“When I realized what was happening, I started a fire in the lab to erase the evidence. My employers said they’d get me out, but they were lying, of course. I was a loose end. I tried to escape before a quarantine was put in place, but I was infected.”
Freeman jerked aside as I came at him through the ashes, but he wasn’t fast enough. I planted both hands square on his chest and knocked him onto his back. He tried to scramble away, but I fell on him, straddling his chest and pinning him in place. I dug in the debris beside us and lifted out a charred plank the size of a baseball bat.
“Wait. Cardinal, please.”
“You did this. You did all of it.”
I lifted the club over my head, aiming for his skull.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I could make you forget!”
My arm froze where it was. I tightened my grip on the end of the plank.
“Your friend,” Freeman said. “In the National Guard. Can he still get you out of Black River?”
I nodded. He pointed awkwardly to his right coat pocket.
“Take them,” he said. “Please.”
I kept one eye on him as I reached inside and pulled out four small black notebooks.
“What are they?”
“My memory,” he said. “Everything I wrote before and after I became infected. Names. Dates. Enough to make sure everyone who needs to be held accountable for what happened here will be. There are details about the virus too, how we engineered it, how it works. With that and whatever’s in your blood that’s made you immune, I think Dr. Lassiter will be able to make a cure. A vaccine at least.”
I got up slowly, holding the plank in one hand and the notebooks in the other. Freeman scurried away and retrieved his flashlight.
“You’ve had these all this time? You could have sent them to the police. The newspapers.”
“They’ve been watching me,” he said. “They’re always watching me.”
“Who?”
Freeman nodded toward the notebook on the top of the stack. I opened it, and he shined his flashlight across the pages. They were filled with names and dates and formulas that meant nothing to me. But one thing stood out. A name was referenced on nearly every single page. As soon as I saw, it was so obvious that I wondered how I hadn’t realized it before.
“Martinson Vine,” I said. “They were your employer. That’s why they pushed to take over the quarantine from the Guard. Why they arrested you that first day.”
“And why they ransacked my library,” Freeman said. “They wanted to see if I was still a loose end. Luckily, there’s no better place to hide a few books than a library. My antic disposition was enough to convince them that I wasn’t a threat.”
I weighed the notebooks in my hand. “What about . . .”
Freeman produced a thin white envelope from another pocket deep in his coat.
“Like I said, I was a scientist once too. Dr. Lassiter will be able to use what’s inside this envelope to engineer a version of the virus that will infect you.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked. “Infect some kid he doesn’t even know.”
“Because, unlike Charles Ellis Dumay,” he said, “Evan Lassiter is a good man. He’ll understand that the reason those scientists started their research in the first place was to help people like you.”
“What do you mean people like me?”
“People who are trapped somewhere they don’t want to be.”
I took the envelope and turned it over in my hands. It contained nothing but a few sheets of paper. Was it really possible? A new world. A new me. I slipped it into one of the notebooks.
“You trust me with all of this?”
Freeman allowed himself a thin smile. “I told you, one glance and I knew your past and your future.”
“If all this gets out, the Marvins won’t be the only ones in trouble.”
“I’m responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people,” he said. “Including your friends and family. Even after I testify against my employers, I expect to be in jail for a very long time.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Freeman looked over the ruins, back toward Black River.
“I’ve stood on that bridge too, Cardinal. Many times. Whatever the powers that be decide to do with me will be better than I deserve.”
He held out the flashlight and I took it.
“You’re not coming?”
Freeman didn’t answer, he simply turned his back on me and walked out into the wreckage, until the darkness swallowed him up.
27
I WAITED UNTIL I was sure everyone would be asleep before I went to the high school. The front door creaked as I pushed it open. I snapped the flashlight on and followed its beam down halls lined with stacked chairs and tables. The walls were covered in construction-paper posters from before the outbreak. I felt like I was walking through a haunted house.