The Vault (A Farm Novel) (24 page)

CARTER

The sight of Lily writhing on the floor tore at everything inside of me. I wanted to be brave enough, strong enough, to be there for her. To make myself watch her, even though it was impossible. I just . . . I couldn’t.

She had to live through this and I couldn’t even make myself watch.

I turned away and pressed my back to the wall just outside the door. After Ely and I dosed Marcus, I stood there outside Lily’s cell for a long time—maybe hours, maybe only minutes; I had no way of knowing. I just listened to the sounds of desperate keening and tortured pain. Until slowly, finally, her cries faded to whimpers. I made myself look through the Plexiglas again and saw her, curled in a fetal position, shivering. Massive tremors shook her whole body. Like an electric shock. Like she was suffering from hypothermia or something. God, she looked so cold. If I could just hold her, I could warm her up.

I reached for the key. Before I could even twist it, she sprang from the floor and launched herself at the door again, hands raised, fingers curled. She clawed at the Plexiglas, and snarled.

I stumbled back, knocking over the chair, my heart pounding panic through my veins.

I didn’t look again. I couldn’t. Whatever she was going through, I wasn’t strong enough to watch.

Instead, I just sat there, on the floor, trying to think about anything other than the bone-crushing transformation Lily’s body was going through.

“I never meant for this to happen,” I said.

Inside the cell, Lily’s anguished cries quieted.

“Does this help?” I asked. She gave a low moan, but at least she wasn’t howling anymore. So I kept talking. I told her about stupid crap. Things from the Before. The different schools I’d been in. The things I’d done to get kicked out. And then I told her about Elite. About how lonely I’d been. Some things I’d never told anyone.

“I guess Merc was the first friend I made there. Of course, he kicked my ass the first week I was there. And the second. I didn’t bitch about it, though, because I figured, hell, I’d asked for this. I was the one who’d screwed up my life in Richardson. I’d made the mistakes that had landed me at Elite. If the result was getting my ass kicked week after week, it was still better than losing you. And I’d already lived through that.”

I heard a sound almost like a sigh. Instead of looking, I just kept talking.

“I thought about you a lot when I was at Elite. Mostly when I was alone in the shower.” Shit, that made me sound like a total perv. “Just because that was the only time I was alone. That and at night.” Like that sounded any better. “It hadn’t been like that. Okay, it hadn’t all been like that. Sure, I’d had this one running fantasy where you just stepped into the shower with me—” Yeah, this was
so
not helpful. I dropped my head back against the wall and closed my eyes. “What I mean is, I had this fantasy, in the Before. About you and me together. Not like that. Just together. I’d pull up to your house on a motorcycle—don’t ask me where I thought I’d get a motorcycle, that’s not the point—anyway, I pull up in front of your house and you come running out, this big smile on your face, and you climb on the back and we just ride off. That’s the whole fantasy. Just the two of us, riding off . . . I don’t know, into the sunset or something, I guess.

“And, I mean, it was great, but it wasn’t real, you know. It wasn’t really about you. It was just about getting away. Getting out from under everything. And now that I know you—now that I really know you—I know that fantasy isn’t ever going to happen. You’d never just ride away from everything. Even if we could. Even if there was somewhere we could go, just the two of us, you wouldn’t do it. You’re too smart and strong and fierce. You’re too stubborn, that’s for sure. I guess what I’m saying is, I don’t have that fantasy about the motorcycle anymore.”

I almost laughed at myself, because this all sounded so friggin’ stupid to say aloud. And saying it didn’t even begin to cover how I really felt. How much I needed her. “I mean, I guess I still think about that shower thing sometimes. But I don’t dream about riding off with you now. Now? Jesus, all I want now is just to be worthy of you. I know, I won’t be. That I can’t ever be worthy of someone like you, but that’s what I’m trying to do. That’s what I’m going to try to do every day for the rest of my life. And I just hope to God you’re around to give me hell if I slack off. . . .”

My voice trailed off and I sat there, my back to the wall just outside her cell.

And that’s how it felt. Like my back was truly to the wall. Because if this didn’t work, I had nothing. If this didn’t cure her, if she didn’t survive, then I was done.

Somehow, I’d keep it together. Somehow, I’d keep fighting. Maybe.

But I knew this: if I lost Lily, I’d lose myself as well. I wanted to be strong enough to do this without her, but I was a realist. Without her, I didn’t have what it took. Without her, I’d never scrounge together the hope that humanity would pull itself out of this mess of shit.

And if the cure didn’t work on her, then chances were good that we didn’t really have a cure at all. If the cure didn’t work on her, then we were all screwed anyway.

Who was I kidding, even
with
the cure, we were—

“Did you say something about a shower?”

Her voice from behind me was so faint, I almost missed it.

I whirled around. I saw her through the Plexiglas, sitting on the floor of her cell, her back to the wall, too, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her hair was a wild tangle of knots around her face, dried blood caked to her temple and cheek. But her eyes looked human.

I sucked in a deep breath. “Lily?”

Hope roared through me. Please. Dear God. Please.

She raised her gaze to mine. “Carter?”

The fear and doubt in that single word slashed through my heart. I plastered a palm to the Plexiglas. “Lily. You’re all right.”

“I—” She frowned and bit down on her lip. “I think so.”

“You’re not going to try to yank my heart out?”

“No!” The horror in her voice said it all. She was human again. She was herself. “God, did I try to do that? Did I try to—”

“No,” I lied. “You would never.”

I slid the key into the lock and opened the door to the cell. In an instant, she flew across the room and into my arms. She ran to me. At normal human speed. And I just held her. So close I wanted to absorb her into my body. I wanted to shelter her. Always.

I wouldn’t let go. Ever.

MEL

I don’t know what to say to Sebastian anymore. I can’t ask any more questions. If there’s more to this dark story, I don’t want to know. I can’t take it. Our game of quid pro quo has flayed me and left me bare. So I turn back to the security screens. The Ticks are moving around the house. This could be our last chance to get out of here.

I stalk back over to the duffel bag and zip it closed. “Get up,” I tell Sebastian. Then I call to the dog. “Come on, Chuy. We’re getting out of here.”

Sebastian gestures to the TV screen. “There are still Ticks out there.”

“So? I’m in the mood to kill something. Besides—” I point to the screen with the shot from the garage. “Look at this. Why does he have a security camera with a view of the garage?”

“Because he really likes his cars?”

I smirk. “Or because it’s showing the view right outside a secret doorway. Besides, who builds a fortress with no way out? There’s got to be a back door out of here somewhere, right?”

Sebastian smiles and I realize that he’d reached this conclusion earlier and had been waiting for me to catch up. “Good girl. Now, where do you think it is?”

After thinking about it for a second, I say, “It wouldn’t have to be hidden on this side, only on the exit. But he would still want it out of the way. Maybe that pantry in the kitchen?”

As soon as I have the idea, I dash off to check, and sure enough, it isn’t even in the back of the pantry. There
is
no pantry. Just a plain door, and two steps in, another more secure door. Thankfully opening it from this side doesn’t require Roberto’s corpse.

I go back into the living area to get Sebastian. I sling the handles of the duffel over my arms and wear it like a backpack. I hand the katana to Sebastian and arm myself with the dagger. It’s the shorter of the two weapons, but right now I’m more mobile than he is. I wedge my shoulder under his arm and with Chuy by my side, we head for the back door.

He pauses at the “pantry” door. “It lacks the elegance of . . . oh, say, a sliding fireplace, like you see in the movies, but I suppose it will do.”

Even though there are Ticks in the house, we don’t see or hear them until the secret passage ends in a door that opens out into the garage, where we find a pair of Ticks huddled around a bottle of something I don’t recognize.

Beside me, Chuy tenses, letting out another one of those low growls. The Ticks turn at the sound. I hesitate, but Sebastian doesn’t. He steps away from me with surprising speed, and with two quick slashes of his katana, he’s killed one of the Ticks. The other rears back a step, then roars and throws itself forward. Two more slashes and that one, too, goes down in a blur of red blood and blue liquid.

He stands there for a second over their bodies. Then he turns back toward me. He looks shaky and pale and he reaches out a hand to the counter that runs along the back of the garage. At first I think he needs to balance himself, but he just grabs a rag and cleans off his blade.

“Don’t go weak on me now,” he says.

“I’m not.” I bump up my chin. “But now that I know there’s a cure, I can’t help but think—”

“It wouldn’t have worked on them anyway.”

“What? How do you know?”

“They were drinking antifreeze.”

I look at the blue liquid slowly glugging onto the ground from the bottle Sebastian inadvertently sliced open. “Seriously?”

“Animals are attracted to it because it’s sweet and it smells good, but it’s poisonous. They would have been dead regardless.” He turns his back on me and surveys the garage. “Now let’s pick a car.”

Roberto’s garage is the size of a Jiffy Lube and probably better stocked. There are seven different cars. I don’t know cars, but they all look expensive. And rare. There’s everything from what looks like a Model T, to a couple of classic muscle cars, to several that just look new and modern and fast.

“I have no idea,” I admit. “Pick out whatever you can hot-wire and let’s go before more Ticks find us.”

“Hot-wire? Please.” Sebastian moves to a cabinet mounted on the wall. The cabinet is locked, but he slices off the lock with the katana. The door swings open to reveal a row of car keys hanging from hooks. He snags a pair. “I think today we’ll go green.”

I follow him over to a sedan at the end of the garage. “But it’s red,” I say as I open the door for Chuy. He hops into the back and sits on the floorboard.

“‘Green’ as in ecological,” he says as he slides into the driver’s seat. “It’s an electric car.”

“Is that smart? What if we run out of . . . charge or whatever?” I ask once I’m seated beside him with the duffel bag stashed between my feet—just in case Chuy gets hungry.

“It’s just under two hundred miles from here to Genexome. We can recharge there. Besides, this is one of the fastest cars on the market and it’s not a gas guzzler. Now be a dear and see if you can find a garage door opener. I don’t want to chip the paint.”

“Shouldn’t I drive?” I ask once I’ve found the opener. “Since, you know, I’m not bleeding to death?”

“I’m not sure I trust you with a car this nice. Besides, I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll bleed all over the driver’s seat.”

“And if Roberto complains, I’ll pay to have the car detailed.”

LILY

Once, not long after Dad left, when Mom was big into therapy for the whole family, a psychologist said my need to protect my sister bordered on pathological and was my way of expressing my fear of abandonment in a socially acceptable way.

I called the guy a nut job—because, hello? . . . siblings were supposed to look out for one another. And I guess Mom agreed, because when I refused to go to him again, she didn’t make me. Since the guy had been the last therapist on our insurance plan, that had been the end of family therapy.

Now, all these years later, I finally see the guy’s point.

Sometimes, it’s easier to worry about other people than it is to even think about what’s going on inside of you. And sometimes, the shit going on inside me is too dark to even think about, let alone analyze.

“You sure you’re going to be okay?” I ask Marcus for . . . oh, about the hundredth time.

We are standing out on the street outside the prison. Carter and Ely are maybe thirty feet away, over by the Chevy.

Since I came to, Carter’s been treating me like I’m fragile. Something delicate.

Like the china-head doll my Nanna used to keep on the bed in her guest room. No matter how many times Mom had warned me to be careful when I played with the doll, it didn’t stop me. I played too roughly one day and cracked her head. She didn’t break, but the cracks spread out from the back of her head like a spiderweb. I never picked her up after that for fear she’d shatter. That’s how I feel now. Like I might shatter, even though from the outside I look okay.

I guess Marcus knows that, because he asks, “What about you?”

“Yeah. I’m good.” I don’t believe it when I say it any more than I believe it when he does.

Neither of us is good. Neither of us is fine.

We’re breathing. We’re thinking. We’re human. That’s something, right?

But we’re both . . . haunted by the ghosts of who we were.

I don’t know how long we lived like that. Just a few days, Carter says. But it felt so much longer. I lived for years in that too-big body that was mine and not mine. And in those yearlong days, Marcus was family.

“Don’t let Ely bully you,” I tell Marcus.

Marcus just shrugs. “Ely’s not a bad guy.”

I don’t argue. I don’t tell him that I know a side of Ely he never will. I don’t tell him that Ely thinks love is weakness and empathy is for suckers.

Instead, I pull Marcus into my arms and hug him tight. Ely may be his brother by blood, but Marcus and I share something more than that. We lost ourselves together.

“It doesn’t seem real,” Marcus says. “When I think about it, I mean.”

“I know.”

“Do you think we’ll ever forget? What happened? What we did?”

I take him by the shoulders and hold him out away from me. “Listen to me. What happened out there? That wasn’t you. That’s not who you are. You are better than that. You are more than that. And you are going to be okay. Do you understand me?”

He nods, eyes slightly wide. And I keep talking. I barely know what I’m saying, but I say it over and over again until the words almost aren’t words at all. And while I’m talking, I can feel the connection between us, because we were pack mates. He submitted to me, just like I submitted to the alpha. And I know—without even knowing how—that the alpha is dead. That the rest of the pack is gone. That it’s just Marcus and me now.

Even though we’re human again. Even though he can think for himself. Even though we’re parting ways and I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. Despite all that, I know there’s a part of him that will always submit to me. And if I order him not to think about the things we did, if I order him not to worry about them, not to be haunted by them, then he will bend to my will. Not because I have any latent powers as an
abductura
, but because we were pack mates. Because it’s the natural order of things and because it’s easiest.

So I do it. I make him believe.

And when it’s time to leave, time to go back to Carter and climb into a car and drive away from this place forever, I can still feel the connection between Marcus and me. And I know I did the right thing in making him set his guilt aside.

It’s that pathological need to protect people again. Because if I can worry about Marcus, if I can take care of him, then I won’t have to think about myself and I won’t have to keep wishing that the alpha was still here to tell me the same thing and make me forget.

Because I want to forget so many things. The joy my strength brought me. The thrill of running through the night, the ground pounding under my feet, my muscles springing beneath my skin.

The salty blood on my tongue. The way it coated the inside of my mouth. The exhilaration of bones cracking in my fists. But most of all, the sweet bliss of submitting to the alpha. The euphoria that came from handing over all my thoughts, my decisions, my will to him. The absolute peace I felt under his command. The sheer, unmitigated ecstasy of mindlessness.

It was an illusion—that sense of peace and belonging. It was a lie, but it was a lie that I loved believing in. And it’s a lie that I’ll miss forever.

Before I was exposed to the virus, before I became a monster, I’d feared it. I’d known for months that I had the genes to become a Tick. That I had that potential sleeping inside me. I’d been so terrified of what I might become and what I might do. It had never occurred to me to fear who I already was.