“How did you get in here?” Daniels asked, and he relaxed a bit after Max made our introductions. He even let the door shut behind him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I shrugged. “What the hell are you doing here? What are you doing to my little brother?”
“You’re aware of his condition?” Daniels tilted his head uncertainly at me.
“I know he’s not sick,” I said carefully. “He’s the opposite of sick, but he looks very ill. What are you doing to make him look like that?”
“I’m helping the world!” Max protested.
“You don’t need to help the world! You need to be a little kid,” I told him gently. “You need to leave with me.”
“Max, wait!” Daniels held up his hand, but Max hadn’t made a move to go anywhere. “All the people in the world are very, very sick. You’ve seen what it does to people, haven’t you? Like your parents? You can stop that. You can save them. Your blood is the cure.”
“This isn’t his responsibility!” I stepped in front of Max, blocking him from Daniels. “And you don’t know that! There isn’t a cure yet! You may never find the cure, and Max might not hold the answer!”
“But he could! He does!” Daniels insisted.
“I don’t care!” I snapped. “You’re making him sick! He wasn’t this bad before. When they did tests on him in the old quarantine, he never looked like this!”
“They weren’t going fast enough,” Daniels said. “By the time they found a cure, everyone would be dead. He could save the entire human race!”
“How can he save the world if he’s dead?” I looked back at Max. His eyes were wide and glassy, and I’m not sure how much of the conversation he followed.
“If we don’t find the cure soon, there won’t be a world left to save,” Daniels said. “The zombies are getting smarter. They’re working together and tracking humans. It won’t be long before they find a way to kill everyone.”
“So your solution is to kill the only kid with a cure?” I asked skeptically.
“We’re not trying to, but we need to get everything
now
,” Daniels explained as reasonably as he could. “We’re getting all this genetic material before that happens.”
“So… you know it’s going to happen? You’re planning on it?” I actually started shaking with rage and clenched my fists. They were killing him, and they knew it, and they didn’t care.
“Do you think that everyone in the whole world should die so one kid doesn’t suffer?” Daniels looked at me skeptically. “That’s your argument?”
“Pretty much.” I walked over to Max to start undoing his IV. “He can’t live like this. I won’t let him.”
“You can’t take him.” Daniels pushed a button by the door, presumably calling for help.
I knew he was right. No matter how badly I wanted to, I couldn’t just take my brother out of an armed building. Not on my own.
“Max,” I crouched down in front of him, putting my hands on his knees. “I promise I will get you out of here.”
“But if I can save people, I should,” Max said.
“Not like this,” I insisted. “The world isn’t your responsibility, okay? This isn’t your burden.”
“No, Remy, this isn’t
your
burden.” His eyes looked darker set against his ashen skin, and I hated how reasonable he sounded.
Wise beyond his years, but he’d always been that way. A weird combination of little kid and old man that I had never understood. I was proud of him for wanting to sacrifice himself to do the right thing, but I was mad at him too. He didn’t need to do this.
He didn’t need to die, and I wouldn’t let him.
The door behind me opened, and a guard came in. He grabbed me by my arms and pulled me to my feet, but I didn’t put up a fight. I knew it would be futile in the long run, and I didn’t want Max to see me like that.
He just stared up at me, already resigned to living like this. As the guard pulled me out, Max’s sad face was the last thing that I saw.
I realized exactly what I had to do.
– 21 –
“You are so,
so
lucky you know me,” Tatum repeated for the twentieth time as he paced in front of me. I leaned back against the trailer, where we had been standing for the past fifteen minutes as he lectured me.
Tatum actually did have some clout around here, and using all of his considerable charm, he’d talked the officials into letting me go with a warning. They called it extenuating circumstances, but next time, I’d get the stockades.
For a while, people loitered around us. We had been a spectacle of sorts, but everyone had gone away now. It was just the two of us, hidden in the shadows of the trailer, so he could calm down the show he’d been putting on. He’d been playing it up like he had nothing to do with it.
“I shouldn’t have let you talk me into that.” Tatum rubbed his jaw and stared off at nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely.
He had put himself on the line for me, and it wasn’t until his sergeant was berating us both that I realized what that meant. At least nobody had figured out his involvement, or Blue’s, and I was very grateful for that.
“It’s alright,” he shrugged and looked back at me. “But the least you could’ve done was wore that skirt out here.”
“I didn’t exactly have a chance to change.” I had abandoned the clothes Harlow had given me and worn the blue scrubs.
“Just lay low for a while,” Tatum said, wrapping up his speech. “I don’t know what happened up there, and you look upset about it. But just forget about it, okay? You got to see your brother.”
“Mmm,” I muttered noncommittally.
I needed to ask him another favor, but now didn’t seem the time to do it. Maybe tomorrow. He was right. I should wait until this all blew over, but I couldn’t wait that long. Not after I had seen how they kept Max.
They were killing him, with all their tests and research. I knew they were trying to save the world and all that, but it didn’t give them the right to treat a little boy like a lab rat.
Tatum walked me back to my trailer, grumbling things about all the ass he was gonna have to kiss to get out of this. I apologized again, but every time I did, he brushed it off, as if it wasn’t actually that big of a deal.
I didn’t realize we were at my trailer until he stopped walking, and I glanced up at the door and saw my house number.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Well, you’re just lucky I like you.” He smiled at me, playing it at as a joke, but it faltered, and the sincerity of his statement slipped through. Realizing this, he looked uncomfortable, and awkwardly
patted me on the shoulder before excusing himself. “Stay out of trouble.”
After he walked away, I went into the trailer. All the lights were off, except for a small one above the kitchen sink, and Lazlo sat in the dark at the dining room table. I didn’t think it was all that late, but Harlow had gone to bed, and he waited up for me like some kind of over-protective parent.
“How did it go?” Lazlo asked, his voice devoid of any emotion. I expected him to be mad or jealous or happy that I was alive, but he didn’t give anything away.
“It went,” I shrugged.
“So you saw your brother?”
“Yeah, I saw him.”
In a sudden embarrassing display of emotion, I burst into tears. All of the fear and guilt came pouring out of me, and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Lazlo got up and rushed over to me. He put his arms around me, holding me close, and I let him. I sobbed into his shoulder, and he kept telling me that it would be all right.
Once I had calmed down enough to speak, he led me over to the couch. He held my hand when I sat next to him, and I told him all about how they treated Max, about the vials of blood and how skeletal he’d become. I told him how vibrant and smart and quirky Max had been before, and how I’d always done everything I could to take care of him.
And then I told him how badly it hurt to know that I had failed so completely, despite all my best efforts.
Lazlo put his arm around me and insisted that everything would be all right, and I knew it would be. I would make it all right, even if it killed me. I would not let Max live and die like that, like a scared animal in a cage.
In the morning, I showered and got ready quickly. I had to find both Blue and Tatum if I had any chance of making this work. I wasn’t even sure if it was possible, but I had to try. I found Blue first, since I needed him more.
As I went over my plan, he kept his face even, and I wasn’t sure what he thought. When he finished, he nodded once, almost to my surprise.
“You’re really willing to do this?” I asked, making sure he understood what I was asking. I needed him, but I didn’t want to force him to do anything.
“Yeah,” Blue nodded again. “Doctors take an oath. First do no harm.” He shrugged, as if that explained it all.
We arranged a time to meet early the next morning, before the sun started to rise. Most people would be asleep then, and it would make it easier. I would’ve gone right then, though, if I didn’t know that Tatum needed time to get things together. Assuming he’d even have any part of it.
Telling Tatum was much harder than Blue. In a weird way, Blue and I always seemed to be on the same wavelength about everything. And I was never exactly sure what wavelength Tatum was on.
I caught him just before he went out to make his rounds around the perimeter, part of his penance for standing up for me last night.
I had to tell him the truth about Max, and he got wide eyed, but he didn’t say anything. He trusted and believed me, and I was relieved.
At first, he listened, but as I explained my requests, he got increasingly irritated. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me, and he kept shifting his weight around and crossing and uncrossing his arms. Before I even finished, he started shaking his head no.
“That’s really stupid, Remy.” He chewed the inside of his cheek and stared off at the wall.
“Maybe, but I don’t have a lot of options,” I said honestly. “And I’ll find a way to do this even if you don’t help.”
“There is no way to do this without me,” Tatum pointed out. Without him, it’d be almost impossible for this to work.
“I need you,” I said plaintively, and he finally looked back at me.
“I knew it.” He shook his head. “The second I saw you out in that field, all covered in zombie blood, fighting like a damn maniac. I knew you were trouble.” He sighed resignedly. “Fine. I’ll do it. But I’m going on record as not liking this. It’s my job to protect people, not put them in danger.”
“I know, and I appreciate everything you’re doing for me,” I said earnestly.
“I don’t care if you appreciate it!” Tatum blew it off and looked at me intensely. “Do you understand what you’re doing? I want you to really think about this, Remy. Because I can only help you so much.”
“Yeah, I do,” I nodded.
“Just do me a favor. Think about this, okay?” It was his turn to plead with me, his eyes looking soft. “If you change your mind, nobody would hold it against you.”
“I would,” I corrected him. “I have to do this.”
Reluctantly, he agreed to the same time I had set up with Blue. When I walked away, I heard him complaining to himself about how stupid this all was.
Maybe it was, but I didn’t have anything better, and so far, nobody else had come up with anything at all. The fact that Blue had signed on made me feel a bit better. Tatum probably wouldn’t feel so adverse to it if he didn’t like me. Then again, he probably wouldn’t get involved at all if he didn’t like me.
I spent the day going through the motions. Bishop thought it was time I started pitching in, so I worked in the garden for a few hours. Lazlo was on dishes detail, so I thought I faired a bit better. By the end of the day, I was sore and tired, and grateful for it. It would give me something to take my mind off the morning.
Harlow had already made friends, so after supper, she went off with one of them. I actually kind of hated how nice this quarantine was. I had always been opposed to being fenced in and locked up, but given the circumstances, this was about the best I could hope for in keeping Harlow and Lazlo safe.
I stood at the kitchen sink, scrubbing the dirt out from my under finger nails. Lazlo stood in the middle of room, watching me.
“So… I guess it’s just the two of us.” He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were uncertain and didn’t meet mine, flitting about the room.
“Yep.” I smiled thinly back at him.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty beat. And filthy.” He gestured to his clothes stained with food and dirty water. “I’m gonna go change.”
“All right.”
“Excuse me.” He slid past me, brushing up against me in the narrow walkway of the kitchen, and the brief touch sent flutters through me.
He went back to the bedroom, sliding the pocket door shut behind him, and I turned off the water. Drying my hands with a towel, I looked down at my dirt covered clothing. I’d need to shower and change, too. A minute later, Lazlo came out of the bedroom, shirtless, holding a tee shirt in his hands.