Authors: Caitlin Sinead
Chapter Thirty-Nine
When you’ve destroyed your best friend and she tells you she wants to be alone, when you want to give her time to process things before you turn over her boyfriend’s notebook to the police, there’s really only one thing to do.
Drink.
But drinking alone is depressing, especially in dire circumstances, and Luke and Rashid are both complicated.
I need a break. A reprieve.
And I get just that. Conrad.
We sit in Sally’s, him savoring his craft brew, me downing my wine and looking frantically around for Sally to get a refill. I barely hear what he says, something about how one benefit of the quarantine is that it has brought us all together. “We are a community,” he says. “We are all in this together.”
“You mean all the healthy Allan originals are in it together, and maybe the healthy Poe people are in it together, and they’re both scared shitless of people like me,” I say.
“You look healthy to me,” Conrad says. “Everyone here looks healthy to me.” His hand covers mine. His touch, as always, is calming.
I continue to look for Sally and instead see purple-eyed patron after purple-eyed patron. Natalie and her crew have been posting about how bars, and this pub in general, were cesspools for the disease. She makes it sound like Sally doesn’t wash her dishes, when all you had to do was look around on a normal night—before this all happened—to see students playing quarters or kings or other drinking games that cause fluids to mix about. I guess the bar has been mostly taken over by people who no longer care about catching it. They are already perfectly purpled.
“You know what I mean,” I whisper, and examine the wine in my hands instead of looking at the people around me.
Jared bursts into the bar, the door swinging violently behind him as the wind howls outside. Say what you will about him, he can make an entrance.
“You must not lose faith. It’s not too late to seek the right path!” His voice booms with charisma. I feel like a cartoon character that has smelled something and is drawn to it by its nose alone, feet dragging and scratching along the floor. The smell is Jared’s voice, the nose is my ear. It’s enticing.
“We must work together to eliminate the purple eyes! We must save ourselves!”
Okay, not so enticing that I don’t recognize a threat.
“We should go,” I say to Conrad.
Conrad says nothing. He just watches. His face is tense, but otherwise unreadable.
“My fellow Christians,” Jared continues, “as you would follow Christ, follow me out of this sinful dwelling and away from the evils of alcohol.”
Yeah, he sort of loses the audience there. Lambasting people with purple eyes is one thing. Lambasting a whiskey or a beer is quite another. At least in Allan.
Boos thunder across the room. Some guy throws a dart and hits Jared’s arm. Jared touches the cut. He stares at his hand as he rubs the blood between his fingertips. He looks so lost a part of me wants to go to him. But why would I try to help someone who’s out to get me?
Glass shatters near the front of the bar. Everyone shoots out of their seats to look. It’s a bottle with a rag in it. The rag has rapturous flames growing from its edges. Two more bottles stuffed with rags come flying in. Fragments of voices, panicked cries, pierce through the smoke.
As the fire grows and smoke prevails, people in the bar run and push aside furniture. I get stuck behind a table. My thighs feel tight against the wall as my chest is trapped by the dark and cloudy air. I claw at the wood, frantic and constrained. Not a good mix. Conrad reaches for me. I hold my hand out to him, stretching as far as I can, but a crowd pushes forward. They push him out the door. He’s like a fish, swimming upstream, trying to get back to me.
But he can’t. He’s flushed out of the bar. The smoke and my fear race together to choke me.
Sally hoses everything with a big red extinguisher, but it’s so much. The flames roam like evil hyenas, laughing and cackling at their own destruction. Burns blister around Sally’s knuckles and her coughs reach me across the bar as it empties further with every second.
I kick and thrash and thrust at the table. I breathe heavily with the exertion, but am only rewarded with stinging air that moves down my throat like peppers. I brace myself against the wall and push the table, smidge by smidge. Eventually, I get free. I rush toward an extra extinguisher on the wall.
“Get out of here, Sally. I’ve got this,” I say. Her coughing sounds horrid, almost like it’s echoing inside me.
Oh wait, it is. I’m coughing too.
“No,” she screams, and we both shower white, soft powdery liquid over the flames that lap at the bar as though they were merely kitten’s tongues and the wood were milk. The heat gets under my skin, cooking my muscles, melting my being, but I don’t stop. In seconds, Sally is gone. She is gone. I continue spraying. The bar stools where Luke and I sat. The seats where Mandy and I first met Rashid and Zachary. I’m half hero, half reminiscent fool as the arms come around me. They hurl me over a shoulder. The extinguisher slips from my hands and thuds to the fiery floor.
I can’t move. The air clears and the bar bounces away from me. With my head up, I bob along in the patch of woods near the bar, seeing the people outside and the sirens and the lights all escaping and getting smaller. When I let my head fall, I see the upside-down back of my savior. The hips are too narrow to be a woman. A ghostly white sliver of a back peeks between jeans and a green shirt. Rashid has luxurious brown skin and is taller than whoever this is. Luke is wider, stronger. And it can’t be Conrad. He was wearing his favorite red sweater. I know, because I helped him get ready.
The woods continue to bob and bob. Then it all stops. I’m plunked down.
Hard.
There is my savior. Jared.
He pulls back, ready to dart. I grab his hand. “I don’t understand,” I say, crawling to my knees, as if I’m begging for answers. “Don’t you want me dead?”
His face wrinkles in grotesque confusion. “No, if you died now, before I could save you, you’d go to Hell. Haven’t you been listening to me?” He runs his fingers through his hair in frustration. He jerks away.
“Wait, Sally’s still in there!” I scream.
“I got her before you,” Jared says, as he races back through the woods and toward the flames.
He took me far from the bar. I sit in a small clearing among trees, just able to catch the dimmest of glimpses of my fellow survivors through the cluster of bark. The sirens still make it through, and red lights bounce against branches as the rain starts to pour. Pour.
Right now, here, with the earth between my fingers, with the trees protecting me and the rain cleansing me, rushing along the light burns on my arm, I feel something. I feel something outside of my heartbeat, my brain. I stare at the stars and wonder at the fact that I can feel these prickly burns. That, between coughs, my weakened lungs can still take in bits of the crisp, fall air.
I am alive.
And that simple fact is enough for me to pray. Not to an entity. To nothing. To everything.
Chapter Forty
When I get home, I pull out my key to unlock the door. I hold it without proceeding. There’s something wrong with the wood next to the handle. It’s popping up a little. I run my fingers over the bump. Luke said he could bust our door open in seconds. But maybe it has always been that way. Yes, it’s probably just in my head.
I turn the light on and drop my bag on the coffee table. I listen for Mandy. There’s only a dead hum. I walk down the hallway toward her room.
Her door is ajar. It’s never ajar. It’s closed when she leaves. It’s closed when she’s there.
I call her name. I press my hands against the walls and wait.
There’s no answer. I creak along the hallway, slowly, like I don’t want to find whatever is in Mandy’s room. And I don’t. Something is off. I know it before I know it.
What would Mandy have done? She’d call Zachary to confront him. She’d try to take the power back. It’s all about power. It’s all about shedding vulnerability and relinquishing fear.
But not when you’re up against a possible psycho.
Mandy’s desk chair is turned over. A glass of water is spilled on the carpet. The fibers are dented with the liquid. I bend down and hold my shaking hand to it. It’s damp. And her phone, it’s on her desk. My chest tightens. Wherever she is, she doesn’t have her phone.
I stare at her iPhone much longer than I should, before pulling out my own and calling Luke. Maybe I should call the cops first. But Luke is a cop. And he will take me seriously.
As I wait for him, I stare at the nightstand. Zachary’s notebook is gone.
Luke’s at my door ten minutes later. “I can’t stay long,” he starts. “Someone attacked Sally’s—”
He pauses in the doorframe, looking at my red, burnt knuckles, my smoky face. “Were you there?” He lifts my hand.
“Yeah,” I say. “But I’m fine.” And I am. It doesn’t hurt, much. And I’ll be shiny as new in a few hours. I don’t know if I can say the same for Mandy.
I shush him as he goes on about first aid and push him along ’til we’re in Mandy’s room. Thankfully, the potential crime scene focuses him. He looks over the area, asking if I’ve touched anything. Asking if Mandy has said anything. Asking if she’s acted strangely.
“No, not strange at all—oh except for getting purple eyes and being stuck in a quarantine where someone may be trying to kill us!” My voice is hoarse and I lean my head against the inside of the door and start bawling. I’m a hiccupping mess.
Luke holds me and brushes back my hair. “She may not even be missing. And if she is, we’ll find her, Quinn. I’ll find her.”
“Zachary took her,” I say, trying to keep my chin still. “I told Mandy he was behind it all. I’m sure Mandy confronted him and he must have taken her somewhere to shut her up.”
Luke’s eyes go hard. But he waits. I start talking with my hands and, amidst all the gesticulations and frantic thoughts, I’m somehow able to tell him what Rashid and I found. At the mention of Rashid, Luke’s lips move together and his arms cross, but he stays quiet. It’s freeing, being able to talk. Having him listen.
When I finish, I expect him to grab his phone and rush off to Zachary’s house to arrest him. That’s what’s supposed to happen. So why is he still standing there, looking at me?
“Quinn,” he says. “We’ll talk to Zachary. As soon as Mandy has been missing for twenty-four hours, we’ll investigate and he’ll be the first one on my list. Trust me.”
“That’s too long,” I say. “She’s in trouble, Luke. I know it.”
“Quinn,” he says patiently, with a big breath filling his chest. “Police resources are already stretched. And all I have here is a girl who forgot her phone in a messy room before she got a cup of joe and hunkered down somewhere to study. Hell, you told me yourself you saw her three hours ago.”
My mouth hangs open. I whimper. “She’s gone.”
Luke reaches for me. I step back. He sighs. “I’m sorry, Quinn. I’ll do what I can, of course. I’ll help you. But we can’t just arrest Zachary based on our hunches.”
Fine. Fight the battles you can win.
“So you can’t do anything about this,” I say, my wrists limp as my hands float around the room. “But you’re looking into Zachary about the disease, right?” My voice is growing gruff. My head is pounding.
I don’t understand why Luke’s shoulders round over his chest. “We are, but it’s slow going.” He shakes his head. “We got a warrant to look through his lab. We talked to health and human services about getting access to any research at Poe that might be related to the disease.”
“And you got it?” I ask.
“Well, not exactly,” Luke says, scratching his chin and looking at the ground.
“What?” I say.
“The NSA has moved to quash the warrant,” Luke says.
“The NSA? You mean the National Security Agency? What does this have to do with—”
“I don’t know, Quinn,” Luke says, hands on his hips. “They won’t let us look at his research. They say it has nothing to do with the disease, but Chief Erikson and I think the lot of them are full of shit.” He shrugs. “Still, as far as Zachary and his government-funded research goes, my hands are tied.”
My body feels like it weighs nothing. My legs decide they don’t want to work—I stumble and Luke catches me. He gets me to sit on the bed and he smooths my hair and brushes my cheek. “Quinn, listen to me. I never let a few hurdles get in my way. If Mandy’s missing, I’ll find her and I’ll deliver her back to this room safe as a tick on a dog with a stiff neck.”
I wish I could believe him.
Chapter Forty-One
I trust Luke. I do, but I can’t rely on just him. I can’t rely on a man who’s entwined with all the legal trappings that come with wearing a badge. He’ll never win against a man who isn’t.
I’ve got to talk to Zachary.
But that will worry Luke. He wouldn’t understand that Zachary would talk to me. Probably. Maybe. So I tell Luke I’ll make myself some chamomile tea and get into pink fuzzy jammies and read until he’s off his shift and can come over. I bury my face in his chest. I spoon-feed it to him.
But once he’s gone I stuff my phone into a bag, slip on some flip-flops and jeans, and book it to Zachary and Rashid’s.
It’s getting dark. That cool autumn smell of evening is coming and the air has hints of smoke from billowing fireplaces. Families and friends huddle around warmth while my breath fogs the air.
Mandy is missing. Everything is foggy.
I have to talk to Zachary.
I turn the corner. I’m about to rush up to their door, but Zachary is in the distance. His tall and lanky figure walks away from me. He has a huge backpack. He’s in all black, which strikes me because he’s normally a jeans and alligator shirt type of guy.
I almost yell to him, but I clamp one hand over my mouth. And then the other. Insurance. Wearing a mask of hands, I stand, shaking, as the idea curls up into my mind.
I should follow him.
Maybe he’ll lead me to wherever he’s keeping Mandy.
I take off my flip-flops. They weren’t doing much to keep my toes warm in this weather anyway, and they smack against the brick walkway. I don’t want him to hear the smacking.
The cold bricks connect with my heels and the shivers itch their way up my bones.
I’m impressed with how silent I am, my jeans just brushing the ground, until someone says my name.
And of course Zachary notices. He looks back as Conrad crosses the street to talk to me, all smiles. He’s always all smiles. Even after a life-threatening experience.
“I like the no-shoes look,” he says. But then his eyebrows lift up into a slight triangle. There’s something stormy in his eyes. “Have you been crying?”
I nod. I must be quiet because Zachary is walking away. His dark shadow hovers over Conrad’s shoulder.
“Mandy’s missing,” I whisper. I work hard to keep my jaw straight enough to say the words.
Conrad puts a hand on my shoulder but turns to see what I’m staring at, the figure floating down the sidewalk into the mist. The figure turning a corner. I’m losing him.
Conrad’s hand tightens, he grips me. He looks at the ground. “Stay safe.” A little water sprays on me as he steps in a puddle while he pivots to walk home.
I can’t lose any time. And I won’t catch Zachary by walking down the sidewalk. I take a direct route, between houses, ducking through clotheslines and stepping over carrots in gardens. The grass brushes my toes.
When I get to the street Zachary had turned onto, I see him walking away from town. It’s a long stretch of road that wanders through miles of woods, Allan County’s nature reserve. I’m about to start following him directly, but he looks back and I dart behind a bush before he sees me. I squint so that my slightly luminescent purple eyes don’t give me away. His eyebrows furrow and he grabs his backpack straps more securely. He hunches, as though he’s looking for something. He is. He is looking for me. My crouch is uncomfortable. My legs fall asleep and I have to hold on to the bush so I don’t teeter over.
Just when I’m sure he sees me—when I’m sure I’ll have to tell him that I’m studying bushes at night for my next art project—he runs his hand through his hair. He adjusts his weighty backpack. He continues on.
I skirt into the woods beside the road. I have to maneuver sticks and rustling leaves while also keeping Zachary in my sight. Every time I step on a twig—the sharp wood thrusting against my bare skin—I freeze, breathing fast, heart thumping. Then I keep walking.
We walk forever. The moon shimmers through the sinewy tree branches. Limp leaves hang as the wind tickles them. It’s not quite their turn to fall into the mess of dead, dry leaves below. Where could Zachary be going? This is all woods. Is Mandy alone and scared in some deep pocket of the forest? We could hit the quarantine line.
Zachary stops. He turns ninety degrees to stare into the woods. I get as skinny as possible behind a tree. His footsteps rub against the gravel of the side of the road and then pad on the soft grass before, finally, they crunch into the leaves on the forest floor. I clench my teeth and tell myself to stay still. Just stay still.
The crunching against the leaves grows deeper, closer. As the steps come toward me, I have one thought: I am an idiot.
This was all a trick. He lured me here so he can kill me. One less purple-eyed student. Even better, one less purple-eyed student who knows he’s the one who caused the purple eyes. I am alone in the middle of the woods. Hell, I don’t even have shoes on. My greatest weapon is my flip-flops.
He stops. He must be about ten feet behind me. I hear his backpack slide off his shoulder. It crunches the leaves as it plops to the ground. Zachary’s hands hit the fabric of the backpack as he rummages around for something.
My eyes shut and I feel the water coming through them. Hot tears streaming along my cold face.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I tried so hard to save Mandy, I didn’t think of saving myself.
I’m certain, absolutely certain that he is about to come at me. Will he hold a blade to my neck, teasing me, before he cuts my throat? Will he hold me down before he decapitates me?
Not if I can run.
My blood rushes and my body says
flee, flee, flee.
But my mind says to wait.
Fucking mind.
Having retrieved whatever he was looking for, he picks the backpack up and shifts it onto his back with a groan.
His footsteps come toward me. I have to run now. I tell myself this over and over and over.
Run. Run. Run.
But I can’t. I can feel the cold ground below me and the bark under my fingertips, which are clutching at the trunk of the tree, but my muscles won’t listen. Or my mind will not give the order.
His footsteps are so close, and then he’s next to me. I hear him breathing. I smell the cologne that always let me know when he was over. And then I see his back. Then his back gets smaller and smaller. His backpack bounces along as his footsteps get softer and softer. He’s walking farther and farther away from me.
He walked past me. He didn’t see me.
He stops about thirty yards from me, and looks at something in his palm. He circles and moves like a dog trying to figure out where to bury a bone. Or, wait, like a man trying to read a compass by moonlight. He shifts direction slightly and continues.
I breathe in the tree. I breathe in the stars and the leaves and the October dust until I can move. I follow Zachary.
We tumble along, me tumbling as little as possible, until he comes upon a field. As he walks out into it, I stay back. If I leave the trees, I’ll be exposed. But if I don’t leave, I’ll lose him. How can I not lose him? How can I make sure to know where he’s going? How can I save Mandy, without offering myself up to the open field?
Shouts disrupt any good idea that might have gurgled to the surface. A large flashlight beam comes from across the field, illuminating Zachary. In the white light, he looks almost like a fallen angel. Men run toward him, more flashlights bobbing and bouncing, shovels and shotguns clenched in fists, roaring shouts cutting through the night.
“Freeze!”
“Drop the bag.”
“No sickos are infecting our town!”
Zachary was trying to leave the quarantine.
And now we’re both stuck. My fingers claw at my hair.
After he freezes, he squints into the light. He lifts his hands slowly, toward his backpack strap. Like he’s going to take it off. But he doesn’t take it off. Instead he sprints out of the beam. But he isn’t fast enough.
A man with a scraggly beard and too-big overalls clutches Zachary’s shirt, twists him around and punches him in the jaw. Even from where I stand, I can see how the blood squirts onto the moonlit blades of grass. They continue to punch and kick. One man slams Zachary with a shovel handle.
“Stop! Can’t you see he’s down?” I am screaming. I am running toward Zachary.
I am an idiot.