Torn (3 page)

Cole felt his hands clench in anger. He was shocked, horrified that any parent—any
boyfriend–
would do what they'd done. He moved toward Vera and wrapped an arm around her. “It'll be okay,” he said, drawing her head to his shoulder. “We'll help you figure it out.” Cole vowed to keep his promise. Vera was Davis's best friend. Davis would be heartsick at this news. He had to keep Vera safe.

“I can see why she was so crazy about you,” Vera whispered, her body sinking against his with relief.

He let her cry and sniffle into his shirt, and eventually her breathing slowed. When she finally fell asleep, Cole stared hard at Worsley. “What are we going to do with her?” he whispered.

Worsley smiled for the first time that night. “Don't you get it? It's perfect. It's like the solution fell right into our laps.”

Cole looked down to where Vera was lying against his lap, and smiled a little at Tom's joke. Then the significance of the word
solution
dawned on him.

“No,” he whispered.

“Cole.
Yes,”
said Worsley. “We've been given a chance, don't you see? It'll help her. It could change everything.” He leaned past Cole and shook Vera's shoulder gently. Her eyes stirred as she began to wake up.

“Time to get up,” Worsley told her. “We've got to move you.”

She sat up, stretching and rubbing her eyes. “Where are we going?” she asked groggily.

“To my work space,” Worsley said. “You'll be safe there for now.”

Cole tried to catch Worsley's eye. It was all so much upheaval for Vera to handle in such a short time. She was fragile, and he worried that Worsley was too fixated on the end goal.

“Can I talk to you?” he motioned to Worsley, who nodded and followed him to the opposite corner of the room.

“She's never been in the Slants,” he whispered. “She's terrified. You can see it in her eyes. Please be careful with her. She's Davis's best friend.”

Worsley put a hand on his shoulder. “Her well-being comes first,” he told him. “The rest is secondary. I swear to you.”

Cole nodded, though he wasn't completely sure he believed his friend. Worsley didn't know Davis like he did, so he couldn't know Davis's love for Vera or feel the responsibility he felt. Still, there were few options. He'd just have to check in on Vera as much as possible.

Worsley turned back to Vera, then crossed the room and knelt by her side. “I care very much about keeping you safe,” he said. “You can trust me. My clinic is very comfortable, and Cole will check in on you, too. Do you feel comfortable with that?”

Cole saw the crease in her brow softening. Worsley did have a good bedside manner; his voice was calm, compassionate. Vera nodded in acquiescence, allowing Worsley to help her to her feet. “One more thing,” Worsley said, as he wrapped a supporting arm around her waist. “How would you like to give birth to the cure?”

3

DAVIS

The hardest part about the island was that there was no escape. The second-hardest part was being strong among the weak. Davis could take the stiff mattresses, the scratchy sheets, the chores they were forced to do every day to keep the place in running order. It was nothing like the gleaming medical facility her father thought it was. It had once been luxurious; that much was obvious. Davis had heard rumors that it had been an old beachside resort, and some of that glamour still remained—gilded windows, a sweeping staircase that led to the dormitories. Big computer rooms for patients, now empty and pillaged, with loose wires dangling from the walls. Large dorm rooms stripped bare and outfitted with far too many beds and boarded windows. Little shared cabins that probably once had been storage sheds. None of it had been maintained, and Davis could imagine why not. After all, how could the government have anticipated a need for TOR-N until recently?

Still, she couldn't forgive the fact that they could have done more and didn't. Nothing was clean. It was as if they hadn't inspected it before throwing people in. You could see the beauty under the surface, but just barely. Her dad would never have sent her to a place like this—squalid and gloomy, with poor-quality food for all the patients—if he did know. She assumed he'd been sent information containing old pictures from its times of former glory. Part of it was humbling—it was what she imagined Cole's life had been like. But people died every day here, and that was the part she would never get used to.

She felt overwhelming fear, deep in the pit of her stomach. She didn't know if or when she herself was going to die, only that she seemed stronger than most of the rest. And that gave her the faintest bit of hope.

Before TOR-N, she'd never seen so many people suffering from illness. It just hadn't happened in Columbus … until Narxis came along. And even then it was somehow possible to pretend it was all a bad dream. She'd still been surrounded by the healthy and the beautiful. She'd still had her comfortable bedroom, with her down bedding and her loving family. She could still, to some degree, feel untouched. It was the memories of her family that kept her going, that made her believe they'd find a cure and she could go home. She had to believe.

Davis made her way to the hut of Margaret, a woman who had held her while she cried, the first night of their arrival. Only, since then, Margaret's sickness had progressed far more rapidly than Davis's.

“Margaret,” she whispered, knocking on the door of the shared cabin. “It's Davis.” The shades were drawn in the cabin, and the other occupants had cleared out. The smell of sweat and waste assaulted Davis's nostrils. Her stomach turned over. But she took a deep breath and entered the room. Sunlight streamed through the open door, illuminating Margaret's face. It was easy to see that Margaret had been beautiful once, with high cheekbones and violet eyes. She was probably only a few years older than Davis—midtwenties, if Davis had to guess. But now her skin was dry and patchy, cracks already beginning to form. She'd aged years in the past few days. Davis was afraid to move closer, even though she had been assured that, once you contracted Narxis, your strain couldn't worsen with exposure to another strain. It just was what it was. She wouldn't get sicker from being near Margaret.

Davis pushed herself forward into the room and sat down beside Margaret's bed.

“Here,” she said, digging into her pocket, from which she produced four seashells she'd collected from the shore. “I know you like them.”

Margaret's lips cracked into some semblance of a smile and she weakly held out her hands. They shook as Davis carefully placed the shells into her palms.

“Beautiful,” Margaret whispered.

“Here, let me help you arrange them,” Davis offered, too uncomfortable to remain seated. Margaret handed back the shells and Davis placed them in a row on a nearby windowsill, drawing back the shades a little.

“Thank you,” Margaret whispered. The sound of true gratitude in her voice made Davis want to cry. The thought of being reduced to such a state, and still finding beauty in the small things, reminded her that there was hope in even the gravest of circumstances.

A few minutes later, Margaret was drifting to sleep, so Davis snuck back out of the cabin, closing the door carefully, and heaved a huge sigh, grateful to be back in the fresh air again.

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse,” Davis muttered without thinking. She jerked her head up to find herself eye to eye with the boy from the boat.

“Mercer,” he told her. “The other one who's semihealthy around here.”

“For now,” Davis told him.

“Well, aren't you just the picture of hope?” he said. “What's your name, Ms. Positivity?”

“Davis.” She sighed and leaned back on her heels. Who did this guy think he was? He had no idea what she'd been through.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said. “You're thinking who the hell am I to talk about being positive, am I right?”

Davis shrugged. “Kind of.”

“Well, I'm the guy who's Narxis positive,” he said. “About as positive as they come.”

Davis met his eyes, which were sparkling just a little, even as his face remained serious. She wiped her forehead with the back of her gloved hand, and for the first time in days—or maybe weeks—she smiled.

 

 

Davis stretched across the windowsill, pulling her body all the way into the sterile, sparsely adorned facility. A funky smell assaulted her nostrils—some sort of mix of cleaning fluids and whatever putrid scent the fluids were meant to extinguish. The windows to the facility were never locked—they were high enough off the ground to deter most intruders, and nearly everyone at TOR-N was too weak to do much anyway. Davis trembled from the exertion of creating a makeshift platform from discarded lumber and hoisting herself into the building. She was sick of being left in the dark.

Once there, she hardly had time to recover; an alarm sounded before her feet hit the ground. Fingers trembling from weakness, she coded in the password she'd seen Dr. Grady enter to deactivate the alarm during their most recent morning appointment. Davis had shown up early on purpose, trailing him into the building as he unlocked the doors. Always watching, searing everything he did into her brain. Smiling and nodding while he talked about the weather and the supposedly great new changes to the dining facility—changes that included the addition of “fresh” vegetables—the semirotten produce that couldn't be sold in stores.

The alarm silenced, Davis edged into the office, squinting against the dark. The only illumination was a narrow beam of moonlight that filtered through the vaulted window. Davis leaned against the wall of the office, trying to catch her breath. The facility was tiny; Dr. Grady didn't need much more than a treatment office, a surgical area, and a storage room, she guessed. Still, where was all the money she was certain her father was paying for her to be there? The space was clean but devoid of any trimmings, and even some of the equipment looked a little dated.

Davis clasped her trembling hands together, feeling her way into the even darker space that she knew held official documents and records. She'd walked past the room enough on her way in to know exactly where it was, but she was unprepared for how difficult it would be to see anything at night. She reached for the light switch, her hand hovering over it. Maybe she could risk turning it on for just a few minutes. It was late; no one would even be awake to see. Still, something held her back. She was about to go for it—to flick it on despite her reservations, because the trip would be wasted otherwise—when a beam of light flashed from behind her. Davis screamed before she could stop herself.

“Shhh,” someone said as a hand clamped around her wrist. “Calm down.” It was someone young—not the voice of a night guard. Davis wrenched herself from his grasp as the hand loosened, turning quickly to face a guy about her age, blond and attractive despite his gaunt cheeks. He flashed the light under his face to illuminate his chin, giving him a ghostly appearance.

“Mercer?” It came out as a question, but she'd known who it was—she'd met him outside of Margaret's room several weeks ago. They stared at one another, and Davis found herself fixated on the specks of green in his hazel eyes. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting into trouble,” he answered. “Looks like I'm not the only one.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” She rubbed her wrist self-consciously. It still felt warm from his touch.

“You don't?” He raised his eyebrows, indicating the room with the beam. “I guess I misunderstood the situation.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a wry grin.

“Are you following me?” she hissed. She felt her face flushing, but she wasn't sure if it was out of anger or something else. Who was this guy, this other one who didn't seem to be succumbing to the disease?

“Would you mind if I was?” he asked.

Davis let out a sigh and started to walk past him, threatening to leave. Whatever she'd planned, it wasn't worth it. She'd been watching him, but despite her curiosity, Davis wasn't sure she could trust him. Why should she?

“Okay, okay. Let's say I
was
following you—hypothetically, of course.…” He shrugged here, and smiled in a way that showed off the line of his jaw. “I figured you'd need help. I'm better prepared. If you hit those lights, someone will see us in a second. It's only midnight. Dr. Grady is just turning in. I know, because as I said, I'm the kind of guy who's prepared.”

“So you know the alarm code,” Davis challenged.

“No,” he told her, smiling. “But I knew that you knew it.”

So he'd been watching her, too, because they were the same. Positive for Narxis but showing barely any of the signs—seemingly healthy Priors sent here to TOR-N to waste away.

That's why she was here now—to find a way to get another message out.

“Why are you really here?” she asked him.

“Same as you. To get answers.”

It was a vague answer, but it was honest. She knew what it felt like to be totally powerless, enduring a series of medical tests and never knowing what it all meant.

“Fine. Let's see what that flashlight of yours can find us,” she said.

As they worked—rifling through the low cupboards that housed slim, digital files—she felt herself relaxing. Why shouldn't he be curious, too? Why should she be the only one brave enough to look for answers? Realizing that they had this in common—a curiosity, a drive to seek something beyond what they were offered—made her feel strangely close to him. When he reached into a drawer and extracted a slim hard drive, extending it to her, she took it.

The case read
Morrow
.

“It was in the correspondence bin,” Mercer told her. “Nothing for me, alas. Guess my family doesn't miss me.”