Casper didn’t have to guess what Ashley was thinking. The brief, incredulous look in her eyes before she closed them had said it all. The plan was insane. He’d be the first to admit it. The plain truth was that he didn’t have any other weapon. If he lunged and tried to break the integrity of the suit, Jared’s men could just shoot him on sight.
Whatever he planned to do, he had to draw Jared close to him.
Sunlight faded outside the windows. Casper overanalyzed every sensation of his body. Was his temperature increasing? A constant ache settled into his bones. Was it the pathogen or merely being beaten twice a week? Ashley slept more than she was awake. Every so often, he would nudge her just to make sure she would respond. The IV fluids had helped her heart rate and blood pressure normalize. Her temperature was lower, and her shivering had ceased. For the moment, she looked peaceful.
Over and over, Casper worked the plan through his mind. He was also banking on the fact that Jared would keep Russell from them as he was the only other physician who could offer treatment. He and Ashley hadn’t seen Russell this whole journey during their infrequent stops. Just Jared’s two goons. Casper’s ruse had to be convincing enough to get Jared close to him.
Casper’s body rocked as the ambulance turned off the highway, definitely taking a slower pace. It heaved like it was driving over rutted roads and then came to an abrupt stop. Casper lay down on the gurney. This time when the door opened, Jared and his two men stood at the base.
“Get up!” Jared yelled.
Resisting the urge to look at Ashley, Casper opened his eyes. The temperature in the back of the ambulance was sweltering, which aided Casper’s plan in making him look ill. He sat up, but then slumped to the floor, wedged between the two gurneys.
“Go get him,” Jared ordered.
At each shoulder was a pair of hands. They slid him across the tile and let him fall onto the road. Gravel tore at his skin and he could feel the warm release of blood from the wounds. He’d landed in the best way possible, so that his hand was somewhat pinned next to the pocket that held the syringe.
One of the three men delivered a kick to his back. Gritting his teeth, he remained as still as possible.
“What do you want us to do?” one of them asked.
“Check and make sure he’s alive,” Jared said.
“He was warm when we touched him,” the other noted.
A rush of exhaled air punctuated the coming night. “He could still be dead,” Jared said.
Casper slid his fingers to the top part of his pocket and gripped the plunger of the syringe. As he pulled it out, he gently unsettled the cap so the needle was exposed.
A man, who Casper hoped would be Jared, settled an arm on his hip and shoulder. Just as he was turned onto his back, Casper opened his eyes, confirmed it was Jared under the biohazard suit, arced his arm until the needle buried itself into Jared’s shoulder and injected the contents of the syringe. He heard a satisfying hiss of air leaking from the puncture site.
Jared scrambled away from Casper clutching his arm. “What did you do?” he screamed. His cohorts reached for their sidearms.
Never had Casper seen armed men draw in biohazard suits. It was like some funky science fiction Western, but they were quick and Casper held his hands up in surrender, the syringe visible in one of his hands. “Only what you did to us.” Casper threw the syringe at his feet. “Infected you with whatever you infected us with. I’m guessing your dual pathogen called ES1.”
Jared motioned for one of his goons to pick up the syringe. They wouldn’t go near it.
“It’s Ashley’s blood,” Casper said.
Jared marched forward and picked it up.
Casper got up to his feet. “Ever been vaccinated against smallpox, Jared?”
The two men kept weapons trained on Casper. “Actually, I have been.”
“Then my guess is that you have some time before you begin feeling just as bad as Ashley.”
“You think I’m going to take your word for this?” He brought the syringe close to Casper’s face. “This joke you’ve played is going to do nothing more than hasten your death sentence.”
“That is...if it was a ruse. I assure you, it wasn’t.”
“Well, we’ll see. Go in and get Ashley up. It’s time to see what her father’s been hiding.”
Casper turned around and entered the back of the ambulance. He disconnected the bag of IV fluid that had been running, but kept the IV in place. Gently, he picked up her small frame and rested her on his shoulder, stepping back onto the ground.
When he turned and took the building in, his heart fell. What he’d imagined would contain the stockpile for the cure would be a massive warehouse. What stood before him was nothing more than a house in the middle of the desert. A large house, but still.
As he turned, one of the men pressed the tip of his gun into Casper’s back. Russell waited with the door open. As Casper passed it, he saw another facial scanner to the side that Russell used to gain access. Once inside the house, Russell weaved through a couple of small passageways until he came to a staircase. At the bottom of the brittle wooden steps was another door, a punch code lock to the side.
Once that opened up, everything about Casper’s impression of the facility changed.
Underneath that simple house was a fully functioning lab and medical suite. How had Russell gotten the money to fund this? Was he working with someone? Or was it from the original sum Jared had given him? Casper hoped Russell had an ally...someone they could trust. Maybe that someone could help them. Then it dawned on him. Vladimir had likely been his confidant. They’d likely worked together on the cure, and that was probably why he was dead.
Russell motioned them to a bank of rooms and slid one of the glass doors open. Casper rested Ashley on the bed and connected her to the small portable monitor that sat there. Jared stomped into the room and pulled the hood off his head. Casper didn’t regard that as the wisest of moves considering Jared didn’t know if what Casper had told him was the truth or a lie. At Jared’s command, the two gunmen hustled Russell into the room, as well. Then again, anger made men do irrational things.
Jared held up the syringe examining its contents in the bright light. “How long will it take you to test this for ES1?” he asked Russell.
Even from Casper’s position, he could see the blood inside. Evidently this was enough to convince Jared of the veracity of his statement.
“You’re assuming I have a test and the lab equipment to run it, which I don’t,” Russell said.
Jared threw the syringe across the room and turned on his heel, his breath seething through clenched teeth. He wrestled out of the remainder of his suit, sweat causing his shirt to cling to his skin. His hands were clenched into tight reddened fists.
Casper put the oxygen probe on Ashley’s finger. She moaned intermittently. At least she was responsive. The rash on her body had begun to blister and the fluid looked pink tinged. The discoloration could signify that she was suffering the effects of both illnesses.
Her oxygen level was borderline low.
Just as Casper reached for an oxygen mask, Jared threw him against the wall. Even though the man had at least thirty years on him, the force with which Casper hit stunned him. His head snapped against the brick and he almost slipped to the floor, his body numb, disoriented from the surprise assault. Stiffening his legs, he pushed himself up. More than anything else, he didn’t want to look weak in front of this man anymore. He was tired of being chased by this maniac. It was time for his evil deeds to be exposed.
Casper had to get himself, Ashley and her father out of this alive. As far as he knew, they were the only ones who knew about the pending attack now that Ethan was dead.
“Just what exactly was your plan with this stunt?” Jared asked, spit on his lips.
Casper narrowed his eyes. “How long ago was your smallpox vaccine? You know, it’s been shown that they wear off after a few decades. And who knows if it would have worked against what you’ve paid someone to create.”
Jared spun his head around and eyed Russell. “You don’t have to look too far to find who the creator of ES1 is.”
* * *
The trio of yelling men pulled Ashley from her fever-induced delirium. She was in a room...a small medical area that resembled the setup of her own ER rooms. Something was attached to her finger and she pulled at it haphazardly, not quite able to register in her mind what the common piece of medical equipment was.
Physically, she felt eviscerated. Her nerves were on fire. Her tongue—thick, hot and dry. She’d give anything for an ice chip, although she’d need buckets to ease this thirst. Each small movement of her body caused pain. Her skin itched and when she ran her fingers over her neck to scratch, she felt small raised areas.
Blisters.
The disease was progressing rapidly—like flames over dry, barren land. What she’d said before about being at peace with death had upended itself now that her body pummeled toward that reality.
Lord, bring me peace. I’m scared. I’ve never been this sick. I don’t want to die. I want a life... I don’t want to be alone anymore.
Upon opening her eyes, she’d awakened unto a movie already half over. Casper thrown against the wall by Jared, whose arm was dangerously close to his throat before Casper fell and righted himself. Phrases she couldn’t understand. Jared was out of his biohazard suit. The two armed gunmen stood off in the distance—way off—even though they still had their suits in place, but they held their weapons with much less conviction than before. In fact, they were mouthing something to one another and Ashley thought she saw the word go silently uttered several times.
Casper muscled his way past Jared and went to Ashley’s bedside. “How are you feeling?”
Now she realized how inane a question that really was to someone flirting with death. She gave him an unconvincing smile. It amazed her that he still looked so well. He released a lever and eased her bed up. She’d heard the last several exchanges, but nothing made sense in her mind.
Casper’s face hardened. He was angry and looking directly at her father. “I want to know what Jared’s talking about.”
Her father’s features looked markedly aged even compared to a day ago. He reached his hand out, grabbed a chair on rollers, eased himself down and buried his face in his hands. “Jared is right. I took the work that the Russians had started and finished it. I manufactured mass quantities of ES1.”
It felt like she was falling. Her heart raced. The room tilted violently, and she pressed her fingers against her temples to give her mind a steadying hand.
Jared walked to the bottom of Ashley’s bed. “Makes you think differently about a man, doesn’t it?”
Ashley avoided Jared’s glare and looked up at the ceiling. She sank back against the mattress. Even Casper’s face looked crestfallen at the news. The man he’d admired his whole adult life had just face-planted off the pillar Casper had built for him and all he was left with was chunks of plaster in his hands.
“How could you?” Casper asked, his voice cracking. “Do you know how many people died in Black Falls? Over ten! That’s probably only the beginning.”
Russell straightened himself up into the chair and rolled closer to Ashley’s bedside. “I know you will never understand my decision at this time in your life, but I did it to save you. We needed money to pay for your heart surgery. Jared assured me it was sanctioned by the US government. I thought the amount of money he provided proved that to be true.”
Ashley’s mind drew a blank. She didn’t have enough experience with world-upending confessions to offer him any type of statement. Should it be an angry tongue-lashing? Words of comfort? Even she didn’t know how she felt toward her father. The mixture of his absences, of them finally finding him, collided within her like atoms splitting. Between this illness and these revelations—her mind...her body fractured.
“I knew then it was wrong even if sanctioned by the government. Solving a short-term problem this way has ruined my life and many others. The reason I left over two years ago was to find a cure for what I’d created.”
Casper seemed as paralyzed as Ashley.
Russell turned to Jared. “What you don’t know, Jared...is that Ashley is yours. You infected your own daughter.”
Ashley’s mouth dropped open. How was that even possible?
Jared doubled over, placing his hands on his knees, gripping them until his fingers washed white. When he stood, the veins in his forehead jutted out. His face had gone purple with rage. “It’s not true!” he yelled.
Jared stalked up to one of his henchman and ripped the sidearm from his hand. He paced back to Russell and pressed it against temple.
Russell calmly held his hands up in silent surrender. Every one of them stilled in the room for endless minutes. Would this be the end? Would Jared shoot everyone?
“In your heart you know it’s true, Jared, but denial is a powerful thing. When you found out about Ashley’s mother’s pregnancy...you left her, calling her a liar. I merely picked up the pieces. We both loved her. I just won out, but mostly because you gave up. That’s why I hid what Ashley looked like from you for all those years.”
Jared eased his weapon down.
Casper crossed his arms over his chest. “Putting the family dynamics aside, you have a problem on your hands. You’re going to get just as sick as Ashley if you don’t get the cure, but I won’t allow Russell to give you the cure until you tell us the exact time and date of this bioweapons attack and you confess to these other crimes.”
Jared laughed. “No, you do not dictate to me what I will do. The first thing we’re going to do is make sure the cure Russell has really works. Show me where it is.”
Jared and Russell left the room, leaving Casper and Ashley alone. Even the two gunmen momentarily disappeared. What threat was Casper? It was obvious he wasn’t going to leave.
They couldn’t escape with Ashley in her current state.
Casper rounded the bed and sat down, taking Ashley’s hand. “I don’t...I don’t even know what to say. This isn’t over. I will get us out of this...all of us...alive.”
The first thing she felt was bitterness. Casper, the ultimate optimist, was painting a reality she didn’t believe in. The reality she’d known all of her life was a fairy tale. If what Russell said was true—and really, why would he lie—then who was she? The daughter of an evil, maniacal man?
Ashley withdrew her hand from Casper’s and rolled away from him. Her body was swept with heat again, and she tucked herself tightly into a ball from the rigors. Her muscles seized up, racked with pain.
All she could do was cry and scream silently in her mind.
Casper laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. Even though the weight of it increased her pain, she found that she needed him. Needed something sure. Needed his presence.
He was the first man who hadn’t abandoned her despite grim circumstances.
If there was any good to come from Russell’s confession, it was that she understood a lot that had happened in her life. Now, everything her father had sent her over the past months strangely made sense. The pieces clicked into place. Her mother and Jared had been an item. The pictures her father had sent her proved it. The photo of Jared and her mother staring lovingly into one another’s eyes was proof of something more than friendship. Her instincts had been correct.
Personally, she’d never felt that way toward a man. Not until Casper.
And now she was going to die before she knew what being loved by a man truly felt like.