The Tide: Breakwater (Tide Series Book 2) (16 page)

How are you feeling?
Kara disliked the question. She was feeling useless. She was feeling angry. She was feeling hate for the goddamned Skulls. But all she said was, “Fine.”

“I’ve heard so much about you. It’s great to finally put a face to the name. Have you seen Divya?”

“Not in a while. I think she went back to the lab.”

Thomas’s face dropped in a frown, and he glanced away. “You’ll have to excuse me.”

As he turned toward the lab, Divya burst into the room. “I’m sorry. I was so focused on my work I didn’t see your message. But I’ll have everything prepped for their return.”

“Lauren said it’s worse than she expected. She barely had time to radio Chao.”

Kara cocked her head, glancing between the doctor and the grizzled first mate.

Thomas looked at her and then ushered Divya into the corridor to speak privately. Kara could still hear their voices under the door. They sounded hurried and frantic.

When the door opened again, Divya rushed toward a supply closet and started rifling through the plastic bottles and sterile packages of gauze. She piled supplies on a cart.

Thomas poked his head back into the room. “Anything else I can do to help?”

“I’ll radio you if I need something, but I can handle the prep work. The best thing you can do is keep tabs on potential casualties for me.”

Casualties.
Kara sat upright in bed. Her heart dropped. “Is my dad okay?”

Thomas pushed the door open all the way and padded across the floor to her side. “Your dad’s fine.”

“Doesn’t sound like it. What the hell’s going on?”

Thomas checked his watch. “He’s currently in a hot zone on a dinner cruise ship packed with civilians. Our initial estimate of how many people were on that ship was a little low, so Dr. Winters radioed in and told us we need to up our preparations. Just in case, okay?”

Kara pursed her lips but didn’t say anything. It was clear she wouldn’t get much more from this man.

“Right now,” Thomas continued, “the Hunters are clearing the Skulls out of the ship and rescuing the passengers trapped inside.”

“Why’s he risking his life on
that
ship?”

“Lots of people need our help there. Plus, if we can get the ship back in working order, she’ll help us ferry people to safety. We’re going to set up an outpost somewhere. Probably in a protected park or something as a safe zone away from the cities.”

“Away from the Skulls.”

“Right,” Thomas said. “So what your dad is doing is extremely important. And I promise he’s going to be back safe.”

Kara wanted to believe him, but she found doubt weighed heavier on her mind than optimism.

“Any other questions, Miss? I’ve got to get back to Chao and the rest of the comm team.”

“Yes.” Kara couldn’t stand letting her dad risk his life for people he didn’t even know while she sat in this bed idling away the time. “What can I do to help?”

“Help? You just focus on getting better.” Thomas patted the bed’s rail and turned to walk out.

“No way. I can’t just do that. Let me do something.”

Thomas looked back at her over his shoulder, his brows carved in deep, sad creases.

“Please. Anything.” Kara’s bottom lip trembled slightly as she thought about her father facing those monsters. “I need something to take my mind off what’s going on with my dad. Just give me something easy to do if you have to. Whatever you want.” The injuries under her bandages began to itch again. “Anything I can do to help.”

Thomas pulled his hand through his gray hair. “I’ll talk to the comm team and see if they’ve got any ideas.” His eyes narrowed. “The apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?”

After Thomas left, Divya pushed the cart of medical supplies toward the exit. “Press the call button if you need anything.”

Kara nodded and watched the doctor leave. She was left alone with Maggie and Sadie once more. She wondered if Thomas would actually return with something for her to do. Or, for better or for worse, with news of her father.

***

T
he sound of the door opening interrupted Kara’s brief nap. She jolted upright. Sweat along her back made the thin hospital gown cling to her skin. She whipped her head around and immediately saw Sadie and Maggie were missing. Her heart pounded in worry, and she looked toward the open passageway.

A familiar—although bruised and bandaged—face with black-rimmed glasses and a thick beard came through the door. Adam. His face was white, and he gulped when he locked eyes with her. He ushered in Sadie and Maggie. Sadie looked defeated, and the dog wagged her tail, completely unaware that they were apparently in trouble.

“We can’t just be locked in here like prisoners.” Sadie huffed and folded her thin arms across her chest.

“I know, I know,” Adam said. “But things are a bit tense right now. I’m going to need you to watch your sister and, well, stay out of the way.”

“Yeah, but Dad said—”

“Come on, Sadie,” Kara said. “What’s going on?” She didn’t expect an answer given how Thomas had evaded her before, but she couldn’t help herself.

Adam stepped toward her bed with a laptop under his right arm. “Thomas gave you the rundown, right?”

Kara nodded.

“There’s been a little more resistance than expected on the passenger ship. More Skulls.”

“Is my—”

“He’s still fine.”

Kara let out a breath. “Why do you look so frazzled?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

Kara hated the way he too was avoiding straight answers. She was an adult now. She could handle whatever he wasn’t saying.

Adam held out the laptop. “Heard you wanted to help.”

“I do.” Kara grabbed it. The computer felt heavy—much heavier than the Mac she’d taken to college. Her arms almost trembled with the effort, reminding her how weak the Oni Agent treatment had made her. Weak and helpless. She couldn’t wait until she could get out of this damn bed.

“Okay, so here’s the deal: It’s not much, but Dom gave Chao, Samantha, and me several tasks to complete. Between keeping tabs on him and the Hunters, trying to find a place to resupply, and somehow locating a safe zone, we haven’t had time to identify the best neurological disease laboratories to search for, but Lauren and Peter already started a list of potential places to check out nearby.”

“So what do you need me for?”

“You can help us by adding other places around the United States with research interests that might more closely align with our goal of finding a cure or vaccine or something for the Oni Agent.”

“And then what?” Kara asked.

“We’ll try and see if any of them are still functional. Or better yet, find out if any of their scientists or research staff are still around.”

“Still alive, you mean?”

Adam nodded. “I know it’s not much, but if you can do this, once the mission’s over, our team will start trying to establish contact with the labs.”

Kara thought of her mother, trapped in the basement, driven mad by the Oni Agent. “And you’ll try to recruit them to help find a
real
cure for the Oni Agent? Like something that can heal the brain damage for people who didn’t get Lauren’s treatment on time?”

“Exactly,” Adam said. “I’ve got to get back to the workshop.” He turned and powered out of the room before Kara could say thanks.

“Wait, how are you supposed to connect to the internet? Aren’t all the cell networks down?” Sadie asked, squeezing into the bed beside Kara.

“I’m assuming they have a satellite connection.” Kara booted up the laptop. “As long as there are servers live somewhere, I think they can access most of the net.” She paused and waited for the desktop to appear on the screen. “I think one of my engineering friends at school told me something about archived sites too. Like, saved or downloaded versions of sites or something when their hosts are down.”

“Whatever,” Sadie said. “So are we going to help them or what?”

“We are.” Kara’s fingers danced across the keyboard, typing search terms on the web browser. She created a text document and started listing results she found from an inquiry for neurological disease laboratories.

She found labs belonging to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda and a lab at Stanford with a bevy of scientists, academics, post-docs, and grad students. Research institutions at universities all across the United States popped up, along with others around the world. There was no shortage of scientists interested in neurodegenerative diseases and other neurological topics. But she wondered how many of them were still alive—and whether any of them could actually help find a cure for the Oni Agent, for her mother.

––––––––

N
avid hid behind the laboratory bench and peered between the empty glass beakers and flasks. Screams filtered in under the door to the room where Navid and his fellow graduate students had once run experiments. Silhouettes raced past the window in the door, their shadows playing across the lab. Furious red emergency lights flashed along the corridor.

He ducked. His bottom lip trembled, and his shirt clung to his sweat-soaked back.

“What the hell are we going to do?” Abby asked, sitting on the floor next to him. Her knees were tucked against her chest, and her arms were wrapped around her thin legs. Navid crouched next to her. He looked into her blue eyes, willing any courage that might still be hiding in him to show itself now. By the still-frightened look on Abby’s face, he could tell there wasn’t much of it left.

“We’ll be okay,” he said. “We just need to stay hidden. Help’s on its way.”

“It’s not, Navid. It’s really not. We’ve been sitting in here for...God, I don’t even know how long. No more food. Just people screaming out there. And it keeps getting worse.”

“I know, I know.”

When the initial Code Disaster had been called over the hospital intercoms, Navid had hoped it was a mistake.

But now he knew it wasn’t. He knew what it meant, but he didn’t want to believe it. The crazy people had spread to Boston. He and Abby had seen it with their own eyes and barely lived through the experience. A place once meant for healing, Mass Gen had been hit hard and fast when all these people infected with the virus or bacteria or whatever it was started coming here for help.

“We can’t stay here,” Abby said, drawing into a crouch. She placed a hand on the black laboratory bench and peeked at the door.

The chairs and the heavy liquid nitrogen tank still braced the door along with all the boxes and shelves they could pile there. But the intense howls and shrieks echoing throughout the hospital made Navid wonder if that would be enough.

Abby lifted her head higher. Something smacked into the door.

Navid grabbed Abby’s shoulder and pulled her down next to him. He wrapped one arm around her. His heart hammered, and he could practically hear hers pounding away too.

Another crash against the door sent a shiver down Navid’s spine. He pressed himself closer to the metal drawers beneath the lab bench. Abby clung to him, one hand clenching his arm tight enough to hurt. He closed his eyes when the door shook again, and a chair crashed onto the tile floor. He bit his bottom lip to stop himself from crying out.

God, he knew he was a coward, but he felt so helpless. So pitiful. Those people out there were crazy, demented. And he’d seen their shapes in the darkened hallway. The glimpses through the window were enough for him to tell they were something more than people, something monstrous. Their limbs were grotesquely deformed and misshapen. Small horns protruded from their heads and fins grew from their shoulder blades along with spikes along their spines.

And one of those things was trying to get in the door.

Another loud thwack of something against the door, a scream—a human scream—followed by the sound of tearing and chewing. Like flesh being ripped and eaten, Navid realized. There was a grunt, and the distinct sound of clicking against the tiled hall floor faded into the distance.

Silence again.

Navid let out a deep breath, and Abby shivered in his arms. They’d been lucky this time. The shadows of the dark lab had hidden them. The door had held. But it had sounded as if someone out there hadn’t been so fortunate.

Maybe Abby was right. Maybe they needed to get out of here. But where could they possibly go? And how would they get there?

He tiptoed to a window that overlooked Cambridge Street. Smoldering cars filled the street along with a mess of corpses. People ran between the lines of abandoned vehicles and overturned trashcans. It was hard to tell from this floor, but it looked as if most of them ran half hunched over. Many of them seemed to have the same strange growths and protrusions as the silhouetted people he’d seen throughout the hospital.

Fear and worry and hunger and nausea seemed to grip Navid all at once. His stomach lurched, and he threw his hand over his mouth. He gagged but refrained from letting the contents of his belly spill over the floor.

“Navid, are you okay?”

He pinched his eyes closed for a second and recomposed himself. “I’m fine.”

“We can’t stay here. We have to find help.”

“I know, I know...”

Something crashed against the door again, emphasizing the point. Navid and Abby ducked and waited for almost five minutes before daring to peek around the lab benches. No more footsteps in the hall. No more screams.

At least for now.

Navid hesitantly stood and gazed about the room. There was a sink in one corner with an eyewash station and an overhead shower in case of chemical emergencies. A fire extinguisher was secured to the wall next to a shelf full of glassware, beakers, and flasks. Two lab benches took up most of the room, and each of them held a bevy of equipment ranging from thermocyclers to microscopes. Normally, the room was hot with all the machines running and a chorus of beeps and buzzes filling the air.

But right now there was nothing but a chill in the air and lonely silence.

Navid turned to Abby. “You really want to go out and search for someone else again? You heard those things out there. It doesn’t take much to imagine what they do to the people they find.”