“What did we give them?”
“It wasn’t meant to…I don’t think, anyway…he must have mixed a new batch before…” He sounded dazed now, as horrified as the rest of us. “
“Logan?” Alyssa looked at him, uncertainty etching itself across her features. “What’s wrong? I know I look bad. It’s this…this flu…”
I couldn’t breathe. I was afraid if I did breathe, I’d vomit.
Logan continued to stare at her. “Lys, hon, how do you feel?”
She had to pause. To think? To remind herself how to feel?
“Cold,” she said. “It’s so cold out here.”
Renati pushed past me, grasping the bars as Logan had. “Miss,” he said, his voice infused with warmth, “let me take your temperature.”
Alyssa obediently came forward. The strength went out of my knees. Tony caught me and kept me from hitting the ground.
Renati hesitated only a fraction of a second before pressing his hand against her forehead. “Nice and cool,” he said.
He turned and looked at me, then shook his head ever so slightly. His meaning was clear enough: Alyssa was probably icy cold.
His returned his attention to her, and carried on with a cursory examination. His hand drifted to her cheeks, then paused at her throat. “Swelling in the glands has gone down,” he said. But I saw where his finger was actually resting. He was checking her carotid artery.
I watched his face. His forced, strained expression of calm had given way to something else. Something frightened.
“Alyssa,” Logan said again.
Renati still had his hand on her neck. Waiting for a beat, I thought. Waiting for some telltale sign that she wasn’t fully gone. A slow heartbeat we could manage. Everything else could be explained away, at least eventually.
It never came.
“I’m cold,” she repeated. “Can I have a blanket?”
She was looking at me.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ll get you a blanket, Alyssa.” My gaze landed on the others in the park. The pen. The prison. All of them had to be as cold as she was. “I’ll get blankets for everyone. And we’ll…we’ll take care of this.”
Why the fuck are you telling her you’re going to take care of this? You don’t even know what’s going on, you can’t fix this shit. Vibby, this is above your pay grade.
Man, my inner Tony was having a field day.
The real Tony tried to pull me back a step or two.
Alyssa continued to study me. Maybe she wasn’t really staring; maybe this was just her curious look now. Fine muscle control had gone the way of her pupils, the tiny, fleeting expressions that gave a human face so much of its character utterly removed.
Yet I could not call her a revenant.
“Are you all right, Vibeke?” she asked. She slurred slightly on the Vib. Drying tongue couldn’t wrap around it, maybe. “Are you sick?”
Oh, God. Oh, God, what if I was sick and I was going to come back like her, blank-faced and staring? Tony needed to finish me off if that ever happened.
I seized his jacket. “Tony—”
But wait. I couldn’t just say that in front of her. That would be rude.
He turned me away from her, pulled me against his chest, and wrapped his arms around me. Free of her stare, I finally felt like I could think again, but my mind instantly collapsed into muddled soup. I wanted to cry—wanted to sob—but was too afraid. It would be like uncorking a dammed-up river. If I started now, after all this, I might never stop, might drown us all in tears.
Tony rocked me back and forth. “Doc,” he said, his voice pinched, “you gonna tell us what the hell’s going on?”
“I could make something up,” Renati said. “Do you want me to do that?”
Yes. I wanted him to make something up. To give us a reason besides the obvious. They’re dead. They’re dead but their brain isn’t dead, so now they’re not mindless ghouls. They’re mindful ghouls.
Oh my God, was that worse?
Tony’s chin came to the top of my head. “Shit, man.”
“Not shit,” Renati said in wonder. “Science.”
Science.
Science.
“Science?”
I heard the fury in Logan’s voice, followed by a heaving sound. By the time I tore myself away from Tony, the soldier had the researcher slammed up against the gate, dangling a good foot off the ground.
“You son of a bitch! Undo it! Undo it now!”
“You know how to do that?” Renati gasped. “Because I don’t.”
Logan snarled, then let him go. Renati toppled forward, landing on his hands and knees. The soldier lifted up a fist, likely intending on slamming it against the doctor’s skull.
“Logan,” Alyssa said. She couldn’t get her voice up all that high, but she stretched a pale, stiff hand through the gate. “Logan, don’t.”
The fist fell against Renati’s head with a dull thunk. He slumped forward, bringing his hands up to cover his temples.
“Help him,” I said to Tony. “Stop him!”
Tony didn’t move.
Logan had started throwing punches, his fists thwacking against Renati’s face.
“Stop him,” Alyssa whispered.
She’s still herself.
She’s still a person.
Renati had prescribed the drug that did it.
And I had given it to her.