“Jack, come here!” Jonah maneuvers the person onto a mattress.
I scramble over to Jonah’s side and jump when a light flashes on. Jonah shines a small flashlight onto the person and I can’t tell who it is because his face is swollen and bleeding. But then the mouth moves. “Jack?” And the voice gives it away.
“Bowen?”
He groans and one of his eyes opens just a tiny bit, too swollen to do more. “I was hoping you would have escaped by now.” His eye flickers to Jonah. “Have you been feeding her spit?”
“A little. She won’t eat it.”
“Jack, you’ve got to eat the spit! If you don’t get out of here, they’re going to give you to—” He tries to sit up but Jonah pushes him back down.
“Who? They’re going to give me to who?” I ask. There’s something urgent in his voice. He doesn’t answer. Jonah squeezes Bowen’s cheeks so his lips open and then spits into his mouth. I don’t mean to, but my mouth puckers and I shudder.
A horrible gagging sound comes from Bowen’s throat and then he swallows. His less-swollen eye cracks open again. “Wow. That’s so much more pleasant when it comes from your sister.”
“Well, get used to it,” Jonah says. “You’re going to need a lot more.”
Something bubbles up in me and spills out. Giggles. I press my hand over my mouth and hold them in.
Jonah and I clean up Bowen as best we can and then make him comfortable on one of the mattresses. By the time we’re done, my head is hurting like I have an average, ordinary stress headache—a miraculous improvement. I lie down on a mattress with Jonah’s mattress on the left, and Bowen’s mattress on the right, and close my eyes. They haven’t been closed that long before Bowen and Jonah both start to snore. I lie still and open my eyes, listening to Jonah’s thrashing and mumbling. The sound mingles with the occasional rumble of thunder, the barking of dogs, and the deep hum of rain. I worry about my family, and Fo and Vince. But mostly I worry about me.
And then I hear a scratching, like a mouse scratching for food. I hold my breath and listen. The scratching changes to a tiny clicking sound, coming from the direction of the door. I prop myself up on my elbows and look at the door’s dark window just as it swings open and someone comes inside. Whoever it is eases the door shut before creeping toward me.
I grab Jonah’s shoulder and shake him. He gasps and sits up. “What?” he whispers, voice heavy with sleep.
“There’s someone else in here!”
“It’s me,” the shadow whispers.
Jonah claps me on the back. “Good luck, Jack. Hopefully I’ll see you soon.” He lies back down and rolls onto his side and I want to scream. The raiders are here for me and that’s all he can say? “Good luck, Jack? Hopefully I’ll see you soon?”
I hug my knees to my chest. The shadow kneels down on the mattress beside me and throws his arms around my shoulders. “I am so mad at you right now I could almost kill you!” he says. He squeezes me until my ribs creak against his.
“Kevin?”
He lets me go and then I am being kissed—warm, soft lips on my own. I shove him away hard, and he sighs. “You have no right to kiss me without my permission,” I whisper, voice bitter. “Oh. I forgot. That’s what raiders do, isn’t it?”
“Ouch,” Kevin says. Pulling me to my feet, he drags me toward the door. I dig my bare feet into the floor, but he’s way stronger than me. “We’ve got less than an hour to get you out of here, so will you please cooperate? Once the sun is up, the raiders will be able to see us!” The door swings open like a slice of darkness, and Kevin pushes me through. I grab the door frame and hold tight, and Kevin walks into me.
“Jack, what are you doing?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m breaking you out of here!” he whispers. “Hurry up! Let’s go!”
“And leave Jonah and Bowen?”
“Yes! They still need to get the cure, and they’re not about to die.”
His words hit me like a slap in the face. “They’re not about to die … but I am?”
He pries my fingers from the door frame and pushes me into the dark hall. “Not if I can help it.”
“Wait … I’m really about to die?”
He shuts the door, and we stand in the black hallway. “Yes. They’re giving you to their dogs this morning for practice.”
My brows furrow. “Practice? What kind of practice?”
“They’ve infected three of their dogs with the bee flu vaccine and taught them to hunt humans.”
I stare at the black wall as everything slowly makes sense. When a dog catches an animal, it always goes for the neck, either snapping it or tearing into it with its teeth.
I am neck-tearing practice.
For the raiders’ dogs.
Which have been turned into dog-beasts.
The ground seems to drop out from under my feet, and I claw at the wall to keep from falling. Arms come around me, warm and gentle, and strong, and hold me upright. I press my face against Kevin’s chest and inhale. He smells faintly of vomit.
“We need to go, Jack. I’m so sorry you ever had to come here in the first place.”
“You’re sorry? You’re the one who gave me to them!”
“Because I had no other choice. And now I am getting you away from them.” His hand trails down my arm and clasps mine. My life is spinning out of control, and the only thing grounding me is his hand. I clasp our intertwined fingers with my free hand and hold on like my entire existence depends on it.
Together, we walk down the long, dark hall. The only light is from the square windows on the doors that line it—one shade lighter than pitch-black. We turn a corner and pause. The distinct tap-tap of hard-soled shoes walking on a hard floor fills the hall, and the golden glow of a flashlight dances off a wall not far ahead of us. Kevin yanks me back into the hallway we just left, opens a door, and shoves me into a room that is so dark I could be walking off a cliff and not know it. He shuts the door and puts a cold hand over my mouth.
The sound of tapping shoes gets closer. And closer. I stare wide-eyed at black nothing, stop breathing, and listen as the shoes get closer and then stop. The small space beneath the door lights up like a thin line of gold. My muscles come alive, ready to run or fight. Indistinct voices rumble on the other side of the door, and then the light beneath it pales to dark and the shoes start tapping again, fading, fading, until I cannot hear them anymore. Kevin sucks in a deep breath of air and puts his hands on my shoulders. They are trembling.
My heart swells with an emotion I don’t understand, that I’ve never felt before, and I think of how terrible I was to him. “I’m sorry I kicked you,” I whisper. “When you handed me over to them. I didn’t know what was really going on.”
His hands tighten on my shoulders. “It’s okay.”
I take a deep breath and smell a trace of vomit again. “Are you the one who cleaned me up? After I got sick?”
“Yeah.”
I put my hand on his arm. “Thank you.”
Slowly he moves his hands from my shoulders, down to my hips, and leaves them there. “Jack.”
“What?”
For an answer I put my palms on his chest and lean the front of my body against the front of his. His thumbs slip under my T-shirt and touch the soft skin above my waistband and I shiver. The darkness completely hides him from me, so when his lips brush my forehead, I jump. He traces his lips across my forehead, over my temple, and then our noses bump as his lips find mine. His hands squeeze my hips, and fire burns behind my closed eyes. I grab his face and pull his mouth harder against mine and kiss him like I’m going to die. I kiss him because I am going to die if he can’t get me out of here.
He pushes me back and it takes a minute for him to catch his breath. “I hope we both make it out of here alive. I want more time with you,” he whispers. He opens the door and I follow him out.
The hallway is lighter than the room we’ve just left and I can almost see. We turn the corner we turned earlier, pause for a minute, and then Kevin starts walking fast, pulling me behind him. I have to trot to match his pace. At the end of the hall looms a big gray rectangle. As we approach it, I realize what it is—glass doors leading outside—and my heart starts pounding with anticipation.
We reach the doors and Kevin doesn’t pause, just pushes them open and walks out into the pale-gray predawn world.
We are in a parking lot with four-wheelers parked on top of faded parking-space lines. The cracked pavement hurts my bare feet. Kevin pulls me behind one of the vehicles, and we crouch. His eyes lock on mine, and I want to cry at the fear that is making his pupils huge and his mouth a hard line. “There’s this place,” he whispers, “where uninfected bees are alive. Where people are growing a new way of living.” A dog howls, and Kevin jumps and looks over his shoulder.
I’m too shocked to move. “Where?” I ask.
“In the Rockies—there are high-pressure pockets in the high elevations where the pesticide didn’t reach. Ward, Colorado, is one of them. People are there, hoping for a cure. Waiting for a cure. My sister—” Kevin jumps again and looks over his shoulder.
“You’re the Siren. You lead people to this place, don’t you? You get them away from the raiders and help them find these places.”
He nods.
“Did you ever meet a man named Dean Bloom? Did you take him to this place?”
Kevin nods and then looks down.
“Is he still there? That’s my brother! That’s who I’m looking for out here!”
“He brought an older woman up there to live—Abigail Tarsis—but he didn’t stay.”
“Why didn’t Dean stay? Where did he go?”
Kevin focuses on my face. “He said he needed to get back to Denver.”
All the hope I have been clinging to since the day my brother left fades away. Dean never made it back to Denver. He’s probably dead.
I think back to what Jonah said. “If you’re the Siren, did you free the raiders’ women?”
“Yes, but I had help.” He presses his palm to the side of my face. “You have to go now. Find Fo. She has the map I made for you. When you get to Ward, tell them I sent you, and tell them a cure has been found. Tell them I’ll try to bring it to them.” His hand drops to his side.
Every part of me freezes except my mouth, which drops open.
“Go!” Kevin grabs my shoulder and gives me a small shove.
“But—” I grab his shirt and pull him so close our noses touch. “Aren’t you coming with me?”
“No! Go! You only have . . .” He looks at his watch. “You only have four minutes before they switch out the watch. You have to go now!” He stands and pulls me to my feet. “Run!”
Slowly, I take a step away from him, staring at him so hard I might absorb him into my mind forever. And then I turn. I put one foot in front of the other. And I run.