Emerge (13 page)

And what had made her suspect that
I
might be immune to the virus? I didn’t remember her taking blood from Ryder before he came down with the fever. I was the only one she tested, so she must have had some particular reason to suspect what she’d find.

Why me?

As I stared at the back of this girl and thought about the selfless things she’d done for me and my friends in the past day, I remembered one more thing she’d said to me. She’d told me that she had what I needed to cure my sister. That was right before she stuck me with a needle and distracted me.

But now her words sank in. Ryder and I had mentioned Willow.
 

But we had never mentioned that Willow was my sister.

The world around me began spinning out of control. My eyes focused on the back of Cricket’s head—her blond hair. It couldn’t be…

I ran through a mental list of Bad Sam symptoms: high fever, excruciating headaches, joint pain, and bleeding sores…

… especially on the face and neck.

My heart was beating out of control as I stared at Cricket. I couldn’t catch my breath.
“You will live to regret strapping me to that table and not letting me help Key,”
she had said. Until now, I didn’t understand why she’d thought I would regret carrying out my mission and doing whatever I had to in order to protect my friends and locate Christina.
 

My backpack slid from my arms and hit the ground.
 

At the sound, Cricket started. She stood, and turned to face me. “Oh—I thought you had left.” Her voice came out soft and slightly shaky.

“No… I…” I stepped to the side and looked out over the balcony toward New Caelum. The sky was becoming lighter, but the cloud cover still made it difficult to actually see the buildings. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t look at her.

“Are you mad? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I’ve suffered insomnia ever since…”

“Ever since what?” I asked quickly, turning to face her, because even though I couldn’t look at her, I couldn’t
not
look at her, either.

“Since… well… for a long time. Since I stopped sleeping inside the settlement.”

“Where did you go?”

“Um… I just took a walk. I needed the air and time to think. I can’t believe I’m truly going to go inside New Caelum today and breathe your stale, recirculated air.”

I studied her face. Her eyes were pointed to the ground, hidden from me, and she was hiding her scarred cheek with her hair again.

She was lying to me about where she’d gone. Of course she was; why would she trust me after I—

Oh my God, I’d tasered her and tied her to a hospital bed. What kind of monster was I?

I stepped closer to her, placed a crooked finger under her chin, and lifted.
 

She jerked away and stepped backward. “What are you doing? Don’t touch me.”

I retracted my hand. “I’m sorry. I…” Though she pulled away, I saw something in her eyes: she was in there, deep within those dark blues. How had I not seen it before?

Because she was constantly hiding her eyes and her face from me. Except now…

“Your hair… it was darker.”

She squinted up at me like she was trying to solve a puzzle, then her face morphed into some sort of understanding. She backed up another step. “You know.”

I don’t know how much time passed with us just standing there staring at each other.

“I don’t know what to say,” she said in the softest of voices. “Somehow, I think I’m supposed to apologize.”

“What do you have to apologize for?”

She looked away while hugging her arms across her stomach. “I’m sorry we led you to believe Christina was dead, but…”

“But?”

Her hard gaze met mine again. “Christina
is
dead. The naive twelve-year-old you knew is gone forever. She died when she faced the worst fight of her life.”

“How did you…” I could barely speak it. I had tried to imagine what it had been like for her, but I couldn’t. “How did you survive?”

“Caine. I wouldn’t have survived without him.”

“Where did you go? Have you been here just outside New Caelum all this time?”

“I bounced around some. But yes. Mostly here.”

I took a step toward her and raised a hand—then I dropped it to my side again. I so badly wanted to touch her. The vision of her lying motionless in my arms after I’d tasered her flashed in my head. I closed my eyes. “You were nothing but nice to us, and I hurt you.” When I looked at her again, she only stared back at me. “Will you ever forgive me?”

“I will help your sister. You don’t need my forgiveness.” Her voice was emotionless, cold. Had I hurt her beyond repair? “I will make sure New Caelum is virus-free. That’s what they must want. And you will make sure I leave New Caelum with the same cure for my friends.”

“I will help you.” Although I wasn’t sure how. I had no idea how I would be received when we returned to New Caelum. After all, I was supposed to be under a mandatory quarantine. Is that why they had cut off my PulsePoint? Would they even let me back inside the city? They might lock me up when I returned, even if I
was
being groomed to govern New Caelum.

I looked back at the girl standing before me. The Christina I had known had been full of light. But the Cricket I was learning to know now was shadowed by darkness. What kind of life had she witnessed during the last six years?

She was wrong about one thing, though. I did need her forgiveness.

I had to focus. It didn’t matter that West knew who I was. He didn’t
know
me. We had been kids the last time we were together. He didn’t know how the illness had changed me. He had no clue what I’d gone through. Sure, he could see the scars on the outside of my skin, but he had no idea about the extent of the scarring I’d suffered on the inside.

The air was still, cool, and crisp as we left the shelter of the estate that morning. We had a purpose, but it was a purpose that had little to do with getting to know each other again. Darkness hung around West and me and it had nothing to do with the clouds blocking the sun.
 

We followed the paths leading into the mountains—paths I’d hiked many times before with Dax, Dylan, and Nina. Some were well worn, while others—ones we hadn’t frequented—were thick with overgrown brush. I wondered where Dax was now. I knew he could take care of himself. But this outside world made us all vulnerable, each in different ways, and I hated that I had hurt him.

A nervous sweat broke out across the back of my neck from a combination of our fast pace and my anxious thoughts. I removed my outer layer—a black wool winter pea coat I’d found in an old department store a year ago after one of my final growth spurts. Dax had been with me the day we’d gone on a spree to find some new clothes for the people of our small community. And now he had run, which is what he and I seemed to do best—run from trouble, run from discomfort, run from each other when times were tough.

“You’re quiet. Are we going to talk at all?” West glanced over his shoulder at me. His brown hair flipped up at his ears—he was in need of a haircut—and I mentally squashed my initial urge to play with it. He’d grown into a good-looking man, and I found myself wanting to know more about him. I didn’t know him any more than he knew me.

Though I knew that he was desperate enough to save his sister that he’d taser a girl he’d just met.

What was I supposed to say to him? Nothing sounded good inside my head, so I stuck with the basics. “What’s it like inside New Caelum?”

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s sleek and clean, and at times, it’s like growing up in a hospital. The people inside feel safe. But I think we like that clinical feel, because it assures us that Bad Sam is kept out.” He laughed a little, but I suspected it wasn’t because of something funny. “All citizens are required to report their temperature twice a day through their PulsePoints. There’s very little sickness. But by taking temperatures, the medics are able to catch many illnesses before they spread.”

“Sounds cold and controlling.” And exactly why I was thankful I had escaped that world the second the opportunity had presented itself.

“It can be, but it’s been all right. I’ve been happy enough. I’m with Mother and Willow.” He cast me a sideways glance. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s okay. You were lucky to grow up with family. Tell me more.”

“Well, everyone has their own responsibilities inside the city,” he continued. “Once children reach seventeen or eighteen, they’re steered toward what their permanent job will be within the city.”

“What are your responsibilities?”

He turned and walked backward, facing me. “I’m the president’s son. I’m responsible for behaving the way my mother expects me to, and walking a straight line.” The beginnings of a smile touched the corners of his lips, but faded.

I cocked my head. I could see in his eyes he wasn’t telling me something. “And do you? Behave the way your mom expects you to?”

This time, he gave a full-on grin. And it was exactly the smile I remembered. Six years hadn’t taken away the dimple on one side of his face, nor had he lost the mischievous glint in his eye that he got when he wanted to cause trouble. “Let’s just say I learned how not to get caught.”

I wanted to return his smile, to laugh like this was some sort of game. “And what happens this time? When you get caught? What happens to you when you walk back into New Caelum?” Could he really just walk back into a city that monitored every move and change of temperature in its citizens?

His cheeks fell. “You’re right. Things are different. And I’m not even sure
how
they’re different, since I’ve had no communication with anyone on the inside.”

“You still haven’t told me how many of your citizens have Bad Sam. The truth this time.”

“What do you mean? Only one. Willow.”

This time I stopped. “You’re not serious.”

“Dead serious. After Willow came down with the virus, our family was quarantined, and Mom figured out a way to get me out of New Caelum so that I could find Chris—I mean, you.”

“And Key and Ryder?”

“Based on the timing, I’m guessing Key caught the virus from Willow before she was quarantined, and Ryder must have gotten it from her.”

I could almost buy his argument. Almost. But I suspected he was dead wrong. “Let’s pretend for a minute that you’re right. How do you think Willow came down with the virus?”

We approached a fallen tree, and West gestured toward it. “Let’s take a break.”
 

We didn’t have time to take much of a break; but I needed more information if I was going to successfully get in and out of this facility. So I climbed up on the trunk. With one leg bent in front of me, I faced West, who straddled the log.

“I have no idea how Willow contracted it,” he said simply. With a stick, he dug at the bark in front of him.

“None?”

He cast the stick aside and stared into the woods over my shoulder. He wasn’t telling me something. “Mom was terrified when she suggested I leave and find you. She knew it was a risk to send me out with the scouts leaving the city.”

“I bet she was,” I whispered.
 

“What do you mean by that?” When I stared blankly at West, he breathed an exasperated sigh. “You know… you act like we
asked
for Bad Sam to infect our lives again.”

“Your words, not mine.” My voice took on an edge I couldn’t hide.

West raised an eyebrow. “Yet here you sit with your judgment already formed. It’s all over your face. So, tell me: why do
you
think my mom was terrified?”

“Besides the fact that your sister has been given a death sentence? Because she knows that a virus now threatens the empire she helped build.” I played with the shoestrings on my boot as I gave West a minute to think. He’d been so hell-bent on finding me, and terrified at the prospect of leaving the inner sanctum of New Caelum, that I didn’t think he’d ever really taken the time to process what was truly going on here. “Willow is not the first person inside New Caelum to contract the virus,” I finished.

West sat up a little straighter. He rubbed his hand back and forth across the stubble on his face. “And what makes you say that, you who knows nothing about New Caelum?”

I remained perfectly still, reminding myself that I didn’t have to convince this boy—who might as well have been a stranger to me—that New Caelum was an evil place to live and that I knew plenty. As a matter of fact, I should have been doing the opposite. What I wanted was for the people of New Caelum to continue to believe that their way of life was the right choice for them, now and always, so they would stay right where they were. The outside world didn’t need a hundred thousand or so people flooding out into our tiny communities. We didn’t need New Caelum taking over our lives. Especially if we were facing another virus epidemic.
 

“You’re right,” I said. “I know nothing about New Caelum or the people in it.” I slid off the fallen tree and pulled my coat back on. Sitting for even a few minutes had reminded me that winter was approaching. “We’re still about two hours away from the outer walls of New Caelum; we should probably get a move on.”

West didn’t move to join me. And when he finally looked up, his lips tugged down. “What makes you think this virus outbreak didn’t start with my sister?” He stood and stuffed his hands in his pockets. I didn’t answer, so he urged further, “I need to know what makes you think that.”

“Your city is covering up instances of Bad Sam.”

“Not possible,” West said, but his face didn’t reflect confidence.

I paused, thinking about how to explain. I decided I needed to back up a bit.
 

“About a year ago, I noticed a change in Boone Blackston. A change in attitude. The people were finally starting to build a life that didn’t include things like… like taking their loved ones’ temperatures every day. Or staring accusingly at anyone who looked flushed. The paranoia was finally starting to drop away.”

“If there’s so much distrust in your community, why do people live there? Why don’t they continue to live in rural areas, where they know they’re safe from the virus?”