Infected (7 page)

“Come on, Car, wake up.”

A gentle hand on her face. Tanner’s voice. Something pressing against her leg.

Carina blinked, a wave of nausea passing through her as the scene around them swam and wobbled until it finally settled. Her eye was twitching again, like before, but this time it was several seconds before it passed and she was able to look around.

A train car. Fairly crowded. The thing pressing into her leg was the backpack belonging to the bored-looking man next to her. A guy in front of them was rocking out to the music from his earbuds. Carina could hear its harsh, tinny beat above the noise of the train.

She wiggled her fingers experimentally. They seemed
to work okay. She lifted her arms, shuffled her feet, and—onee she was sure she wasn’t paralyzed—straightened up in her seat. Her purse was nowhere to be seen; she must have dropped it at some point as they ran. She’d been leaning against Tanner, which was nice … but as her mind cleared, her last few lucid moments came back to her.

The garage. The guys chasing them. Shooting at them.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, slapping a hand to her biceps. She could still feel the faint sting where the dart had entered her skin, but there was barely a mark, just a red dot.

Tanner unfolded his hand, showing her the dart lying on his palm. It was tiny, a tube with fringed plastic at one end and a wickedly sharp needle embedded in the other.

“Careful with that,” Carina said.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I just kept it because I thought—I don’t know, maybe there’s some way to have it tested and figure out what was in it.”

“Something that knocked me out, obviously.”

“Unless it was just my natural animal magnetism. Women faint around me all the time,” Tanner said, attempting a smile as he jammed the dart into his pocket.

“How long was I out?” Carina said, struggling to her feet to look out the window.

Tanner shot out a hand to steady her. “Hey, hey, careful there.”

“No, there’s no time.” She saw the Walnut Creek Medical Center whizzing by outside. “We’re in Walnut Creek already. How long was it? Ten minutes?”

“Maybe … maybe eight?”

“Did they follow us? In one of the other cars?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you were focused on me, right?”

Tanner looked stricken. “Car, I didn’t—”

“We have to
move
,” Carina said, holding on to the pole for support. She looked at the back of the car, where the doors rattled and rocked along with the rhythm of the train.

“If they followed us on, they would already have found us,” Tanner said, but he put an arm around Carina’s waist and helped her down the aisle. It was slow going—Carina’s stomach was twisting and her vision was blurring; she narrowly missed falling on an elderly woman, who glared at them as they passed.

“Or they could be waiting for us at another stop.”

“How?”

“It wouldn’t have to be them—there could be others. Guards on Sheila’s team, watching the platform.” The train was beginning to slow as they pulled into the Walnut Creek station. “Come
on
. I’ll go through, you stay on this side. They’ll be looking for two of us together.”

She gave the doors a shove, struggling to open them. Before Tanner could try to stop her, she was in the narrow space between the cars. Below her feet, she could see the tracks rushing by. She closed her hands tighter around the handholds and passed through to the next car. A group of girls in St. Ignatius uniforms sat together near the end of the car; Carina sat behind them and tried to look like she was part of the group, despite her formal dress.

She stared at her lap, hoping it would look like she was
texting, as the train came to a stop. She watched from the corner of her eye as passengers exited and got on: commuters in business clothes, a few older ladies, a young man with a bicycle.

The ride seemed to take forever. At each stop, the train car grew more crowded, giving her extra cover. Every time she saw a young man in a dark jacket, her heart sped up in fear, but no one seemed to pay her any attention. The train went belowground as it traveled under the bay between Oakland and San Francisco; when they arrived at Embarcadero, a dozen passengers exited and someone slid into the seat next to her.

Tanner
. “Our stop’s coming up,” he muttered. He showed her his phone, a map on its display. “Montgomery. That address your uncle gave you? I looked it up. It’s in Chinatown, a few blocks from the BART stop. Think you’re okay to walk?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Carina bit her lip, hoping there wouldn’t be anyone waiting for them. “So that dart was meant to knock me out. Sheila wanted them to bring me back.”

“And she was willing to go to a lot of trouble to make it happen.”

“It’s just so crazy,” Carina murmured, mindful of all the people within earshot. “I have no idea why she thinks it’s so important to get me back there. I mean, I get that she thinks I’m in danger, but it seems like chasing us around with guns is a little extreme.”

“Yeah, I was hoping you could maybe shed some light on that,” Tanner admitted. “I’ve got nothing. I can’t imagine
why anyone would go to so much trouble to save you. I mean, genius hot track stars are pretty much a dime a dozen, you know?”

Carina knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but as the train slowed to a stop, she felt fear grip her again. Fear … and something else, that strange energy from earlier. She rubbed her arm where the dart had entered and felt nothing, no bump, no swelling. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Well, I don’t think what I have is a cold. The tremor thing I had earlier, that’s gone.” Tanner held out his hand with his fingers spread wide: steady. “And even though I feel like I have a fever and I get these weird little waves of—not dizziness … I guess I’d call it almost like disorientation, my mind trying to catch up to my senses—I don’t feel, you know, woozy or anything. I mean, I feel … strong. Sort of extra sharp or something. Like—” He closed his hand into a fist. “Like I’m not even sure what I could do if I pushed myself. When I went over the cart, when I kicked the box, I was going for distance, and I swear to you, Car, that was the longest jump of my life. It’s crazy.”

“And the gate,” Carina said. “That had to be close to five feet tall.”

“Yeah. I mean, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see
you
make it, but there’s no way I could have cleared that in practice. But when I was coming at it, it was as if my brain did this instant-processing thing where I knew exactly how to land it, and then I had this burst of power to get off the ground.”

“Maybe it was the adrenaline?”

They looked at each other, neither expressing aloud what they were both thinking—that there wasn’t enough adrenaline in the world to make a feat like that possible.

“What about you?” Tanner asked. “Any other symptoms?”

“I feel feverish too,” Carina admitted. “And kind of … superfocused? I don’t know how to describe it. It’s almost like I’m thinking with ten-times magnification.”

Tanner laughed. “You are
so
your uncle’s niece, you must bleed geek. You have to know that wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, right? But yeah, I think I know what you mean.”

“Well, maybe it’ll at least come in handy. Since we don’t exactly know what to expect when we get to Chinatown.”

“Nothing like throwing yourself headlong into the unknown,” Tanner said. The train was pulling into the Montgomery station, and they stood up to join the knot of passengers heading toward the doors. “Such a rush.”

“Tanner …” Carina pressed close against him, taking advantage of the crowd to speak into his ear. “I was thinking, maybe you should just turn around. I’ll be okay from here, and your parents will be expecting you at home.”

Tanner scowled. “First of all, you
won’t
be okay from here—at least, I don’t have any guarantee that you will, and that’s not good enough. There’s no way I’m letting you do this by yourself. And second, my parents aren’t expecting me until tomorrow.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called them, when you were out cold. Told them I was heading over to Rob’s.”

Rob Stanton was Tanner’s best friend at the Borden School, the private school he attended twenty minutes from Martindale. Getting into Borden required both money and an off-the-charts IQ, and Rob was one of the students who came from outside the state for the opportunity and boarded there; Tanner occasionally stayed over in his dorm on weekends.

“I don’t like you risking your safety for no good reason,” Carina protested. “I mean, it doesn’t make any sense for both of us to be here, especially now that there’s people
shooting
at us. I would have told you to go home where it’s safe.”

“I know that. Why do you think I called while you couldn’t do anything about it?”

The doors opened and they were swept out with the crowd into the station. Carina put a few feet between her and Tanner, keeping her face down, staying with the crowd moving up the escalator. Moments later they were exiting the station. The evening sky was turning dusky purple. It was cooler in the city, and Carina felt chilly in her light dress. The stolen golf shoes were threatening to give her blisters.

Tanner caught up with her as they crossed Market. “I didn’t see anything,” he said. “You?”

“No. I think we managed to lose them. And at least here we don’t stand out as much.” They headed down Sutter Street, blending into the crowd, which represented a wide cross section of humanity. A man in his fifties with silver dreadlocks past his shoulders and a clerical collar stood in
a doorway reading a take-out menu. Three young women with neon-colored hair and work boots crossed in front of them at the intersection, and a man in old-fashioned roller skates and a camouflage jacket bought flowers from a vendor across the street.

“Yeah, for all we know, golf shoes are the latest thing here. Or maybe you’ll start a trend.”

They walked quickly, Carina occasionally looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was following them. They turned right on Stockton into the heart of Chinatown, where paper lanterns festooned the streetlights above the crowded sidewalks. Crowds of people, residents of Chinatown and tourists alike, were out enjoying the beautiful spring evening. Delicious smells wafted from restaurants, and merchants hawked their wares.

“I’m starving,” Tanner said as they passed a restaurant whose window tempted passersby with a variety of roasted meats. “I could eat that entire duck myself—as an appetizer.”

“Me too. I didn’t think I’d be able to eat at all today, but for some reason I’m famished.” She’d had to force herself to eat in the days since Walter’s death, grief having obliterated her appetite. This morning she’d managed a little breakfast, aware that she had to keep her energy up for the entire day. Still, she hadn’t eaten since, and her stomach rumbled ravenously. But they couldn’t take a break yet, still terrified that their pursuers were on their trail. “Let’s figure out this key thing first and go from there, okay?”

Tanner nodded, glancing at the map on his phone. “We’re almost there anyway.”

They passed the street twice before realizing it was hidden between two imposing structures: a large restaurant with pagoda-like ornamentation and a multistory brick building with apartments overlooking the street. The “street” was little more than an alley, cobblestones showing through cracked asphalt, laundry hanging high above them, stretching from one building to the other. Tanner took Carina’s hand as they threaded their way past people who were using the narrow street as a shortcut between the broad avenues.

Only some of the doors and tiny storefronts along the street were marked. Carina and Tanner nearly missed number 220, the faded, scratched gold numerals almost invisible on a pane of glass in a door that had been propped open. As they hesitated in front of the entrance, a gray blur raced from the dim interior onto the street. Carina bit down a gasp: she was pretty sure it was a rat.

Before she could change her mind, she pulled Tanner into the building. Inside was a tiny foyer lit by a single bulb hanging from the ceiling. Stained, torn red carpeting lined the floor, and peeling patterned wallpaper made the space seem even smaller. To the right was a hallway with four doors; to the left, a staircase.

“Apartment number 2E,” Carina said, more bravely than she felt. “Upstairs.”

The first step squeaked loudly, and she froze, praying no one would come out of the apartments. The best-case scenario was that they’d be stopped and forced to explain to curious neighbors why they had a key to the apartment; the
worst case was much more dangerous: that this was some sort of trap and they were walking right into it.

But Carina couldn’t think of any other options.

Tanner stayed right behind her as they climbed. Another naked lightbulb lit the second floor, casting murky shadows down the hall. Three of the doors looked identical—filthy smudges around the brass doorknobs, paint peeling and faded, graffiti scratched here and there.

The fourth door, the one labeled 2E, was a little cleaner than the others, especially in the center, as though someone had started scrubbing it but got tired before working out to the edges. Carina stood in front of it, holding the key in her hand, trying to summon the courage to put it in the lock.

“I don’t know …,” she whispered.

Tanner pressed his ear against the door, frowning. “Nothing.”

He ran his fingers lightly over the surface. “Feel this,” he said softly, taking her hand and guiding her fingers across it. There was a faint ridge, invisible in the dim light and almost impossible to detect by touch. Carina slid her fingers along it; the ridge defined a six-inch-square area near the middle of the door, where the paint was slightly smoother.

“What do you think?” Tanner asked.

“I think … that there’s no way we’re going to figure out what’s going on if we don’t try the key. If it really was Walter who left it for me, he will have left an explanation on the other side of this door.”

“And if not?”

Carina shrugged, trying to project a confidence she didn’t
feel. “If not, well, we already beat them once, right? Just be ready to
run
.”