“Jesus, we’re not sex traffickers,” River says from somewhere overhead. “If we were, we would drive a much better vehicle and hide the plastic tarps and not possess a centrifuge.”
“How about this?” Leanne says. “I’ll give you my phone, and you can go sit in your car and read anything on it you want. Most of my email is with other grad students. We’re spreading the vaccine as far as we can, all underground. You can see my Facebook, my mom begging me to go back to University of Miami, my Twitter where it’s revealed I’m big into Animal Crossing and The Witcher. I’m a normal person who’s trying to do some good here, and I feel like maybe you are, too.”
“What about River?”
“No way they’ll give you their phone, but you can see their whole YouTube from my phone.”
“I live my life in public,” River says. “The freaky stuff I’m into is very easy to find.”
Ella exhales.
She’s scared, and it’s been a long time since she’s trusted anyone. Her parents betrayed her early on. She lost her best friends when they chose each other and gossip over her, lost her teachers’ goodwill when her grades went south because she wasn’t sleeping because her father was terrorizing her nightly. And then she thought Hayden would finally be the confidant she could be honest with…
The fact that she trusted any of them makes her feel like an idiot.
But her gut tells her she can trust these two random strangers she met in a drugstore, and she’s not sure why. Maybe it’s Leanne’s kindness, the genuine concern in her eyes, and the way her old dress hangs from her frame as if clothes are a secondary problem. Maybe it’s River’s odd honesty, the fact that they don’t seem to need to hide anything at all, including bad moods. The fact that they don’t seem to hold it against her that she tried to inhale pepper to hurt them—
Well, really, she was just trying to escape. When you’ve been chased and harassed and abused, you get to the point where you’d rather fight and die than have to run again.
Ella is just so tired. Her emotions have run her ragged, she hasn’t slept well, she’s been on alert for weeks, she’s severely malnourished. She remembers enough from biology to know that she’s an engine that’s been running hot for far too long without any relief. Her hunger has come back full force, and she would do anything to feel full and safe for just a minute. So, sure, maybe she’ll sit in her locked car, cram Cheez-Its in her mouth, and search Leanne’s phone. And if she doesn’t like what she sees, she’ll drive away with it.
“Okay.”
“Good. I’m going to get up now. Please don’t make any sudden moves.”
Ella’s heart stutters. “Why—do you have a weapon?”
“No. I’m just super clumsy, and it’s a small RV, and we try really hard to keep things clean because bacteria are tricky and the vaccine isn’t going to spread itself.” Leanne awkwardly scrambles off her back, and Ella draws a full breath and lifts up to hands and knees. She’s in a narrow aisle, and Leanne has moved back to sit at a kitchen table with benches on either side. River is across from her, using their selfie camera to dab ointment on some nasty scratches down the side of their face. Ella has to use the table to stand, and Leanne solemnly slides her unlocked phone across the faux wood. It’s got a glitter case and a little Sailor Moon charm, plus a cracked screen.
“Once you’re in your car, we’ll bring in our groceries.” Leanne meets her eyes, and Ella gets a flash of vulnerability there, of the fact that Leanne is just as worried as she is. “Please don’t steal our things. And if you decide to leave, it would be great if you could drop my phone before you do. Or place it on the concrete. The screen obviously can’t take much more.”
“Why are you trusting her?” River asks, all gruff.
Leanne looks from Ella to River and back again. “Honestly? Because she looks as broken down as I feel. Like a lost cat.”
Ella would be insulted if it weren’t so true. She feels like a lost cat—alone and skittish and hungry and scared. She silently takes the phone and touches the screen to keep it from locking. Outside, she grabs her bags and throws them in her backseat, fishing out the Cheez-Its.
Oh, the blessed Cheez-Its.
She’s in such a hurry she rips the box and the bag bursts, spilling crackers. As she stuffs them in her mouth, her saliva going into overdrive, she scrolls through the cracked old phone.
Leanne wasn’t lying, but Ella somehow knew she wasn’t.
All her emails are from college accounts with subjects like PROPER BASE TEMPERATURE and BIFURCATED NEEDLES ARE NOT FUN TO STEP ON and GOT A NEW RECRUIT! Well, and sale emails from Etsy shops and a few emails from her mom begging her to go back to school before they drop her scholarships and internship. Her Twitter is bare and fandom-based. Her Instagram is mostly pictures of flowers and bees. And when she opens TikTok, there’s River, holding up a petri dish triumphantly with the words THE CURE—BACK ON TOUR, EAT YOUR HEART OUT, ROBERT SMITH. Ella is pretty sure The Cure is an old band from the 1980s or something, but it’s comforting to see that River has several million loyal followers and nothing creepy in their feed.
Every bit of evidence suggests that she can trust them. And what’s more, she likes Leanne. She liked her from the moment they met in the cracker aisle. River is prickly, but that seems like a front. Ella looks back at her groceries, at the cans of soup River paid for but placed in Ella’s bags.
She doesn’t want to eat cold soup.
Taking all three of the cans, she heads back to the RV with Leanne’s phone. Leanne is sitting at the table, and when she sees Ella she perks up, grinning.
“So will you listen?”
Ella holds up a can of soup and shakes it, eyebrows up.
“Fine.” River takes the can, pops off the top, slops the soup into a plastic bowl, and puts it in the microwave. “You can sit.”
“I’ll stand.”
“Damn. You’re more skeptical than I am.” Finally, River gives her the slightest grin and sits back down at the table.
The soup has a minute to go. Ella looks expectantly to Leanne.
“I can make the vaccine for the Violence right here in the RV. But I need blood with the active bacteria, which means we’re really hoping you’ll donate, even if you’re technically underage. In return—or, more like, in a spirit of giving—we’ll vaccinate you. That’s what we’re doing—spreading the cure. It’s a therapeutic vaccine, which means it cures those already infected and prevents future infection. Unlike Covid, we got lucky this time.”
Ella raises an eyebrow, and Leanne reconsiders.
“In regard to epidemiology, at least, it’s a much easier beast to vanquish. My grad school friend discovered the vaccine, but her professor stole it and sold it to some cringey little pharma bro who’s selling it for thirty thousand a pop, so now it’s technically illegal for anyone else to use it. Every time it goes up anywhere online, it disappears, and labs get ransacked.”