“Why?” I asked.
He paused and turned around. He seemed to look beyond me, at the soldiers guarding the doorway. Soldiers who were probably watching us with great interest.
Oh. He wanted to be discreet.
“People don’t stop being sick just because you’re incarcerated, Vibeke,” he said.
I knew that tone. My lead paramedic had adopted it on those days when I hadn’t felt up to the task of carting around the sick, the injured, and the elderly. She had been good at sussing out my true motives: if I were actually ill, for example, as opposed to on the verge of failing a final exam because I’d stayed up all night drinking with the boyfriend du jour.
Renati clasped my upper arm—gently, not like Tony or Logan—and steered me down the street, away from the soldiers. His stride was quick, and I had to walk swiftly to keep up with him. He remained ever watchful, looking up at the big, silent buildings…searching for eyes on us, maybe.
“They said the plague was getting worse,” I said.
“Death is a fearful thing."
Gee, thanks, Professor.
He was moving even faster, almost at a brisk jog now. I had done plenty of push-ups and jumping jacks during my first stint in the Big House—hey, now I could say I’d been locked up twice!—but running around hadn’t exactly been on the docket in that dinky little cell. My lungs burned.
“Doctor, what the hell is going on?”
He jerked his head around again, searching for eyes. The prison building had faded behind us, and we seemed utterly alone on these streets.
Finally he turned to me. “I need you to be quiet for a few more minutes,” he said. “I could only get you out. The others—it would never have worked. You were the only feasible option.”
Oh, this didn’t sound shifty at all.
“Now come.”
He trusted me to follow him then, down another street, toward the medical complex. I swallowed my nausea and tried to flatten the goosebumps that broke out on my arms and neck. Death waited there. Death and God knew what else.
We were able to avoid running into most of the medical staff in the main tent. I was sure one of the orderlies did a double take, but said nothing. Renati took me through the Plague Tent, past rows of quiet, sedated bodies. There were more of them now, true, but they all slept. It didn’t look like things had gotten all that much worse.
We kept moving, leaving the Plague Tent and emerging in the courtyard. We went past several soldiers and then toward the building that had sufficed as Renati’s lab.
He glanced at the soldiers we we walked by them. “I’ll show you their latest vitals,” he said, loudly enough for the soldiers to hear. “You can tell me if you see a pattern.”
They didn’t follow us. Once we were inside, he shut the door behind me and locked it.
I knew immediately we weren’t alone. I felt someone looking at me as soon as I stepped inside.
Logan perched on the edge of one of the counters, wedge in between two microscopes. His rifle balanced on his knees.
“Hi,” he said.
I looked at Renati. “He tried to kill you yesterday,” I said.
The doctor shrugged. “It happens.”
Perhaps soldiers tried to kill him on a regular basis. It would explain a lot. “So…you’re cool with each other?”
“We’re cool,” Logan said. “I was in a bad place.”
“As are we all,” the doctor murmured.
I took a deep breath. “This isn’t about the plague, is it?”
The men exchanged glances. “Is that what you told them?” Logan asked. “And they bought it?”
“It’s not a lie. Not exactly anyway. The men aren’t well-informed, and they can see the beds are filling up again. But no, Vibeke, that’s not why I brought you here.”
“He was the only one who could get you out,” Logan said. “I’m supposed to be on bedrest for emotional issues…or some shit like that.”
“I don’t care which of you got me out or what you told them. Why?”
They exchanged glances, giving me the distinct impression that I wasn’t going to like whatever it was they had to say to me.
“I made a mistake,” Renati said. “I shouldn’t have given them that drug. I knew Jacoby didn’t intend it for civilian usage…I thought…if they die, at least it would help keep them from coming back. Unfortunately it did not.”
“Okay,” I said. “Glad you worked that out. Why am I here?”
“Keller has kept a close eye on those poor souls we reanimated,” Renati net on. “Now that he knows we can do something, he’s going to want to do something about it.” The doctor looked at me. Clearly he was aiming for a meaningful stare, but I for damn sure wasn’t understanding it. “He locked all of you up without any sort of trial. He’s already sent down orders, commanding me to start injecting everyone ill with what remains of Jacoby’s serum. I told him we were running out. He told me to make more.”