I could not remember the last time I’d brushed my teeth. This bothered me. I opened my eyes to see if Spencer had snagged toothpaste like he’d promised. I sat up and brushed off the comforter. This motion made me dizzy. No, it wasn’t the sitting up that made me dizzy. I was still moving. I was still on the bed of the truck. Cardboard boxes surrounded me, obscuring everything except for the blue sky and a pant leg at the edge of my vision.
Kern sat on the wheel well, rifle resting on his thigh. A strip of cloth was wrapped around the leg I’d bitten. He looked at me but didn’t say anything. The driver took us fast enough down the street to outpace the Vs that followed and slow enough to avoid the wrecked telephone poles, crashed cars, dead bodies.
I remembered the train and Kern. Corrina and Dylan gone. Maibe lost. Jimmy, Ricker, and Ano still imprisoned in the camp.
Everyone on the trucks were dressed in black. Jeans, shirts, vests, shoes, all black. As if there’d been a clearance sale at the local Goth store. Some wore professional gear: a bulletproof vest, a utility belt, military-style boots with the pants tucked in. They had their masks off now and I recognized them. Neil and Lilia and others. They were Tabitha’s team.
“I’m sorry I hit you. You wouldn’t let go.” Kern maneuvered around the boxes and stood next to me, one hand holding the truck railing to keep himself steady. Yet another Kern stood over the woman and her nephew, and another Kern took off his mask and stood over me while I let the V grab me.
“Are you okay?” Kern asked.
I raised my fist to punch him. He grabbed it halfway in the air and held it. We rocked in the same direction when the truck took a sharp turn around a crushed mailbox. Every few seconds a shot rang out when a V got too close.
“You killed them. Corrina and Dylan and the others. You killed them,” I said, but there was no energy in my voice. I felt dead inside. I didn’t know if I was accusing him or me.
“I’m sorry, Gabbi.” He did look sorry. His eyes were sunken and his jaw was tense, as if he were gritting his teeth to keep from crying. “We were going to save them but the Vs were too many. It was get out or die.” He let go of my hand. “Hit me if you want. I deserve that and more.”
I dropped my arm back to my side. The ache in his eyes told me he meant what he said. I told myself there were others who still needed saving, but I wanted to cry anyway. Corrina had been a good person. Dylan too. I wished I’d told them that. “You said you were going to kill all of us. Make us pay.”
“We were acting, Gabbi. Pretending to be them.”
“Pretending to be who?” I said, confused.
“The Feeb-haters. Laurel and I have run into them a few times. A nasty group of uninfected. Survivalists, I think. Some of them were in the camps at first and left. They want to exterminate every type of infected person and anyone who works with them.”
“But why did you pretend—”
He looked at me like I was stupid. “The uninfected can’t know it was us. They’d turn on Tabitha and the rest of us.”
I pressed my fingers into the inside of both eye sockets, to relieve my headache, but also to clear away the Kerns that still overlapped in my brain. I wanted to sweep everything off a cluttered table to make room for the puzzle parts to fit together: trains, impostors, Tabitha’s power, Kern’s followers, Dr. Ferrad’s mission.
“Here.”
I felt a small box pressed into my arm. Kern held out some juice. A cranberry something that tasted tart and energizing. The liquid sugar spread from my stomach to the rest of my body and my brain cleared a bit.
“You have to understand. We had to do it, Gabbi. Dr. Ferrad is close to a cure, but they wouldn’t let her work on it. We had to get her out.”
“What do you mean? That’s what they wanted. This whole thing is supposed to be for a cure.”
“I don’t know. But Tabitha—”
“Your mom.”
Kern paused. “Yeah. My mom says it’s true and she wouldn’t believe Dr. Ferrad if it wasn’t true. They hate each other.”
I still couldn’t put the puzzle pieces together. “What are you talking about?”
“My mom was a director type person where Dr. Ferrad worked. I don’t know. They have a history. My mom wouldn’t just believe her—”
“Stop. You know what? It doesn’t matter. I have to get back to Camp Pacific. I have to get back to Ano and Ricker and Jimmy.”
“If you go back Sergeant Bennings will kill you.”
“No. He’s dead now. He was in the train car. With Corrina and Dylan.”
Kern paused. “It doesn’t matter if it’s him or someone else. They sent you away. If you go back, they’ll kill you.”
“If I don’t go back, he’ll punish my friends.”
I finished the juice. Kern watched me without a word.
Finally, I said, “What?”
“Why did you let that V grab you?”
My hold on all of this felt so tenuous, like a string ready to break. He looked at me as if he really cared. As if it had hurt him that I’d tried to hurt myself. “A memory-rush, I guess. I saw this, well, I saw a man who’d hurt me once years ago and I had to get away.” I lied because I couldn’t bear to admit out loud that for one brief second I’d decided to give up.
After a long moment he relaxed his shoulders.
There was a shout from inside the cab. I tensed. Kern didn’t look worried. “We’re here.”
We passed through a narrow opening in the street. On either side was a barricade of cars and debris. When the two trucks passed through, metal gates closed behind us. The Vs hit the gate soon after. The metal creaked and bulged.
“That won’t hold for long.”
“Long enough,” Kern said.
The trucks slowed and stopped. A small RV and three trucks drove up and formed a circle. Kern jumped down and helped two other Feebs lift Mary’s stretcher off the boxes.
“Hey! Where are you taking her?”
“Come and see,” Kern said without pausing.
I jumped off the truck and followed them into the RV. Inside were Dr. Ferrad and Tabitha, arguing.
They stopped when they saw Mary.
“Put her over here,” Dr. Ferrad said. Mary moaned when they set her on the bed. Dr. Ferrad checked her pulse, opened up a metal case, then pulled out a needle. She checked the fluid level and reached for Mary’s arm.
I grabbed Dr. Ferrad’s wrist. “What are you doing?”
Dr. Ferrad froze, and for a moment I knew she didn’t see me. Her eyes cleared and she shook her head. “It’s to sedate her. I don’t want her to hurt herself against the straps.”
Kern pulled me away. “Gabbi.”
I shook him off. “What’s going on?”
Tabitha looked at Kern. He nodded. “I told her.”
“Then you already know this is all for a cure,” Tabitha said.
The RV’s engine rattled to life. Tabitha glanced out the window. “Vs are in.” She said it like she was pointing out someone had knocked at the front door.
Kern jumped down the RV steps. “Come on, Gabbi.”
“I’m staying with Mary.”
Kern looked to Tabitha as if she could force me to change my mind. Instead she said, “Where are the rest of them?”
Kern didn’t look at her. “Vs overran us before we could get anyone else out.”
Tabitha sucked in a breath. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters!” he said.
“Get moving, son. We still have a lot to do.”
He looked as if ready to argue, but then left. Tabitha turned to follow.
“Where are my people?” Dr. Ferrad said. “My assistants?”
Tabitha paused at the door. “There is one truck of your people going with you now. The rest of us will meet up with you at the designated spot. Don’t be late.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
Tabitha stared at Dr. Ferrad. “Yes, we do.”
The door shut and I scooted to Mary’s side. The engine rumbled and I lurched backward. She looked so small like this. Dr. Ferrad reminded me of the college woman who had tried to study us for her PhD. Mary had made me laugh so hard telling a joke about it the day she’d gotten infected.
“You said she was different?”
Dr. Ferrad sighed and looked up from a map she’d spread across a table. “I gave her a megadose of the bacteria, but it was outside the window. It shouldn’t have worked. It didn’t work, not completely, but she’s aware more than other Vs are. I need to find out why.”
“That will help you find a cure?”
“I remember you and your friends. Mary helped save you from the Lyssa virus.”
I flinched.
“Where are the rest of your friends now?”
My face must have crumpled because she took a step forward and held out her hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t know where they are. Some of them are dead. The rest of them are missing.”
Dr. Ferrad looked out the window. It was just the RV and the truck. The other vehicles had separated, drawing the Vs away from us.
“Do you know what I traded Mary and my freedom for?” She stared at me, her eyes an abyss. “Tabitha wants power. The cure will give her power.”
“What—?”
“I aerosolized the double infection. She’s going to use it to infect everyone at Camp Pacific.”