Omen Operation

by Taylor Brooke

  “I never thought they would go through with it,” Porter said.

  Brooklyn stopped chewing on her nails. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I know you never would’ve been a part of something like that.”

  “I was a part of something just as bad, though.”

  “Yeah, you were, and then you came clean, and you stayed with us. It’s been hell, and you’re still here.”

  He nodded and watched her over the top of his glasses. The old black beanie still hung on to the back of his head, and his smile was still a little crooked. They hadn’t even been gone a week, but Brooklyn felt like they’d had so much time to relearn each other.

  “Please don’t inject,” Brooklyn whispered.

  Porter’s nose twitched. “I’m sorry,” he said, shrugging his good shoulder. “But I already did.”

  The sadness was instantly replaced by anger, and Brooklyn’s face showed it clearly. She grasped his wrist and lifted his arm, shoving the sleeve of his jacket over his elbow. The grid of veins under his pale skin rose like thick deathly grey walls. They pulsed as the virus spread like toxic sludge through Porter’s body.

  “Why?” she hissed. “You won’t be able to have kids; you won’t be able to start over! You’ve dumped any chance of a life after this in the trash.”

  “If there was a chance for me to be more of an asset, then I had to take it,” Porter said.

  “You’re not even twenty-four…” She wanted to cry, but she couldn’t; the tears wouldn’t come. “You had so much to look forward to. You could’ve gone to any hospital with your experience. You could have saved lives.”

  “I already have some lives I need to save,” Porter said. “And one that I couldn’t.”

  She almost flinched at his blatant mention of Gabriel. The thought of her made Brooklyn want to be sick.

  “I don’t need you to save me,” Brooklyn growled between her teeth.

  Porter rubbed his fingers together and nodded. “Trust me—I know you don’t, but I’m gonna be here in case you change your mind.”

  She felt his hand on her arm and then the drag of his fingertips across her wrist to the top of her hand. He poked at her fingers until she allowed him to interlace their hands together. She couldn’t deny that it felt nice to have him so close, to know that he was willing to give everything up for his friends. But it wasn’t necessary. She wished he would’ve run off and done something with his life. Brooklyn wished he would have forgotten about all of them, left it all behind, and lived.

  Dawson sat back down on the edge of the palettes and cleared his throat.

  “Did all of you hear the conversation Brooklyn had with Savannah?” he asked.

  Everyone nodded. Amber piped up from her place on the floor. “So there’s a bunch of flippin’ copy cats out there, huh?”

  “I guess there is,” Dawson sighed. “But we also have Juneau and his people chasing us. They’re in Seattle, and I’m not convinced that they don’t know where we are.”

  “Well, let’s just get rid of ’em, then. We’ve got enough guns,” Amber said.

  “I would say that was an option, but it seems like they have no qualms about disposing of us if they need to.” There was a shake in his voice that Brooklyn could feel in her bones.

  “What are we lookin’ at, then? We gonna just let ’em take us?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I wanted to talk to everyone. We need to come up with a plan. A good one,” Dawson said.

  “I’ve thought of a few things,” Brooklyn said.

  Dawson turned and opened his hand to her. “A few things are better than nothing. Shoot.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  They argued until nightfall.

  Brooklyn tried to come up with something that everyone could agree on, but it wasn’t happening. Amber wanted to bait them into a full-force attack. Rayce wanted to try and track them down and pick them off one by one. Dawson was unsure of everything that anyone presented, and Porter was against anything that put them in direct danger—even though danger wasn’t something they could avoid at this point.

  Charlie sided with Julian when he mentioned staying on the road. They were both sure that in time their trails would be lost.

  Porter was the one who shut them down. He rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh when they mentioned running again. “My dad is funded by the National Security Agency. They can log into any camera on any street in any city. They’ll tap every single phone line for voice recognition. They’ll send helicopters. They’ll send Special Forces. They will send everything…”

  Julian’s face tightened into defeat.

  “We can’t just keeping running. If we do, more of us will die,” Porter said painfully.

  “What about the laptop?” Brooklyn said.

  “What about it?” Porter asked.

  “If they didn’t have time to wipe it, then why don’t you try to reach your father? You might be able to talk some sense into him or to at least, I don’t know, buy us some time?”

  “He’s not gonna listen to anything I have to say.”

  Brooklyn’s shoulders slumped. “You don’t know that, though. It’s all we have; it’s the only thing that might be able to slow them down enough for us to either make a move or get out of here before they find us.”

  “ISO will find us anyways,” Porter said.

  “But maybe you can give us some time!” Brooklyn said sternly.

  Porter looked like he wanted to crawl into a corner and fade away. His face was pale, and his thoughtful eyes held a tinge of fear that Brooklyn hadn’t seen before. Someone who wasn’t scared of Surros or of injecting himself with a deadly black cocktail was apprehensive about speaking with his own father. That alone made Brooklyn wearier of Juneau Malloy.

  Dawson rapped his knuckles against the wood palette. “I think it’s a solid idea.”

  Porter groaned.

  “Just try to get him off our tail for a little while, Porter. It could do a lot of good,” Dawson said.

  “Or it could make everything a lot worse,” Porter mumbled.

  Dawson held his arms out to the empty warehouse and said, “Couldn’t get much worse than this. You’ll do it in the morning, okay? Tonight, we should all get some sleep.”

  They hadn’t agreed on much, but at least they’d agreed on something.

  ***

  “Hey!” Gabriel whispered to Brooklyn while they hid behind Cabin A.

  It hadn’t been long then, maybe six months since they arrived at the camp, and the two girls were attached at the hip. The night sky had been full of stars, the summer air was warm and dry, and things had started to feel real again. That six-month mark: that was when the earth started to spin the right direction after winter formal.

  “What?” Brooklyn laughed, a faint blush brushed on the apples of her cheeks. “Did you guys like, make out or…?”

  “What? No! Well, yes. Actually, we did,” Gabriel grinned, and the two of them almost toppled over laughing.

  “What was it like?” Brooklyn asked, wide doe eyes peeking out from underneath her lashes.

  Gabriel’s brows furrowed. “What? Sneaking off with Dawson or kissing him in general?”

  “I don’t know—all of it, I guess.”

  “Oh, come on. You were varsity soccer…you were the cool older girl in high school…”

  “I’m eighteen. Don’t make fun of me because I was held back a year,” Brooklyn pouted.

  “No, I’m just kinda shocked. Are you…have you ever hooked up with anyone before?” Gabriel asked, mouth agape as she stared at Brooklyn.

  Brooklyn stammered and glanced around to make sure no one had found where they were hiding. “It’s not like I haven’t, okay? I just like never really met anyone interesting enough. I don’t know.”

  “Oh my god, you’re a virgin!”

  “Be quiet,” Brooklyn hissed. “I’m not a virgin! But it wasn’t…great. Like no fireworks or whatever, so…”

  “So you’v
e never had an…”

  “Would you stop it!” Brooklyn swatted Gabriel, who was still laughing.

  Gabriel dabbed at her eyes and snorted, “So, what? No good kiss either? Nothing? Nada?”

  “Nada,” Brooklyn confirmed through a defeated groan.

  Brooklyn watched Gabriel’s grin fade, mischief danced playfully behind her eyes. She felt the stiff wall of the cabin as she backed up into it. She held her breath and contemplated trying to break away when Gabriel leaned in and slotted their mouths together. The kiss was soft, though, comforting.

  Brooklyn’s mind short circuited. Her bones hummed, her chest ached. Kissing Gabriel felt like tumbling in the ocean under rolling waves and breaking the surface for a deep lungful of air.

  It shouldn’t have lasted as long as it did. Gabriel shouldn’t have grabbed Brooklyn’s face; she shouldn’t have kissed her like that.

  But she did. And when she pulled away, Brooklyn’s eyes were still closed, and her mouth was still open.

  “Now you can say you’ve been kissed properly,” Gabriel purred and ruffled Brooklyn’s hair. “And you know what to do when you get around to hooking up with Porter.”

  Brooklyn wanted to hit her, but she could only smile and roll her eyes. “I don’t even like him!”

  “You totally like him,” Gabriel said and turned to walk away.

  Brooklyn’s heart had been beating fast. Fast enough to scare her.

  It was beating just as fast when she jolted awake on the floor of the warehouse.

  Porter’s arm was tight around her waist, and he pressed his nose against the back of her neck. He was still asleep; she could hear the light rhythmic drum of his heartbeat, the steady inhale and exhale of his breath.

  That visceral memory tied around her ribs and pulled, striking like a lightning bolt into the pit of her stomach.

  “Hey,” Dawson whispered as he watched her from his place against the wall. He smiled when she glanced up. “You look comfy over there.”

  Brooklyn wasn’t sure how to get up without rousing Porter. She did the best she could and slid slowly from underneath his arm. Porter’s eyes cracked open a sliver, but she hushed him and pulled the jacket they were using as a makeshift blanket up to his neck.

  “Where ya goin’?” he slurred and tapped on her hand as she sat up.

  “Just to get water. Go back to sleep.”

  Porter closed his eyes and snuggled into the jacket.

  She looked around the dark room and spotted a mass of bodies all pressed together by the wall. It was Julian, Rayce, Amber, and Charlie. Brooklyn smiled as she picked each of them out. Julian was slumped against Rayce’s chest, and Amber was lying across both their laps with Charlie curled up against her thighs.

  “It’s cute isn’t it?” Dawson whispered to her.

  She stifled a chuckle and nodded. “It’s adorable.”

  He patted the space next to him.

  “Are you first watch?” she asked, taking a seat against the wall beside him.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep anyways. What about you? You kind of got up in a hurry.”

  She bit down on her lip. “Just a dream.”

  “Yeah…I’m scared of what I’ll dream about too,” Dawson said. “What you said to Savannah about watching Gabriel get killed…that happened?”

  Brooklyn bristled but gave a short nod.

  “How did she come back, then?”

  “Who knows,” Brooklyn said bitterly. “All I know is that there’s a gaping hole in my chest that I can’t fill. I feel empty without her.”

  Dawson looked down at his hands and his nose twitched. “I was gonna tell her I loved her if we got out of this,” he said under his breath. “I was gonna ask her to move to New York with me.”

  “She loved you, Dawson,” Brooklyn said almost too quickly. “God, she did. She loved you.”

  The back of her throat started to itch, and tears sprang to her eyes, but Brooklyn refused to cry. She swallowed again and again until the feeling died down.

  “You loved her too,” Dawson whispered, the words ghosting over his lips.

  Brooklyn smelt the salt in his tears as he looped his arm around her and pulled her in against his chest. Dawson was supposed to be the strong one, the fierce leader. He’d taken on that responsibility without anyone asking him to, and in the end, the only person he wanted to save was the one they had lost. She rested her head on his shoulder, listened to his heart drum on, and ignored his tears. Dawson didn’t grieve; he just kept moving, so she pretended not to notice as he cried and allowed him to use her as a shield. It was the least she could do.

  They stayed awake in the dark together for close to an hour until Dawson wiped his eyes and shooed her away.

  “Go lay back down with him,” he said.

  “I can stay with you.”

  Dawson shook his head. “He shouldn’t have to wake up alone.”

  “Neither should you,” Brooklyn protested.

  “I won’t. I’ll be right here. And when I get tired, I’ll wake Rayce up and go join the puppy pile.”

  They laughed, and he wiped his nose with the back of his hand after he sniffled.

  “Thank you for not giving up on Porter.”

  “You should be thanking yourself,” Dawson said and leaned his head back against the wall. “He’s always been our friend, Brooklyn.”

  “I know,” she said softly.

  Brooklyn crawled back over to where Porter was sleeping and nudged under his arm once again. He stirred and cracked his eyes open, blinking at her. “Hi,” he rasped, smoothing his arm up the back of her shirt. His chin rested on top of her head, and he drew circles with his fingers on her lower back.

  The sound of a room full of familiar heartbeats lulled her back to sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Hushed chatter was what woke Brooklyn the next morning. She stretched her legs out and felt Porter twitch his foot when her toes rubbed against his ankle. They were twisted up in one another—her knee was tucked between his thighs, and his arm was wrapped snug around her waist. She could taste the sweat on his throat where her mouth was pressed, and he hummed when she continued to squirm, alerting him rather quickly that she was awake.

  “If you get up, that means I have to call my dad,” Porter mumbled. “So don’t move.”

  His arm tightened around her, and he pushed the palm of his hand up the back of her shirt, feeling along the expanse of her back.

  “We have to get up,” Brooklyn said.

  Porter yawned and backed up a few inches so he could get a clear view of her face. “We can stay right here, actually.”

  “No,” she said. “I need to take a look at your stitches anyways. C’mon, wake up.”

  Brooklyn unwound herself from Porter’s long limbs and sat up. Julian was eating an old pastry from the vending machine they’d broken into, and Amber was scrounging around through the bags for more food. Rayce was around the corner, checking on Savannah, and Charlie was against the wall with Dawson. Everyone looked exhausted. Drained. Dirty.

  “I would kill for some deodorant right now,” Amber grumbled as she got her hands on a granola bar and tore the wrapper off.

  “Don’t talk about it,” Julian said as his face crinkled up into a displeased scowl.

  Brooklyn tried to untangle her hair with her fingers to no avail and opted to tie it back into a ponytail with an old rubber band. She would have loved to trek back into the woods and find Nicoli’s cabin—steal a nice warm shower, scrub her skin with some of Plum’s dry soap. But that wasn’t going to happen. As gross as it was to deal with, they had bigger things to worry about than being clean.

  “Good morning,” Dawson said as he watched Brooklyn adjust the belt around her jeans.

  “Morning, did you get some sleep?” she asked.

  “A few hours.”

  She tried to smile but it was small and hardly visible.

  “You need help with his shoulder?” Dawson asked as he gestured to Po
rter.

  “No, we’ll be fine,” she said.

  Porter’s hair was sticking up in all different places. He didn’t bother with trying to tame it and covered his head with the ratty old beanie before he slid his glasses up his nose. He squinted for a moment and then took them off again to inspect them, turning them around in his hands.

  “Are my glasses scratched?” he asked and held them out to Brooklyn.

  She gave them a once-over and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t look like it. Maybe they just need to be cleaned?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long,” he said.

  “You can clean them while I get these bandages off.” She tugged on his shirt until he took it off and tossed it aside.

  The bandages still looked clean enough, and they hadn’t slipped much since the hotel. Brooklyn carefully stripped them away one by one until only a single layer was left. Her hand hovered just above his shoulder. She inhaled a rickety breath. It was terrifying. All Brooklyn could imagine was black blood seeping out from between his stitches as the virus ate away at what was left of him. His personality falling away day by day, his voice becoming unrecognizable, his honey eyes shifting into muted yellow voids. She thought of the memories they’d built together, of his arms around her, and knew that if the bleeding started, those memories would peel up and float away like ash. Porter wouldn’t remember her.

  “It’s okay,” Porter said. “Take it off.”

  Brooklyn shifted her gaze to the ground when the bandage dropped away. She didn’t want to be a coward, but she also didn’t have the courage to deal with Porter becoming a Surrogate. She held her breath and stared at the concrete.

  “Would you look at that,” Porter said lightly. He pinched Brooklyn’s arm and rolled his shoulder around. “I guess it worked.”

  She looked up and analyzed the space where his wound was. Fresh silky skin surrounded the small indentions from the stitches. The wide jagged cut from days ago had faded overnight into a tiny sliver of what it used to be.