Rice looks around, thinking. “There may have been researchers stuck inside this area when the alarms sounded. If they got caught in the lockdown, they wouldn’t have left a secure area.”
He fiddles with the panel and presses a button. For a long moment, nothing. Then a tentative voice on the other side says, “Hello?”
“This is Assistant Director Richard Kiernan. I’ve been locked out of the lab. Can you open the door?”
After a long pause, the voice responds. “It’s against protocol.”
“Yes, I realize this.” Rice sounds commanding. “But there is currently a Florae breach and I am trapped on the wrong side of this door. If you do not break protocol, you could be responsible for not only the death of the assistant director, but of the future of New Hope.”
Brenna looks at Rice, eyebrows raised. “Wow,” she says.
Rice shrugs sheepishly as the door opens and a scared researcher pops his head out, his eyes darting over us and down the hallway. “Have any of you been bitten?”
“Yeah,” Brenna blurts out before I can say no, “but it was forever ago and I’m doing just fine.”
The researcher moves to slam the door, but I jam my foot in it, and Kay and I push our way in past him. Brenna and Rice follow, securing the door behind them.
“I’m going to get Baby,” I call back to Rice as I hurry away down the corridor. Maybe this time I can convince her not to scream. She just needs to be reminded of the dangers, to remember how she used to avoid Them every day.
The door to Baby’s room is already open. I rush inside and find her sitting at her table across the room, coloring, completely oblivious. But she is not alone.
Dr. Reynolds looks up at me from his seat next to her and smiles. “Hello, Amy,” he says, the loose flesh under his jaw jiggling as he speaks. “How nice to see you again.” His hand rests on the table, gripping a gun. Before I can think of moving, he stands, sweeps up Baby in his free arm, and presses the gun to her temple. She doesn’t even look frightened; she just blinks blankly a few times, her eyes unfocused.
“No,” I say, stepping forward. “I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t hurt her.”
“He won’t,” Rice says, appearing at my side. “He has twenty different researchers analyzing her blood. He won’t kill her. She’s too important.”
“Are you certain of that?” he asks, staring me down. “You have managed to be quite the disruption. You’ve rendered your mother useless to me. You’ve turned her against me, her and I don’t know how many Guardians.” He looks past us and cocks his head. “Kay, is that you? Why don’t you put your weapons on the floor? All of them.” He digs the gun deeper into Baby’s skin, and Kay begrudgingly throws her gun and knives onto the floor. His gaze falls back on me. “You too, Amy.”
I nod and slowly place my weapons at my feet.
“Good girl,” Dr. Reynolds tells me.
Unable to contain the fury welling up inside, I take another step forward—only to stop myself. He holds Baby’s life in his hands.
“It’s amazing that one emotionally disturbed girl could cause so much trouble.” Dr. Reynolds shakes his bald head. “And you,” he spits at Rice. “You’ve been completely useless. I should have left you in that orphanage, alone and unwanted. I should never have taken you into my care. You’ve become such a disappointment.”
Rice looks as though he’s been slapped, his face blazing red. “‘Taken me into your care’? Is that what you call it?” I realize he isn’t ashamed, he’s livid. “You think I don’t know about my parents’ car crash? You think I don’t know you had them killed so you could use me? What a sick, sad lunatic you are. You had to have been cooking up your crazy plans long before then, raising your stable of super-geniuses to do your bidding. What a gift the Florae infection must’ve been for you.”
My heart breaks for Rice. How hard it must have been for Rice to work with Reynolds, filled with hate and bitterness.
But far from being taken aback by Rice’s words, Dr. Reynolds’s grin has been widening all along, and now he laughs out loud.
“A ‘gift’? Are you serious? For a ‘super-genius,’ you’re terribly slow on the uptake, boy. You think the Florae outbreak was an accident? You insult me. When I saw what this mopey young girl’s mother had created, I alone realized its full potential. I saw it as a way to correct all the mistakes humanity had made. Everything could be undone, and the very building blocks of society could be reconstructed. New Hope is my Eden!”
No one in the room moves. No one can believe what we’re hearing.
Dr. Reynolds created the After, on purpose.
My mother may have given him the weapon, but Dr. Reynolds is the one who pulled the trigger. It hits me like a gunshot. He killed everyone—my father, my friends, my neighbors. Everyone. Dr. Reynolds ended the world.