Outbreak (17 page)

On my way to check out, I pass by a cracked door in the ICU. I peek inside and see Lenny lying in the bed with her red curly hair fanning out in every direction. She’s regained some of her peachy coloring, but she still doesn’t look like herself.

Squeezed into one of those little waiting-room chairs next to the door is Miles. He’s nodding off under a canopy of “get well” flowers and looks more out of place than I’ve ever seen him. He’s got dark grayish bags under his eyes and the strain of worry around his mouth. His shirt is stretched out and wrinkly, which makes me think he hasn’t left Lenny’s side in days.

As I watch, his head dips forward toward his hand, and he jerks it up at the last second as he teeters on the brink of sleep.

“Hey,” I murmur, leaning against the door jamb and patting him on the shoulder.

Miles jumps and opens his eyes. “Hey!” He clears his throat and shifts around in the chair, but he can’t quite muster up his trademark swagger sitting at Lenny’s bedside. 

“How’s she doing?”

“All right, I guess,” he sighs, dragging his palm over his face. “She got pretty lucky. A few more minutes, and she would have been a goner.”

His tone is light, but when he turns back to face her bed, I can tell he’s replayed that horrible day over and over, thinking about what he could have done differently. It’s how I felt after Harper made her first kill, and it’s why I have to do this my way.

“It’s not your fault,” I say in a firm voice.

“The hell it isn’t.” Miles shakes his head. “I
led
her that way. I led us straight into a fucking firing squad.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“I should have, though. You guys were attacked along that route. I just thought if we were real quiet, maybe we wouldn’t attract attention.”

“Well, she ought to be grateful she was with you. I doubt any other private would have gotten her back to the compound so fast.”

“Man, stop trying to make me feel better, all right?” Miles snaps. “I fucked up. You asked me to take her out and show her the ropes, and I fucking
failed
. I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if you hadn’t taken out that drifter.”

I swallow down the guilt rising up in my throat. I don’t want to tell him that I could have gotten into position a lot faster if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with protecting Owen.

“Stop blaming yourself,” I say. “Some of this shit is beyond your control.”

I let out a burst of air. “And you didn’t fail. I wouldn’t have wanted to send her out with anybody else, and I stand by that decision.”

Miles shakes his head. “You shouldn’t. I’m not cut out for this babysitting shit.”

“Yeah, you are.” I pause, hesitant to lay everything out there. “In fact . . . I think you should keep going out on her deployments. She’s going to grow into a good partner for you, and I want you to keep an eye on her . . . and the rest of my cadets.”

Miles scoffs. “You planning on taking a vacation or something?”

“Not exactly,” I murmur. “But I . . . I may be going away for a while, and I just want to make sure somebody’s looking out for Harper and the others.”

“Harper?”

“Yeah. Jayden came to my room the other day for a little heart-to-heart.”

I close the door and sit down in the empty chair beside Miles, unloading the story of how the drifters caught us in Owen’s house and led us back to their base. I tell him about the confrontation with Malcolm and how Jayden saw us leave him there alive.

When I finish, Miles is staring at me as though I’ve completely lost my mind.

“You went into their base pretending to be Owen?” he repeats incredulously. “Are you
insane
?”

“I wasn’t sure what else to do. If they knew we were Recon, they would have killed us for sure.”

He scowls. “That’s why you don’t stick around to have conversations with drifters! You shoot them and get the fuck out!”

“I couldn’t,” I groan. “They caught us by surprise, and I had no idea how many there were.”

“And what do you think is gonna happen when Owen comes back?” he asks. “How’s it going to look when he has no memory of hanging out with those guys?”

“Bad,” I admit. “Which is why I need to find him.”

I clench my fists and grit my teeth, gearing up for the lecture I know I have coming.

“As soon as one of the gang leaders shows his face again, Jayden is going to deploy me. I’m going to find Owen and fake his death. So long as Jayden never sees him again, she’ll have no choice but to believe me.”

“How are you going to fake his death?”

I raise an eyebrow. “I have an idea. I just need to call in some reinforcements.”

Miles shakes his head in disbelief. “And you think Owen is just gonna go on the run because you
tell
him he should?”

“He doesn’t have a choice. He’s as good as dead anyway, now that Malcolm is questioning his loyalty.”

“Because of you.”

“That’s beside the point. Owen can’t stay here . . . not with Jayden
and
the Desperados after him.”

There’s a long pause as Miles considers my logic.

When he looks up at me, there’s a pained expression in his eyes — as though he knows he’s looking at a dead man. 

“Why are you putting yourself through this?” he asks. “Just tell Jayden you aren’t going to be her little bitch anymore.”

“I can’t,” I groan, staring down at my hands and willing him to understand. “If I don’t go along with this, Jayden is going to kill Harper.”

“So tell Harper to leave! Send her to another compound the way you planned.”

My stomach drops. I completely forgot that Miles hasn’t heard the news about 119. 

“That’s not really an option anymore. I don’t want to go into it right now, but trust me . . . I would if I could.”

“So what if Jayden sends you out there and you can’t find Owen? What then?”

“I
have
to find him,” I say. “No matter how long I have to stay out there.”

It takes several seconds for the meaning of my words to sink in, and when they do, Miles’s expression goes blank. “Are you telling me you’re planning to stay out on the Fringe until you find your brother?”

I nod. “Jayden’s orders. She says she doesn’t care if it takes six days or six months. I can’t come back without a dead drifter . . . which is why I’m putting in a request for a new partner.”

Hearing those words aloud and seeing Miles’s expression intensifies the horrible guilt that’s been eating at my stomach all day.

“
You’re dropping Riley
?”

“I have to. She’s not cut out for the Fringe, and it wouldn’t be right dragging her out there with me.”

“Wouldn’t be right? What about the other poor bastard you rope into your suicide mission? How is
that
right?”

I grit my teeth. “It won’t be a suicide mission if we pull it off.”

“Yeah, but that’s a pretty big ‘if.’”

“I don’t expect
you
to do it,” I say, feeling defensive. “I just can’t put Harper through that.”

Miles opens his mouth to argue, but our conversation is cut short by a soft knock on the door. It’s Sawyer. 

By the look on her face, she didn’t catch the tail end of my last statement, but she still looks uncomfortable.

“Glad I caught you before you left,” she says, scooting into the room and glancing at the empty tunnel behind her.

“Is Harper okay?” I ask.

“She’s fine. She’s being discharged, too.”

Sawyer glances down the tunnel again, and I get an uneasy feeling in my gut.

“Can we talk for a second?” she asks, glancing bashfully at Miles. “In private?”

I can’t imagine what she could say that I don’t want Miles to hear, but I get up and follow her out into the tunnel anyway.

Sawyer leads me out of the ICU and through the postexposure wing. Then she turns down a short dead-end tunnel that’s just for storage, where a few extra gurneys are lined up along the walls. As soon as we enter the little alcove, the ambient noise from the wing fades to a low hum.

“What is it?” I ask. “Did you get your hands on the raw viability data?”

She shakes her head so her shiny black hair swooshes around her chin. “Not yet.”

I look at her expectantly. She shifts her weight from one foot to another, carefully avoiding my gaze.

“Don’t be mad,” she says, “but when I went to read your dosimeter, I snooped around in your bag a little.”

That’s probably the absolute
last
thing I expected her to say. Now I know why she was acting all shady, but after everything Sawyer’s done for me and Harper, I’m too grateful to be pissed.

“When Caleb brought you up to the ward, you were guarding that with your life.” She gestures to my rucksack. “I figured something was up, so I had a look inside.”

Sawyer jerks her head over her shoulder once more to make sure we aren’t being watched and then reaches into her back pocket to pull out something I can’t see. 

She passes me the picture as if she’s making a drug handoff, and I take it reverently. 

The photo paper has a warmth I can’t explain, and the crinkled edges feel reassuringly familiar.

“I also found this,” she says, reaching into her front pocket and withdrawing my mother’s necklace.

I hold out my other hand, and she lets the chain spill slowly into my outstretched palm.

“I shouldn’t have taken them,” she says quickly. “But the decontamination unit inspects everything that comes back from the Fringe and blasts it to get rid of radioactive particles. I didn’t want it to get confiscated or ruined.”

“Thank you,” I say, a little shocked that Sawyer has been harboring my contraband all this time. “Really.”

She jerks her head dismissively, as though she’s not used to being thanked. “I thought you would be mad.”

“Why would I be mad?”

“Because it seems like something you might want to keep secret.” She gives me a pointed look. “I read the back of the photo.”

I nod. Sawyer knowing about Owen definitely puts her at greater risk, but I’m not worried that she’s going to go blabbing to Jayden or anything. And, to my relief, she doesn’t seem to expect any sort of explanation. I can see why Harper trusts her.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get going.”

“Thanks for this,” I say quickly. I hope she knows I mean it.

“No problem.”

Sawyer turns to go but stops short of the main tunnel. She doesn’t turn around to look at me, but I can tell she’s debating with herself about something.

“Just be careful, Eli,” she says in a tremulous voice. “Harper’s my best friend.”

“I know.”

Sawyer nods and then turns and disappears around the corner. 

When she leaves, I get the feeling that I should have said more. I should have told her to watch out for Harper after I’m gone. I should have told her that I’d do anything to keep Harper safe — even if it means making her hate me.

fifteen

Celdon

Whenever I’m especially fucked up, a cold shower is about the only thing that can bring me back to reality. After a night in Neverland, I’ll stand in the narrow glass box and run the shower cycle on repeat until my skin is pink and numb all over.

It usually makes me feel like I’ve been given a fresh start, but not today. 

I could shower for a hundred years and never be able to wash the stench of dead bodies off me. I haven’t stopped smelling the thousands of rotting corpses since Harper and I returned from 119.

Frustrated, I grab my damp towel from the hook on the wall and forcefully scrub my wet hair so it sticks up in a million different directions. I rub it down my face, wrap it around my hips, and begin my search for clean clothes. 

I need to do laundry. Hell, I need to do a lot of things.

I grab a pair of pants from two nights ago that have a suspicious pinkish stain on the thigh and hear the familiar siren call of a pill bottle rattling in the pocket. It’s got half a dozen fun-looking yellow uppers sliding around in the bottom, and my hands shake a little when I toss the bottle onto the couch.

Must find clean pants.

Wrinkled slacks are scattered all over my closet floor like crumpled tissues. But just above my head, I find a neatly folded pair still fresh from the laundry service. 

“Score,” I mutter.

My search for a clean shirt is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. I’m expecting Harper, so I throw it open without looking through the peephole first and jump back at the sight of her six-foot-tall lieutenant.

He looks all serious and sexy as usual, and I’m suddenly very aware that I’m a little bloated from drinking all night. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Sexy is probably hiding a perfect six-pack under that uniform.

“
Heeee
y,” I slur, drawing out the word to defuse the awkward tension.

“Hey,” he says, glancing over my shoulder at my compartment. He’s probably here looking for Riles. How adorable.

“What’s up?”

“You have a second?”

I clear my throat and redirect my gaze so he doesn’t think I’m staring at him. “Yeah. Sure. Come on in.”

This is weird. This is weird. This is
so
weird.

I turn around and leave my door wide open, frantically scanning the compartment for a clean shirt. I grab one hanging off the back of a chair and pull it on, wondering what this could
possibly
be about.

When I turn around, I can tell Eli feels just as awkward as I do. He’s taking in my compartment with a grim expression — probably thinking that Systems people are spoiled douchebags.

“So what’s up?” I prompt, hoping to move things along. The guy might be good-looking, but a conversationalist he is not.

“I actually had a favor to ask you.”

He glances up at me so those piercing blue eyes can do their thing, and I realize very quickly why Riles has such trouble with this guy.

“Go ahead,” I say, crossing my arms as if I can somehow shield myself from the sexy vibes he’s putting out.

He glances around my compartment, and his eyes land on my computer setup.