by Jo Treggiari
“If she gets in my way, I’ll hurt her,” Lucy promised. “You bring weapons?”
He showed her a small knife and a hammer. He grinned. The knife had a curved blade and looked wickedly sharp.
“Nice tiny sickle,” she said sarcastically. “You plan the whole look with the robes and the mask and everything?”
He pulled the mask up over his head and stowed it in a hidden pocket under his robes.
“Just working the plague victim–grim reaper angle. In case I run into anyone. You’d be amazed the effect a simple black cloak can have.” A broad smile spread across his charred face. “It’s a billhook, though. Sickles are those long cut-your-head-off tools. Wish I had one of those.”
“All kidding aside. Are you prepared to use it?” she asked.
He looked serious. She saw his throat work and wondered if his mouth was as dry as her own.
“I guess so. You?”
“I will if I have to,” she said, realizing it was true.
She slipped her knife into her pocket, then closed and locked the door to the sleeping chamber. The door out to the hallway was shut. Everything was quiet. Gray light leaked through the thick curtains.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she asked.
“About eleven thirty, midnight,” he said.
“Of the day after we left?”
He nodded. “What’s up with you? You seem kind of out of it.”
No wonder she still felt groggy. She tried to do the math. The sleeping pills had put her out for about sixteen hours. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’m still lively enough to take you down.”
“You jumped me from behind,” he said, with a hurt expression.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to be playing fair here, so be prepared for some dirty fighting.” She looked around the room. “See anyone on your way up?” she asked.
He shook his head. “All clear. The dogs were barking up a storm. Maybe they smelled me.”
“They’re locked up somewhere though, right?”
“Basement, I think. Del said something about kennels.”
Lucy hurried over to the desk. Her backpack was still under the chair. She slipped the straps over her shoulders and looked around for her frog spear. It was nowhere to be seen. She remembered how Del had knocked it out of her hands and she knotted her fists.
Her medical folder was still centered carefully on the desktop. Behind it stood the refrigerated cabinet. Lucy stared at the papers—so much information gathered about her without her knowledge. It was weird. And there were probably at least eight new vials of her blood stored in the refrigerator. She felt sick. Although she’d told Dr. Lessing how she felt, the woman had still gone ahead with her plan. She had taken away Lucy’s ability to choose. Lucy rubbed her arms, felt the prickle of new scabs.
“Del’s getting the rest of the kids. Do you know where Aidan is?” Sammy asked.
“I’m hoping he’s still next door. There may be someone with him. But give me a minute, will you? It’s important.”
Sammy cast a look around. “Listen,” he said. “I didn’t see anyone on the way up, but this place must have guards, right?”
“There aren’t so many of them anymore. I think a few have bailed. Maybe ten total. They won’t be expecting a rescue mission.” She rested her hand on his arm. “This is seriously important.”
He nodded. “Okay, but be quick. This place gives me the creeps.”
She stood still, willing her brain to work. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to have the choice to decide what to do with her life. But perhaps this was a gift, and it was bigger than she was? She thought of her parents, her sister and brother, of Leo and the terrible pain he had suffered. Maybe if a cure made from her blood had existed they would still be alive. Of course, she argued, if Dr. Lessing hadn’t infected Leo in some mad experiment, he’d never have gotten sick. Figuring out the morality of the doctor’s motivation was impossible. There was some single-minded craziness going on there, she was sure of it.
But Lucy could make a difference.
There were vials of her blood in the refrigerator, and she remembered the doctor saying something about a synthetic duplicate. The question was, what should Lucy do about it?
She moved around to the front of the desk. A white lab coat draped over the chair smelled of Mercurochrome and rubbing alcohol and evoked Dr. Lessing as clearly as if she were standing there. Lucy felt a flutter of fear. Looking increasingly nervous, Sammy followed her over to the desk. Lucy flipped open the front cover of the folder. There was the photo, beginning to fade now. Her hair longer. Her face younger. High school seemed centuries ago. Words jumped out at her.
“Subject shows natural resilience to the highest degree. Possible living source of Mother Vaccine. Risk of death to the subject from controlled blood extraction—97.2%.”
“God,” Lucy said. Her hand started shaking.
“What’s all this medical mumbo jumbo?” Sammy asked, poking his finger at the page.
“It’s all about me, Sammy. My blood.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Why would they have a file like this on you? There must be a hundred pages. What’s your blood made of? Twenty-four karat gold?”
She shook her head.
“We have to destroy this stuff.” She picked up the folder. It was heavy; the papers spilled from it. She kneeled and picked them up. There was a report from when she’d sliced open her calf running through the glass door. There were even the results from the mandatory state physicals all students had to take. Her entire physical history, gathered in one place. I’ll take it with me, she decided. She pulled opened the rest of the drawers. They slid easily on metal runners. More folders filed neatly. Unfamiliar names. She wondered if any were kids like her, before remembering that the doctor had called her an anomaly. Lucy ignored them, moving on to a thin stack of notebooks covered in Dr. Lessing’s neat handwriting. She opened one, scanned the pages, filled with numbers and strange symbols, reams of medical language she couldn’t begin to understand, and some diary-like entries, which seemed oddly personal. Lucy’s name leapt off of the pages. Opening her backpack, she stashed them and her medical folder inside. Then she turned to the cabinet holding the samples. It stood as tall as she was. She opened the door and gazed at the rows of glass vials glistening like rubies. There were ten neatly labeled with her name.
She could destroy them; it would be easy. But she hesitated. Insane as Dr. Lessing seemed, she was trying to protect the human race.
“Whoa,” said Sammy. He kept an eye on the door.
Lucy spared a glance for him. “This is evil stuff, Sammy. That’s my blood in there, and who knows what else.”
His teasing expression turned serious.
“Okay. Finish what you’ve got to do, and then let’s find Aidan and get out of here.”
Lucy debated. She picked up one of the tubes and held it in her hand. If a cure really did reside in her blood, then it would be wrong not to give that much at least. She tried to see past the emotional, the feeling that she had been violated, and the knowledge that she had been drugged against her will. With a sigh, she closed the cabinet door. Hardly knowing why, she decided to take one and leave the rest.
She opened her backpack and placed the vial inside her tinderbox, padding it with her spare socks. Then she shrugged her arms through the backpack straps and felt the cumbersome weight settle against her back.
“Come on,” she whispered.
Lucy opened the door and peered into the hallway. It was empty and quiet except for the weird clicking noises the turned-off air conditioner made. She unlocked, then twisted the knob of the adjacent door. It opened with a creak that set her muscles jumping. The scent of antiseptic was very strong. The room was darker, but she could just make out the shrouded form on the gurney. Plastic IV bags hanging from the stand dripped a viscous liquid, and clear tubes snaked beneath the sheets.
Sammy, close at her heels, flipped on the light. The su
dden blaze threw everything into stark relief. Lucy froze, her heart pounding. “God, can you stop doing stuff without warning!” she snapped. “We’re supposed to be stealthy,” she continued in a furious whisper. The figure on the bed groaned. Lucy sprang forward, tripping in her haste. Her boots squealed on the shiny floor. She caught Sammy’s smirk and ignored it.
Aidan lay on his back. His T-shirt was damp with sweat. His eyes were open, but they were bleary. He blinked, shaking his head as if to clear it.
“Aidan,” she said, bending over him. A tube ending in a needle ran into the small veins of his hand, another into the larger vein of his forearm. The liquid they carried was clear. They weren’t bleeding him. They were doing something else. Lucy frowned. She couldn’t think about it now. They would get him out first. She clawed at the covers. Someone had tucked him in tight.
“Here, let me,” Sammy said, putting his arm around Aidan’s shoulders and heaving him upright. The blankets fell to the floor. He was still wearing his jeans and socks. Lucy looked around quickly and located his boots and sweatshirt on the chair. His bow and quiver were gone.
Aidan blinked again. “Lucy. Sammy,” he said in a rough voice. “I’m feeling a little sick.” His head slumped forward. His breathing was labored.
Lucy ripped the needle out of his hand. He groaned again. A trickle of blood leaked from the wounds.
“You going to be sick?” Sammy asked him.
“No.”
“Good.”
Sammy slapped him across the face. The crack was shockingly loud.
“What are you doing?” Lucy said, trying to get her arms around Aidan. She could feel a bandage of some kind wrapped tightly around his shoulder and ribs.
“He’s got to snap out of it,” Sammy said, his fingers busy with the tape holding the second, thicker needle in his brother’s vein. He ripped it off and slid the needle out.
Aidan’s eyes were open now, and they did seem clearer. He swung his legs over the side of the gurney.
“Remind me I owe you one later,” he told his brother with a grimace. “What the heck are you doing here, anyway? Didn’t I tell you to stay at the camp?”
“Didn’t you always tell me to question authority?” Sammy pulled his hood down lower. “Besides, if I hadn’t shown up, you guys would still be locked up. So now that I have rescued you, why don’t you get a move on so we can get out of here already? Or are you just going to lie around?”
Lucy glared at him. He grinned back at her.
“He’s right. We should go. I’m okay,” Aidan said to Lucy, squeezing her hand. “Just a little woozy.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, smoothing his hair down.
“Yes.”
“What were they injecting you with?”
He shrugged. “He took some blood first. After he checked my arm. Pulled muscle, maybe a cracked rib,” he said in answer to his brother’s querying look. “I think the small IV was a painkiller. The big one. I’m not sure.”
Lucy gasped.
“I saw the bottles of medicine,” he said. “They were legit. Sealed. Big pharmaceutical names. It could have been an anticoagulant, so I’d bleed quicker. The nurses always had a hard time getting blood out of me. They said my veins were buried too deep. Remind me to ask Henry when I see him next.”
“You don’t feel like you might be getting sick?” Lucy asked, pressing her hand against his forehead. It was clammy, but not warm. There was no air conditioner, and the room was humid.
“No. I remember drinking some really bad coffee. It must have had six spoonfuls of sugar in it. And then passing out.” He rubbed the puncture in his arm. The wounds in Lucy’s arm stung in sympathy.
“There were sleeping pills in the coffee,” she said. “If you walk around a little you’ll feel better.”
He took a deep breath, and cautiously probed his ribs. Lucy didn’t miss the grimace that flickered across his face.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked him again quietly.
With a brief nod, Aidan stood up. “That guy, Simmons, taped me up pretty good.” He frowned. “It’s weird. I mean, are they bad guys or good guys or what?”
“I vote bad,” Lucy said. She brought his boots to him, pushed his fumbling hands away when he tried to lace them, and did it herself. While she was pulling them tight, Sammy brought him up to speed.
“Del came back?” Aidan asked, his face serious. Lucy couldn’t read his expression.
“She’s getting the other kids out,” Sammy said. “Two floors down. Emi and Jack.”
The kids who’d been taken in the first raid, Lucy remembered.
“So what’s the plan?”
“The plan?” asked Sammy. He rubbed his chin. “To get out of here as fast as possible. Meet up if we can. We didn’t have much time to come up with anything.” He grinned. “This seems to be working pretty well so far.”
“Weapons?”
“I’ve got my broken knife,” Lucy said. “Sammy’s got a billhook. And a hammer.”
Aidan’s green eyes opened wide. He looked more awake. His lip curled. “A hammer?”
“It’s heavy. It’s blunt. It’s all we’ve got,” Lucy said. She went to the door, put her ear against it, and listened.
Aidan made a face.
“Well, where’s your bow, your slingshot?” Sammy asked him.
“They must have taken them.”
“So a hammer doesn’t seem like such a bad thing anymore, then, does it?”
“Not if we meet a loose nail or a hanging shutter.”
“Stop bickering and get over here,” Lucy hissed. “Sammy, give Aidan the hammer.”
She flicked the light switch off and eased the door open. The foyer was empty.
“Quickest way out?” Aidan whispered.
“Side door?” Sammy said with a shrug. “That’s how Del and I got in.”
“Us, too.”
“Four floors down,” Lucy said.
“Guards?”
She shrugged.
“Likely, then.”
She gripped her knife. “Quiet now.”
The recessed lights high above them must have been on a dimmer switch. It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the murk, but she could see the glimmer of the floor tile and the sheen of the metal handrail, which followed the curve of the spiral staircase. She felt Aidan behind her. Sammy, to her right, grumbled to himself, and she nudged him sharply. “Shhhh!”
“I turned the alarm off, but there’s a number code for the door lock,” a voice said. A shadow on the far side of the corridor peeled itself away and stepped toward them. Lucy froze.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
KELLY
Although the light was dim, Lucy recognized the form of the blonde Sweeper, Kelly. Dr. Lessing’s second in command. Lucy sucked in a breath and curled her fingers around the hilt of her knife. Beside her, Sammy and Aidan tensed. Kelly walked forward and showed her hands. They were empty. No Taser. She was wearing regular clothes, a button-down blouse and jeans. Her hair was tucked behind one ear, and on the other side it hung loose, draping her face.
“Keep your hands where we can see them,” Sammy said in a deeper voice than usual. He had the billhook out. His hand trembled.
“You can’t stop us,” Lucy said. “We’ll… kill you if you try.” She eyed the staircase. It was between them. She thought they could tackle Kelly before she could reach the first step. “If you make a sound, you’ll be sorry.” She pointed the ruined knife and ignored the small voice in her brain that wondered if she had enough blade left to stab someone—and the will to do it. Maybe Kelly would think the tremors shaking her hands were barely suppressed rage.
“Every door has a numeric locking code, and there’s a building-wide security check done at midnight, so you won’t be able to get back out again without help,” the woman said. Somehow her voice was familiar to Lucy. It nagged at her memory. She cudgeled her brain, but her thoughts were still muddied by the drugged coffee.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Lucy.”
Lucy forced herself to take a couple of steps. She squinted into the faint light, trying to see the woman. “Who are you?” she said.
Kelly turned toward them. Her right eye was surrounded by grafts of too-pink flesh, the tint of a pencil eraser. Lucy caught a gleam of a milky pupil and a cheek, cratered and pockmarked and covered in flesh-colored makeup.
The other half of Kelly’s face was normal: skin pale and even, her left eye, bright blue. The round-collared cotton shirt she wore was as neat and white as the uniform Lucy had last seen her in; only the wreck of her face spoke of the months that had passed. Time seemed to shift backward. In her mind, Lucy could hear the nurse’s measured tones warning of the pinch of the needle, feel the rubber tubing tied tight around her biceps, smell the pine-scented cleanser the school janitors used. Automatically she looked down at the woman’s feet, expecting to see the standard issue white brogues, but they had been replaced by gray cross-trainers.
“Mrs. Reynolds!” Lucy said. “I don’t understand. What happened to you?”
“Who is that?” asked Aidan, sidling up beside her. He wasn’t too steady on his feet. Sammy, one step behind, gripped his elbow.
“The nurse from my high school.”
The generator started up its slow grumble again. Frigid air blew from the vents. Lucy felt the skin on her arms rise up in goose pimples. Equal parts chill and fear, she thought.
Mrs. Reynolds had moved closer. Now she stood with her good eye facing them.
“What happened?” Unconsciously, Lucy’s hand, the one not gripping her knife in a death hold, flew up to her cheek, felt the reassuring smoothness of her skin. Immediately she was embarrassed. The woman’s scars were horrifying. In the light, she could see that the nurse’s right eye was opaque with a bluish cast. Blind.
“The plague. The risk of nursing sick people.”
Lucy’s chest contracted in pity. It was awful, but she had to remember the circumstances. Mrs. Reynolds was in this place. Which made her an enemy. She flexed her fingers and tightened her grip on her knife.
