Chimera (Parasitology) (23 page)

“So we’d get someone new, and we wouldn’t get Tansy back,” I said slowly. “I don’t want that.”

“None of us do,” said Dr. Cale. “That’s why she’s still on life support. We’re trying to find another way. Barring a miracle, I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

I worried my lip between my teeth, trying to take some comfort from the drums that were beating in my ears. If there was comfort there to be found, it was well outside my reach. “Oh,” I said finally. “Is that why you’re back here?”

Dr. Cale nodded. “The basic structure of the lab was still intact. It was a place we could run to quickly, without putting ourselves too squarely in one of the existing danger zones. We couldn’t go very far. This was the best option we had.”

“Why not?” I asked.

Juniper, apparently tired of Dr. Cale’s attentions, turned and held her arms out toward me. “Sal,” she said.

“Exactly,” said Dr. Cale.

Unlike the candy factory, which had been large enough to contain the lab, provide living quarters for everyone who worked with Dr. Cale, and even allow us to grow our own food, the bowling alley was limited. It was still an enormous space, even subdivided as it had been, but it wasn’t enough for everything it would have needed to be if it was going to be our only headquarters.

Shortly after Dr. Cale and her people had returned to the
bowling alley, with chaos reigning in the streets of Clayton and Concord, she had set her people to securing the area. I didn’t need to ask what “securing” had meant, or how many bullets they had gone through: The subtext of death and regret was written clearly in the word itself. Clearly, but not cleanly. None of our hands were ever going to be clean again.

“There are almost no sleepwalkers left in Clayton,” said Nathan, leading me across the bowling alley parking lot, toward the apartment buildings on the other side. It was dark, but it looked like pieces were missing from the fence between the two places, making it possible to walk straight through. “The ones that weren’t killed have been contained in the old Kmart. We’re keeping them fed and giving them plenty of sterilized water. Mom wants to see whether they’ll eventually start recovering.”

“I think it’s possible.” Juniper was getting heavier and heavier as I carried her. After I’d taken her back from Dr. Cale, she had locked her arms around my neck and refused to let me put her down again. It was almost comforting. No matter what terrible surprises were waiting up ahead, there was someone in this world who needed me more than anything else. She trusted me to take care of her. I was going to do exactly that.

“So does she. She says the neural connections between a sleepwalker’s implant and host are damaged, but that they can be repaired or worked around in some cases. Maybe even reach the level of a chimera’s connections.” Nathan stole glances at me as we walked, like he was reassuring himself that I was actually there. I was doing the same thing in response. I loved Juniper with all my heart—it was almost frightening, how quickly and completely I had come to love that little girl—but part of me wished she had taken to Dr. Cale more, so that my arms would be free. So that I could put them around Nathan.

This is what every parent with a new baby feels like,
I thought, and felt laughter bubble in my chest, even as wonder
swelled in my heart. I was a parent now. I was a parent like every other parent, ever, regardless of species. Species didn’t matter. Only love, and survival, had a place in the game.

“Carrie…”

“Your friend’s been sedated, and Mom’s got her under observation. When she wakes up, Fang will come and get us. I know you’re going to want to be there.”

Was I really? Carrie wasn’t a “friend,” not the way my coworkers at the shelter had been friends, before everything changed. Carrie was an acquaintance that I’d been able to use for a while but who didn’t really know anything about me. She already thought I was insane for bringing her to Dr. Cale. How was she going to respond when she found out that I was a monster, like the one that had killed her husband?

But she was here because of me. She was trapped because of me. I owed it to her to be there when she woke up, even if all I could say was that I was sorry things hadn’t been different: that I was sorry she had never really had a chance.

“Are you mad at me?”

Nathan’s question was so abrupt that I actually stopped walking. He continued for a few feet more, his feet crunching on the gravel, before he realized I was no longer in motion. He stopped, turning back to face me, and what little of his expression I could read through the dark was bleak, all hard lines and self-recrimination.

“What?” I whispered.

“I should have found another way. I
could
have found another way, if I’d stopped and thought about what I was doing. I’m so sorry, Sal. I let them take you because I was scared, and because I thought we’d be able to turn right around and get you back. But they loaded you into that truck, and…” His voice trailed off hopelessly. “You were gone. Before we even had a chance to come up with a plan for breaking you out of there, you were gone.”

“Nathan.” I started walking again, closing the distance between us, and raised my free hand to touch his cheek. “I was never mad at you. I’m not mad at you now.” I had said it before. I would say it again, and again, until he started to believe me. “You left because I
asked
you to. If you hadn’t been willing to leave me when it was the only way to save yourself—when I’d traded myself for the chance that you’d get out—then I would have been mad. We’re a team. That means we have to trust each other.”

Nathan chuckled thickly, and I realized he was crying. “It’d be nice if trusting each other took you away from me less often. Can we try that, please?”

“I think we sort of have to.” I nodded toward Juniper, content with her head on my shoulder and her arms around my neck. “Who’s going to take care of her if I get captured again?”

“I like the kid already.” He offered his hand. This time, I laced my fingers with his, letting him hold me. Let Juniper get heavy and dig into my hip. It was too important that I stay connected to Nathan for me to worry about something so inconsequential.

We walked the rest of the way to the fence hand in hand. Nathan ducked his head as he stepped through, and I did the same, letting him guide me.

The gap led to a dry, dead lawn. The apartments here were built on two levels, with open-air parking underneath. To my surprise, as we got closer, dim lights came on in the carports, concealed by the structures above them. Concrete stairs with rusty iron handrails led to the second-floor balcony. Nathan started for the nearest set.

“This whole block is on generator power, and we have motion sensors on the carports—
all
the carports, not just the inhabited buildings. That way if anyone comes here looking for signs that people are still around, they’ll think they’ve found a wiring error. They exist in this area. Too many architects building too
many towns too quickly during the big tech expansions of the naughties and the teens. There are all sorts of redundant systems and channels no one understands.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Mind the steps. A lot of people have skinned their knees on these things.” Nathan shook his head. “I should probably have chosen something on the ground floor, all things considered, but the second-story apartments are more secure. I didn’t want us to have to move again until this was over.”

All things considered… I swallowed, took a deep breath, and asked the question that had been gnawing at me since we’d started walking across the parking lot. “Nathan, where are the dogs?”

I didn’t need to see his face to hear the smile in his voice. “Waiting for you.”

He stopped at the first apartment, producing a set of keys from his pocket and unlocking the deadbolt. Silence reigned. He knocked twice on the door, and then pushed it open.

Two things happened in quick succession: The lights came on inside the apartment, revealing a small living room with threadbare brown carpet and an old, stained, comfortable-looking white couch. And we were swarmed by dogs. Beverly and Minnie might not be a whole pack by themselves, but they were more than capable of swarming when excited. Their tails wagged wildly as they tried to shove themselves as close to me as possible. Minnie’s stocky bulldog body kept her low to the ground. Beverly, a sleek black Lab, reared up onto her hind legs, planting her forepaws on my upper arms as she shoved her muzzle first at me and then at Juniper.

To her credit, Juniper—who had probably never seen a dog before—merely blinked at Beverly and made a small whimpering noise. It seemed more inquisitive than distressed.

“Hi, sweetie! Hi, my babies!” I said, and ducked my head to let Beverly wash my face with her tongue. Beverly made a
whining noise that was not dissimilar to the one Juniper had made. She licked me one more time, and then Nathan was there, gripping her collar and pulling her back.

“Down,” he said. “Both of you, down. Guard. Watch.”

To my surprise, the dogs quieted immediately, sitting down and turning their eyes on the open door. There was a wary tension in their bodies that hadn’t been there a moment before. I turned to stare at Nathan.

“I had to teach them some things while you were away,” he said. “Fang has experience with dog training, and there’s a Petco near here—we raided the place for all their books on obedience and quick behavioral adjustment. They’d attract too much attention if they barked all the time, and they were incredibly upset when you didn’t come home. So was I.”

He turned to close the door, locking the deadbolt. He gestured toward the curtains as he turned back to me. “Blackout curtains, triple-thick. We’ve scanned this whole neighborhood, and we’re creating zero light pollution when the doors are closed. It can get stuffy sometimes, but we won’t give ourselves away.”

Juniper was still watching the dogs, her arms locked around my neck. If the dogs were a danger, she clearly believed I would prevent them from harming her. She was learning who her friends were. That made me feel better about the situation. Chimera were fast learners, all of us, and if Juniper was no different, she might stand a chance at survival.

“Let me show you the rest of the apartment,” Nathan said, reaching for my free hand. I let him take it, and he led me onward, to the kitchen.

The apartment was small. Living room, kitchen, bathroom, and two bedrooms at the back, one larger than the other, dominated by a king-sized bed and dresser set. The other room must have belonged to the children of the people who bought that bed: The walls were covered in crayon marks and stickers, and the two beds, one against each wall, were sized for smaller
people. The air was musty, but it was nothing compared to the air in the Old Navy, or the diner, or under the dock. In a world that was crumbling into dust and decay, this apartment might as well have been a showroom.

“I picked it because I thought you might want to set the plants up in here when you got home,” said Nathan, almost babbling in his nervousness. “I guess it was lucky, since now we have someone who needs the space.”

It was clear he didn’t want Juniper sleeping with us. Part of me wanted to balk at that—she was my child, she belonged where I was—but the majority of me agreed with him. She wasn’t a baby. She didn’t need me beside her to get through the night, not here in our safe, well-locked apartment.

Most of all, I needed Nathan. I needed to sleep with his arms around me, knowing that he was never going to let me go again. I needed to know that I was
home
.

“All our clothes and things are in the SUV,” I said, stepping into the children’s room and flicking on the light. The ubiquitous blackout curtains covered the window, but whoever had hung them hadn’t bothered to change anything else. Turning the light on activated a night-light shaped like a pink turtle, and cast a spray of bright stars across the ceiling. They were pink and blue and purple, and visible even with the overhead light turned on.

“That’s a Terra Turtle,” said Nathan, sounding impressed. “I had one of those when I was a kid. It’ll keep making light for about an hour after bedtime, if you leave it connected to the main circuit long enough for it to charge all the way.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” I said. Juniper was staring in wonder at the lights dancing along the walls and ceiling. I took advantage of her amazement to walk across the room to the nearer bed and set her gently down.

“Sal?” She looked back to me, blinking quizzically, and reached her arms up to be held.

“You figured that one out fast, huh, kiddo?” I pushed her hand gently down. “This is going to be your room. We’re going to live here.”

“Sal.” She pouted. It wasn’t a very practiced expression—not yet—but I could tell from the easy way her face fell into it that I was going to be seeing it a lot. Probably more often than I wanted to.

“Yes, Sal. And this is Nathan.” I pointed to Nathan. “
Nathan
. Can you say his name, too? You can’t have a whole language that’s just my name. It won’t work.”

Beverly and Minnie squeezed through the door and sat down at either side of my feet, leaning up against my legs like they were never going to move again. Nathan was still behind me. The tension in my back and shoulders was continuing to untangle, letting go one microscopic inch at a time. It might never fully release again—I might walk through the rest of my days waiting for the other shoe to fall—but for right now, it was safe for me to relax. Just a little.

“Sal,” said Juniper dubiously, looking at the dogs.

“This is Beverly.” I put my hand on the Lab’s head. She shuddered ecstatically at my touch. Stooping down farther, I set my other hand on Minnie’s shoulder. The bulldog was more restrained in her reaction, but looked adoringly up at me, her big pink tongue lolling. “This is Minnie. Beverly and Minnie. They live here with us. They’re our friends. Can you say hello, Juniper? Can you say hello to our friends?”

Juniper looked at me, and didn’t say anything. I sighed.

“I sure hope she likes your mom,” I said, looking back to Nathan. “I don’t think I can teach her to be a person all by myself.”