The remaining hours of darkness passed quickly. Rue managed to fall asleep shortly after sunrise, though she had only the clock to let her know morning had come. On a plastic mattress worthy of a college dormitory, sweaty under a synthetic blanket, she managed four hours of fitful sleep in which she dreamed she woke in a snowbound winter cabin. Logs crackled in the fireplace while the beams of the cabin groaned with gusts of wind. In her dream, Rue nestled herself into the arms of a lover, sprawled on the floor in front of the fire. At peace.
She woke to the slamming of a door, saw where she was, and lay rigid on the bed, listening, waiting to hear a scream or an alarm. A full minute passed before she could slow her heartbeat to something resembling its normal rhythm.
A knock came at the door.
Rue sat up, looked blearily around at the cell she’d slept in. Dr. Isenberg had told her that almost everyone who worked in the sublevel labs ended up crashing in the isolation rooms at least once. As exhausted as she had been this morning, the space hadn’t bothered her, but now an urgency filled her. A claustrophobic frisson that made her drag the sweaty blanket around her and hurry to the door.
When she opened it, Walker waited on the other side.
She blinked. “You don’t look dead.”
“The jury’s still out.”
“Seriously,” Rue said. “They’ve cleared you? After Isenberg injected you with that bacteriophage?”
“I’m not contagious,” Walker replied. “Doesn’t mean they’re letting me out of here anytime soon. They let me sleep for two hours, but mostly they’ve been taking my blood and other fun samples.”
Rue could see how exhausted he must be. The bags beneath his eyes were dark crescents, and his skin had a sallow hue. But there were no plague blossoms, no black bruising on his throat, and at least thus far, he didn’t seem to be coughing.
“You’re actually okay? After being so close to that … to Maeve?”
“I wasn’t kidding. The jury is definitely still out. There’s no trace of the Red Hands bacterium in my blood culture or cells. Just the phage.”
“That injection shouldn’t have been so effective,” Rue said. “Not if you were exposed to Red Hands. Maeve was radiating that contagion like some kind of cloud around her. Based on what Alena said last night, up at the gorge, it killed people who were almost a hundred yards away.”
Walker shrugged. “By the time she got to us, I think she’d almost burned out. It had used her up. Director Boudreau and I think what you call a ‘cloud’ had limits. When her body gave in, the aura effect dissipated. I wouldn’t have wanted the thing that ripped its way out of her to touch me—or Rose, for that matter—but I think I got lucky.”
Rue leaned against the doorframe, wrapped in her blanket. “I’m glad. Enough good people died yesterday.”
“I’m still stuck here for a while, though,” Walker said. “I’m guessing four or five days of poking, prodding, tests, and observation to see if I start unraveling. I’d like to get home, but I’m also glad to stick around and see how things go for Rose.”
Rue lifted her eyebrows.
Walker nodded. “She’s alive. And sick, but not any sicker than she was when you fell asleep. Isenberg is working with the SRC team that Alena brought in.”
A darkness seemed to pass over his face. Walker exhaled, eyes downcast. “The only voice coming out of her is her own, so far, but you can see it in her eyes sometimes, when she looks at you. The infection is still there, and so is the other thing. The old thing. Sometimes you can feel it watching.”
“Last night, Isenberg said she thought if we could kill the infection in Rose, we could get rid of it.”
Rue and Walker studied each other for a moment. She’d noticed neither of them wanted to name the ancient presence rooted inside Rose Sinclair. Neither of them wanted to call it the Red Death, as if someone using the term Poe had coined would lend the thing even more malignant power.
“Speaking of Alena,” Walker said, “I hear she offered you a job.”
“Last night,” Rue confirmed. “Though I get the impression it’s more about locking me into the penalties for revealing government secrets. If I’m an employee—”
Walker scowled. “Don’t kid yourself. She needs you way more than the university does. You’ve already proven your usefulness.”
“I strip-mined Oscar Hecht’s research and took a shot in the dark when we were desperate.”
“Okay,” Walker said. “Have it your way. But I hope you take the job.”
“I’ve been searching for biological secrets to unlock my whole life. After the things I’ve seen, there’s no way I can go back to my old job. Besides, Kat Isenberg told me she wants someone to boss around.” Rue shrugged. “I’ve got a few days to think it over. None of us are going to be released from quarantine till then, at least, so I might as well make myself useful in the meantime.”
Walker held on to the door. “I’m glad to hear it. And I’m grateful, Rue. I don’t want that to get lost in all of this. Alena sent me up here on an assignment. This was my job. But you got into it just because you cared about Ted and his family. Not many people would have stuck with it when they realized how dangerous things were becoming.”
Rue flushed. “He’s my best friend. They’re my family, too.”
“I know,” Walker said. “And he’s asking for you. Why don’t you go and see him before you get to work.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you,” Rue replied. “How is he?”
“Edgy. Probably itchy for a drink, but he’s focused on his daughter. Determined. Standing tall.”
Rue surprised herself by smiling. That was something, at least.
Rose couldn’t bear to tell her father she wanted to be alone. Flush with fever, racked with chills, plagued by whispers and hunger pangs, she had barely slept at all. The isolation room she found herself in now had a bit more personality than the one she’d been in the night before. The researchers in this lab had painted the walls a soothing blue, and phosphorescent paint had been used to dapple the ceiling with glow-in-the-dark stars, but that didn’t make it any easier to look at her father and Priya through the glass.
When Rue came to the door, knocking softly, and called Ted out into the corridor to speak with her, Rose felt weak with gratitude.
Priya slept on the other side of the glass. The Homeland Security agents had carried a bed in from another part of the lab so that they could all be together, despite being separated by the glass. Rose watched Priya sleep, and it soothed her to know she would be okay. Her bullet wound had been seen to. Her parents had been called. Someone on the outside had apparently met with them in the early hours of the morning, shortly after it had all come to an end, and explained that she would be quarantined here at Garland Mountain for several days along with Rose and Ted. Priya had spoken to her father, and then Ted had gotten on the phone.
Now Priya slept. Rose exhaled softly, spreading her fingers across the glass, heart aching as she watched Priya’s chest rise and fall. Her face looked peaceful, as if none of the horrors of the prior day had ever happened.
She’s going to leave you, a voice whispered in her head.
It wasn’t her own voice, but it didn’t belong to the Red Death, either.
“I know,” Rose said quietly, pressing on the glass. The hunger had diminished but not disappeared. Sadness clawed at her now more than hunger. The voice understood.
Priya would have to leave. Rose would have to stay. Priya’s family would want her out of here, out of danger. She would argue at first, but Rose would insist. She would break Priya’s heart if she had to, to make sure she would be safe.
It wouldn’t be safe in here, Rose knew. Not until the SRC found a way to help her.
Maybe not ever.
Alena Boudreau had promised they would never stop trying. They had already found a way to suspend the spread of the bacteria, to reduce the infection, which Alena said gave her faith they might be able to kill it. Burn it out, she’d said.
For now, the fever remained.
And the voices.
Dad won’t leave you here alone, one of those voices said.
Rose smiled and wiped at her eyes. She’d been stubborn, trying not to cry. The hunger might still be in her, the malignant old god, the dead thing that spoke to her. But the other presence inside her felt even stronger, and it soothed her fever and gave her courage.
I won’t ever leave you, either, it said, inside her head. I love you.
“I love you, too, Maeve,” Rose whispered, leaning against the glass of her cage. “I love you, too.”
Walker had showered and shaved. They’d come for more blood tests and given him orange juice and coffee and had scrounged up a box of Pop-Tarts from somewhere. He’d met with Alena three separate times, talked to Kat and Rue. He’d seen Ted Sinclair only briefly, and that was enough. With General Wagner gone, the man’s grief and pain needed a target, and Walker didn’t feel like volunteering for that assignment. The longer Ted went without a drink, the worse it would be.
Ted planned to use quarantine to dry out. Walker didn’t bother to warn him that he would be putting himself through hell. What could be worse than the hell he’d already endured?
Now Walker sat in a conference room on sublevel two. Hazmat teams were doing biohazard cleanings on the upper floors first. When they were ready to start on sublevel two, he’d be quarantined inside one of the lab isolation rooms, but for now, the only people who came down were in hazmat suits. Alena had been cleared of quarantine already, but she planned not to leave the facility until no doubt remained.
All of which meant no sunshine for Walker for a while. No fresh air.
No going home.
But at least he had his phone. Alena had given him network access so he could communicate with the outside world, something she told him only two others had been given. A sign of trust, she told him. An investment in the future of their working relationship.
Walker had managed not to laugh.
After all of this, she thought he would take her call the next time she had an assignment for him. The Global Science Research Coalition needed him, she’d said.
Walker sat in the dark in the conference room, the light from the corridor barely penetrating the shadows around him. He stared at his phone, trying to compose a text in his head but not finding the words.
Finally, he tapped out a message.
Still out of town, and now I’ve got this infection. Doctors want to keep an eye on me, so I’ll be away another week or so. All I’ve been able to think about is the way I left things between us. You’re growing up, kid, and tough as it is for me to hear, I know what you said is true. You don’t need me, and that’s okay. But you should know, Charlie … I need you. When I get home, I’m going to ask you for another chance. You don’t owe it to me, and I don’t deserve it, but I’m going to ask, anyway. Once I get back to you, I’m not going to leave town for at least a year. Whatever it takes, I’m around for that year. If you’re willing to take the job on, I’ll put you in charge of my schedule. When you feel like seeing me, I’ll be there. You don’t have to answer right now. Give it some thought. I love you, kid. Take care of your mother. See you soon, I hope.
Walker stared at the message. Furious as Charlie had been, it seemed like a paltry effort, but since he couldn’t go home just yet and tell his son these things in person, and he didn’t want to let more time pass, he had to get the words out. It was the longest text he’d ever written.
He hit Send.
Took a breath, staring at the screen.
Watched as the message went through and the word Delivered appeared.
Thought about Ted Sinclair and the way he’d judged the man. Thought about what Ted had lost and what kind of father he really was. What kind of father he wanted to be.
The phone darkened, and Walker tapped it to keep the screen from locking.
Then he noticed his message had been read.
Below it, an ellipsis. Three dots.
…
Charlie had started to text a reply.
Walker stared at his phone, waiting.
…
…
…
…