RecruitZ (Afterworld Series) (27 page)

This was it.

He placed one of the towels on the handle.

“Three, two, one,” he said, tossing the door open.

The smoke was thick, but I didn’t spot any flames. My eyes immediately began watering. As we both got on our hands and knees and began crawling, I knew this was too easy. If the flames weren’t in this room, that meant they were in the next one. I followed him in a straight line and when we reached the door, I only felt more trepidation, knowing what had to be on the other side.

Preston stood on his knees and began coughing. He reworked and secured one of the towels over his mouth, but he still kept coughing.

“This is going to be bad,” he yelled, but his voice was muffled.

I nodded as the stinging in my eyes became unbearable. I clenched them shut and fought the tickle that was deep within my lungs as I stood on all fours like a dog.

“Wait,” I hollered, feeling coolness spread along my palms. “Do you feel that?”

He looked down at the same time I did and saw the water slowly leaking under the door.

“You can open the door,” a small voice spoke through the door.

“Slow us down, huh?” Preston laughed, standing up rapidly.

“I’m never afraid to admit when I’m wrong,” I said, feeling the smile on my face shift the layers of wet cotton as he opened the door to reveal the little girl standing with a hose.

“I know you said to stay put, but I’m not stupid. I heard them evacuating the compound. There were buses everywhere, and then I saw the smoke coming from this building.”

“For that I’m grateful,” I said, unwrapping the towels from my head.

“Did you see anyone left?” I asked.

“There were two men standing in front of the building for awhile, but they took off in a black Escalade. One of the old ones,” she replied.

“Marcus,” Preston said, unwrapping the towels around his hands and arms.

The girl held out her hand to Preston, and he grabbed it as she led him through the front room and to the outside with me trailing right behind. I gulped the fresh air, but my lungs continued to burn and so did my eyes.

But we were out. We were alive. Two things I didn’t think were going to happen, and I had an eleven-year old to thank.

“Do we want to chance it?” I asked, glancing at the main building. “There could still be some TRAC left behind.”

“When will we have the chance again?” he asked.

I glanced at the girl who was gripping Preston’s hand as tight as she could and then returned my gaze back to Preston’s.

“I don’t know that hauling her through the halls up there is the best thing,” I said.

“My name’s Izzy,” she said. “And I’m fine.”

She reminded me of myself at that age and I smiled.

“I doubt there’s anyone left in there anyway. The busses were packed,” she continued. I saw her body tremble slightly. “I’m just glad I wasn’t on the bus.”

“That settles it then,” Preston said. “We’ll take a look at the building. And Izzy, will you hold this? Protect it?”

Her eyes fell to the container of clear liquid that he held out to her.

“Like my life depends on it,” she said.

“Izzy can point us in the right direction,” I said, and her expression intensified with the new task that was given to her.

“I know all of the hideouts,” she offered, slipping her hand from Preston’s.

We slowly walked along the back fence. My eyes scanned for anything that might indicate there were still people here.

“Izzy, how did you end up here?” I asked.

She was more centered than most adults I knew who came through the outbreak.

“My sister, Beth, sent me here,” she said, twisting her lips. “My parents died during the outbreak, and once we were vaccinated and no longer on the run, she didn’t want anything to do with me so she turned me over.”

“I’m so sorry,” I muttered, catching Preston’s expression harden. “I thought MHA’s protocol was more in-depth than that.”

She shrugged and pointed ahead to a door at the back of the main building. “We can enter that way; just in case there’s anyone left inside. The patients were mostly shackled inside the rooms.”

“Is that what they did to you?” I asked.

Izzy nodded and then stopped, spinning around to face me. She held out her wrists, exposing raw marks along the skin. “But I knew how to escape them.”

My heart ached for this little girl.

“What can you tell us about the doctors and nurses? Were there any?” Preston questioned.

“There was one doctor and three nurses for eighty patients, but I’m not sure they were even real,” she said, scrunching her nose.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. All they did was shove pills down our throats that made us sleepy. I always tried hide mine along my gum line and would spit them out when they left because I would fall asleep for what felt like days. And sometimes I saw the nurses taking the pills too,” she said.

“What about the doctor?” I asked.

“I didn’t see her take any pills. But she wasn’t here that often. When she showed up, she just sat at the nurses’ station and signed papers.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the building. Her fingers were cold, and I felt horrible for dragging this little girl back into the place that had treated her this way.

“There are stairs to the left that will take us all the way to the top floor,” she said, standing in front of the door. I gently tugged on her hand and stepped to the side so Preston could go in front of us. Something told me this girl would run right in.

“We’ll start at the top and work our way down,” Preston said, opening the door.

The stairs were right where she said. We bolted over to them and began climbing as rapidly as we could manage, sometimes taking them two at a time. We hit a platform with the number two painted on the wall and then the next platform with three painted on the wall. Only two more floors.

We reached the fifth floor, and the door was already open. Preston held up his hand as he slowly moved along the wall. He craned his neck to the left and then to the right.

“Clear,” he whispered, slowly walking through the door with Izzy and me following closely behind.

“This is where they took people who misbehaved,” she whispered. I felt her little hand trembling in mine. She was obviously one of them. How many others could really be misbehaving if they were drugged though?

“They brought me here when they found the pills I’d spit out. After that, I got better at hiding them,” she said quietly, looking up at me. I liked what I saw behind her expression, relentless determination.

The hallway was lined in white linoleum, and the walls were painted a stark white. I could see down the entire length of the building, with what looked like a nurses’ station at the very end. But with only three nurses to cover five floors, I doubted any of them got much use. Did the MHA know about this? Were they involved or did Marcus have his TRAC team cover everything so well that MHA never had a clue?

We began walking down the corridor where the glass was blacked out just as our TRAC informant had described. All of the doors were open, however, so they must have hurriedly evacuated all of the patients. I had no idea why they bothered, really.

I popped my head into the first room and my stomach twisted in knots when I saw a reclining medical chair with restraints positioned in the center of the room. The tan leather seats were stained, and the restraints were worn down from use. I spotted a stainless steel instrument tray tucked in the corner. I started toward it, but Izzy wouldn’t let go of my hand. I glanced at Preston over my shoulder and motioned for him to grab her other hand. I walked into the small room and glanced out the window, which overlooked the front of the building. It still looked vacant. I moved over to the tray, and a shiver marched up my spine as I saw two used scalpels, etched with a rust color and a pick.

I turned around slowly and my gaze caught something in the polished metal mirror—a person. My heart spiked and my hands tensed up as I watched the figure behind me, standing in a supply closet. Not wanting to make any sudden movements, I waited for Preston’s gaze to meet mine. When he saw the expression on my face, he hastily moved Izzy down the hall. I heard him muttering something to her before he entered the room, pistol extended.

My heart was pounding with every step that Preston took. I had no idea who the person in the closet was or if he was armed. Preston was still out of the person’s sightline as his eyes locked on mine and then shifted to the right.

I lunged to the left and rolled quickly, positioning myself so that I was now pointed at the closet. The figure didn’t move and once Preston stepped aside, I saw why. The person was dangling from IV tubing wrapped around his neck. My gaze fell away as I stood up slowly.

Knowing I had been closer than I realized to being admitted to a place like this made my stomach turn.

“Let’s move through this floor and get down to the next one,” I muttered.

Preston nodded and waited for me to take the first step so he could shield me from continuing to want to look at the man who’d had enough.

The rest of the floor was, thankfully, uneventful. Floor four was a similar layout, but the rooms contained patient beds, equipped with restraints just as Izzy had told us. The rooms were bare and the smell just about more than I could handle. It was a stale, sour smell, and I didn’t want to know why. We reached the nurses’ station and I spotted two stacks of papers. I bet these were the ones Izzy was referring to. I glanced at the top copy of the nearest pile, and sure enough, there was a doctor’s signature. The other pile must’ve been what he had left to sign off on. I perused through the records, most of the same terminology was listed from patient to patient.

“I somehow doubt anyone attended any sort of training,” I muttered to myself as my eyes continued scanning the documents.

And then it hit me.

“Preston, what was Terrence’s last name? Didn’t it begin with an F?” I asked. He was working his way through drawers and turned to look at me.

“Falino,” he said. “Why?”

“Because the doctor signing off on all of the records is Joyce Falino,” I whispered.

“Whoa,” he whistled.