Ken eyes the syringe in Doc’s hand. “What the hell are you doing?”
“The vaccine. It’s effective. I’m injecting all these people with that bitten girl’s blood. A meaningless test, but protocol is protocol. The i’s need dotting, the t’s crossing. I know she’s immune. And if she’s immune, even though she’s a carrier, everyone else given the vaccine is also immune. I mean, I couldn’t go out and get a live Florae, could I? Much too dangerous. Believe me, I know.”
“How does that make any sense?” Ken asks desperately. “The girl didn’t change, but that doesn’t mean the vaccine was effective. There could be any number of other factors in play. But one thing we do know is that she’s a carrier.”
“Oh yes, she is, certainly,” Doc tells us happily. He takes a bottle out of his pocket, pops the top, and pours some pills into his mouth. He pauses and swallows with a shake of his head. He turns back to us. “I ran her blood. The same bacteria we find in the Floraes is in her, fully developed, and yet she remains unchanged.”
I cringe as he gives another man a shot. “If the vaccine is ineffective,” I say, “doesn’t that mean that all these people are now infected?”
The man who was knocked out with the rifle begins to shake where he lies, unconscious. I pull out my gun and take a step back from him. “Ken . . . ?”
“It’s started,” Ken whispers, unbelieving.
I look around the Yard. How many has Doc infected? Some people change in minutes, others hours. How can it be contained? Another man drops to his knees, his hands to his ears. He screams, his skin turning from sunburned-brown to dark-yellow to yellow-green. When his hands fall away from his head, one ear tumbles to the ground, bouncing off the hard concrete. The other ear hangs loosely, attached by a thin piece of flesh. I stare, horrified. I’ve never seen anyone actually change before.
Ken comes to his senses before I do. “We can’t contain this, not now. Our only hope is to leave.”
“Leave? Where?” There’s nowhere left to run.
“I’ll contact New Hope, tell them about Brenna. They’ll send a hover-copter for us.” He grabs my hand. “Come with me. Kay would want you safe.”
“And Jacks,” I say, and he nods. We’ll get out and take Brenna to New Hope.
Ken pulls me back toward the wall, but the panic has begun. Someone runs into us, knocking me onto my stomach. When I roll over, Ken has disappeared, and a man stands over me, salivating. He hasn’t changed completely yet, but he’s close—his ears and nose are gone, his skin a pale pea-green. His eyes are tinged with yellow, but they aren’t yet milky and useless. They burn with a fire I’ve seen before in Floraes who haven’t yet lost all their sight. Hunger.
He is no longer a man. He is a monster. He’s one of Them.
Chapter Twenty-nine
He lunges greedily for me, and I don’t allow myself to hesitate. I can’t consider the fact that this creature was a man just seconds ago. I grab my gun, take aim, and shoot. His head snaps back from the impact and he falls over. Another Florae rushes to his side and begins to feed on him.
I scramble to my feet, pull up my hood, and prepare myself for a fight—knife in one hand, gun in the other. In the increasing frenzy, the lights that Doc had set up are knocked over and extinguished. I wish I had my Guardian glasses, but I left my pack with Jacks in the examination room. In the bottom of my belly I feel a familiar quivering.
Fear.
I’ll be fine, I tell myself sternly. I lived for years in the shadows. I’m not afraid of the dark. It will make it easier to avoid the Floraes and get back inside.
Suddenly the Yard is filled with a burst of brightness. The spotlights in the guard towers have been turned inward. I silently curse the light. The guards are at least trying to destroy the Floraes, though. The sound of gunshots fills the air, making it hard to hear anything, to remain alert.
I sidestep a man on his knees, holding his ears, his face contorted in pain. Auditory sensitivity, one of the first signs he’s been infected. I level my gun, but I can’t bring myself to shoot him. He’s still a person. A man rushes toward me on my right, and I prepare for his assault, taking the fighter’s stance Kay taught me, but the man is only trying to escape. He dashes past me and starts banging on the door behind me to get inside the walls. I throw my back against the wall a few yards away from him, every muscle tingling, ready to fight any Florae that attacks.
One moment the man is pounding on the door, screaming in panicked desperation, and the next another volley of gunfire assaults my ears and the man drops to the ground. I sprint down the wall away from the door—the guards are taking down every threat to their quarantine. I can only hope Ken made it inside before the guards decided to shoot anyone trying to escape past the wall.