“Brenna was bitten by a Florae and didn’t change,” I say hurriedly.
Ken freezes for a second, his mouth open. Recovering, he rushes over to examine Brenna. “Are you certain?” He feels her head, looks in her eyes, and unwraps and studies her wound. He has the same wild look on his face that Doc had. Their single-minded obsession has ruled them, and now that the end is in sight, it’s as though a fever has taken over. “I have to see what’s going on in her blood.”
“Doc’s already on it,” Jacks tells him.
“He took Brenna’s blood,” I add.
Ken looks up from Brenna for the first time since receiving the news that she was bitten and didn’t change. “But I just saw Doc in the exercise yard. He had a line of people he was giving shots to. I wondered what he was up to so late at night, but I just assumed it was the newest vaccine.”
“Giving shots?” I say. “He’s not even looking at Brenna’s blood?”
Jacks leaps to his feet. “Where’s that clipboard Doc had me get?” He’s frantically searching the exam room. “The one with the names of the people who’ve already had the shot?”
“I don’t know. Doc must have taken it,” I say.
“What are you doing?” Ken asks as Jacks tears the room apart.
“That list,” Jacks says, giving up and staring at Ken, eyes wide. “Doc took it. He’s lining those people up, he’s injecting—”
“You’re not making sense,” Ken says. “Why would he be vaccinating people who’ve already received the vaccine?”
“He said he was going to do some ‘life tests,’” I say. “What does that mean?”
Ken looks at us, his excitement replaced in a flash by fear. “Life tests? Life test is the term we use for experimenting on human subjects.” He gives his head a shake. “No. He must just be inoculating them. Then he’ll test this subject’s blood.”
In Doc’s mind, the vaccine is effective. Removing Brenna’s fingers stopped the spread of infection while the vaccine suppressed it in her blood. I think of all I know about the infection, and for some reason the Black Pox springs to mind. People can survive the infection and still spread the disease. Doc was already unhinged. Jacks said he thought he was drugged up. Could the possibility of a vaccine and the news of what really happened to Layla push him over the edge?
I remember Doc’s look, his feral glee at the thought of having found a vaccine. I shake my head just as Ken did, trying to rattle that mad image out of it. No. Not even Doc is crazy enough to risk injecting Florae-infected blood into the veins of people he only thinks have been successfully vaccinated. If he’s wrong—
Then the blood in my own veins turns cold, remembering Pete’s panicked whisper to Tank about the fate of another of Doc’s thugs.
Made him into a damned Florae.
I can barely say the words. “Doc is testing Brenna’s blood,” I say. “He’s testing it on those people in the Yard.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
“Show me where he is,” I order Ken. “Now.”
“Amy, calm down!” Jacks yells.
“Don’t you understand what’s going on?” I scream. “We’ve got to stop this before it’s too late!”
Ken nods but eyes Brenna. “She shouldn’t be left alone.”
I turn to Jacks. “Can you stay with her?”
“If you’re going out there, I want to go with—”
“No,” I say. “I can fight a Florae if I need to. Brenna can’t. You need to protect her.”
“I need to protect you,” he says, grabbing my wrist. “You’re the one I—”
He stops himself, hesitates, and then leans in. My heart leaps to my throat as I think he’s going to kiss me again.
But then he just whispers, “Just . . . get back here alive.”
He’s so close, a strange, tingling sensation pours through me, all the way to the ends of my toes.
“I will,” I tell him. “I promise.”
I follow Ken into the corridor and around a corner. There’s a surprising lack of guards around, but when we head out into the Yard, I see why.
Doc has tasked the guards with rounding up people and keeping them in line. He’s set up lights, utilizing the power from the wall. The standing lamps look out of place and cast an eerie glow across the yard. We watch as Doc administers a shot on a woman, then pushes her to a guard to move her along. As Ken and I approach, one man refuses the injection. Doc nods to a guard, who brings down the butt of his rifle in the man’s face. Doc injects him, and the patient is dragged to the side.
Ken and I run past the guards. One tries to stop us, but Doc waves us through. “Ah, Ken,” he says, “you’ve come to participate in my case study? I can use the help.” Doc’s eyes have gone glassy, a sickening grin plastered to his face.