by Angel Lawson
I push the door open quickly and it swings wide, revealing the room of a child—a boy—stars and rocket ships painted on the walls. My eyes land on the bed to the four children sitting there, mouths gagged with brightly colored handkerchiefs. Their eyes are wide but not at me. They’re focused on the space behind the door and I feel rather than see the barrel of the gun pressed to my temple.
“Hey, now,” I say. “I’m just here to check on the kids.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see the familiar uniform of black and understand with a sinking feeling what Tabitha meant by not normal. The Hybrids beat us to the house—or at the very least knew we would be here before them. I fear for my team’s lives downstairs more than I do for my own.
I catch the eye of one of the kids, a little girl, reddish hair in two pigtails that reminds me of Alex and my heart kicks my brain into gear. I wink at the girl and spin on my heel, pushing the gun out of my face and kicking the Hybrid in the knee. He’s caught by surprise and I punch him in the jaw while reaching for my gun. His head snaps back quickly but before I blink he’s pointing a sharp hunting knife inches from my eye. My gun is aimed at his chest.
Breathing heavy, and trying not to make any sudden moves, my eyes dart from the purple on the Hybrid’s shoulders to the unfamiliar hue of his eyes, wondering what fresh hell I’d stumbled into.
I shake my head, taking too long to find my voice. Cole does it for me, breaking the silent standoff with a lazy southern drawl. “Nice to see you too, Wyatt.”
Chapter 7
I’m pretty unflappable, even before the infection rolled through the human race. I’ve seen terrible, awful things as a by-product of war and every time I just do my job, never wavering from my mission.
But seeing Cole in a traitor’s uniform, dark eyed and just different, I’m momentarily stunned. Even so, that simple fact makes me hold my weapon firm.
“I can tell you have a lot of questions,” he says, lowering the knife. “I can give them to you, but not today. Today you need to get these children out of here and back to the safety of your base before the others come.”
Make that twice he renders me speechless.
“Wyatt?” he prompts.
I hear the kids shifting on the bed but I keep my eyes on the man—or whatever the hell he is—in front of me. I do finally manage to say, “I’m gonna need a little more explanation than that.”
“And I’ll give it you to, but the Hybrid squad will hit the fence line in fifteen minutes and neither of us want to be here when that happens. We both want the same thing. To get these kids out of here.” He sniffs the air. “Jude and Parker have set the buildings on fire. You may want to make that ten minutes. They’ll smell it too and pick up the pace.”
I jerk my head toward the kids and command, “Get up—go down stairs. There’s a bear of man at the bottom. He’ll take you to your mothers.”
They don’t have to be told twice, jumping off the bed and brushing past me to get out the door. We listen to their feet on the hardwoods and echo down the stairs. I angle my back to the door.
“Go with them and don’t let Davis come up here—things could get nasty.”
He walks toward the window, still facing me. Neither of us let down our guard—not for a second. With one hand he unlatches the window and slides it open. “I’ll answer all your questions. Tomorrow night. On the overpass bridge on route 128. Mile marker 16.”
“What time?”
“Midnight. Bring whoever you want to stand guard but I need to talk to you alone.”
He’s got one leg outside the window already and ducks his head to get all the way though. I hear the backdoor slam and Davis shouts my name from below. I glance away for just a second and when I look back at the window again, he’s gone. Only the moving curtains signal that he was ever here.
Chapter 8
Paul tells us later that we got the family off the property only minutes before the Hybrids arrived. Black smoke billowed in the air, coating us with a thin layer of soot. All in all, we managed to save the occupants on the farm and we brought four men, including teenagers, the three women, and the four children to the base and dropped them at quarantine.
At first I say nothing about Cole being at the house, focusing instead on getting back to the base. But once we’re fed, showered, and prepping for the mission to Dublin, I know it’s time to tell them.
The team sits around a circular table in one of the lounges. Many of the rooms in the building are useless but this one has windows, making it functional during the day. Each location we occupy has fewer modern luxuries. We’re slipping away from the convenience of electricity and fuel. This place isn’t bad but I suspect the next will be worse. But for now, there’s water in the showers, even if it’s cold.
I tell them what happened when I went upstairs, what and who I found. I described his appearance. His tone and the changes I noticed during our brief exchange.
My revelation is met with silence. I understand. I was stunned as well—still am. We all assumed Cole was dead or at the very least slaving away down in the labs beneath the Hybrid-run PharmaCorp.
“Cole is a Hybrid.” Parker makes this a statement more than a question.
“Yes.” I think for a moment. “Well, maybe.”
“There’s no such thing as a maybe Hybrid,” she says back.
“No?” I let my gaze land on Paul who, as usual, listens more than speaks during meetings. “Then what do we call him? Because we all know he’s got a little bit of something unexplainable going on.”
The changes in Paul are noticeable to all of us, but have never been addressed as a group. The increase in muscle mass. His speed. The darker shade in his already brown eyes. Some of that acceptance was out of respect to Alexandra and their friendship, but she’s gone and he’s still here and we need some answers.
“I’m not a Hybrid,” he says.
“No one said you were—exactly,” Davis chimes in. “Your temperament is even and you definitely have independent thought, but I’ve spent the majority of my life in gyms and with weightlifters and I’ve never seen someone’s body composition change so quickly.”
“Right,” I say. “That’s how Cole is, too. He isn’t angry. He was reasonable and there’s no doubt he was disobeying orders. He wanted out of there before the Hybrids got to the farm.”
“Or so he said,” Jude interjects.
“Was he bigger?” Parker asks, giving Paul an apologetic glance. “Physically?”
“It was hard to tell under the clothes, but he was faster for sure. More confident. I’ve fought with Cole dozens of times, as have all of you. He’s capable and a good marksman but I never had a concern he’d gain an upper hand on me.”
Jude raises an eyebrow. “Did he?”
“It was closer than I’d like to admit.”
“Okay,” says Parker. “Say he’s a Hybrid and working for his sister. Maybe she sent him to mess with you. Screw with your head. It could just have been to a trap for later?”
“Chloe is vindictive and whatever Jane gave her made her unhinged, but I can’t see her letting those kids and the others go just to mess with me. Particularly not the farm itself. That place could have housed and fed them for months. He had the upper hand the whole time. He had a gun on me before I even stepped in the room.”
“Wyatt and I both heard the orders the other night—from two different camps. They wanted that family and the children and adolescents were mentioned specifically,” Jude says, tapping his fingers on the table. “Why does he want to meet tonight?”
I shrug. “He said he’d answer my questions. I guess I’ll find out then.”
“So you’re going?” Parker asks.
“Yes, I’m going.”
She and Jude both look wary. Paul and Davis don’t. I nod at the former. “You’ll be my back up.”
Paul nods, understanding that my request conveys a level of trust. He may also be the only one to get me out of trouble if this whole thing is
a set up. “Got it.”
“The rest of you stick to the plan. Head to Dublin with the other units, take the higher ground before the Hybrids get there. It may be the only chance to hold them up before they find the base.” They note that I don’t say stop, because I think we all know right now there is no stopping them, but we can buy some time.
Davis scoots his chair away from the table and asks, “Does Erwin know?”
“Not yet. Let me get a better handle on this first and what it means.”
The informal meeting ends and the team disperses to other areas of the base. I bend to tie the lace on my boot. When I look up they’re gone, and it’s just me and Paul. He studies me carefully, leaning his elbows on the table in a way that reveals how large his biceps have become. I can’t determine if he’s trying to intimidate me. It’s effective, if so.
“Is something wrong?” I ask.
“Why are you really meeting him?”
“He asked me for the meeting—not the other way around. I do have questions I need answered. I’m not one to waste an opportunity.”
A small line forms on his forehead. “Then why don’t we ambush him? Take him captive? Use him for information.”
I finish the knot, securing it in place. “Who says I’m not?”
*
The moon is high and bright, making the walk to the bridge feel like I’ve got a spotlight on my back. I leave Paul under the awning at a smashed and looted convenience store a half a mile down the road. It’s hard not to feel like the last man on earth in moments like this. Deep in the country, no buildings or even abandoned vehicles. Just miles and miles of nothing. A cool wind blows as I approach the overpass, but the hairs on my neck lay flat. The night seems peaceful. I hope I’m right.
Cole’s blond hair reveals his position, leaning casually against the metal guardrails. His wide shoulders are relaxed, I see no weapons in his hand. Mine are safely within reach but tucked away. Once we fought side-by-side and until twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t know any different. Cole and I survived the early days of the apocalypse together, held together by one thing—one person. As I draw near I wonder if her being gone is the reason he wears those stripes on his shoulder. If that’s true then any hope of Alex being alive evaporates.
“Thanks for coming,” he says. “I understand this situation is a little unconventional.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m not going to lie, Cole. I don’t exactly know what angle you’re playing.”
He smiles and points to the bars on his shoulder that signifies he’s part of the Hybrid army. “Because of these?”
“Partially.”
“Would it help if I explained it to you?”
I exhale and move to the railing and sit next to him. “I’m all ears.”
“That night you showed up at the antique store in north Georgia while we were traveling toward the Vaccine Center and told Alex that Chloe was waiting to ambush us, something in me snapped. I was out of my mind with anger and rage toward my sister. I was tired of her hurting people—particularly the ones I cared about. I needed to get away from everyone and deal with her on my own terms.”
“You thought you could take her down alone?” I ask.
“I thought maybe I could get to her first and talk some sense into her. But Erwin’s units had her surrounded and the Hybrids were on high alert. I had to wait until the Resistance broke down the walls before I could sneak in.”
“I was pretty out of it,” I tell him. “Hayes wanted to kill me—but he also wanted to do it in front of an audience. By the time you got there I was only half conscious.”
“You looked like shit. Like, I actually thought you were dead, or at least dying.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Thanks. But yeah, I was close.”
“It fueled my rage, but I was a human and I knew that unless my sister took mercy on me when she escaped, her Hybrids would kill me. Thankfully, some bonds go even deeper than genetic manipulation.” He turns and looks over the bridge. There’s nothing but a deserted train track below, weeds already snaking across in an attempt to reclaim the space to nature. “She didn’t kill me. She saved me just like I hoped, and when I woke up in a medical bed at The Fort, I asked her to do something for me.”
I have a feeling I already know, but I ask anyway. “What was that?”
“I asked her to inject me with the Hybrid vaccine.”
I turn now to look at him. The bright moonlight allows me to take in his darker eyes that used to blaze blue just like his sister’s, and all of the other visible attributes he gained with his transformation. Beyond that I see the compassion on his face and the friendliness that has existed between us for the last year. I feel confident when I ask, “So why aren’t you like the others?”
His eyes light up and a smile breaks on his face. Laughing he says, “So you noticed?”
“I noticed you’re not a robotic, mind-controlled, killing machine like the other Hybrids I’ve run up against.”
“The night Alex’s father met with her to give her the vaccines we brought home a survivor we met on the road. Her name was Josie. You killed her partner, Trucker, in the house.”
I recall a big guy coming after me. He was strong and determined. Unfortunately, I had a mission to complete. “Yeah, I remember him.”
“She and her crew had been victims of Jane’s extensive vaccine tests before they escaped.”
“Like Paul.”
He nods. “Exactly, like Paul. I’d suspected from the beginning that something was going on with him. I mean, obviously, but when Josie came back with us she agreed to let me do some continued research and I had something to compare.” An owl hoots overhead and the wind rustles in the trees. “I discovered layers of the vaccine in their systems, but Paul had something different. He had the markers from EVI-1 in his system as well as EVI-2.”
“They gave him both.”
“They gave everyone in that building both.” Cole wasn’t with us when we rescued Paul from the bombed-out school, but Alex filled him in later. We thought the school was a basic evacuation center from the early days of the original Crisis. It was actually a testing facility for Jane’s vaccination trials. The subjects, like Paul, had been dosed with several varieties of the vaccine before an outbreak occurred and the entire place was overrun by Eaters from inside the facility. Jane’s forces attempted to put down the infected by bombing the hell out of the building. Jane is a brilliant scientist but not the most skilled at warfare. The bomb released a horde of Eaters into the wild where we found and followed their trail back.
Paul and several other survivors were hidden in the back of the school. We brought them back to the Vaccine Center and he recovered but turned into something more. I eye Cole. Something exactly like the man standing before me now.
“You and Paul were given the same doses, which caused a result Jane wasn’t prepared to deal with. Which is why they tried to destroy it,” I say, the pieces clicking together. “Jane accidentally made a scenario with a Hybrid more powerful and independent minded than what she wanted.”
“Yep,” Cole says. “A free-thinking, ethical being with the body composition of a super solider.”
“Holy shit.” I hold his eye. “So you asked for it. You wanted this.”
“At the time I thought I would help me stop Jane. But now that she’s no longer in control of The Fort—”
I grip his arm. “Wait…what?”
“You don’t know?” He frowns and studies my face. “After all this time? I’ve followed you up and down the state. Watching you watch us, but you never realized what happened at The Fort last fall?”
“I have no clue what you’re talking about. The furthest we got was the outer gates before winter. We went to—”
“To what?”
I struggle to find the words, particularly with him. Alexandra’s relationship with Cole was definitely more defined than whatever she and I shared. If anyone had the right to chase her down it was Cole, but that
nervous feeling I had earlier spreads.
“You know, track down Alex. Make sure she got inside. But the outer gate was stacked with Hybrids. After a week of looking for way in, we gave up. She’d made her intentions clear when she went up there. As much as it hurt to give up on her, we figured she was either dead or prisoner.”
The worry lines on Cole’s face deepen and I fight the wave of grief I’d suppressed for so long. But talking about this with Cole—her actual boyfriend--my feelings are real even if inappropriate. I grab onto the metal guardrails and stare into the night. God, this was shitty.
“Wyatt,” he says. “Alex isn’t dead.”
His words land like a punch and I take several steps back. “Is Jane—no, you said Jane was no longer in control, which means…” Again the picture comes into a sharper image and I straighten up. “Is Chloe holding her captive?”
“No, she’s not a captive. Not as far as I know.”
“Is she okay? Or did she…did she take the second vaccine like you?” I can see her making the same choice as Cole if she was given the chance. When she left that day she was determined to stop her sister by any means necessary. Cole had finally found the way.
“Wyatt, my sister held a coup on the Fort before winter and won. She’s the one driving the Hybrids deeper and deeper south. She’s the one hunting Erwin’s army.” He looks at me. “Alex and her sister escaped as the regime changed. They escaped.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. I helped them get away.”
I’m overwhelmed with relief and it takes me a minute to speak again. “Okay good. Good. That’s all I wanted to know. Her whole goal was to stop Jane. It sounds like Chloe inadvertently helped her succeed in her mission. At least one of us got out of this God-forsaken war, right?”
“Right,” he says, his voice hesitant. “Although, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“The God-forsaken war? Yeah, I don’t see much way out of it. I’m committed to stopping your sister.”
