid, and he’s got both hands on Jimmy’s arms, but he’s not struggling.
“Let him down,” I whisper. Jimmy glances at me, then reluctantly lets Brayden fall to the ground. Brayden’s lip is swollen, and there’s a smear of dried blood on his cheek.
Rob stands next to me, looking down on him. “What do you want?” he spits. Rob’s natural vitriol comes in handy sometimes.
Brayden looks past our legs to see Odessa lying on the floor. Jo watches, her chin bunched into a frown. Brayden’s pale, and my first thought is virus! but I shake that away quickly, especially with Jimmy so close. If Brayden had the virus, he’d be aging. No, he’s just different, changed. When I first met him he had a swagger, a confidence. That’s gone. Now he’s a shell.
“Please, Mia. You have to believe me.” His voice trembles, sending his thick lip wobbling. His bloodshot eyes wander the room, looking helplessly at each of us.
“What do I have to believe?” I ask, keeping my voice down, trying not to alert the guards. Everything we say now seems more significant, dangerous.
“I don’t know that guy. My parents don’t know that guy. My parents aren’t even here! They must have been kicked out when the soldiers moved in. Or maybe they were gone this weekend and I didn’t know.”
“Bullshit,” Rob says, his brow furrowed. “This coming from the guy who just strolls down the hallway and into our prison cell.”
“Yeah,” Jimmy adds. “If that’s the case, why did they separate us? Where have you been?”
“And why would Sutton lie to us about you?” I ask.
Brayden tries to steady himself and stand up. No one helps him. There’s a very real part of me that feels sorry for him, and I know that’s just the me who wants to believe him. I glance back at Jo, see her look of disdain and take strength from it.
“They separated us because Mia kicked my ass,” he says ruefully, his eyes to the floor. “Then they put me in my father’s study and took my blood, but didn’t tell me a thing.” I glance at the crook of his elbow and sure enough, there’s a splotch of stained skin from the iodine. They took away his Livestrong bracelet, good riddance. “Listen, I know this might seem hard to believe, but I’m telling the truth. We haven’t lived here long, but when my parents bought the place, they bought the blueprints as well. When we moved in, there was a weird door open in the back of my closet. A secret passage. I told my parents, and we pulled out the blueprints and found five more. You don’t build a house like this without some extras.”
Jimmy snorts in disbelief.
Brayden appears distressed at the sound, desperate. “It’s true! Wouldn’t you have explored this place top to bottom if you moved here? That’s what I did. And the study has a passage that leads right into the hallway. It took them long enough to leave me alone. Now there’s almost no one inside the house, so I snuck up here.”
“So you’re saying that your parents aren’t here, that you had nothing to do with any of this, and you just happen to know about a collection of secret passages in the house?” I play it back for him so he can hear how ridiculous it sounds.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I don’t happen to know anything. A secret door was left open when we moved in. If it hadn’t been, I might have never known.”
“So is there one in this room, then?” Rob asks, eyes scanning the walls.
“No,” Brayden replies, and for the first time I see him relax a little. Rob’s question was a crack in our wall, a potential foundation for belief. “But there’s one in a bedroom at the corner of this floor, that leads to the kitchen, and from there to the back door.”
I stare at him, trying to read his face. “Mia,” he says, speaking only to me. His voice is soft. I’ve heard it that soft before. The others stare, and suddenly I feel extremely self-conscious, heat rising to my face. The thing is, I want to believe him. I want everything he says to make sense. “Please. You have to trust me. I would never lie to you.”
We leave him in the far corner of the ballroom and make a circle around Odessa. Jimmy takes her hand, but doesn’t break my eye contact. Everyone’s watching me, waiting for me to make the decision. “Whatever we think about Brayden, whatever we do with him, we have to get out of here. That crazy bastard said he’s going to use us as ransom against something my dad has, right? But he also said that if we can get into the Cave, then we’ll be okay. Dad must know what’s going on, there must be so
me sort of answer in there. And we don’t have much time.” I try not to look at Jimmy, but I can’t help myself. His face looks so different now it’s shocking, a full beard coming in stubbly over his cheeks, but I can see that his eyes are the same—young, confused and afraid. He knows he’s in trouble.
“So we trust him?” Jo asks. She’d cleaned up her face in the bathroom, and her skin looks healthier, her eyes brighter. She’s more here, more present. Not like she’s over her dad, but she’s not fading away into grief, and for that I’m thankful.
It’s Rob who answers, all logic. “Well, I want to distrust him, and I do, but I think his story checks out.”
“What do you mean?” Jimmy asks.
“So, right, he wasn’t in the room with us, doesn’t know what that Sutton guy said. Right now, we’re where Sutton wants us. Captured, locked away, waiting for Mr. Kish to give him ransom or something. What does Sutton gain by setting us free? If Brayden wants us to escape, then, logically, he’s not on Sutton’s side.” He pauses, looks around the place. “And I’ve been thinking. If ground zero is Westbrook, and the virus is spreading, then it makes sense that the soldiers would want to set up their base farther away from the school. Furbish Manor is perfect.”
“This place makes sense then, huh?” Jo picks up the thread. “There’s nowhere semiclose to campus that has this kind of facility.” It’s true, I think, picturing the map of the area. Furbish is the logical choice, considering the scenario. Solitary, big, walled, not too far from but not too close to Westbrook.
“So if he’s telling the truth,” I say, not fully believing but recognizing the possibility, which makes me feel guilty for kicking him, “then he showed up to a new school, got caught in the middle of a virus outbreak and then dragged to his own new house, to find his parents gone and his friends hating his guts.”
“And you kicked me in the face!”
We all turn around, not realizing he had snuck up on us. He pats down his dark hair sheepishly. He’s smiling, a tentative lift of his bloody and swollen lips, and I do the same. He seems to sense we need something more. “Guys. I know this place. I can get us out of here.” He looks me dead in the eye, his face so sincere my heart stops. “I promise.”
