The Before (5 page)

And first off, that meant turning off the TV. Cutting off the nonstop stream of fear and panic, if only for a few minutes so we could regroup.

I pushed myself up and stumbled over to Mom, who held the remote clutched tight in her free hand. She tried to tug it back, but I pried her fingers loose and jabbed the power button.

“But we need—”

“What we need is a plan,” I cut her off before she could beg to turn the TV back on. At a time like this, the constant dribble of information was too seductive. It would suck us in and hold us trapped on the sofa. “We need to figure out what we’re doing next.”

Mom blinked, her gaze slowly focusing in on me. “Yeah. I mean, yes. We do.”

“Okay, let’s think about this for a—”

But Mom’s phone bleeped an alert. She reached past Mel to pick it up off the side table. A second later my phone bleeped too. I was still digging my phone out of my pocket when the house phone rang. I stared at the unfamiliar number on the Message screen and the first line of the text: Congratulations! You have been allocated—

Our home phone rolled over to voice mail and a second later a cheerful prerecorded voice rang through the living room. “Congratulations! A resident or residents of this household have been allocated spots at a Farm facility near you. Please log on to the NPDCO’s website for further information. Your designation is”—the voice switched to a computerized voice—“Melanie Ellen Price. Designation: 923-684. Lily Renee Price. Designation: 923-685. Transportation hub: Dallas/Fort Worth International airport.”

Chapter Eight

Lily

“I can’t believe you’re sending us to one of these concentration camps.”

“Let’s not be overly dramatic, okay?” my mom said. She didn’t even look up from the stack of clothes she was folding. It was a small stack. Then again, the suitcases we would be allowed to bring with us were also small.

In the hours since Mel and I had been issued designation numbers, Mom had switched gears completely. She’d gone from frazzled space-cadet mom to frenetically efficient mom so quickly I didn’t know what to think. This get-it-done version was much more the mom I was used to dealing with. I just didn’t like what she was doing.

“They’re not concentration camps,” Mom said, her tone only hinting at any frustration she might be feeling. They’re protective facilities.”

I nearly snorted in disgust.
“Protective facilities?
They’re internment camps.”

Or maybe the frustration was all on my part. We’d been going around and around on this for the past hour.

“Lily—” my mother began, her tone distracted. Exasperated.

“All these gullible parents are shipping off their kids.” I sucked in a breath and rephrased my words. “
You
are sending Mel and me off to one of these Farm facilities—”

“It’s for your protection. It’s going to keep you safe.”

“Right.” I tried to sneer, but even I couldn’t stir up enough sarcasm, because, frankly, protection sounded pretty good right about now. It was just that safe was seeming more and more like a thing of the past. And the protection the government was offering seemed to come at a pretty steep price. “Mom, I don’t think we should go.”

She threw down the T-shirt she’d been clutching in exasperation. “Well, then, what do you think we should do? Just hide in our houses like those people in Houston? Should we do that? Should we wait for the Ticks to come and attack our city? Those things are targeting teens and—”

Just like that, she crumpled. Her voice broke, her shoulders slumped over, her hands barely seemed to have the strength to cradle her head.

“Mom, I—”

But she pushed herself up. “I can’t just stand by and let those things have you and Mel. Don’t ask me to do that. And I am out of ideas about how to protect you on my own.”

“I don’t—” But I broke off, because I didn’t know what to say.

“Those monsters are out there. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Houston is basically gone. The people who did make it out are going to be refugees and some of them are going to come here. Dallas doesn’t have the infrastructure or the resources to absorb that many people. There could be looting. Riots. Violence. And there’s a cop parked fifteen feet from our doorstep who has basically made it his goal in life to harass you.”

“Shit,” I muttered. I’d been hoping she hadn’t seen the patrol car this morning.

“Did you think I didn’t notice he was still there? Did you think I didn’t notice that you snuck out this morning but couldn’t have made it very far because you were back eight minutes later?”

“I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”

“I’m not stupid, Lily. I know what goes on in this house. And I’m not being gullible. I’m just trying to protect you. And right now, the only way I can think to do that is to let someone else protect you for me. If sending you away keeps you safe, then that’s what I’m doing.”

I just stood there stupidly for a minute, because I didn’t know what to say. I had thought she was being gullible. I’d thought she was an idiot for trusting the government. But maybe I was the idiot, because nothing she’d said dispelled the gut-deep feeling of dread.

“What if sending us away is the wrong thing to do? Should we at least try to stay together? Shouldn’t we try to head for Uncle Rodney’s again?”

“We tried that already.” She flung out a hand, pointing toward the front of the house. “We got stopped two miles from the house. You really want to try again? There are roadblocks all up and down the highways and all across the border. You saw that on TV. And the people who are caught are having their assets seized. They’re being arrested. Who knows what else? Is that what you want? You really want to risk that?”

I thought again about all those discharged weapons. I thought about the cop I’d had run-ins with twice. And the police cars I’d seen circling the block too many times to be regular patrols.

The sight of that patrol car had another worry niggling at the back of my mind. What if this was all my fault?

We’d gotten our designation numbers so soon after that cop had run my license. I couldn’t help but think the two things were connected. After we’d gotten the call, Mom had started tracking down more information, but I’d hit my cell phone. None of my friends, no one I’d texted or messaged, had been contacted yet. As far as I knew, we were some of the first teens in the area to be called in.

What if Mel and I had been called in so early because that cop had flagged us somehow? Was that what he’d done when he’d taken my license? Was this feeling in my gut dread or guilt?

How could I argue with my mom about this when I had no idea if I’d brought this down on us myself?

“No. Of course I don’t want that. I just want us to be together.” I nearly snorted at the irony that I was the one saying those words. How many times had I bucked against Mom’s crazy controlling nature? She’d micromanaged our lives from the moment Mel was diagnosed. Maybe that was why I had such a hard time knowing she was going to send us away.

So I turned my back on her and walked over to where Mel stood just a few inches from the TV screen, watching the latest. Despite my insistence this morning that we turn the TV off, it had come back on after less than an hour. Mom’s an-hour-of-screen-time-a-day rule had clearly gone out the window. Like everyone in the country, we were glued to the TV. CNN on a steady IV drip.

The plastically beautiful newscaster on the screen turned toward her “expert” source—a middle-aged man. “How is the FDA responding to allegations that Microbe EN731—which is now being known as the ‘Tick’ virus—was cleared for human testing too quickly?”

The man removed his glasses and began polishing them with a handkerchief. “Well, as you know, there’s been a lot of pressure from congress for the FDA to streamline the red tape on these types of lifesaving drugs.”

“Yet clearly—” the newscaster kept talking, but I stopped listening.

I just stared unseeing at the TV, my mind racing through the lists of should-haves and wished-we’ds. Mel stood beside me, jiggling her Slinky, humming Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini.” It was one of her favorites, but the lush romanticism of the song grated my nerves today. I was so not in the mood for Rachmaninoff today.

“What’s up?” I asked her.

She looked at me from under her shaggy bangs, her head tilted just a little, and pointed at the TV screen.

I listened to the interview again. There was a new guy on the screen. Some guy I thought I’d seen on PBS doing science specials.

“Before now,” he was saying, “scientists had only suspected that evolutionary changes might happen this fast.”

The newscaster blinked, her professional demeanor slipping for an instant. “Are you saying the Ticks are the next link in the evolutionary chain?”

“Well, first off, I’d argue with your use of the slang term Ticks—”

I stopped listening again when I noticed Mel was humming loudly enough that she probably wasn’t listening to the news coverage. Besides, she’d walked right up to the screen and was pointing at the map of the southwestern United States projected in the corner of the screen. A bright red biohazard emblem marked Alps, Texas, where the Genexome Corporation’s research facility was located. Where the outbreak had started. There were five other, smaller symbols that marked the cancer hospitals where test samples had been sent. Each point of origin was outlined in concentric circles in shades of orange and gold. The lines marked the rate of contamination. Houston was the worst. By far.

The newly bred monsters seemed to be avoiding the sparsely populated areas of west and south Texas, heading north and east toward the centers of population.

The orange creeping up toward Dallas terrified me. And yet, I still felt strangely disconnected from the Tick outbreak. All these other concerns seemed so much closer to home. Dallas under martial law. The cop haunting our block. The internment camp awaiting Mel and me.

The actual monsters that had caused all this still seemed distant. It was like watching a hurricane in the gulf, watching the Weather Channel as the swirling mass creeps closer and closer to land.

Then Mel tapped the TV screen again and I realized she wasn’t pointing at the orange circle nearing Dallas. She was pointing to a dot on the map one orange ring away from Alps, Texas.

I squinted at the screen, frowning. “We don’t know anyone in Fort Stockton.”

She made a face that clearly said I’d missed the point.

“Okay, then. Just tell me.”

Finally, she blew out a breath and I could tell she wasn’t the only one frustrated by her growing silence. “Double bubble, boil and trouble.”

Great. Now she was quoting Shakespeare. Or was that Chaucer? I didn’t ask because she’d gone back to humming.

“That’s really annoying, you know. Always humming Beethoven like that so I can’t hear.” I knew it wasn’t Beethoven. I just said that to piss her off. I grabbed the remote so I could turn up the volume, but she slapped the remote from my hand.

“Rachmaninoff makes geometry easier.”

Which I was sure meant something to her, but I didn’t have time for her riddles today. “Whatever.”

But she grabbed my arm. Briefly, but still. Mel wasn’t a toucher. When I looked at her, she bobbed her head. On anyone else, the gesture might have read as indifference, but she looked fretful. “I’m worried about him.”

“Who? Dad?” That was the only
him
I could think of. Certainly the only him I knew in central Texas.

She angled her head back to me, looking at me from under her bangs again in a way that made her look exasperated. “Carter.”

“Carter?” I repeated dumbly.

I frowned, staring from the screen to her and back again.

She didn’t say anything more, but she didn’t have to. We’d only ever known one Carter. Carter Olson had gone to our school for part of the ninth grade. He’d been my first crush. That perfect unattainable guy. Popular, rich, and so friggin’ hot I could hardly breathe when he was near. But it was his sarcastic, biting sense of humor that had sealed the deal for me. I’d made an ass out of myself mooning over him for months.

The truth was, I’d never felt about anyone else the way I’d felt about Carter. Which was pathetic, since we’d never even hooked up. I doubted even my best friend knew I still thought about Carter sometimes. But Mel was different. For someone who didn’t talk a lot, she sure as hell knew a lot.

Which didn’t exactly explain why she was worried about Carter now.

Slowly, I put the pieces of her words together. Mel was mainstreamed in math and science. She’d had geometry with Carter in the ninth grade. Their teacher, Mr. Rockfield, had let her chew Dubble Bubble in class. But I knew there was a puzzle piece I was still missing.

“Why are you worried about him?” We hadn’t seen him in years. Spring semester, he’d been arrested—in school, no less—for stealing his dad’s car. He’d been hauled off in handcuffs. Rumor had it he’d been sent to some military school in . . .

My mind stuttered to a halt. Was that where Carter’s school was? In Fort Stockton? How could she know that?