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I found Alex pacing around the living room area in his apartment. He paused his step and his eyes fell on me when I opened the door. “Phew, good, you’re all right.” He sounded relieved.
“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, perplexed.
“Didn’t you find that guy daunting?”
I approached Alex and wrapped my arms around his strong neck. He always made me feel safe.
“I don’t have a heartbeat that could annoy or attract him.” My hand wandered to his chest, and I enjoyed feeling the vibration his pulsating heart sent through his skin. “On the other hand, what I did find odd was that he was convinced I was some kind of chosen leader.”
“Ha, yes, the seclusion in the jungle must have had a negative effect on his brain,” Alex joked.
“Hey!” I nudged him in the side, and he laughed even more.
A moment later, his face grew serious again. “Really, you need to start believing in yourself. You seem to be the only one who isn’t convinced that you’re here to do something great.”
I sighed. “If I finally have an epiphany, you’ll be the first one I’ll inform.” I dropped onto the couch.
“What else did you find out?” He sat on the coffee table and placed his hands on my knees. That simple touch spread a warmth within me, and I remembered why I couldn’t get enough of this guy. He wandered a hand's width up my thigh. The air in the room electrified and a heatwave passed through me. The way he looked at my body let me know that he had also noticed the change in the atmosphere. It was as if we were taken back to the time before we started sleeping with each other when the tension between me and him was almost unbearable.
He wetted his lips. “Actually, I think your recount can wait for a little.”
I released a breath. “Yes,” was all I managed to say. I swallowed and he moved forward, pushing me further down on the couch.
“Here? Somebody could walk in!” I protested, flushed. He didn’t budge away from me.
“You’re the fast runner, so it would only be embarrassing for me if anyone chose to come home now.” He kissed me again and took the last bit of my breath away. I dug my fingers into his hair and enjoyed feeling his weight on me. We were both lost in the moment. It was exactly the escape we needed from these troubled times.
Ultimately, there was the final straw. When two families died of the night flu after a visit to a Broadway show, the TV and radio broadcast that all public state institutions in Massachusetts and New York would be closed until the situation had improved. Finally, I didn’t have to worry about school anymore. Luke got in touch with a ghost at The Library to ask what he knew about these deaths. After all, the ghosts heard many of the conversations that took place inside The Library. And indeed, the ghost told him that they had been two families of form-shifters — creatures who could change to look like any object or person they wanted. Again, only magical creatures had died of the virus.
A nice side effect of the schools being closed was that Sam had returned to Orleans. Thus, I didn’t have to worry as much about him falling victim to a bombing anymore. Orleans was much quieter than the big cities. I invited him over to the house on Cape Cod to have a long-overdue reunion.
“How are you doing?” I pressed my lips together. His eyes had a haunted darkness in them. Very different from the exciting glimmer of less than a year ago, when we were getting ready for prom. My friends were so convinced that they would have the time of their lives at college.
“The last days have felt surreal. Like in a video game.” Sam sat at our kitchen table with a cup of instant coffee in his hands, the only thing I could offer him. “You walk through the streets, and everybody could be carrying a bomb under his coat.” He snorted. “Two bombings in Boston alone last week,” he exclaimed. “Not to mention New York City. We lived in such a safe country. I never thought that could change so quickly.”
I took a breath and shook my head. “The world leaders underestimated people’s naivety. So many are blindly following anything Dr. Palmer’s group says because they’re so afraid of the virus.”
“I don’t think it’s just the virus anymore. People are afraid of people.” Sam furrowed his brows. “Even if the police lock away the people who haven’t died in suicide bombings, there seem to be more and more attackers. And really, anybody could be a terrorist.”
“We all know whose words they’re following.” I pressed my hands flat on the table as I heard Dr. Palmer’s nasal voice in my mind. “Why hasn’t anybody locked Dr. Palmer away yet?”
Sam frowned. “He must be a very well-protected man. Plus, he’s never actually said that people need to go out and kill Alternatives. The terrorists just interpret his words that way.”
“But he’s clearly a public influencer. Why is anybody still giving him a voice?” I exhaled sharply.
“It’s a circus. Entertainment.” The corners of Sam’s mouth wandered downwards. “Everybody is watching and listening and can’t wait to see what happens next. That’s how low we’ve sunk.”
“But that’s what I’m saying – the media shouldn’t be allowed to even give him a platform.”
“Again. Freedom of speech.” Sam sighed.
“At least I know you’re safer now.” I smiled weakly. “Stay home as much as possible, and if the war sirens go off, you have to hurry to a shelter,” I urged him. The war sirens were the warning sign the government provided if a bomb was found in the area or if somebody found out that an attack was about to happen.
“We might be safe from the bombs in a bunker, but in there, we’ll wait like trapped rats to die from a flu epidemic.”
“The bunkers are more sanitized than many people’s homes,” I said.
“Why are you staying here, then? This is a dead end, and you’ll never make it to the shelter in town if anything happens.”
“Out here, it's quiet. It's not a place of interest.” I rubbed at a piece of dirt on the table as I tried to think of more convincing reasons why my Siren family – of which he hadn’t the slightest idea – wasn’t going into any bunker. “Plus,” I sighed, “my dad isn’t good around people. He’s extremely claustrophobic. So, we’ll stay here.” I shrugged. I couldn't tell him that Luke might kill everyone in the bunker if he was locked in there for too long, or that besides that, we were faster than the detonation of a bomb.
I continued. “If Joe and Phe want to go to Australia, they need to leave soon. I heard they might stop global air traffic so that each country can deal with their own national security.”
“They’re staying here. Their families wouldn't come with them – and it's a bit too hard, after all, to leave everyone here, not knowing when they’ll be able to come back or if they’ll ever see them again.”
I laughed, though it was more like a snort. “Yeah, I couldn't do that, either.”
“I'm pretty sure Joe's parents are members of a special bunker.” Sam’s eyes widened. “You know, a long-term one for the rich, with more space and better amenities. And they might share their space with Phe's family.”
“I didn't know Joe was rich,” I said, surprised. Neither his house nor his clothes showed it.
“They’re just modest, but both his parents work great jobs. They have to spend their money on something, and that's travel and safety.”
“Wow, I had no idea. Good for them.” I nodded.
“I’m surprised schools stayed open so long,” Sam said.
“I guess they wanted to keep a sense of normalcy, and schools are filled with innocent kids. To attack a school would be the most inhumane thing anyone could do,” I replied. So far, we’d only had emergency drills. The war sirens would ring, and we'd march to the assigned public bunker at the firehouse.
“The problem is that doing terrible things while afraid is very human.” Sam took a breath. “We saw it in Nazi Germany and in the Stanford Prison Experiment, where people were told to torture others.” He pursed his lips.
“It's still incomprehensible how quickly everything went downhill.”
“The mysterious flu is the main problem. We need a remedy and strong political leaders who’ll bring the world back in order,” Sam stated.
“You think it's that easy? The world could be in this state for years. This could even be the end of the world as we know it!”
“Maybe. But it escalated so fast – there’s no system in this. As soon as this horrifying trend starts crumbling, people will go back to a system they know,” he said.
I frowned. “I hope you’re right.”
“Could you ever have imagined a year ago that we would be having a conversation like this?”
We talked about the good old times until it was time for him to leave so he could still get home while it was light outside.
“This is goodbye for a while, then?” I asked.
“I guess so.” He took a deep breath and wrapped me into a shy Sam hug. “You keep me updated about what’s going on out here, though. At least through the Internet, we can still stay connected.”
“Of course.” I squeezed him against me again. “We’ll be okay,” I tried to convince us both. It was scary that we had no idea how the immediate future would look. There was a chance that not all of us would survive.