Inhuman (29 page)

After thirty minutes of bumping over broken asphalt, Rafe pointed in the distance to what looked like a limestone fortress, complete with stockade walls, turrets, and towers.

Cosmo rose to his knees in the front seat. “What’s that?”

“Home sweet home,” Rafe said with a forced smile.

In no time we were cruising alongside a massive stone wall — the Titan in miniature. The place truly did look ready to withstand archers and battering rams. We rounded a corner and reached the front wall where my romantic notions were quickly dispelled by the windows — all iron barred.

Everson parked the jeep right next to a large sign near the entrance that read “Joliet State Penitentiary.” “A prison?”

Rafe pulled a circle of keys from his knapsack and headed for the heavily fortified gate. “Doesn’t get any safer than this.” He unlocked a number of chains and used his weight to push open the gate. “We’ll stay here tonight. And go into Chicago before dawn.”

“But it can’t even be noon yet,” I said. “Let’s go now.”

Rafe gave me an odd look. “It’s way past noon.”

“Oh.” How long had I been unconscious after Chorda’s punch? “Still —”

“Let’s see what time it is when Ev here is done stitching up your leg.” He said it so firmly, I didn’t bother to argue, just followed him through the gate.

With Everson’s arm wrapped around me, half holding me up, I limped my way into a spacious courtyard where squawking chickens roamed freely. The afternoon sun lent a golden hue to the walls and parapets. But most striking were the solar-collecting panels. Almost the entire roof was taken up with slanting and shimmering panels that blazed in the sunlight. I had to admit the place wasn’t horrible as we passed a vegetable garden. But still … “This is where you live?”

“I keep my stuff here. Mostly I’m out working for some compound, hunting ferals or path hacking.”

Inside the main building, he led us through a series of barred doors, which had been electric at one time but now he just shoved open. “It’ll be homier when I get the power on.” He directed us down a caged-in stairway and along a hallway to a thick door with a small, round, wire-mesh porthole. Opening a panel, he found the circuit breakers labeled “Solar Generators.” When he switched them on, the overhead lights flickered to life.

I felt a little better when we got to the infirmary. It was a large room, with old cots scattered haphazardly, but at least every corner was visible from every angle of the room. There were no closets in which a feral could hide; no doors to lurk behind. “Where’s Cosmo?” Had we lost the little manimal in the halls?

“He’s looking around the place,” Rafe assured me. “How do you feel?”

“Stupid.”

“No. Physically how do you feel?”

“My leg hurts.”

He clapped a hand to my forehead and had me sit on the nearest cot. “How long since we picked her up?” he asked Everson, who was dousing a gauze pad with antiseptic.

Everson shrugged and wheeled over a table laid out with medical supplies. “She said she wasn’t bitten.”

“She’s sitting right here!” I said irritably.

“Okay.” Rafe propped a shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms. “Just tell me if you start feeling hot.”

I nodded, which turned into a grimace when Everson pressed the gauze to my calf. As he cleaned my cuts, I squeezed my hands together to keep from yelling. Two of my nails were broken off below the quick and there was grit and dried blood under the others.

“This is going to hurt.” Needle already in hand, Everson pulled up a stool, and sat, placing my foot between his thighs to brace it. He gave me a faint smile. “Do me a favor — don’t kick.”

I nodded, pretending like this was no big deal, though I’d never gotten stitches in my life. Even after he’d rubbed some kind of numbing cream around the cuts, I had to chew the inside of my cheek to keep from yelling every time he jabbed the needle into my torn flesh. But I didn’t kick. If anything, the pain helped me keep certain images at bay — such as all the corpses, pale and cold on the floor.

When Everson finished, Rafe leaned over for a look. “Huh,” he said with surprise. “Good stitches.”

“I’ve had training as a field medic,” Everson said.

But some cuts couldn’t be sewn up. “Fabiola was there,” I told Rafe as a wintery feeling filled my chest.

“Dead?”

I nodded. “You’ll tell her father and Alva, so they’ll know what happened to her?” I reached for my dial to see if I’d gotten an image of the dead girl, so they’d know for sure that it was her. But there was nothing around my neck. Chorda had taken my dial, along with my bag. I pressed my hands to my eyes, trying to block out the thought of Chorda patting me down while I was unconscious. “I’m so stupid. I shouldn’t have gone near him. I should have run.”

“Yeah,” Rafe said evenly. “Why didn’t you?”

I wanted to crawl under the cot, but I deserved their scorn. “I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.”

“No, seriously,” Rafe said. “Why didn’t you at least yell?”

Everson glanced up from bandaging my calf and took in my expression. “She is serious.”

Rafe started to scoff but then turned a stunned look on me. “His feelings?” He choked on the words. “You were worried about a predator’s feelings?”

“Cut her a break.” Everson finished taping the bandage. “She didn’t grow up over here.”

“Right. ’Cause in the West you all just skip around and hug,” Rafe said acidly. “You’re all best friends and everyone gets a pony on their birthday.”

Everson shoved the rolling table aside and rose. “Why don’t you go check on your chickens?”

“You’re not doing her any favors, silky.” Rafe stepped forward to meet him. “Unless you’re planning to stitch yourself to her side, you won’t always be around. All she has are her instincts to keep her safe. And you want to tell her things are so different over here that she can’t trust her gut? Gotta ask yourself why. Maybe because you like being the hero?”

Everson’s fist moved so fast, I didn’t even see the punch, only Rafe’s backward stumble. He recovered fast, heading right for Everson. Tumbling off the cot, I threw myself between them. “Stop it!”

Both halted in their tracks. Each waited to see what the other would do.

“I’m done.” Everson put up his hands though his voice was harsh with anger. “He’s right.”

“Then why’d you hit him?” I demanded.

“I didn’t like the way he said it.”

Something soft rubbed my arm. I glanced down to see Cosmo petting me with a threadbare stuffed animal — Curious George.

“No one said you could touch that.” Rafe swiped the blood from his split lip and reached for the toy.

Cosmo clutched the stuffed animal to his chest. “Jasper’s mine.”

“Hand it over, ape-boy.”

Hunching down, Cosmo curled back his lips and growled.

“Don’t give me the get-back face,” Rafe snapped. “I taught you that face.”

Instantly Cosmo dropped the attitude, popped Curious George’s head into his mouth, and took off running.

“Hey!” Rafe shouted after him. “Get back here.”

“Oh for — Grow up,” Everson growled while nursing his knuckles in one hand.

Obviously the toy had sentimental value for Rafe, but come on; Cosmo was eight. I limp-jogged after him, despite the burn shooting up my calf, but I lost him at the first intersection of corridors. When the guys joined me, I turned on Rafe. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Me? I don’t go into people’s homes and take their stuff.” He paused. “Well, actually I do, but not while they’re still living there!” He shouted the last part down the hall for Cosmo’s benefit.

“Where did he take it from?”

When Rafe didn’t reply, I glanced over to find him eyeing me. “What?”

“Nothing.” He shook off whatever it was he’d been thinking and led us to the cellblock, a three-story space with a gangway on each level. Rafe headed along the row of dingy stone cubicles that passed for cells. I trailed behind him with Everson’s help and felt my heartbeat thumping in my calf with every step. I didn’t want to think about what I had coming when the numbing cream wore off.

Rafe stopped abruptly and glanced back at me. “He got it out of that one.” He pointed to the next cell in the row. “If he’s in there, you should be the one to talk to him.”

I nodded and limped into the cell. Everson started to follow but Rafe blocked him. “Let her do it.”

Bunks hung off one wall and a crosshatch pattern covered the opposite wall — ceiling to floor. Graffiti? I angled closer. Seven lines in a row, with a star after every three rows. It was a crude calendar, which reminded me of how little time I had left to get back to the tunnel before the bulldozers filled it in. I turned and spotted Cosmo lying on his stomach on the top bunk with his chin propped on Curious George. He was looking at a picture book.

“Hey, buddy,” Rafe called from the corridor. “You want to keep the monkey?”

Cosmo glanced back at him. I too shot Rafe a look, although mine was annoyed. I’d thought he was going to let me handle it.

“You can,” Rafe went on, “but you have to do something for me.”

Cosmo sat up, clutching the stuffed monkey to his chest. “What?”

“Come here and I’ll tell you.”

Whatever Rafe had in mind, it had better not be mean. And he’d better not even think about reneging. I held out my arms to Cosmo, but he leapt off the bed without my help and scrambled into the corridor where Rafe stood waiting.

Curious, I picked up the book that Cosmo had been reading —
The Runaway Bunny
. I remembered that one. Every place the little bunny ran off to, his mother found a way to follow him. I wished Cosmo’s mother could follow him and keep him safe. I wished my father could find me as easily out in the world. I breathed for a moment, forcing down the sadness. Behind me, the cell door clanged shut.

“Very funny.” I dropped the book on the cot and turned to see Rafe pocket the key.

“George is all yours,” he told Cosmo.

“Jasper,” Cosmo corrected and then cast a worried glance back at me.

“What are you doing?” Everson demanded. “She said she wasn’t bitten.”

Rafe pinned his gaze on me. “People lie.”

Now I understood what those looks had been about. Rafe thought I might be infected.

“We’re short on time,” he said, sounding more serious than I thought he was capable of. “I know. But if you get fevered while we’re out in the zone, it’ll end bad. You’ll run so far that by the time you cool down, you’ll be completely lost.”

I hurried to the bars, making my calf throb. “I’m not hot. Feel my forehead.” I reached for his hand but he slid back, pulling Cosmo with him.

“It can take up to ten hours for the fever to show.”

I looked to Everson for help. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “He’s right. There’s no way to know if you’re infected this soon. Even a blood test couldn’t tell us.”

“But Chorda didn’t bite me. I swear. I wouldn’t lie about that.”

“You said he knocked you unconscious,” Rafe reminded me. “Maybe he chomped on you then.” He slid down the wall to sit cross-legged on the floor, clearly settling in for a long stretch of time.

I pressed my forehead to the cold metal bars. “I can’t waste ten hours stuck in here.”

“It’s been a while since we picked you up. We’ll round down to eight,” Rafe offered.

No
, I wanted to yell, but it would probably come out sounding fevered. And what if Rafe was right? What if Chorda had bitten me while I was unconscious? No, that would have defeated his purpose. He wanted to eat the most purely human heart he could sink his fangs into. I tried explaining that to Rafe and Everson, but neither trusted Chorda to follow his own insane logic.

I couldn’t spend the next eight hours worrying if I had Ferae. I’d go crazy. And even if I came out of it okay, we’d never get to Chicago and back by Thursday morning. I had to get out of this cell now. I had to prove to them that I hadn’t been bitten. I lifted my arms. My skin was scratched from running through the hedge, and it was hard to tell what was a scab and what was just caked-on dirt, but nothing came close to looking like a tiger bite. I checked my stomach. Nothing. To see more, I’d need to take off my tank and pants, which were half shredded into ribbon. I opened my mouth to ask the guys to leave, but what would be the point? I couldn’t see every inch of my body and even if I had a mirror, Rafe would still doubt whatever I said.

“I’ll take off my clothes,” I said before I could think about how that would play out. “And you guys check for a bite mark.”

Well, I’d sure shocked the two of them. If I weren’t so scared and desperate, I would have laughed at their twin expressions of wide-eyed surprise. Cosmo, on the other hand, screwed up his face and scampered from the cellblock. Guess the idea of me naked was just too gross to stick around for. I pulled up my tank.

“Don’t,” Everson said hoarsely and I froze. “It won’t be enough. Even without a bite mark, you could still be infected. Chorda’s blood or saliva could have gotten in one of your cuts. We’re going to have to wait it out.”

“He’s right.” Rafe cast a sidelong look at Everson. “But you could have mentioned it after she took off her shirt.”

“It crossed my mind,” Everson admitted. He moved to stand within inches of the bars. “I’m sorry, Lane.”