“Corrina?” Maibe’s voice floated through the air like mist.
We had found Corrina like it was no big deal. Like she was just out on a walk, back from a shopping trip.
Vs wandered the compound, most likely drawn by the noises. I was sick with worry. Sick with being separated again.
Maibe hurried forward and Corrina cried out in joy or fear or shock or maybe all three.
There.
Swift and low like a wolf, a man in mud-streaked khaki pants ran toward Maibe and Corrina. I wondered if he was running from his own violent attacker, or if he was actually reliving running someone else down.
Corrina and Maibe had not seen the V coming. I raised my crossbow, took aim, fired.
The V went down, my arrow buried in his back. I sent another arrow flying, just to be sure. It nicked his shoulder and then skidded into the asphalt at Corrina’s feet. She jumped. The stack of cans in her hands crashed to the ground.
Maibe spun around.
“Get your idiot asses inside,” I said, knowing I might be calling other Vs to our spot but not able to stop myself. We had Sergeant Bennings people after us, Vs around us, and Spencer and Ano and Ricker and Jimmy gone again. I remembered when the list of names had been longer.
I did not help Corrina and Maibe as they gathered up the cans. Someone needed to stand guard for us. Might as well be me. Since when she’d first showed up with Maibe at the boxcar, something about Corrina set me on edge. She was too earnest, too flighty, too judgmental. People like her thought they could tell me what to do because they believed they knew better than me. She wanted to save me from myself and she had no right to do that. She had helped get Leaf killed.
Corrina led us to a barn-like building on the edge of the fairgrounds. I couldn’t believe she was still alive. The barn was dark and musty and smelled of spoiled hay. We entered the building, Corrina first, then Maibe, then me. My eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly—light streamed in from cracks in the walls and ceilings.
Something rustled in one of the stalls and I raised my crossbow.
“It’s Dylan,” Corrina said, pushing my crossbow to point at the ground. “He’s in the fevers.”
Dylan was laid out on the hay in one of the stalls. His low moans raised goosebumps on my arms. His right arm was thrown across his face. His legs disappeared into the hay. Sweat gleamed on skin that was beginning to show the wrinkles and tone of a Feeb. His facial hair was growing out in that rugged way I’d always preferred. Even unconscious and sick and changing, he looked muscled, healthy, attractive.
I snorted to myself. Yeah.
He’d infected himself with Feeb blood because of Corrina. He’d gotten himself strung up on a noose because of Corrina. Maibe and I were trapped in this barn now because of Corrina.
I stalked back to Maibe and Corrina deep in conversation about this or that. Who the hell knows. Something about more and more Feebs and Vs waking up.
“We can’t stay here,” Maibe said. “I think things are going to get much worse very soon.”
I snorted. “Did you tell her how bad it already is?” I said.
Maibe nodded.
“But I can’t move him. Not when he’s in the fevers.” Corrina stacked the supplies in a corner along with a few other odds and ends: a bucket, a sliver of soap, some canned food, a water bottle half empty. “He’s lucid sometimes, but otherwise we’ll have to carry him. He can’t stay on his feet yet.”
“How did you get him here?” I asked.
“That wheelbarrow,” she said, pointing with wet hands to a dark geometrical shape in one of the corners.
“So that’s what we use to take him out of here,” I said. “We have to find the others.”
“He’s still too sick,” she responded.
“But they’re waking up,” Maibe said. “The Vs get out of the fevers first.”
I remembered when Mary turned. “It’s only hours for them, once they’re infected.”
“But Feebs take longer,” Maibe said. “Days or even weeks.”
“What about the Faints?” Corrina asked.
Maibe looked confused. “I don’t know. Do you, Gabbi?”
I thought about it and shook my head. “I’ve never seen someone turn into a Faint. I’ve only stumbled upon them afterwards. I don’t know what happens or even how they get sick with it in the first place.”
“It’s the bacteria,” Corrina said quietly. “That’s what Dr. Ferrad told me.”
“When?” I demanded. “When did she tell you?”
“There was this room they took me into,” Corrina said. “A chair in the middle of this big room with lights and equipment.”
My stomach felt sick. I knew exactly what she was talking about. The room with the dentist chair. The doctor in the white coat and with a clipboard had been Dr. Ferrad. I didn’t want to admit I’d seen her there in the chair. I didn’t want to admit I’d almost jumped and then stopped when I saw it was only her.
“She said a person turns Faint when they only get infected with the Lyme disease they genetically engineered to fight the virus,” Corrina said. “A Faint happens when there’s no Lyssa virus to keep the bacteria in check.”
“But how?” Maibe asked.
Corrina shook her head. “Dr. Ferrad didn’t know. She said none of them know. That’s why they’re running a bunch of tests.”
“They’re hurting people!” I said, stalking across the room because I couldn’t stand to be still one second longer. “They hurt Leaf!” My throat hiccuped on his name. Dark feelings rose up and I crunched them into a little ball inside me.
“How many people will all this have killed by the time it’s burned out?” Corrina shook her head and closed her eyes. “It’s sickening to imagine how many people are in the fevers and there’s no one to help them through it, no one to give them sips of water or something to eat.”
“Who do you think started this whole mess?” I shot back. I rested my crossbow on my shoulder and locked my face into a grimace. “Whose fault do you think this is?”
Corrina looked at me with her dark brown eyes full of sorrow, sadness, pity. But pity had only ever spurred on my anger.
“People like you, in your clean houses and white picket fences and white collar jobs making the rules for the rest of us who never wanted to play your game. Never wanted anything but to be left alone to make our own way, but you couldn’t stand it, couldn’t believe it, had to fix it—”
“What are you talking about?” Corrina said.
Maibe looked at me and then back to Corrina and then back to me.
The fury dribbled out of me and left only a dull ache. “Maibe’s right, our ghost city is waking up. Almost a million people surround us right now and even if only ten percent survive, that’s a lot more people than we can handle. And Sergeant Bennings knows we’re here.”
“You saw him?” a male voice said behind me. I whirled around and saw Dylan rising onto unsteady feet, wobbling like a drunk. Hay stalks clung to his clothes and his beard and hair. His eyes were the brightest blue I’d ever seen. But he did not even look at me even though he’d asked me a question. His eyes were only for Corrina.
“No. But it was his people at least,” I said.
“We should get out of the city. Go into the foothills.” Dylan coughed and began to crumple. I dropped my crossbow and wrapped my arms around his chest. His shirt was soft under my fingertips, his smell a cross between sweat and earth and musk. He leaned on me, almost draping my side, his body heat a shock. His beard scratched the skin on my neck.
Corrina rushed over and grabbed his other side, throwing his arm around her shoulders, lifting him off me. The pressure release left an ache I could not name, did not like, forced myself to ignore. She led him back to his stall while he mumbled about a place he called Dutch Flat. His head rolled and revealed glazed eyes. He regained consciousness for a moment and stumbled a few steps and turned and gripped Corrina’s face with both hands and kissed her deeply before slumping to the ground.
I stood there knowing I should help and knowing I better not.
Maibe pushed past me and helped Corrina settle Dylan back into the hay. Corrina offered Dylan a few sips of water and brushed his hair from his forehead.
I turned away and picked up my crossbow.
He’d gotten himself captured, almost killed, infected—for her—and I was a runaway with a temper and a chip on my shoulder. I pushed open the door without waiting or listening or looking. A man, in ripped jeans and a green-collared shirt, sporting long gashes of dried blood, stood a few yards from the door. He had already turned toward me. His eyes were bloodshot, vacant, furious. His mouth opened in a grimace. He held up his arms before him, as if choking someone that would have only come to his shoulders. I raised my crossbow and he grabbed for it, choking it like it was the neck of some ghost-person he was trying to kill again and again.
I released the arrow and it buried deep in his forehead even as one of his hands clamped the fiberglass and twisted. The string broke, whipping a burning line of fire along my cheek.
He fell into a heap on the ground. I wished I could fall into a heap on the ground.
There was a scuffle of steps. The creak of gear. The glare of the flashlight. Behind the fallen V, a group of Sergeant Bennings’ soldiers came into view.