We were trying to help…
Her tone calmed somewhat, though the chill didn’t leave her eyes. “Do me a favor. Next time Renati wants to give patients any sort of drug I haven’t specifically called for, you tell me, and maybe we avoid another mass die-off, all right?”
I nodded, biting the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted a bit of blood.
“Now get to work. See if you can keep from killing any more of them.”
She strode off, leaving me there awash in feelings of guilt and horror. I hadn’t killed them. I hadn’t known…and he had seemed so reassuring. Sure, it was an untested drug, but it was more than what we were giving them up to that point.
We had to do something.
I had to do something.
I choked down my growing horror and tried to lose myself in my work.
You might have killed her, Vibby.
You might have killed them all.
“What did Renati give her?”
Logan came storming back into the tent an hour later, nearly knocking over a passing medic en route. When no one immediately answered him, he marched himself to the center of everything, then shouted, “What did he give her?”
The Plague Tent was not a place of cheerful chatter to begin with, but a terrible silence fell over it. The other medic shrank away from him, and Lattimore straightened up from the patient she had been tending to.
“Specialist Andrews,” she said, “How can I help you?”
“Pete said Renati gave them some sort of drug. What the fuck was it?”
“He gave them a powerful antibiotic,” she said. “Perhaps too powerful. But—”
“Who else was on duty? Who else?”
The other medic fled.
He started turning in my direction, and I busied myself with marking off yet another set of unchanged vitals. Lattimore, evidently still furious with my part in the antibiotic scandal, had told me to take off once I finished a single round of the tent. Maybe I should have listened to her.
Logan had not asked me anything else about my previous shift when he was at the house. Maybe he hadn’t thought to.
“What’s done is done, Andrews,” Lattimore said.
Not helping, Doc. It was the wrong thing to say to a grieving brother. Logan’s hand clenched into a fist as he approached me.
Oh, fuck on a stick.
He stopped in front of me. “You gave her that shit, didn’t you? You were on duty!”
“Logan, I didn’t know it would—”
That was all the admission he required. His good hand snaked out and grabbed my wrist, and before I could resist I found myself twisted against him. I couldn’t even cry out; something cold pressed against my forehead. His gun, he’s got a gun on me, oh fuck.
I scrabbled against his grip, and he adjusted me, squeezing his arm around my neck and nearly cutting off my air supply.
“Get McKnight,” Lattimore said to someone.
No, don’t get McKnight, I thought, but the other medic had already scuttled away.
If Tony got involved in this, Logan would just try to kill me more.
I had gotten away from a chokehold like this once before, but hanging limply didn’t make him loosen his grip. If anything, he held on tighter.
“Stop wriggling,” Logan said. “You killed her. You fucking killed her!”
“I didn’t! I didn’t know what it was!”
My air cut off abruptly.
I tried to suck in more, but Logan had me tight. All signs of grief had vanished, and rage had firmly taken its place. It wasn’t enough that Alyssa had died. Someone had done something to her. So what if she was dying anyway? In his eyes, I might as well have murdered her.
“Why did you do it?”
I clawed at his arm.
He loosened his hold ever so slightly. “Talk,” he barked.
“Logan—Logan please—”
Patients were staring. Lattimore stood next to the tent entrance.
“Where’s her body?” Logan squeezed my neck too tightly for me to make another sound.
“Specialist, we dispose of the bodies. You know that.” Lattimore sounded patient. Kindly, even.
“You can’t have gotten rid of her yet. I checked the body drop areas. She’s not there.”
The gun pressed harder against my head. I found myself wishing he’d just do it so I could be dead and done with this nonsense. Maybe Alyssa would wait up at the River Styx for me or something.
I heard movement from the other side of the tent.
“Let her go,” Tony said.
Oh, great. Now he’d try to do something heroic and that would be the end of me.
“You’re being a shit, Logan.”
Logan pressed the gun harder against my temple. I hadn’t thought it possible. He tightened his grip around me again, until even drawing breath became impossible. I kicked out, frantic. I’d escaped this once. I could escape this again.
I had escaped from a crazed biker, though. Not a trained soldier driven mad by grief.
Please, I tried to say. Please, don’t do this.
No words squeaked out.
“Like that, man?” Logan muttered. “Doesn’t feel good to lose what’s important to you, does it?
Tony held up his hands. “What is it you want? I can guarantee you, choking out Vibeke won’t get it for you.”