Chapter 9 — What My Blood Could Buy

Lena made me say it back to her.

“This is not a cure.”

“I know.”

“You may still become confused. Your judgment may change before you notice.”

“Tess watches me. Eli stays clear if I stop making sense.”

Eli lifted his head.

“I’m sitting right here.”

“I know.”

“Then talk to me.”

I turned toward him.

“If I become dangerous, don’t argue about whether I mean it.”

He looked away.

I waited.

Finally, he nodded.

Lena gave me the dose.

It burned.

For several minutes, nothing changed.

Then the pounding behind my eyes eased, and the cold spreading through my fingers began to recede.

I could breathe without feeling as if the air had become too thick.

Tess watched my face.

“Better?”

“Enough.”

She didn’t smile.

Lena wrote the time on my wrist, above the bandage.

Then she wrote it in Eli’s notebook.

No secret.

No pretending.

I had watched my brother suffer because someone else wanted control of the medicine.

I wasn’t going to make him guess what was happening to me.

There were nine vehicles in the lower yard.

Two buses, three delivery trucks, the white recovery vehicles, and our patched van.

People argued over seats until Tess climbed onto the hood of the nearest truck and started assigning them.

“Children with an adult. Injured people where they can lie down. Drivers stay with your vehicles. If you’re looking for somebody, tell the woman with the blue scarf.”

The woman with the blue scarf looked startled.

Then she took out a pencil.

Eli checked the road instructions with the motor-pool mechanic.

Shaw brought Nora and her son from the clinic.

Lena followed with a box of medical supplies.

We were becoming a group.

Messy. Frightened. Slow.

But people were beginning to ask one another what they needed.

Tess came to me while Lena checked another patient.

“More blood means more doses, right?”

I knew where she was going.

“No.”

“You haven’t heard me.”

“I have.”

“Lena could supervise. I could stay here long enough—”

“No.”

Her expression hardened.

“Don’t decide for me.”

I stopped.

She was right.

Even now, she was right.

I swallowed.

“You can decide to help. I’m asking you not to make staying alive my price for your freedom.”

She stared at my bandage.

“There has to be something.”

“Then help everyone leave.”

Her mouth trembled once.

She pressed it closed.

“I hate you a little.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You keep doing things that make it impossible to leave you.”

I took her uninjured hand.

“For eight years, we talked about getting out.”

“This isn’t what I meant.”

“Me neither.”

Graham sat inside the cab of the first recovery truck.

Shaw had removed its keys and his weapon.

I climbed onto the running board.

He looked at my arm.

For once, he had nothing ready to say.

“The voice outside the bunker,” I said. “Explain it.”

“It was a field assessment.”

“For what?”

He rubbed his gloved hands together.

I waited.

“For response,” he said finally. “Who opens. Who refuses. Who takes charge. Who leaves cover to help someone.”

“You brought an infected person to our door.”

“An observation team brought it to the perimeter.”

“You agreed.”

“Yes.”

The word was almost inaudible.

“Why use Eli?”

“Because you’d respond to him.”

I looked down at the mud on his boots.

All those years, he had sent me out and told me what to bring back.

Food.

Medicine.

Parts.

He had known which name would get me to open a door.

“Were you trying to kill us?”

“No.”

“What happened in the duct?”

“It wasn’t supposed to reach the intake.”

“That’s your answer?”

His face tightened.

“It was supposed to stay on the landing. The handler lost control.”

“And you still wanted me to open the door.”

“They wanted to see what you’d do.”

I leaned closer.

“Who?”

“Bell’s recovery program.”

“What happened to people who passed?”

Graham looked toward the buses.

I understood before he answered.

Useful.

Brave enough to go outside.

Attached enough to other people to be controlled.

“Did you know about the donors?”

“Not at first.”

“And later?”

He said nothing.

I stepped off the truck.

Behind me, he spoke quickly.

“Rowan. Listen. Bell has a private vehicle. Armored. He’s taking the reserve doses.”

I turned.

“Where?”

“Administration garage.”

“How do you know?”

“I was supposed to drive the lead escort.”

Shaw heard that.

He opened the cab door and took Graham by the shoulder.

“You’re coming with us.”

Graham didn’t resist.

He kept looking at my bandage.

The mechanic found the evacuation order on the dispatch terminal.

Not a rescue order.

A priority departure.

DIRECTOR VEHICLE. EAST ACCESS. CLOSE BEHIND.

Below it was a second instruction.

RESIDENT MOVEMENT SUSPENDED UNTIL PERIMETER STABLE.

Tess read it twice.

“He’s taking the road.”

“The only road our buses can use,” the mechanic said.

Eli leaned over the map.

“The gate?”

“Powered sliding barrier. Bell can close it from administration. Once it locks, we need the gate-control station to release it.”

“Can you do that?” I asked.

The mechanic shook his head.

“Not without authorization.”

I thought of the motor cabinet I had inspected on my first maintenance shift.

The wiring diagram clipped inside its door.

The local override.

I hadn’t studied it because I expected to escape through it.

I had studied it because old machines failed, and I wanted to know how to fix one.

“I can get it open.”

Tess looked at me.

“Then we go together.”

“No. You need to move the vehicles as soon as there’s space.”

“Shaw can drive.”

“He can hold the road. Eli can coordinate. You’re the one people are already listening to.”

She hated that I was right.

I could see it.

Lena came over.

“Rowan, let me check you.”

I followed her finger.

Correctly, I thought.

Then she asked me to pick up a small washer from the workbench.

It took two tries.

My fingertips had begun to feel thick.

Lena looked at the time on my wrist.

“That’s sooner than I hoped.”

“How long?”

“I can’t give you a reliable number.”

“What can you give me?”

She held my gaze.

“You’re still making sense. Use that.”

I put the route map inside my jacket.

Eli handed me a radio.

He had marked the transmit button with a strip of red cloth so I could find it without looking.

“Check in every five minutes.”

“I will.”

“Not when you remember. Every five.”

I nodded.

Tess gave me a wrench.

The same heavy one she had put in my hand when I broke into Graham’s medicine cabinet.

I closed my fingers around it.

This time, I had to watch them.

The control building stood above the east service road.

Its windows overlooked the gate, the culvert, and the first bend toward the old treatment plant.

Beyond the northern wall, smoke rose over the treetops.

A white armored vehicle rolled out of the administration garage.

I saw Bell in the passenger seat.

Behind him, a guard loaded a metal case.

Medicine, probably.

Another case followed.

Files.

I crossed behind a parked maintenance cart and reached the control-building stairs.

My radio clicked.

“Rowan?” Eli asked.

“Here.”

“We’re ready.”

I looked through the window.

On the control desk, a red indicator blinked beside the words REMOTE DEPARTURE.

A countdown appeared beneath it.

Bell’s vehicle accelerated toward the road.

I gripped the wrench harder and pushed open the door.

The countdown kept falling.