I check Brenna before we head out again. The moonlight reflects off her damp skin. She looks so pale, but she’s at least a little coherent for the moment. She smiles weakly, then snaps her eyes over my shoulder, holding up four fingers on her good hand.
I turn and see the Floraes, too—shuffling along the road toward the gas station, hunting. I slip into the bike trailer with Brenna and pull the flap over us. Moving my head from side to side, through my amplifier I hear a low snarl, a damp huffing, the unmistakable scrape of Florae claws on pavement as They approach.
I stay completely still, curled next to Brenna, who thankfully remains quiet, no longer shivering. The Floraes pass us, but still I wait. I could shoot them, but if we can take cover, I’d rather save my bullets for a more dire situation, for when hiding isn’t an option. It’s how I survived so long in the After, by being patient and careful. Finally Brenna opens her eyes. “They’re gone,” she whispers.
I carefully remove myself from the bike trailer and stretch, searching the road behind us. There’s no sign of Them. Getting back on the bike, I pedal on, slow and steady, in the direction of Fort Black.
As I scan the horizon for Floraes, my mind slowly turns over my options. First I’ll find Jacks, who can help me. Then I’ll bring Brenna to Ken. He’ll study her blood, maybe develop a cure from it. Or maybe he already has the cure—maybe it was the latest vaccine that’s saved Brenna.
But why didn’t my mother find the formula sooner? Why didn’t Rice? My mother created the original bacterium strain that started all this, and Rice is the smartest person I’ve ever met. The labs at New Hope are well equipped and staffed. How could Ken, working alone in his Fort Black lab, succeed where they failed?
No. Like Baby, Brenna has to be immune because of that long-ago testing.
After a few hours, the prison walls are in sight.
I circle around to the garage entrance and stop the bike outside the door. Brenna’s lucid enough to keep up on her feet when I haul her from the trailer. Supporting most of her weight, I lug her to the door and kick at it.
I feel eyes on us through the door, and then the guard cracks it open.
“Oh, hell no,” the guard says. All I can see are his wide eyes and the end of his rifle barrel. “You’re not bringing her in here. She looks like crap. She’s bitten, isn’t she?”
“Get Jacks,” I say, leaning Brenna against the wall. “Hurry.”
“But—”
“Now!”
The door shuts, and Brenna slides down the wall into a sitting position. I give her some water, thinking it might already be over. If the guard goes to Doc instead of Jacks—and that’s probably protocol, with a probable infection at the gate—it will be. Long minutes pass before the door opens again, but it’s Jacks who’s standing on the threshold with the guard.
My heart presses against my chest. To my surprise, my eyes fill with tears.
“Well,” he says. “I don’t usually like blondes, but . . .” His eyes flick to Brenna and his smile fades. “Brenna? What happened?”
“She’s sick. Help me with her.”
The guard still doesn’t like it. He keeps his gun trained on Brenna while Jacks and I hoist her to her feet and bring her inside. His eyes bore holes into our backs as we make our way through the garage. Sweat beads on my forehead. How long will it take him to call the Warden?
Jacks and I take Brenna around the wall to one of the examination rooms and place her on a bed. “I’ll go get Doc,” he says, turning to leave, but I grab his arm.
“No, wait. Not Doc.”
“Why?”
“Well—” How do I explain that his father wants me dead?
But before I say anything, he pulls me in for a hug.
“When I read that note, I thought I’d never see you again.”
The hairs on my arms are standing on end. “Brenna was bitten by a Florae,” I whisper into his ear.
He releases me, eyeing Brenna, and then a needle on a metal tray across the room. The potassium chloride.
“You don’t understand.” I put myself between him and the tray. “Brenna was bitten yesterday afternoon.” He stares at me, uncomprehending. “Jacks, it’s nighttime now. It’s been about thirty hours since she was bitten. She hasn’t changed. She isn’t going to change.”
Jacks shakes his head. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible. It’s happened.” I step closer to him. “Don’t you see? Brenna could be the key to a cure. She could end it all—New Hope, Fort Black . . . People wouldn’t have to live like this anymore.”
I watch as he struggles with what he’s just heard.
He looks over at Brenna. “Amy, this means . . . ,” he says, understanding dawning on his face, “humans can take back the world.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“I have to get Doc,” Jacks is telling me for the third time. “If her wound is infected—”
I cut him off. “Can’t you help her?”
“I’m not a doctor, Amy.” Jacks stares at me for a long time, then looks away. “I don’t know what to do. I know finding out about all his experimentations bothered you. . . . It freaked me out too. But he’s still a doctor. He still helps people.”