Hunger Chronicles (Book 1): Life Bites (11 page)

We pass through the mess hall and down the short hall to the lift. John presses the button and we wait. And wait. And wait…

“Hey, I wanted to apologize for all those questions earlier,” John says, breaking the long silence.

I look over at him, expecting to meet up with his typical stoic profile, but he’s actually looking at me. His brow even has a little crease in it.

Nope. Not buying it. I cross my arms. “You figured out why you were asking them?”

There is a clank and a rattle and the lift doors open. Empty. We step inside and John presses the button for the command floor. He doesn’t look at me again, choosing instead to stare at the passing concrete. “You’re my teammate. My gut says I can trust you, but I’m not stupid enough to follow it blindly.”

“Ah. And you think my responses to some random questions are going to prove or disprove what your gut says?”

He glances down and to the side, catching my gaze. “No. But your reactions will.”

I swallow. Well that sucks. So far my reactions haven’t been very good. Both times he’s tweaked my buttons I’ve lost more than a touch of my control. If he’s trying to make sure I’m safe and stable… yeah, crap.

I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Take a deep breath. “What you said, the words themselves, they, uh, reminded me of someone else.” I don’t expand. Can’t, even if I might want to. The dream is too close, squeezing down on my ribcage like a vise.

John is staring at me steadily, as if measuring my mettle. Eventually he nods and turns to face back forward, yet again displaying another amazing bit of tact. And why does that disappoint me? It’s not like I’m looking to pour my heart out to him. Geez.

The lift jars to a stop, the doors sliding open. John gestures me out first—what a gentleman—and then steps up beside me as we head down the hall. Unlike the empty halls below, these are bursting with on-duty soldiers. I forgot to look at my clock when John woke me from the dream, but judging by the level of activity, it’s late afternoon. The teams that have been out are returning, their stats—kills, materials retrieved, and other reconnaissance info—recorded.

I frown as a thought crosses my mind: Marine has made a special exception because of me. What I am requires that I only go on night missions, or very cloudy day missions. This is obviously not the norm. With good reason too. Zombies are more active at night. The virus that changed them, changes their iris so they can no longer constrict, making it painful for them to be out in the light of day. It’s easier, and safer, to kill them while their activity is low. In the right circumstances, a team can cut a pretty impressive path of destruction before the sound and movement rouses the rest from their dens.

Gnawing at my lip, I follow John into the conference room. Inside we find not just Convict, Brian, and Herbie, but Rodriguez with the rest of his team.

Blaine motions me over, nodding his head at the empty seat beside him. Feels kind of like high school, saving seats and all, still I find myself glancing at John who meets me with an indifferent expression. Yeah, okay then. I cross the room, wishing I could indulge in a forehead smack. Why would John care where I sit? Why do I care whether John cares where I sit?

Still, I can’t help notice that John doesn’t take any of the other empty seats, choosing instead to plant himself in the back of the room, broad shoulders leaning against the wall and arms folded across his chest.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Blaine greets me with a wide, white-tooth smile that’s made even more brilliant against his dark-skinned face.

I shrug, sliding into the empty chair. “Fine. Had a nap. Slept like the dead.”

Blaine stares at me uncertainly.

“Sorry. Vampire humor.”

Blaine laughs, shaking his head. “You’re the shit.”

Okay… whatever. I’m beginning to think Blaine is a few tacks short of a full box. I mean, John is cool with the whole vampire thing, but Blaine seems downright impressed by it. I want to tell him that being a vampire sucks. And it’s certainly not a lifestyle to be glorified. My “joke” is as much a desperate attempt to let me live my reality as anything else. It’s meant to be funny, but only in a dark, my life bites-the-big-one, kind of way.

I stare forward at the blank whiteboard. I should have taken a hint from John, stood in the back of the room. I’m not good at this whole conversation thing. Never was.

Blaine leans in closer, his shoulder brushing mine. I instinctively shift away.

“Hey,” he says. “I wanted to let you know that I talked with the rest of the team, and we all agree, we’d be down with you signing on with us under Rodriguez.”

I turn my head, stiffen when I realize how close he is. Okay, sure, he is probably just trying to keep things private—the whole jumping teams could be considered akin to jumping ships—but I have a thing about my personal space. Too tempting. Like dangling the mouse in front of the cat.

I scoot another micrometer away. All I can do without falling off the edge of my chair. “Uh, thanks.”

I’m glad when, at that moment, Marine walks into the room, the door banging open and then closed as he stalks across the cement floor. He’s not a happy camper. I brace myself, waiting for whatever other bad news he might have. Seems like that’s all that goes down around here, bad stuff. Whatever it is, it must involve the mission we’d just been on. No other reason why Rodriguez’s and Convict’s teams are both present.

Marine settles into a wide-leg stance, hands linked behind his back as his gaze roams around the room. Once he’s sure everyone is here, he starts.

“Thank you all for coming. I figured since you had a hand in this, and may have discussed mission parameters, that a debriefing was in order.”

A debriefing on what? I think, but don’t ask aloud. Herbie does that for me, rocking his chair onto its back legs as he mutters a, “Oh… the peons are being enlightened. This should be good.”

Marine ignores this, his gaze shifting to Rodriguez and then Brice. “As you know, rescue missions, especially nocturnal ones, are not standard practice for our facility. However, as I informed Brice beforehand, the nature of the mission Rodriguez and his team were on before they had to come down for their emergency landing was sensitive enough that I thought it worth the risk.”

I scoot forward in my seat, eager to hear what it is that could have this man breaking protocol. Not that I thought he was against doing so when the need arose, but more like I thought he wouldn’t do so lightly.

Marine scans the rest of the room, his gaze drifting across Herbie and Brian, pausing briefly on me, then seeming to settle on John in the back of the room. “I don’t know how much was discussed after the rescue was accomplished, so I’ll start at the beginning.” His tone sharpened as he went on, “Know that I am according you a full accounting because I do not want any rumors flying about. What is discussed here is confidential. And if you already have some knowledge of this and have passed it on to others, I would know to whom, so that damage control can be implemented.”

Damage control. That doesn’t sound good.

No one pipes up to offer any names: i.e., no one knows what Marine is talking about, no one has talked to anyone else, or no one wants to divulge in front of the group that they’ve done so.

After another few seconds pass in silence, Marine nods his head and starts. “I’m sure some of you have heard rumors in the past, theories regarding the lab the government set up in San Francisco when the spread of the South American virus crossed into Mexico and started threatening our own borders.”

“You mean at Alcatraz, right?” Brian asks.

“Yes.” Marine draws in a deep breath, as if the next part is going to be hard for him to say. “When the virus was first in the area, obtaining entry into the lab was deemed all but impossible. Recent reconnaissance suggested the zombie population has been leveling off, either through starvation or because they’re moving off in search of better feeding grounds. I determined it was time to make an attempt at retrieval.” He nods over at Rodriguez. “Rodriguez and his men were assigned the task of breaking into the lab and obtaining a collection of laboratory samples that a colleague of mine said where housed within a safe in the lowest laboratory.”

There is a collection of breaths. Even my chest starts to sting as I hold in the noxious CO2. Just as I’m about to wiggle like a toddler in church, Marine continues.

“Their mission was successful, and they were on their way back with these samples when their helicopter began to experience mechanical difficulties.”

“Did you manage to bring them with you when you had to abandon the helicopter?” John has pushed off the wall and moved forward along the rows of chairs. His eyes are intense on Rodriguez, his tone eager.

Rodriguez gives a sharp salute. “We got ’em.”

John closes his eyes, as if the moment is too intense. I concur. Alcatraz. I’d heard my dad talking about the place. Normally he was complaining about the pompous lead scientist who was in charge there. Dad had been working in another lab in Arizona trying to find a vaccine right before the explosion of the virus swept across the Southern and Western portions of the United States. I remember him coming home, mumbling about damn protocols, and then disappearing into his workroom in the basement. What I can’t remember is whether any of the labs were at all close to a vaccine when the outbreak occurred. But if they had been… if that vaccine was at Alcatraz…

“So you got it? You found the vaccine?” John asks, his voice as edgy as I feel.

Marine taps the table before him, his eyes falling to Rodriguez as he shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It’s not a vaccine.”

This is met with heavy silence. The kind that eats up hope.

“Did we grab the wrong stuff?” Blaine asks, his brow puckered with puzzlement.

“No.” Rodriguez shakes his head emphatically. “The sample came from the right safe and was clearly labeled.”

There’s a confused murmur. Then Herbie speaks up, “I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand? This,” Marine holds up a vial, his voice tinged with bitterness, “
is
the vaccine. Or apparently they thought so.” He lowers the vial back down, stroking the liquid filled tube. “Too bad they were wrong. So damn wrong.”

“Holy crap.”

I look over at John who’s uttered the exclamation under his breath. His face is pale, his hands fisted into tight balls of tension. John hits his knuckles together, spins, pounding a fist into the cement wall.

Brian stands up, takes a step toward him. “What is it John? What do you know?”

John lifts his head, his tortured gaze passes Brian, falling onto mine, then moves on, his chin lifting as it settles on Marine. “We did it, didn’t we? We fucked up our own people.”

Marine quells John with a look that is so sharp I think we all end up with surface wounds. After that everyone is silent as Marine finishes his debriefing, adding another warning not to be passing this information around. Guess there are enough optimists out there who will be crushed if they don’t have the Alcatraz rumor to cling to.

My gaze cuts to John who’s shifted back into his corner. I never would have pegged him as an optimist, but the news is obviously hitting him hard. He can’t stand still. His hands flexing on his upper arms as he holds them across his chest, his jaw clenching and unclenching as his gaze skits around the room, never settling on anyone or anything.

Finally the commander dismisses us and John bolts out. I stand, ready to follow, when Blaine speaks. “That just sucks.”

I hum an agreement, my gaze trained on the door as it clicks closed.

“Thank God Tom, Bennett, and Scott died without knowing that. I mean, God, what a waste. And now our team is way short.”

I tear my eyes away from the door John has disappeared through and focus on Blaine. He’s looking at me like I’m his last hope. Uh, no. Not liking this. I’m a vampire, not a hero. Okay, yeah, I do want to help out the people here, I wouldn’t be risking my neck for them otherwise, but at the base of it all I’m here for me. I need a place to crash. A place where I’m my own person and not a slave to my maker or under some bitchy queen’s control. And yeah, I kind of like having something other than wildlife around for company. But I am not anyone’s idol. Time to nip this in the bud.

“I’m sure the commander will make some sort of arrangement so you’re not shorthanded,” I say as calmly and coldly as I can and then as quickly as possible, make like John and bolt for the door.

I don’t even realize that I’m going after him until I find myself disappointed that he isn’t in the hall. Before I have time to think things through, I have extended my stride to just short of running, heading for the lifts. When I turn the corner, there he is, waiting for the snail-paced lift to attend to the request of the call button.

“John!”

He doesn’t even glance at me. The button goes dark, and the lift doors open. He steps in. Geez-Louise. Is it too much to ask for him to hold the door for a lady?

You’re no lady, Eva.

I shrug off my inner voice and call out again. “John. Wait!”

The lift doors start to close. I sprint for them, smashing my hand on the down button just in time to have them halting and then jerking open again.

“Didn’t you hear me?” I ask as I slip onto the lift.

John’s gaze drops to mine, blank eyes boring into me. “What do you want?”

Good question. Truth is I’m not sure why I chased after him, other than I could feel the vibrations of his anger. Still didn’t explain why I’d followed him. “Want a punching bag?”

“You offering?”

I shift uneasily, remembering how our last sparing match had gone. As if he’d want a repeat of that. As if
I
want a repeat of that. I’m trying to make friends here, not give him reason to have Brian off me. “I am. I’ll even promise not to lose my cool this time.”

He runs his hands over his face, scrubbing it as if he can remove some unseen grime. The lift halts, the doors cracking open. John’s head jerks up, staring at the hall and the two men flanking the mess hall door. With a curse he reaches out and presses his finger against another button. This one unmarked.