“Where is Alyssa’s body?” His voice shrilled in my ear.
“I don’t know…wasn’t Renati taking them? For tests.”
For a moment, all was still.
The gun went away. Then the arm. I toppled forward.
Tony caught me, kept me from smashing to the floor while I coughed and choked and tried to draw air into my lungs. I could just barely make out Logan racing toward the back of the tent, no doubt set on Renaticide.
“Easy,” he said. “I have you.”
“He’s going to kill Renati!”
“Better him than you.”
I pushed him away and lurched to my feet. My head swam; gold sparkles danced in front of my vision, but I could still make my way toward the back of the tent, where Logan had bolted out.
Tony came after me, gripping my upper arm. “Don’t do this,” he said.
I pulled loose and broke into a run, simply ignored the rest of his words. The back courtyard was utterly empty, and its lonesomeness made it seem even colder in the bleak gray light.
I ran into the lab. Tony came after me, cursing a blue streak.
Once inside, it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the bizarre new lighting scheme Renati had apparently put together that day. Pale blue and purple LEDs were scattered throughout, and the usual fluorescent bulbs had been switched off entirely. The place looked like a bad rave waiting to happen.
Renati was sitting on his knees, hands pressed firmly to the back of his head. Logan stood in front of him, his gun trained firmly against the good doctor’s forehead.
Renati seemed remarkably composed, given his situation. “Ah, Vibeke,” he said. “You may want to come back later. I’m a bit…tied up.”
“Where is Alyssa?” Logan’s hysteria had drained away, leaving only cold resolve again. The hardened soldier was back.
“I don’t know,” Renati said. “I don’t know them by name, son. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not your son. I won’t have you cutting her open!”
“What on earth? Why would I do that?”
“We all know what you do in here with the bodies. Studying the virus when Lattimore doesn’t need you. You’ve had the people who die here carted off to some place where you can pull them whenever the hell you want. You’re sick, dude.”
Renati gulped…but didn’t exactly deny it.
“He’s trying to find a cure,” I said. “What the hell is sick about that?”
“Shut up,” Tony muttered.
“Not with my sister!”
“Tell him where the body dump is,” Tony said.
Logan’s head snapped up, probably not taking the term body dump very well.
“Renati, tell him!”
“Out in the back,” Renati said. “By the old school building. Just outside the courtyard. That’s where they’re stored prior to…ah…” he looked up at Logan.
Prior to disposal? Prior to experimentation?
“Thank you,” Logan said.
He took his gun and left the tent.
Renati sagged forward, his weight landing on his hands. “That poor man.”
Tony snorted. “Yes, that poor man, running around camp waving a gun and trying to choke people out.”
“You shouldn’t have told him,” I said.
“He’s grieving,” Renati said. For once he seemed bereft of an appropriate Shakespearian anecdote. “Wouldn’t you want to know?”
I should have left it at that—should have given up and gone home, exhausted, but something was bothering me. It was too quiet: Logan should have been fighting with soldiers sent to stop him, or wailed over his sister, or something. Instead, when I stepped outside the lab I sensed only a strange, unnatural calm.
So of course I went after him.
I came to regret it.
Chapter Twenty
We followed Logan to a spot behind the medical complex. It was a place free of tents, tucked between two larger, likely abandoned buildings that sported brick walls. It had probably once been a park: brown grass covered most of this square, and benches and playground equipment were set up at particular intervals.
They had put up a wall around it. A real wall, not like the chain link they’d used to keep us out of other parts of the city. Someone had even installed a proper gate—wrought iron, it looked like—with spikes a good five feet over my head. On a bright, sunny day, this might have been a nice place for a picnic.
Now it was just a holding pen.
Logan was standing at the gate, staring inside.
I started toward him, curious and fearful at the same time. What was he looking at?
Tony caught my hand. “Don’t,” he said.
I shook him off and kept moving, though I remained wary of the soldier and his frayed nerves.
Logan had his hands wrapped around two of the bars, and he peered through the gap between them, staring into the pen. This seemed a surefire way to get bitten if a hungry ghoul was on the other side, but there didn’t seem to be a horde of them waiting to eat.