by Tarah Benner
I choke on a clump of red hair, and I swing out my fist and punch him in the nose. He groans, and I hear the telltale tink of glass hitting the floor.
Unfortunately, my hand closest to the vial is pinned under Xavier, and I catch the flash of crooked teeth as he hovers over me. What happens next happens so fast I don’t have time to process it.
Xavier pulls something else out of his fatigues: a short piece of plastic sharpened to a point. I hear Caleb’s yell as Xavier stabs me once, twice, three times.
Pain erupts in my chest, freezing me in place. Hot blood gushes over the front of my scrubs, and moving is suddenly impossible.
Somebody behind the front desk screams, and there’s a flurry of panic in the waiting area.
I’m vaguely aware of Xavier’s weight lifting off my arm as he makes a grab for the vial. He lunges toward the vent, and I hear the quiet smash of glass.
Everything goes red as Caleb leaps forward and tackles Xavier. There’s a loud grunt, and Xavier’s head bangs into the vent.
Caleb punches him in the face — hard — and Xavier lets out a crazed laugh.
They struggle over the weapon in Xavier’s hand, and finally Caleb manages to disarm him.
It’s a toothbrush that’s been sharpened at the end, and it’s covered in my blood.
“He shanked me,” I mutter in disbelief. “The asshole shanked me.”
“I’ve got a code silver!” Caleb shouts.
Two more interns flit into view, and Caleb scrambles over Xavier to get to me.
“Hey! You!” he shouts at the people frozen behind the desk. “Call Control and get them up here now! You! Help me with her!”
I hear myself make an embarrassing gargling sound, and everything slows down. Pain is radiating from my chest, and I’m hot and sticky with blood.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” he mutters, pressing his hands over the gaping wounds in my chest. “Hey! I’ve got multiple stab wounds over here! Where the fuck is everybody?”
“It’s okay,” I mutter as Caleb’s face swims in and out of focus. The room is spinning and my chest is on fire, but I can’t have him losing his shit on me. “I’m fine,” I whisper. “It’s not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Caleb croaks. “Shit, Sawyer.”
“Caleb,” I gasp, pointing one limp finger toward the vent. I’m trying to draw his attention back to Xavier, who’s sticking a hand in his mouth.
As I watch, he seems to pick something out of his rear molar, but I don’t really understand what he’s doing.
“Stop him,” I manage to choke.
Caleb’s terrified expression shifts from me to Xavier, and he swears.
Something black appears between Xavier’s teeth.
“You fucking bastard,” Caleb mutters.
I don’t fully understand what’s happening, but then Xavier crushes the piece of plastic between his lateral incisors.
“No!” Caleb yells. “Hey! Somebody stop him!”
There’s a flurry of activity as the two interns behind him work to restrain Xavier. Then I hear a gurney.
I’m still trying to see what Xavier is doing, but then Caleb slides his hands under me, and another nurse helps him lift me up onto a thin pallet. My scrubs are soaked, but I can’t make the bleeding stop.
Just before they wheel me away, I hear one of the interns call out in a panic. “He stopped breathing!”
They must mean Xavier.
“Get him to the ICU!” yells Caleb. “He’s not getting away with this.”
“He’s flatlining,” comes the steady but urgent voice of a nurse.
I don’t know what happens after that.
The gurney moves, and I feel a cool breeze on my face as I’m wheeled into surgery.
Somebody dressed in red and white shines a light into my eyes, and I feel a tingle of alarm. Half the doctor’s face is obstructed by a surgical mask, but I’d know that overcritical expression anywhere. It’s Watson.
Of all the doctors to operate on me . . .
“No,” I breathe. “No!”
“Sawyer!” Caleb is still next to me. “Sawyer, it’s okay.”
“No, no, no, no, no!” I yell. “Not him.”
“It’s okay. We’re taking you into surgery.”
“No!” I choke. “Not . . . Watson.”
“You’ll be fine,” Caleb reassures me. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know who Watson really is.
“Lyang, stop talking,” snaps Watson. “You’re bleeding all over the place. You need to relax.”
Somebody takes my glasses and starts to cut away my scrubs, and I begin to panic. I don’t trust Watson as far as I can throw him, and something is horribly, horribly wrong.
People are pulling away my bloody scrubs, and it doesn’t even occur to me to feel awkward about it. I’m just scared.
“Get him out of here!” Watson barks to someone behind him, nodding in Caleb’s general direction. “And keep him away from that man.”
“No!” I yelp in a panic. “I want him to stay!”
Nobody listens to me.
“There’s no use, sir,” says a voice I don’t recognize. “The patient had a kill pill hidden in his rear molar. He’s gone.”
Watson growls in frustration. “This is un-fucking-acceptable. Do you hear me? I want that shrink who examined him brought to my office. And shut the whole ward down. Nobody goes in or out. Got it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The sheet underneath me lifts, and I’m transferred to another table that’s covered in paper. More paper comes down over me, and I’m blinded by the bright overhead light.
Somebody places a mask over my face, and I hear one of the more senior nurses off to my left. “Count backwards from ten for me, okay?”
“No!”
I’m still fighting to get away from Watson, but somebody has strapped me down. My body is covered in plastic tubes, and Caleb is gone.
“Shh. Come on. Everything’s all right. Just count.”
I’m too tired to fight anymore. I’ve lost a lot of blood. And Watson or no Watson, I need the gaping holes in my chest sewed up. So I oblige.
“Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
I feel a sort of heaviness settle over me, and then everything falls away.
* * *
I wake up to the gentle beep of my heart monitor.
At least I think I’m awake — and alive. I’m in too much pain to be dead.
Immediately after the attack, the adrenalin kept the worst of the pain at bay, but now that I’m just lying here, my chest feels as though it’s been ripped open and crudely stitched back together — which I guess it has.
Behind my eyelids, I can detect bright artificial light. I’m still in the medical ward, but it isn’t as quiet as a patient room should be. Angry voices are emanating from the next room over. I catch the words “unacceptable” and “fucking idiot” in Watson’s nasty tone, but the other speaker doesn’t back down.
With great effort, I peel my eyes open. My lashes seem to be stuck together with some goopy substance, which makes me feel lethargic and gross. I’m lying in a bed at a forty-five-degree angle with an IV needle in my arm and a heavy bandage stuck to my chest.
Judging by the site of the pain, Xavier missed my heart by a mile, but I’m definitely going to have some ugly scars.
This room seems familiar, but my vision is too foggy to make out the details. It looks like a one-person room, but somebody has crammed an extra bed against the opposite wall.
There are no windows in here — just a bathroom, a door to the outside, and a door adjoining my room to another.
Squinting, I see my glasses resting on the tray table beside my bed. I grab them and put them on, and the room sharpens at once.
As my eyes settle on the airtight door with the tiny window near the top, my heart sinks.
I’m not in the main area of the medical ward; I’m in the isolation zone.
My throat suddenly feels dry and cottony.
There’s a pitcher of water on the table, but it’s too far for me to reach. Suppressing a moan, I try to rise up to a ninety-degree angle, but the movement strains my wound, so I settle back down.
I try to pull the tray table closer, but it seems to be caught on the cords trailing under my bed. I tug on it again, making the adjustable top rattle, but it doesn’t budge.
The voices on the other side of the wall go quiet, and the adjoining door swings open.
I’m relieved when Caleb strides into view. His eyes are strained with worry, but he breaks into a concerned smile when he sees that I’m conscious.
“Hey,” he sighs in relief. “You’re awake.”
“Yeah,” I croak.
Seeing what I was trying to do, Caleb pulls the tray over and pours me a glass of water. Perching on the edge of my bed, he puts a straw in the glass and holds it right up to my lips. I feel ridiculous, but I drink gratefully and offer him a tired grin.
“What the hell was that about?” I ask.
“Uh . . .” Caleb grimaces. “Do you . . . remember what happened?”
“Yeah. That nutcase Xavier stabbed me. I’m gonna kill that shrink.”
Anger flashes across Caleb’s face, but he quickly schools his expression.
“I saw you punch him in the face,” I add. “That I enjoyed.”
Caleb’s gaze falls to his bloodied knuckles, and he flexes his hand experimentally. “Yeah . . . that was stupid. I’m probably going to get suspended when things settle down and Watson figures out which way is up.”
“Why? You were just defending me. You’re a hero.”
Caleb chuckles. “I don’t think he sees it that way.”
We fall silent for a moment, and something else surfaces in my mind: the glass vial. “Caleb,” I say suddenly. “What was in the vial?”
He closes his eyes and lets out a long sigh. “We can talk about it when you’re feeling better.”
“I want to talk about it now,” I snap, my curiosity quickly morphing into panic.
Caleb runs a hand through his hair, looking agitated, and something on his wrist catches my eye. He’s wearing a patient bracelet.
“I saw him trying to pour something down the air vent,” I say. “What was it?”
“If I tell you . . . you have to stay calm. You can’t get up, or you’ll rip your stitches.”
“Tell me,” I whisper, even though I already know.
The door swings open before he can answer, and a nurse walks in dressed in a dark-green hazmat suit. She fixes me with a sympathetic look, deposits a tray of food on the table, and hurries out of the room.
I snap my gaze back to Caleb, who looks disappointed and a little afraid.
“What happened?” I demand. “What’s going on?”
“Look, they don’t know for sure, but they think . . . they think that vial may have contained a sample of the virus.”
Horror washes over me, and I feel the blood drain from my face.
“They’re still analyzing the sample,” says Caleb. “We don’t know for sure if it was the virus . . . or if the sample would even be viable.”
“How is that possible?” I gasp, trying to quell the panic rising up in my chest. “How did he get that in here?”
“He must have swallowed it and just . . . waited for it to come out,” he says with a grimace.
“But if it’s airborne . . . that means . . .”
Caleb nods slowly, tugging at his wristband.
“Oh my god. Everybody in the medical ward . . .”
Caleb shakes his head. “That’s not all.”
“Do you think . . . Do you think that air vent could have carried the virus to other parts of the compound?”
“Yeah, I do,” he says, anger flashing in his eyes. “I think he knew exactly what he was doing. Kimber, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“I heard one of the nurses talking. She said Kimber was just arrested releasing something into the air vents in the commissary. Whatever this is, they coordinated it.” He takes a deep breath and meets my gaze with a resigned expression. “I think they’re trying to infect as many people as possible.”
Suddenly the reality of the situation is too much for me to take. I knew Xavier and Kimber were dangerous, and no one would listen. The drifters must have anticipated that we’d check for signs of infection when we brought them back in, which is why they had to find a way to delay transmission until they were released from the medical ward.
I want to feel angry. I should run into the next room and tear Watson apart for not listening. I should want to hunt down Kimber and kick her in the head.
But right now, I don’t feel capable of anger. All I feel is raw terror. Caleb and I are infected, which means we’re going to be dead within a week.
I drag in a shuddering breath, and a dam breaks somewhere inside me. Hot tears spring up in my eyes, and Caleb moves closer so he can put an arm around me.
“Hey . . . don’t cry,” he murmurs, brushing away my tears with his uninjured hand.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I blubber, letting out a crazy half laugh/half sob.
“Like what?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m going to be dead soon.”
Caleb’s eyes are gleaming with a few unshed tears of his own, but he breaks into a sad smile and sniffs loudly. “Shit, Sawyer. You really should get out more.”
“What?” I snap.
He shakes his head, still smiling. “I’m not looking at you like you’re going to die . . . I’m looking at you the way you look at people you like.”
That does it for me. My trickle of tears bursts into full-blown waterworks, and Caleb shifts closer to hold me so I don’t have to lean forward and strain my chest.
Fear and misery and a tiny sliver of happiness rush through me all at once. I don’t know whom to blame, and I don’t know what to think.
I wish Caleb had been nowhere near that lobby when Xavier released the virus, but I’m glad he’s here now.
If I had to get sick and die with someone, I’m glad it’s him.
seventeen
Celdon
I always thought my induction to Constance would be more cloak-and-dagger than this. I thought I’d be asked to frame a board member for a crime he didn’t commit or blackmail someone into doing Constance’s bidding.
I’m relieved they just invited me to a top-secret meeting instead. After my screaming match with Sawyer, my resolve to keep my cover has been wavering, and I don’t think I could stomach participating in anything more serious.
The whole thing feels surreal. Just a few doors down from its torture chambers in Information, Constance has a regular ol’ board room to conduct its business. There’s a long table in the center surrounded by high-backed chairs, and more chairs are dispersed around the room against the walls.
I’m sitting in the far corner near Devon and Jayden. On Jayden’s other side is a short lieutenant with heavy freckles and strawberry-blond hair who looks vaguely familiar.
The rest of the chairs are occupied by the strangest assortment of people I’ve ever seen in the compound: doctors who look as though they think the meeting is a waste of their time; Information workers, chic and aloof in their all-black clothing; Operations and Waste Management crew managers; a man I recognize from the commissary; a portly old Control captain who’s given me the runaround once or twice; an old foreman from Manufacturing; and grungy dudes from Exterior Maintenance and Construction.
I’m not sure who looks more uncomfortable: the tier-three people sitting at the fancy table or the tier-one workers trying to make polite conversation with members of the most oppressed sections.
Say what you want about Constance, but they’re an equal-opportunity employer.
Just before the meeting is scheduled to start, another vile-looking controller shuffles in. Trailing behind him is none other than Paxton Dellwood.
I’d been leaning back in my chair and almost slip right off the slick ple
ather edge at the sight of Dellwood’s face. Our eyes meet briefly across the room, and I get a sick feeling in my stomach.
Dellwood and I are the only people here younger than twenty-five. If they singled me out, that means they must have seen as much potential for evil as they saw in Dellwood.
I notice that there are a few empty seats around the room, but Devon is the first to break the silence. “Are we ready to get started?”
“We’re still missing some people,” says a man from Information.
“Who?”
“Mina Deltora and James Watson,” says Jayden.
“Does anyone know where they are?” Devon asks.
One of the doctors shakes his head and shrugs. “I haven’t been on call since last night, so I can’t speak for Watson.”
“And Mina?”
“Mina is manning the feeds,” says a rail-thin guy with stringy hair. “We thought it best to leave someone to oversee things, given the current climate . . .”
“I think we should wait,” says the first Information man who spoke. He looks perturbed at the idea of starting without the other representative from his section. “Tier one is vastly underrepresented at the moment.”
“We’re starting!” snaps a commanding voice from the center of the room.
I look around for the source of the voice, but I don’t see anyone.
“Sir, I think —”
“I know what you think, Elton,” says the voice. “But we have several urgent matters to discuss. We can’t wait any longer.”
The room falls silent, and suddenly I realize that the disembodied voice is coming from a small black speaker situated in the center of the table. Whoever this guy is, he’s too important to show his face in public.
“Where are we on the drifter situation?” he asks.
One of the gristly old ExCon foremen leans forward. “We finished the electric fence. If the drifters decide to rush the compound, it should keep ’em from overrunning us.”
“And may I ask why we’re just sitting by as they grow in strength?” asks the voice. “Are we going to delay action until they have the numbers to overrun us?”
“No, sir. Recon has effectively doubled deployments.”
“I understand that,” says the voice. “I negotiated the board’s approval for that directive myself. What I don’t understand is why Commander Pierce has been mum on the topic.”
