Cured (29 page)

“Because I would never forgive myself if I watched you die when I could have possibly prevented it. I'm stronger than Kevin. I'm stronger than every man in this place. And I'm your best chance for survival. So go out there and fight as if it is your choice!”

“It is my choice,” I whisper.

He wraps me in his arms and holds me close. He's solid beneath Kevin's sweatshirt, as if he has no flesh and blood, only bones and electromagnetic cuffs.

I put my arms around his rock-hard ribs and rest my head on his chest, listening to the slow, even throb of his heart. A heart that might not be beating in an hour. Because of me.

My heart starts to ache. The ache grows until I hurt so badly that I'm certain my broken heart is now bleeding.

They come for us at sunrise, when the black sky has lightened to a pale, blinding blue. As they enter the room, I focus on Jonah's scarred hands and wrists, and the sweatshirt that doesn't quite hide the electromagnetic cuffs. He tugs the sleeves down, but they come right back up.

Once again, the raiders overestimate their own prowess. They don't frisk me. They don't frisk Jonah or look inside the hood shadowing his face. They just herd us out like we're mindless
cattle, smacking their baseball bats into their palms like that's the scariest thing ever. It's not.

The walk is short. Before I have time to dwell on the fact that a pack of raiders is escorting me to my violent, bloody death, I am at a glass door, looking at the courtyard. I stare at the tree where Kevin and I were tied the day before. The ground around it is scraped bare of dead grass from the claws of the dog. Those claws will be scraping me soon. I have known a lot of darkness in the past four years, but nothing has ever compared to this. I am in the darkest moment of my life, and time seems to have stopped.

As if in slow motion, the glass door is pulled open and I step outside. Cool air washes over my taut face, sunlight stings my swollen eyes, and I blink. My heart thuds in my chest. Air moves in and out of my lungs. I thrust my chin forward, put one foot in front of the other, and stand tall as I walk toward the tree. Sweat beads on my palms, so I wipe them down the front of my pants in anticipation of clutching the hilt of my knife.

I get to the tree and stand in its long, dead shadow, and all of a sudden, time no longer moves too slowly. It starts to zoom.

The air fills with cheering and I look up. At least twice as many raiders as yesterday are standing on the building's flat roof and looking down into the courtyard. I squint, searching for a familiar face. My brother, mouth in a tight frown, meets my gaze. He is at the very front of the building, with the rising sun at his back. On his right sits Soneschen, in a black office chair, white shirt gleaming with morning sunlight. Soneschen's gaze locks on me and his lips pull back into an eager smile. On
Dean's left stands a man whose face is shadowed by a cowboy hat, but I know who he is. Flint. The former king of the raiders. Succeeded by my brother.

“Go for the hamstring first, and the throat as a last resort. We don't want to kill the dogs.” Jonah's voice, barely audible over the cheering crowd, jars me back to reality.

My jaw drops open and I gawk at him. “What are you talking about?
We don't want to kill them
?”

He shakes his head. “Trust me, Jack. There's a bigger picture here than just you and me fighting some biologically altered dogs. Much bigger. There are more important things than us at stake.”

I want to punch him, to tell him I beg to differ. What can be bigger than me dying?

“Please trust me, Jack.”

“Okay. So, I don't kill the things trying to kill me.” He nods. “I'll do my best.”

The crowd grows silent. I squint against the bright sky and look up. Flint is holding a hand up in the air and all eyes are on him.

“Today is a monumental day! You are about to see your newest weapons being put to use against human beings,” Flint says. He clasps my brother's shoulder. “You all know my successor had the brilliant idea to start injecting dogs with the bee flu vaccine.” The crowd nods and hollers. “He started with three dogs. It has been ten months. You already know they've been biologically altered. What you don't know is that for five months, he has been breeding an entire army of these biologically altered
animals, and they are all starting to turn.” The raiders look at my brother, eyes wary.

“Why do we want a whole army of them when we can barely control three?” someone calls.

Flint takes off his hat. His gray hair is matted to his head, and his eyes are sharp. “You all recall that the possession of guns by civilians inside the wall is illegal, right?”

“So what?” someone calls. “It's not like we can get past the militia.”

“Well,” Flint continues, “we are going to set the dogs loose in the militia's tent cities. When they've killed the militia, we will let the dogs into the walled city. The citizens of the city won't be able to defend themselves. Hastings has trained the dogs for a special purpose.” He glances at my brother. “Why don't you tell the boys about your pets?”

Dean nods and yells, “I have trained the beast-dogs to listen to no one but me, and to kill only men. They
hate
men. They will be brutal toward men. When the men are gone from the walled city, we will shoot the dogs and you will have your choice of women. You will get to rule. You will be the founders of a new society!”

The response nearly flattens my eardrums. I wonder if the roof holding the raiders can handle such a ruckus. They are jumping, stomping, screaming.

A gunshot rumbles, mixing with the raiders' noise. The men quiet down, but their bodies are tensed with pent-up energy. “We want women!” a raider standing behind Flint yells. My brother turns and grabs the man and puts him in a headlock. He starts
pounding the guy's face and I am seeing the volatile, violent Hastings I have heard about. I am seeing the raiders' way of life.

The raiders whoop and holler at my brother and make vulgar gestures. They are like a plague, destroying everything they touch. I look at my brother, still beating the man, and know I am right. Dean would not let me die like this if the raiders hadn't poisoned his mind. He would be trying to save me.

Dean stops pummeling the raider and shoves him back with the others. He wipes his bloody knuckles on his jeans.

Flint waves his cowboy hat in the air and the raiders tone down their excitement. “And now, let's celebrate this news with a little entertainment! Gentlemen, meet the secret weapons Hastings has been creating for the past ten months: Speranza, Futuro, and Fede.”

I gasp and look at my brother. I know those words, those names.

Dean gives someone a hand signal and a pair of double doors leading to the courtyard are opened. And so it begins.

My family has a motto. It has been part of our heritage since my mother's Italian grandparents immigrated to the United States and my great-grandma embroidered it onto a piece of white linen.
Fede e Speranza per il Futuro
. It means
Faith and Hope for the Future
.

My heart starts to flutter with hope. And faith. For my future. I glance up at my brother again and his eyes meet mine. He nods, the slightest bob of his head.

I squeeze my knife hilt and grit my teeth. As if they can sense my resolve, three dogs come tearing out of the open doors—the German shepherd that tried to eat Kevin yesterday, a Doberman, and a husky. I am ready for them. Ready to fight. And then Jonah steps in front of me, blocking my view. Something flashes in his hand, metal and glass catching sunlight—and I expect to see a knife.

He is holding a syringe.

Jonah doesn't wait for the dogs. He digs his feet into the ground and runs. He's inhumanly fast, running at the Doberman. He leaps the last few feet and rams the needle into the animal's sleek black neck, wrapping his other arm around its head. They hit the ground and skid on the dead grass.

A massive weight slams into me and I face-plant into the dirt that was dug up by dog claws the day before. I roll over and swing my knife at a pair of forelegs. The knife hits, but the German shepard is oblivious to it. It jumps onto me, knocking me flat on my back. My head snaps against the ground and pain blurs my vision. I blink and my sight clears just in time to see the German shepherd's dilated pupils and sharp teeth as it lunges for my neck. I scream and throw my right arm in front of my face, and the animal's mouth closes over it.

“
Imporre!”
I shriek.
Lie down!
The dog growls. “
Goccia!” Drop!
The dog doesn't respond.

My arm feels strange—like I have an itch deep inside that I can't reach. I look at it and want to faint when I see the animal's teeth sunk deep into my flesh and my blood mixing with foamy drool. My hand goes numb, and the knife slips to the ground as I wait for the creature to snap my bone and swallow my wrist and hand whole.

But then something happens. The German shepherd's nostrils flare. It eases its teeth out of my skin and sniffs me. The animal's pupils shrink. Trembling, I pick up my knife from the ground with my left hand and stand, ready for the next attack. The shepherd crouches and then lunges toward me. I lash out with my knife, and air and dirt whip against my skin. But the dog
doesn't touch me again. It soars over me. I turn and watch it sprint toward Jonah.

On the other side of the tree, Jonah is pinned to his back, struggling against the husky and Doberman. Two empty syringes gleam on the dead grass beside him.

My gaze moves beyond Jonah to the open door the dogs came through. I could run. I could leave. I could live. Relief spills through me like a waterfall. I take a step toward that door, and then force myself to stop. A sob rips at my throat. Freedom is so close that what I am about to do physically hurts. Turning back to Jonah, I clench my teeth, tighten my hand around the knife hilt, and run to his side.

He's barely visible beneath the pile of dogs. I stand a foot away from him, staring, not knowing what to do. He swings his forearm into the Doberman's face, and the animal yelps and falls to its side, dazed.

“Jack! The German shepherd,” Jonah gasps. He thrusts his blood-covered hand out of the mass of snarling dogs. He is clutching a full syringe. I take it from him. The glass is slippery with blood—his and mine. I ram the needle into the shepherd's thigh and depress the syringe, injecting clear liquid into the animal. The dog doesn't notice. I drop the empty syringe to the ground with the others.

“Is it done?” Jonah asks. He's got his hands wrapped around the snout of the husky, keeping the animal's teeth from his face. The Doberman, still dazed, stands beside Jonah, shaking its head. The German shepherd's teeth are clamped around Jonah's forearm, and I'm terrified it will chew his arm off—until
I remember he's wearing the electromagnetic cuff. The dog's teeth don't sink in.

“Yes! It's done!” I say, wondering why he even cares when he's being thrashed by massive, viscious dogs. Jonah knees the German shepherd in the side, throws the husky off him, and lays his head down on the brittle grass. Peace softens his scratched face, and I realize he's resigned himself to the fact that he is going to die today.

“Jonah! Get up! Fight!” I yell. His eyes meet mine and he shakes his head a tiny bit, as if it's all he can muster. And then all three dogs lunge at him.

I stand and hold up my knife. “Come and get me!” I scream. “
Venire!
Get me!” The dogs don't even flick their ears in my direction. Jonah's eyes are closed. I step into the brawl and start kicking and slashing at the dogs. I might as well not exist—the dogs are so intent on Jonah.

“Why won't the dogs attack him?” It is Flint's voice, carrying over the noisy raiders. “I thought you said these dogs attack everyone but . . .”

Except for the sound of the dogs, the courtyard goes dead silent, and all eyes focus on me.

“The dogs attack anyone but a woman,” Soneschen states.

“But the dog attacked him at first,” says Flint, studying me.

“Until it got a good smell of her.” Soneschen rubs his chin, and a slow smile spreads over his face.

My hands slowly fall to my sides, and I hold my breath while my eyes sweep over the men standing on the roof. I never thought this morning could get worse. I was wrong. The raiders
are staring at me like … well, like I'm a woman. The only woman alive on the face of the earth.

Flint laughs and rubs his hands together. “I think we've had the wool pulled over our eyes, boys!” He turns to my brother. “Call off your dogs and get them out of here. We've got ourselves a female in our midst.”

“
Vieni!
” Dean yells. It means
come
. The dogs pause and look toward the voice. Slowly, muscles bunched beneath their fur, they back away from Jonah. With their lips peeled back from their bloodstained teeth, they trot toward the building Dean is standing on. Dean's eyes meet mine. He knew all along—Dean knew they wouldn't attack me.