The Ward

30


11:30 P.M., SUNDAY


Walking back into Callum’s apartment is like walking smack into an old-time newspaper. Direct from his datapad: fuzzy black type projects into the air against a white, pixelated background. Turning around, he quickly shuts the door—the only blank wall space he had to position the article—and continues reading. The headlines send me five steps backward—

THE WARD: A CASE FOR DEMOCIDE

Governor Voss—We no longer have the money to continue searching for a cure. Yet we must stop the spread. We ask you to consider sacrificing the few for the many. Exterminate the virus by any means possible, even by poisoning the host.

The pathogen has overtaken their blood.

They are the Blight.

“What the—Callum, what is this?” I ask, my heart gone still in my body, hands suddenly very cold.

He taps his datapad, scrolling down to read more of the article. “A West Isle news report I just received,” he answers in a low tone. “You remember my mentioning a group of radicals with serious animosity toward the Ward’s sick population? Well, apparently they’ve grown bolder—and more extreme—since this morning’s rally. I suppose with so many people voicing their discontent, today seemed like a good time to come out with their true agenda.”

“Poison everyone? Every last sick person?” I ask, quiet.

I can’t read any more. “Turn it off.”

He does. The projection scatters, and the room is dark again, its corners lit by just a few candles. Shaking his head, Callum says, “It would never happen, of course. I doubt the governor would respond favorably to such a plea . . . not when his own wife is suffering from the very disease they’re looking to ‘exterminate.’”

I nod, agreeing, but I’m silently cursing Derek and Kitaneh. Reading this article only makes it worse—We were so close.

It was in my canteen.

Callum must see my face, or I’m wearing the day’s disbelief like a neon sign. He walks over. Rests his hand on my shoulder. “Derek said no?”

At first the gesture feels awkward . . . uncomfortable. But then something changes. Starts to feel like the very instant when you know you’re friends with someone, because you can see—and I mean really see—that they care.

“He wasn’t even there,” I sigh, only to realize a small part of me is actually relieved. If he had been, I would have been forced to look at him. Derek. The guy I’ve spent so much time feeling all gooey about. And I would have had to hold my ground. I’d have done it, of course. But it would’ve hurt like hell.

Falling into Callum’s chair, I show him the new, red mark left across my neck by Derek’s knife-happy girl-who-is-a-friend, Kitaneh. “She saw the comm and paid the visit instead. Then she cut off the horse’s legs for Governor Voss to see. Basically turned me into her gofer,” I say, and check the time on my cuffcomm.

11:45 a.m.

I’m done for, I think, tugging at my hair.

Nearly time to report, and I’ve got nothing to tell Dunn. If I show up with that legless horse, what will he do to me? Technically, they still own me—I’m a ward of the state. And I know too much to be sent packing.

But if I miss the report, I’m an outlaw. . . . Wanted.

My best option is falling off the grid entirely. Every Bouncer and mole from here to the racing districts will have my picture, and the added incentive of reward money after I’m captured. They’ll all come after me. Have me sent back to the DI headquarters, where Dunn will happily make mincemeat outta of me.

And once I’m an outlaw, I’ll never be able to get into the hospital.

Not like I have anything to bring to Aven anyway.

It can’t end like this. . . . Lifting my head, anxiety-buzzed, I ask, “How do you know we don’t have enough? I’m not a scientist. . . . I don’t know anything about this, but what if you’ve done it wrong?”

“Because—” he answers, lifting a black sheet from a small, square object. “I tried.”

Again, the cooing. Softer this time. Weaker.

“This is Milo.”

Looking out at us through a plastic cage, closed on all sides, is a bird. A pigeon. Gray feathers rumpled, scruffy and white at the neck. He’s nestled in a corner, lying on his side. Like he hasn’t got enough energy to make use of his feet.

The bird coos once more, but now I can hear . . . it’s a cry, not a song.

He’s dying.

And his cage—a purplish light shines across a row of airholes at the top, but other than that it’s no different from the glass rooms in the contagious ward. “Is he . . . ?” I ask, and find that I’m holding my breath.

Old habits.

“Milo is HBNC positive, and contagious. And what happened to Aven—that is precisely what he’s going through. The tumor disappeared, then reappeared. While there may be a sufficient number of the antitumorigenic phytonutrients in the water, there are still not enough antivirals.” Callum nods and drops some seeds through the airhole—they go ignored. “It will never work,” he says.

His words are a stamp, a seal. Truth. A fact.

He reaches for the black sheet.

The orange-eyed bird watches us . . . me. Like I’m responsible for it, somehow. Like I shoulda been able to fix him. My mind wheels around and around, spins my thoughts into a jumble, and I watch Callum send the bird into darkness.

Its orange eyes, its messy feathers—I want to touch them. Lay them flat . . . “Wait—” I croak. “Wait, let me hold him. If he’s going to die . . .” I reach out my arm to catch the sheet.

Callum looks at me strangely.

He don’t know. . . . “I can do it, I’m immune.” I lean my arm on top of the cage, and rest my face close to the glass. I can hear Milo as he rustles his wings. I watch him blink, and realize I’ve never seen a bird blink before.

“You’re what?”

Exhaling, I say, “I’m immune to the virus. Born that way. No one knows. . . . I was told not to say anything. People might want to do experiments or something.”

As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I’m dumbstruck. Idiot, how did I not say anything before now? “Callum—” I start, but he’s already on it.

“I don’t believe . . .” He’s rummaging through his suitcase, tossing aside random sciencey odds and ends. “Ren, this could be it. This could be how we can make your sister’s cure,” he says, pulling out a needle and syringe.

I hold out my arm. “You think it’ll be possible?”

Again, I look at my cuffcomm. The numbers tick closer to twelve thirty.

Callum jabs the sharp tip into the soft flesh of my inner elbow—the syringe fills up with red and I barely even wince. After an armful of VELs, this is nothing.

“I don’t know,” he says, withdrawing the needle. “But it is absolutely worth a try.”

He squeezes a few droplets of my blood into a petri dish, then reaches for another needle. I watch as he lowers it into the glass box. . . . Milo blinks. I think I see his wings shudder, the instinct of fear fully functional even if he can’t do anything about it. As Callum sticks him in the neck, just above the shoulder blade—that’s when I wince.

Not before, when it was my blood. But now.

Watching a bird.

Callum syringes out Milo’s blood into the same petri dish as mine, and lays the glass under his ’scope. Leaning over it, he starts speaking to himself. Words with so many syllables, they may as well be a different language.

I understand when he says, “Holy what—?” though. “Ren, your cells . . . They’re practically waging an outright war on the viral cells.”

And, “If the dosage is wrong again . . .”

I’d like to see the massacre, but he dives back into another conversation of one, and I guess we don’t have the time for show-and-tell right now.

I reach my arm into the glass cage.

Milo’s eyes watch me. I don’t like the fear I see there. Don’t like him thinking I’m going to hurt him. So I keep my hand draped next to him, not moving, and wait. Instead, I listen to Callum—the lilt and the rhythm as he speaks in his own private language. Words that mean nothing to me, and everything.


“Callum—check it out,” I call, my finger about to graze Milo’s tail feathers. “I think he likes me. . . .”

I’m not expecting an answer—Callum’s been digging around way deep in his brain for nearly a half hour now. But I’m kind of shocked. . . . He jumps to meet me.

“Ren, this is it,” he says, positioning the syringe inside the cage. I see it’s full up, not just with red, but also the greenish brown of the springwater. “The moment of truth.”

“Wait . . . You’re done?” I ask, sad to have to pull my hand out.

“Leave it.” He nods to my arm. “No need to move, especially not if you feel you’re calming him.” Once more, he brings the needle to the bird’s neck—I keep my fingers brushed up against his feathers, hoping to distract him.

Callum injects the concoction into Milo.

Then he pulls back and finds his datapad, which he sets up right inside the box.

I take my hand out to see the screen, and through the plastic, we watch it go black and white, taking snapshots of the bird’s insides.

“Look.” Callum points to a bunch of massy bubbles along the bird’s lungs. “Ren—do you see it? It’s disappearing as we speak.”

I don’t see it at first, but then with each new snapshot, I can track the tumor as it shrinks, millimeter by millimeter. He’s done it. . . .

I squeak—actually squeak—and drum my feet on the floor.

I’m about to rocket myself up to hug him, but he stops me. “Wait, I have to take another blood test to be sure. If there’s any of the virus left, it will propagate and Aven will relapse again.”

For the last time, he reaches into the glass with a needle, extracts more of the bird’s blood. Places it under the scope. Peers down.

I’m silent, waiting. Free-fall waiting. Ready-set-go waiting. Lightning-rod-in-a-thunderstorm waiting.

Then Callum looks up, a grin splashed across his face, baby blues saying it all. I read it on his face. “Really?” I whisper, the word no more than air in the back of my throat.

He nods. Now I really do rocket myself toward him. I’m a jack-in-the-box, jumping on my toes, clapping, and I throw my arms around his waist. Callum laughs, pats my back kind of stiff, but when he sees I’m not letting go, he squeezes me closer.

I’m so thankful right now, so grateful, that I’m all full up of love for this boy. Even though I hardly know him . . . it doesn’t matter.

After a moment, he unwinds himself from me and quickly returns to his table. Pulls out a vial and, counting as he goes, droppers in the greenish-brown. Next, my red. When the vial is full he pushes it into my hand.

He’s holding his breath, looking at his comm. “It’s not twelve thirty yet. If you leave now, you can still make it into the hospital before they’ll be on to you. Getting out will be a different story.”

I look down at the vial, so small, so light. Hope roots itself in my chest, pushes out not just shoots and branches, but also wings. This is more than just survival—this is survival of the heart. It draws me out into the open. It will carry me long distances, and I’m desperate to let it.

“I can do it, I’ll figure something out,” I say, one foot out the door.

I always do.