Contaminated 2: Mercy Mode (16 page)

“It’s okay,” Dillon says. “They only came inside to make sure we were all okay. They weren’t actually looking for other Connies. This time, anyway. They got him. You don’t have to worry.”

I turn to him with my face dripping. My T-shirt’s wet. So’s my hair. My teeth are chattering, though it’s heat that sweeps through me, not a chill. Dillon pulls me close.

I cling to him, my eyes shut tight against the memory of what I saw. The wild hair, the beard, the flash of light on bright blue eyes. It can’t be. It can’t.

“Dillon,” I say. “That Connie …”

“Shhh. They got him.”

I shake my head, unable to let go of him, but I force myself to look up at him. “No. You don’t understand. That Connie in the woods. I think it was my dad.”

THERE’S NO MORE SLEEP, NOT FOR ME. IN
the hooded light from the lantern, Dillon looks solemn. I’ve made hot tea, though I don’t want any. It gives me an excuse to do something, though, so I don’t go out of my mind.

“It makes sense. He’d come back here, if he could. To make sure we were okay.”

Dillon turns his mug in a circle. The scrape of it against the kitchen island makes me want to scream; I settle for putting a hand on his to keep him from doing it again. He sighs.

“Your dad’s been missing since the first wave, right?”

“Yes. But they never found him. I mean, they didn’t find lots of people. But that doesn’t mean he died. We just assumed he did because he was one of the first, but they didn’t kill everyone. They took a lot of people, remember that.” I talk too fast, but keep my voice low.

Dillon sighs again. “I know you want to think it was your dad.…”

“It was him.” I’m convinced of it. My dad’s eyes fill my vision when I close mine. How could I mistake them for anyone else’s? I think of something else, the way my mom had come into the kitchen, trying to get out the back door. “I think my mom knew it.”

“Oh, Velvet. How could she know that?”

I grit my jaw and cross my arms. “I don’t know. But I think she did.”

Dillon yawns. He has to be up in a few hours for work. He should go to sleep, but I can’t.

“It was my dad,” I repeat. Stubborn.

“Okay, so it was your dad. Where’s he been this whole time? How’d he get out? How’d he find his way back here?”

“I don’t know. You know they kept so many of them in the labs. Trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe he got released into a kennel and I didn’t … I didn’t find him.…” I draw in a sharp breath, fighting tears. I’d looked for my mom. Never looked for my dad. We’d just assumed he was dead.

“He didn’t have a collar.”

I hadn’t noticed. “That doesn’t make sense. My dad would’ve been Contaminated two years ago. If they’d been keeping him someplace, I’m sure they’d have put him in a collar.”

Dillon says nothing, leaving my words to hang between
us. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I want so much to believe that it’s like a knife in my guts. I swipe at my eyes.

“He definitely didn’t have one.” Dillon shakes his head. “Look, Velvet, I know you want to believe—”

“If it was
your
dad, wouldn’t you?”

He flinches, and I feel bad immediately. “Yeah. Of course I would.”

“I’m sorry.” I should hug him, but I can’t make myself reach for him. We never fight, and this feels like it might be one. Sort of.

He yawns again and scrubs at his face. “It’s okay. It’s been a long night. And, listen, tomorrow … well, later today, I guess, when I get home, we’re going to seriously get to work on fortifying the house, okay? Barricading windows and doors. That sort of thing. And making a place for you and your mom to hide. Something safer, where nobody could find you if they come looking. Okay?”

“Okay.”

We give each other faint smiles.

In the morning, after Dillon has headed off to work and I’m getting ready to rouse Opal so we can have some breakfast before we head out for another day of scavenging, I check in on my mom. She’s still sleeping, curled on her side with her hands clutching something tight to her chest. When I look to see what it is, it’s a picture.

Of her and my dad.

THE MUSTANG’S NOT THE BEST CAR FOR
going back and forth. Fun. Fast. But not that big and not really practical. We find a Chevy Suburban, and I take that instead. Dillon’s not willing to give up his dad’s pickup, though he admits that if it does break down, he can see the benefit of looking for something else.

“It’s like our own private car lot,” I tell him as we arrange supplies in rows on the shelves we’ve set up in the basement, echoing the way it was in Sandra’s house. I push that thought away, not wanting to think about what else they’d kept in the basement. We’ve built a little shelter, way more comfortable and safe than what she had. But I don’t want to think about my mom needing to use it. Or me, for that matter. “And shopping mall. And warehouse club. And we don’t even need a credit card.…”

Dillon gives me a strange look. “You love this.”

I pause in arranging the cans of fruit I’m organizing by type. “I don’t
love
it.”

But there is something exciting about it. Once we got started, Opal and I have become really good scavengers. We can strip out rooms in minutes, taking what we can use and putting aside what we can’t. We can clear a house in a day, sometimes one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Dillon grabs my arm to keep me from taking another handful of cans from the plastic bin I’d packed them in to bring home. He squeezes my bicep. “You’re getting strong.”

I curl my arm, making the muscle bulge. “Rawr.”

In the harsh white light of the LED lantern, his eyes look very bright. His hair’s grown long enough to fall into his eyes, and he shakes his head to push it away. All at once, he’s so handsome, I can’t stand it. I have to kiss him.

“What’s that for?” He laughs, kissing me back.

“Because I … wanted to,” I finish, unable to say more than that. Lame. Oh, so lame.

Cheeks burning, I turn back to pulling out cans of fruit and vegetables and soup, stacking them in order.

“Velvet,” Dillon says softly. “Hey.”

I don’t want to look at him. We’ve never talked about being in love. We went from dating to being married in what seemed like a snap of our fingers. And even though we’d barely been boyfriend and girlfriend before that, I didn’t mind the titles of husband and wife, that legality, because it made sense. It had always felt like a totally
practical decision we’d both made when we got the word that they were going to start restricting ration disbursement and health benefits. It hadn’t been romantic. We hadn’t talked about our feelings. We’d just decided that the benefits made sense. But now …

“It’s going to be dark soon. We should get this stuff put away,” I say.

The work goes fast. And he was right, I think. I do love it. Not just the clearing out of the houses, one by one, which leaves me feeling accomplished and at least like I’m doing something worthwhile for the future. But actually having all the stuff here, lined up like this, as some kind of insurance against the future. Yeah. I do love that.

“It makes me feel better.” I take the last of the cans out of the bin and settle them into their correct places, according to what’s in them. And alphabetically, for good measure. “When I lived with Opal in the apartment, looking for my mom, trying to go to school and work, I was always worried that we weren’t going to have enough. That we were going to run out of food before the next check. Or that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with my grades, that Opal would flunk out of school. That I’d never find my mom. So all of this stuff, barricading the windows, making all the safety things really does make me feel better. I do love it. I guess I have a thing for organization.”

“That’s kind of weird, you know,” he says. “The alphabetizing. Weirdo.”

I stick out my tongue, because I can tell he’s teasing. “Takes one to know one.”

We’re silly with it. He chases me up the stairs, trying to pinch the backs of my legs. Teenage-boy stuff, but I don’t mind it, and we both tumble out into the kitchen with sort of guilty looks on our faces like we’re doing something we shouldn’t.

I know at once something’s wrong. Dexter’s whining in the living room, and I hear Opal saying, “Mama,” over and over. Mrs. Holly is bent over, just the top of her head visible over the arm of the couch.

“What happened?” I’m at my mom’s side in a moment.

She’s on the floor, gaze blank, flecks of foam curdled in the corners of her mouth. Her body tenses and releases rapidly, like she’s shivering. A low, grunting moan slips out of her, and Opal claps her hands over her ears and scoots away from her.

“How long has she been this way?” I ask Mrs. Holly.

“It just happened.” Mrs. Holly lifts my mom’s hand, patting it. “Shhh, shhh. Malinda, it’s okay.”

Dillon brings a damp cloth and kneels beside me. I use it to wipe away the spit. My mom’s eyes roll back so far, all we can see is white.

Then everything relaxes. Her eyelids flutter closed. She lets out a soft sigh.

Then she sits up.

“Velvet? Opal?”

“Mama?” Opal launches herself into Mom’s lap. “You’re okay!”

“Mom …”

She hugs Opal tight, looking at me over her shoulder. She’s confused, but … clear in a way she hasn’t been since before the Contamination. She gives me a half smile.

“Opal, ouch, get off me.” She shifts Opal to the side and gives her another confused look. “My goodness, you’ve gotten so big.”

We all stare at her. She looks around the room and settles her gaze on Mrs. Holly. “Vera … what on earth?”

She doesn’t remember anything; that seems clear enough. Her gaze settles on Dillon, and something flickers across her expression. She recoils the tiniest amount, but I notice. I look at him, but he’s not doing anything.

“Hello,” she says. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Dillon. I’m …” He gives me a helpless look.

My mom shifts Opal off her lap and puts her fingertips between her eyes, the way she always used to when her head was hurting. Her shoulders rise and fall. She shakes her head a little. Her gaze is somewhat less unfocused when she looks up again.

“I’m so tired,” she says. “So very, very tired.”

Then her head falls forward, and she’s unconscious again.

TUCKED IN ON THE COUCH, MY MOM LOOKS
kind of small and younger than she did before, even though, for the first time, I notice long swipes of silver in her dark hair. She has a damp cloth on her forehead, and she’s still and silent under the blankets we put on her. She hasn’t moved for hours.

I sent Opal to bed when her eyes drooped and she couldn’t stay awake. Mrs. Holly went a while ago, too, with apologies I waved away. I don’t mind sitting up with my mom. She did it enough for me when I was sick.

Dillon stays with me, though he’s finally given in to sleep. He’s on the armchair, his feet propped on the footstool. His mouth is open, his head back. He’s snoring, which I’d find annoying if I were trying to sleep and cute if I weren’t so worried.

My mom doesn’t have a fever, but her skin feels tight and hot. She sighs in her sleep and shudders, but it’s not the same
as the earlier convulsions. It’s not like the times her collar triggered her, either. Something else is going on, and I can’t figure out what.

But she spoke normally. She was like her normal self. Confused, memory lost—true—but for those few minutes, she knew exactly where she was, and she knew me and Opal.

Hope is such a dangerous thing, but I can’t fight it down. It fills me up, fluttering like a bird, seeping into all my cracks and crevices like water, lifting my heart like a bunch of balloons. I’ve always had the thought in the back of my mind that my mom might come back to us, but this, tonight, is the first time I’ve seen any real evidence that it might be possible.

Dillon snorts and wakes. “Hey. How is she?”

“Still sleeping.” I stifle a yawn with the back of my hand.

He comes over to me and rubs my shoulders, easing aches and pains I didn’t know I had. “You should get some sleep. I can stay with her.”

“No.” I shake my head.

He sits next to me on the floor and takes my hand. “That was weird today, huh?”

“Yes. But good. I think. Don’t you think?” I lean against him, glad for his solid warmth, even though it’s pretty hot here in the living room.

“I hope so.”

I understand his caution, but I want more assurance than
that. “She knew me and Opal. She sounded normal. She looked clear, not blank.”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, that’s all.” His fingers squeeze mine.

I don’t say anything. My mom shifts and sighs. She mutters. She hums something tuneless.

“Velvet. Velvet. Velvet.” Her voice wakes me sometime later, when the sky looks brighter through the windows. “Velvet …”

“Mom?” I sit up, scrubbing at my crusty eyes. My muscles ache from sleeping on the floor. Dillon’s still beside me, still sleeping.

My mom sits and looks right at me, but she doesn’t see me. Her mouth forms the syllables of my name, over and over, but I’m not sure she really knows what she’s saying. I put a hand on her arm; the muscles are bunched and solid, and then the shaky, shuddering thing starts again. Her back arches, her spine creaking in a way that makes me wince.

The seizure is worse this time. It goes on and on while I try everything I can think of to keep her from hurting herself. Dillon wakes up, brings me another damp cloth, some water, but there’s nothing we can do but watch her helplessly as she fights whatever’s making her do all of this.

“She needs a doctor,” I cry against him as we watch her struggle.

But we can’t take her to a doctor—they will test her for Contamination and find her positive. They will take her away. Dillon holds me tight, then pushes me away with a grim look on his face.

“There’s a doctor who doesn’t test, who takes care of people like your mom. Or the collared Connies whose families kept them in hiding. I heard about her from one of the guys at work, but it’s all real quiet, you know. She’s not legit.”