Emerge (10 page)

I entered the decontamination chamber, waited for the sanitation spray to do its work, then entered the next room and stripped off my contaminated layers. Then I quickly scrubbed up all over again and suited up a second time. This time, armed with another triple layer of gloves and a thermometer, I raced to Ryder’s bedside.
 

His heart rate had slowed to an alarmingly sluggish pace. After pressing the thermometer to his forehead, I simply stared at it.
102 degrees.
My feet felt heavy, like they’d been nailed to the floor. I was paralyzed.

It was back—the nightmare I had hoped would never happen again—and it had been brought to us by the very same people who’d deserted the rest of the world during our time of need. The same group who’d thought that their way of fighting the disease—hiding—would be the best way to save the world. Or at least the best way to save themselves.

A loud banging interrupted my panicked thinking. I spun toward the noise. Was it West? Had he returned? Was it one of my friends? I couldn’t let them come up here and risk further exposure.

Once again I raced to the decontamination chamber, went through the process of ridding myself of any traces of the virus from my body, and stripped off my outer protective layer.

When I entered the outer hallway, the banging noise got louder, and I heard voices I didn’t recognize. I immediately shut off the lights in all the iso rooms, and with the push of a button, I was able to lower the shades across the interior windows of the isolation rooms, blocking them from view.

Then I made my way toward the stairwell—toward the voices.

“We-est! Ry-der!” a male voice sang, followed by more banging. “You can’t hide forever!” The voices were definitely coming from the stairwell, from somewhere below, and they sounded like they were coming closer.
 

I glanced down the hallway to the opposite stairwell. That’s when I saw Caine and Dax. I ran to them, and we slipped into a room at the end of the hall and closed the door. Caine went immediately to a set of drawers and pulled out a gun.

I raised a brow, wondering just how many weapons Caine had hidden around the hospital. “Where are Nina and Dylan?” I asked.

“They’re locked in a room on the floor below, armed with a tranquilizer gun.” Dax peered out through the window in the door. “Who are those guys?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But I bet they’re the same guys who chased West and me last night.”
 

A loud commotion erupted in the hallway. I froze; Caine cocked a gun behind me.
 

I eyed Caine over my shoulder. “Don’t we have enough problems already without worrying about gunshot wounds?”

“I won’t use it unless I have to.”

“Well, I’m not one to hide from whatever this is.” I pulled open the door.

“Cricket!” Dax tried to stop me, but I was already out the door.

A short way down the hall, West was lying on the floor against the wall, blotting at a bloody lip. I raised an eyebrow. West was no small man to be thrown about.
 

A guy dressed in a red fleece jacket was facing him, daring him to get up, while another—a tall, lanky one with glasses and dressed in light gray—turned at the sound of Caine tapping the gun against the doorframe.

“Well, who do we have here?” Mr. Eyeglasses asked, stepping toward me.

His friend threatened West with a Taser. I knew firsthand how those things felt. Perhaps West did too, because he wasted no time getting to his feet. Mr. Fleece Jacket put him in a chokehold, and they turned to face us.

 
“Want to tell us what the three of you want?” Caine asked, stepping up beside me. Dax followed just to the other side of Caine. His fingers stretched, then curled into tight fists; he was just biding his time before he would charge, I was sure.

“We’d love to tell you. We’re tracking a couple of friends, and their PulsePoint signals tell us that they’re somewhere in the vicinity of this hospital. In fact, it appears”—he looked down at his own PulsePoint—“that they’re on this very floor.”

I shot a sideways glance at Caine, then looked back at Mr. Fleece Jacket. “What do you want with your friends?”

He cocked his head and then walked right up to me. Using his Taser, he lifted the hair off of my right cheek, causing my breath to catch. “Oh, look, Dale, she’s scarred. Who burned you, little girl?”

West struggled in his captor’s arms. “Don’t touch her,” he grunted.

Dax inched closer. I glanced sideways and gave my head a little shake, praying he would hear my silent pleas and not get involved. We couldn’t know how many people from New Caelum were infected at this point, and I didn’t want Dax coming into contact with any other people from the city.

Eyeglasses turned to West. “You feeling protective of one of
them
?” he spat. “What’s gotten into you, West? What would your mother say to find out you’ve fallen for outsider scum?”

“It’s you I’m trying to protect,” West said. “Do you really want to risk catching the diseases they carry?”

I flinched, but tried to hide how much West’s words sliced at me. How had I ever been considered one of these people?

“Good point.” Eyeglasses backed up a tiny step as he turned back to me. “All right, Scarface, I’m going to ask you this once: Where are Ryder and Key? Once we find them, we’ll be out of your way.”

“Oh yeah? I’m supposed to believe you’ll just leave once you have your friends?”

“What? Are you deaf
and
stupid, Blondie?”

I smiled, then brushed past the three of them. “Fine. Follow me.”

I led them to the quarantine units down the hall, then smacked the button on the wall to open the shades. “Be my guest. Go get ’em. Take them back to your people. We’ll be happy to give you a personal escort back to New Caelum.”

Caine cocked his gun again for effect.

“What did you do to them?” Fleece Jacket asked.

“They arrived this way. They apparently have Bad Sam.”

Eyeglasses turned to West. “Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, man!” Eyeglasses quickly backed away from the iso units. “You think we could have caught it just by being up here?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Maybe. Didn’t the people at New Caelum tell you that Bad Sam was back?” I began biting at my fingernails to show them how boring this was.

“What? Of course not. This came from you guys.
You’re
the ones with the virus.”

“Afraid not, my friend,” I argued.

“That’s not possible—they would have said something. We were just told to scout out the various settlements and see what was going on—nobody said anything about Bad Sam. Then, after we visited the settlement west of here, we got a call from New Caelum telling us that these three needed help.” He thumbed his hand in the direction of West and the isolation chambers. “We’re supposed to get them and report back to the city. And we’re supposed to be on the lookout for this girl.” He pressed a few buttons on his PulsePoint, then held up a picture of a brown-haired teenager.

Leaning closer, I cocked my head. Studied the picture. It resembled me from when I was a child, except the girl in the picture was older. The three of them watched me for any sort of reaction. I stepped back. “Never seen her before.”

“Are you sure? This is a computer-generated model from an old picture. She should look similar to this, but maybe not exactly.”

I felt Dax’s presence beside me; he was trying to get a closer look at the photo. But I was safe. Neither Dax nor West were going to think I was the girl in the picture.

“I’m sure. Now, unless you plan to use those Tasers, and give Caine a reason to fire his real gun, I think it’s time for you to go. And you can take your friends with you.”

Eyeglasses glanced at Ryder and Key, then back at me. Smiled. Stepped closer. He pushed the button on his Taser. A distinct buzzing sounded, and I flinched.
 

I matched his step forward and, being quite a bit shorter, looked up at this bully. “Careful. If they
do
have the virus, then that means that West, my friends here, and I have
all
been exposed.”

It only took a second for that information to sink into Eyeglasses’ thick brain. He took two quick steps backward and spoke quickly. “We’ve seen enough. We’ll let President Layne know that we didn’t find her son.”

Fleece Jacket, who had released West the second I’d suggested that West may have been exposed to Bad Sam, grunted, then charged his Taser and slammed it into West’s side as a last-ditch effort to show him who held the power.
 

A low but loud growl rumbled from West’s chest, up through his throat and past his lips. I squeezed my eyes tight, not wanting to witness the pain, even though West himself was the one who had subjected me to that same pain.
 

Fleece Jacket removed the Taser, and West fell to his knees. Then Fleece Jacket and Eyeglasses left the way they’d come in.

~~~~~

“Key and Ryder have the virus.” I leaned against a counter next to Dax. He’d been quiet while Caine had doctored the skin below West’s lip with butterfly bandages.

By the looks on Caine’s and West’s faces now, they weren’t surprised by my declaration. West pressed an ice pack gently to his wound.

“How can you be sure? Did the test results come back?” Dax asked.
 

I shook my head. “I don’t need the test results. Just look at them.” I gestured toward the iso rooms where the two patients slept. “Key is bleeding from her eyes. Ryder is now running a fever.”

Dax locked his hands behind his head and took deep breaths in and out.

I reached up and grabbed one of his arms, brought it down, and let my fingers wrap around his forearm. “Listen to me, Dax.” I squared my shoulders to face only him, attempting to block out Caine and West behind me. “You need to return to quarantine. You shouldn’t be up here at all.”

He searched my eyes. “What? No.” He shook his head. “You and I need to leave, Cricket. We should all disperse. That’s how we survived the last outbreak. We can survive again.”

I ignored his pleas. I was only going to hurt him. One way or another, I was key to a treatment for anyone with Bad Sam. My friend—West’s sister—was dying inside New Caelum as we wasted time, and who knew how many others would contract the virus. If anyone had any hope of surviving this…
 

“As soon as we confirm that you and Dylan don’t have Bad Sam, I want you to get far away from Boone Blackston until we know the virus is contained.”

Dax stared into my eyes, raging with the desire to run away with me. He searched for the truth that was hidden in the ashes, way down deep where I had burned some former version of myself long ago. “Why are you saying this? Why won’t you leave with me?” He glanced uncomfortably over my shoulder at West. “What are you not telling me?” He raised his hands, his fingers hovering near my cheeks. But then he abruptly backed up and dropped his hands, knowing he shouldn’t touch me.

I looked to Caine for help—help he couldn’t provide—then back to Dax. “I can’t run away with you. I’m needed here. West came to Boone Blackston for a reason. I have to help him.”
 

“Do you love me, Cricket?”

My heart constricted. I could hardly breathe as I prepared to deliver a fatal blow to our relationship. I loved him. Besides Nina, he was my best friend. In time I may have developed something even deeper for him, but I guessed I had always known that my life’s purpose would drive a wedge between us. And saving him from catching a deadly disease was more important to me than anything else I could do for him right now.

And then there was West, whose presence behind me was like a raging fire on my back. I glanced down at my feet, unable to meet Dax’s stare.

“Look at me.” He touched my chin with a gentle finger. “Do you love me?”

I swallowed hard. “I love you, but…”
 

“No. No buts. You love me. You don’t owe these city people anything.”

“You’re wrong.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I love you, but it’s not enough. I need you to take care of yourself while I help West.”

Emotion turned his eyes to glass. He leaned in, and knowing I was incapable of contracting Bad Sam, I let him place a gentle kiss on my lips and then pull back.
 

“It’s okay,” he whispered. A sad smile touched his lips, and he turned and left.

~~~~~

When I finally got up the nerve to face West, I was shocked to discover an expression softened by compassion and warmth. “Why did you do that?” he asked. He sat on the floor, leaning against a wall while still holding an ice pack to his face.

I didn’t owe him an explanation. He didn’t need to know why I’d sent Dax away, or why I was about to give him exactly what he and the people inside New Caelum needed. “How many people inside New Caelum have Bad Sam?” I asked.
 

“Only one.”
 

“That you know of.”

His lips stretched into a thin line before he agreed with a single nod.

“How did Key and Ryder contract the disease?”

He lowered the ice pack, resting his arm on a knee. “I haven’t a clue.”

I took a deep breath while staring briefly at the ceiling—for what, I had no idea. “West, Caine was close to having a treatment for Bad Sam, but something’s wrong with it.”
 

Caine and I traded knowing glances. We had few options, unless we planned to watch Key and Ryder die.
 

“Wait here,” I ordered and then turned to Caine, who shrugged. Wordlessly, he followed me down the hallway. We made our way to the lab, suited up, and entered.

“There are doctors inside New Caelum who could possibly be closer to a cure than I am,” Caine said.

I closed my eyes. I wasn’t surprised by his admission of defeat. We both knew that when those rats died, it had proved that he was no closer to a cure to Bad Sam today than he was last week or last year. And before he could figure out the problem, Willow, Key, and Ryder might die, and others might contract the virus.

“How do you know this?” I asked.