The Worlds We Make (19 page)

Michael studied me, expressionless, before saying, “I think it is.”

I made myself frown with what I hoped looked like confusion. “What are you talking about? We all—”

“You all hid part of the puzzle. I heard the story. And I’ve seen the four of you, and I’ve talked to your friends. You don’t spend as much time on the streets as I have without learning how to read people. And developing an ear for bullshit. There is no puzzle.
You
know where everything is. You could hand it over right now if you wanted to.”

“Well, you’re wrong,” I said, ignoring the skip of my heartbeat. “I guess you don’t read people as well as you think.”

“You can say that all you want,” he said, “but every day my people go out into this world and risk infection, and the doctors and nurses who examine them risk it too, and as long as they don’t have a vaccine to protect them, some of them will get sick. And die. That’s on you. Do you honestly believe the CDC is going to be a hero here, offering vaccinations to anyone who asks, with no price to pay? That the people there are so special it’s worth taking the chance of losing the vaccine completely? It doesn’t matter what their job titles are; they’re still human beings. And there aren’t any laws left except the ones we’re making for ourselves.”

His insinuations pricked at me, reminding me of Dr. Guzman’s hints about withholding the vaccine. Yes, maybe they’d have their own criteria for giving it away. But it wasn’t the same.

“They haven’t tried to murder us,” I said. “How many people have died, not because of the virus, but because of
you
?”

Finally, I provoked a reaction. A spark flashed in his eyes. “Believe me, I’ve saved enough lives too. I’ve done what I had to.”

“And what are you going to do to us if we don’t talk?” I demanded. “Let Nathan carve us up? That’s how it works, isn’t it? You get to sit behind your desk like you’re some kind of CEO, making other people do the awful parts so you can pretend it’s not on you—so you can pretend to your daughter that all you do is paperwork. You’re even
worse
than the rest of them.”

The words came out in a burst of rage, but the instant I finished speaking, a chill washed over me. I was practically asking him to go ahead and torture me himself.

Michael opened his mouth and then seemed to bite back whatever he’d been going to say. Something in his expression softened with what looked like sadness, or regret. His face stiffened again so quickly I almost couldn’t believe I’d seen it. But I had.

“I do what I have to do,” he said again.

Even if he didn’t like it, I realized. He was working with the kinds of people he’d spent most of his life putting behind bars. How
could
he like that? This was his preferred strategy, right here. Showing me the lab, trying to persuade me that it was in my best interests to go along with him. He hadn’t laid a hand on me.

Maybe I’d hit closer to home than I’d known. Maybe that desk and that shelf of books were his wall between him and the reality of what “his” people really did to get what he wanted.

“I can be reasonable,” Michael went on, gathering himself, “but I can be unreasonable too. I need that vaccine. You
will
tell me where it is. If you haven’t decided to cough up the information by tomorrow, I’ll have to switch to a more painful approach. And I know much more effective techniques than Nathan does.”

There was nothing but ice in his gaze now. I had no doubt he’d do it if he had to. Whatever it took.

Some distant part of me even understood. No one had to tell me how important the vaccine was. How many awful things had I done to protect it myself—and to protect
my
people? I wasn’t sure any of the decisions I’d made getting here could’ve been much better. But maybe that was how it seemed to Michael too, no matter how much more horrible his actions were.

“We’ll think about it,” I said.

He walked me back to the car and put the blindfold on me. As we drove away from the lab, I stewed in my thoughts.

When Anika had first told us about Michael, I’d gotten the idea he’d been a sadistic criminal mastermind all along, but obviously that wasn’t true. How did a random cop end up here? How far had he traveled between his old life and the one he was living now?

I guessed he’d have gotten to know people, working on the street. The kind of people who were used to getting out of dangerous situations. Who weren’t afraid to take desperate measures to stay alive. It would be useful, if you were trying to survive, to protect your daughter, to have those kind of people on your side. He certainly knew how to keep them in line.

“I heard you came from out west,” I said. “BC.”

Michael hesitated so long I thought he wasn’t going to bother answering. Then he said, “Vancouver.”

“And there wasn’t enough for you there?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he said, “but the friendly flu doesn’t care how many people you have on your side, how much food you stockpile, how many vehicles you can keep running. I can’t stop until I can stop
it
.”

Which was why he’d been stockpiling doctors and medical equipment too. Why he’d headed south to stake out the CDC, Drew had said, before he’d heard about our vaccine.

“And then?” I asked. “What would you do, if you got the vaccine, after everyone who could pay your price had taken it?”

“Keep sitting behind my desk, I’d imagine,” he said with an edge of sarcasm.

I tried to picture it: a world where Michael controlled the vaccine. Maybe there wouldn’t be much else he could do but keep on this way. He’d still need food and shelter—and protection. Nathan couldn’t be the only one hungry to take his place.

And so he’d keep shaping this world into one where strength through violence ruled and your only choices were to be the victim or the perpetrator. A world I suspected he didn’t even like.

The car rolled to a stop sooner than I expected. But when I raised the blindfold, we were back at the training center. As we drove past the gate, Samantha looked up from where she was crouched on the lawn by the fence. Nikolas stood beside her, and the cat she’d been chasing yesterday was prowling through the grass at the end of a leash. Samantha must have caught a glimpse of me through the car window, because she waved eagerly and pointed to the cat. I guessed the tuna trick had worked.

“It’s for her too, you know,” Michael said as he turned into the parking lot. “Not just people like Nathan and Chay. She could be exposed by accident any day. You could be condemning her along with the rest of us.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

He got out of the car. Marissa and a guy I hadn’t seen before were striding from the main building toward us.

“I can see you’re a smart young woman,” Michael said to me. “I’m hoping you’ll make a smart decision.”

Then Marissa was snapping the cuffs around my wrists, and Michael stalked off toward the building without looking back.

When Marissa hustled me back to the jail cells, Leo, Justin, and Anika were already there, in approximately the same spots as before.

“Are you okay?” I asked as soon as Marissa had ambled off, keeping my voice low. “What did they do to you?”

“Just talked,” Leo said quietly. “Brought us into a room with Michael, he asked a bunch of questions, and then they stuck us in a different room to wait.” He paused. “Mostly he asked about you.”

“We didn’t tell him anything,” Justin jumped in. He glanced toward the doorway, and dropped into a whisper. “I even managed not to tell him to go screw himself. And that was hard.”

“He’s so creepy,” Anika murmured with a shudder. “The way he just sits there with that look on his face like he doesn’t care whether you even answer him or not. Like whatever you say, he’ll just know what’s really true. Now I get why everyone in Toronto talked like he might be listening over their shoulder.”

Michael couldn’t read minds, but he’d known enough. I remembered what he’d said at the lab—
There is no puzzle.
You
know where
everything is
—and had to suppress a shudder of my own.

“What happened to you, Kae?” Leo asked. “It looked like they were giving us all the same treatment, one by one, but when they finished with Anika, they brought the three of us back here together, and you were gone. For a while.”

“He drove me to a lab he’s set up,” I said, sitting on the floor. “To try to convince me that we should hand over the vaccine.” I didn’t want to mention why he’d focused on me. If he was sure I had all the information he needed, that meant the three of them would be expendable in his eyes, didn’t it? Was that how he’d try to get to me: by hurting them, punishing my silence with their pain? I pulled my knees up to my chest, hugging them with my free arm.

“Did he say anything about what he’s going to do next?” Anika said.

“Only that he’d come back tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t know what’ll happen then.”

He could change his mind and show up earlier, but I didn’t think he would. I got the feeling he made a point of keeping his word.

We lapsed into an uneasy silence. The guards outside changed, and then changed again. Anika called to them, cajoling them for more water, but they didn’t even acknowledge her. She slumped back against the wall.

Michael had told them to ignore us, I guessed. To remind us that he had complete control over us now, down to whether we ate or drank. The morning’s stale cracker breakfast felt like it’d been years ago. My thoughts kept creeping to the glimpse of the kitchen I’d gotten upstairs, the salty smell in the air. The gnawing in my stomach expanded into a steady ache. My mouth felt grittier every time I swallowed.

We each drifted off for moments here and there, exhausted after the tense and uncomfortable night. Once, I woke from hazy sleep at the sound of footsteps, and my mind immediately leapt to,
Drew!
But it was only another pair of guards taking over.

The lights dimmed. Night had fallen. Our time was slipping away.

I could hardly expect Drew to come again so soon. He might
never
find a way to get us out. How could we possibly get the entire distance from these cells to the front gate without someone catching us?

If it really was impossible, what was left for us to do? Stay here, holding out, until…what?

Maybe Michael had been smart to let me stew this over.

“I think we should talk about our options,” I said quietly.

“What options?” Justin asked, and covered a yawn. Anika shifted around to face me.

“The options we have to choose between if we’re stuck here,” I said. “If we don’t get a chance to escape.”

On the other side of the barred wall, Leo lowered his head. “You’re not sure how long the vaccine will last, where it’s hidden,” he said. His expression was solemn. He knew where I was going with this.

“I think a few days should be all right,” I said. “But more than that…I just don’t know.”

“So we could go through hell here to save a vaccine that’ll be ruined anyway,” Anika said.

“So what?” Justin said. “There’s no way we’re giving it to these pricks. Right?”

“That’s what we have to figure out,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be better for them to have it than for
no one
to have it?” Especially if the lives of the three people staring at me could be on the line too. Expendable meant Michael could go as far as killing them to make me talk. I drew in a breath. “Their lab looks good. I think they could replicate the vaccine pretty quickly.”

To my surprise, it was Anika who protested first. “You know what they’d do with it? Hold it over the heads of everyone who didn’t want to join up with them, or wasn’t smart or strong enough for them to use. Like they’ve been doing with everything else they have. They’re bad enough already!”

“Would you still say that if giving it to them was the only way you’d get vaccinated?” I asked.

“I turned it down before, didn’t I?” she said. “I never let anyone push me around before the friendly flu came along, and I was a lot happier then.”

“Yeah!” Justin said, and quickly lowered his voice again. “If we give up, they’ll just keep running things; nothing’s ever going to get better. Gav and Tobias
died
so we could get here. We can’t let them down. Or everyone else who’s not with the Wardens.”

My throat tightened, but I managed to say, “I think we’d be letting them down more if we let the vaccine get ruined completely.”

“Kaelyn’s right,” Leo said. “It’s not that simple. I don’t want to live in a world where the Wardens decide who gets the vaccine and who doesn’t. But I don’t want to live in a world where the virus rules, either.”

Of course, even if we did manage to escape and bring the vaccine to the CDC, it’d just be a different set of people deciding for us. I trusted Dr. Guzman far more than I trusted Michael, but if she had the vaccine, that might mean condemning Samantha, and Drew, and Zack, and anyone else who’d gotten caught up in Michael’s schemes out of necessity rather than greed and cruelty.

It wasn’t simple at all.

“I don’t want to do it,” I said. “I don’t want to give up. I don’t want the Wardens having that power. But I also don’t want to be the person who stops the rest of the world from getting that vaccine, you know?” I paused, rubbing at my bleary eyes. “But we don’t have to make up our minds now.”

“Right,” Justin said. “You said we’ve got at least a couple more days. I’m ready. Let Michael bring it on.”

Michael would. That was what I was afraid of.

Leo shifted along the wall and reached between the bars to squeeze my shoulder. I leaned into his touch, taking a small comfort in the warmth of his fingers. How was I supposed to choose when the only options I could see both felt wrong?

Leo turned his hand to cup the side of my face, his thumb skimming my cheek. “We’ve made it through a lot,” he murmured. “We’ll make it through this too.”

I twined my fingers around his. In that moment, I didn’t care what this gesture meant or what the exact nature of my feelings was. I just ached to feel his arms around me. This was as close as I could get.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

We sat like that for a long time. I dozed with his breath grazing my skin, until a nightmare whirling with knives and blood and a face that shifted back and forth between Nathan’s and Michael’s jerked me awake, my nerves jangling. The jitters stayed long after the room around me had come back into focus. Letting go of Leo’s hand, I stood up and stretched my legs.

“Come on,” Anika called toward the doorway, with a hoarseness I didn’t think she was putting on. “Just a little water. Please?”

I couldn’t see the guards, but the low muttering of their voices told me they were still there. No one responded to her plea. I sat back down.

My nerves were just starting to steady when a new set of footsteps echoed down the hall.

“Time to switch off,” the newcomer said. My head jerked up at the voice. It was Drew.

“Where’s your partner?” one of the guards asked.

“He said he’d be down as soon as he’s grabbed something from the dorms,” Drew said. “We can wait if you want. But I’m pretty sure I can handle standing here by myself for a bit.”

“Well, let’s give him a minute.”

I held myself completely still, straining to hear over the thumping of my heart. The seconds ticked by, and the guard who’d spoken sighed.

“To hell with it. This has got to be about the most boring job around—you’ll survive on your own.” There was a clink as she handed off the keys. “Just make sure you call for someone if the guy who was supposed to join you doesn’t turn up soon. You’ve got a two-way, right?”

“Of course,” Drew said.

The other guards walked off. The door at the end of the hall squeaked open and shut. I got up again, stepping closer to the front of the cell, and the others roused at my reaction. Drew waited the space of two of my breaths, and then ducked into the room.

“Okay,” he said, fumbling with the keys. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“What are we doing?” I asked as he opened the cell and reached to unlock our handcuffs. “Where do we go from here?”

“Up the stairs to the left, out the door, and around this building to the right until you reach the parking lot,” Drew said. “As quickly and quietly as you can. I think I’ll be able to distract the people who’ll be watching the doors, but if anyone spots you, there’ll be trouble. I managed to pick up your radio transceiver, and a little food—stuck them in the fastest car we’ve got.”

He pressed a car key on a steel fob into my palm after releasing my wrist. “Nathan’s going to be pretty pissed.”

The image of the shiny red convertible popped into my head. It wasn’t the most discrete of vehicles, but that didn’t matter at night, and it
did
have quite the engine on it.

“Sweet!” Justin said. “That’ll teach him to mess with us.”

I slipped the key into my pocket. “How did you get it?”

“The cars are supposed to be shared,” Drew said as he freed Anika and then moved to the guys’ cell. “So Michael makes people leave the keys on a rack in the foyer. Nathan put word around that if anyone touched ‘his’ car he’d slice and dice them, of course, but it’s not as if you’re going to let anyone catch you.” The corner of his mouth curled with the start of a smile.

“So we have to just hope we can outdrive the others?” Leo said.

Drew shook his head. “I poured water into the gas tanks of the other cars here. That should make the engines stall—right away, or a little ways down the road. You just have to keep ahead of them long enough for it to kick in.”

My skin went cold. “They’re going to know you helped us, aren’t they? Forget Nathan—what will Michael do to you when he finds out? You have to come with us.”

“It’ll be fine,” Drew said. “I think I’ve made it look as if it’s all someone else’s fault. Except this.” He tapped the door of the cell. “So I’ll need a little help. They have to believe I just made a mistake.”

He stepped back, having released the guys, and spread his arms wide. “Take a swing at me, Leo.”

“What?” Leo said, his eyes widening.

“They’ve got to think I put up a fight,” Drew said. “Or else it’ll be obvious I was in on it. Just a couple good punches should do it. I’ll live.”

When Leo hesitated, Justin pushed in front of him. “I’ll do it,” he said brusquely. “You want it in the face, where they’ll see it?”

Drew nodded, his body tensing in anticipation of the blows. I looked away as Justin let his fist fly, cringing at the
smack
of knuckles against skin. Drew swayed to the side, grabbing a bar for balance.

“Good,” he said, a little roughly. “One more. How about here?” He pointed to his jaw.

After, he sank down on the floor and spat a little blood onto the concrete beside him. “Okay,” he said. “Get going. I’m going to buy you your window of opportunity now.”

“Drew…” I said. He waved me off when I stepped toward him.

“Go.”

If it had been just my life I was risking, I might have taken a second to hug him. But it was his and the others’ too. So I hurried with Leo, Justin, and Anika through the doorway and down the hall. As we left Drew behind, I heard the crackle of static as he faked a deep voice into his two-way.

“I think I saw someone running by the south fence. There they are! Can I get some backup? They’re heading east now.…”

We fled up the stairs and paused outside the first-floor hallway, but the lights there were dim, and I saw no one patrolling. We darted to the nearest exit. If Drew’s ploy hadn’t worked, if there were Wardens standing right outside, I wasn’t sure we could outrun them. Justin was still limping.

But it appeared everything was going to plan. We slipped out into the night. Somewhere beyond the neighboring building, flashlights flickered and someone shouted. I didn’t stop to listen. We hustled around the corner toward the parking lot. Justin started to drift behind, his bad leg wobbling, and Anika fell back beside him. I slowed enough so that we didn’t lose them completely.

A single pale light shone on one of the fence posts around the lot. I caught the crimson gleam of Nathan’s convertible, top up, partway down the second row. Motioning to the others, I veered toward it.