‘Yes, as a matter of fact,’ he says, his jaw clenching. ‘Those parking levels weren’t designed to withstand a blast. They were designed to cave in to protect the bunker if a blower got inside and detonated. If I’d blown the glass with a grenade, it could have brought the ceiling down and crushed us both. Do you have any idea what would happen if you died?’
‘If I died? There were eighty thousand people in there.’ I gesture to the sky, where the plume has spread into a muddied smudge. ‘That cloud could have infected them all.’
‘And you’re the key to the vaccine,’ he snaps. ‘If you die, we’re all doomed. My job is to protect you, and that’s what I was doing. Do you think I wanted to risk those people’s lives?’
‘I don’t know, did you?’ My voice is sharper than I intend it to be. I know I’m lashing out, but I can’t stop myself. I’m frustrated, my knee is ruined, I’ve lost my genkit, and there are only a handful of hours left until I die.
‘Of course I didn’t want to hurt them,’ Cole says. ‘Dammit, Cat, what kind of monster do you think I am? I didn’t even want to leave Homestake. I felt better in that place than I have in years. I wanted to stay there with you, I thought we could –’ He cuts off, drawing his hands back from my knee.
My breath catches.
Did he just say he wanted to stay there with me? Does he mean he wanted to stay there together?
‘What … what do you mean? What about Jun Bei?’
He drops his eyes. ‘You saw her code, how ruthless it was. She killed fourteen people when she escaped from the lab.’
I suck in a breath. Fourteen people. Who the hell is this girl? What did my father’s research turn her into?
‘That’s what she was like,’ Cole continues. ‘I used to be like that too – we all were. All we wanted to do was hurt people after what they did to us.’ He turns his forearm so his panel faces up, revealing the black leylines snaking up his arm. ‘I let Cartaxus turn me into this because I wanted to forget. I wanted to be a weapon without feelings, but I’m not. I see that now, and I don’t want to hurt people any more. I want to help them, like you do.’
‘Cole …’
His ice-blue eyes lift to mine, and he swallows, stepping closer. This time I don’t push him away. I can barely even breathe. For a second I think he might kiss me, and with a jolt I realize that I want him to.
I want his lips on mine. I want to grab his shirt, to pull him to me, to close the distance between us and fold myself into his chest. I want to feel the way I did this morning. Safe, warm, secure.
But that can’t happen. I can’t let it.
It’s not safe to sit here and let Cole look at me like this, sparking something inside me that feels like a window bursting open. Not when he’s driving me to my death. He can’t give me a rush of hope.
Cole can’t look at me like this and make me want to live.
‘We can’t,’ I say, turning my face away. I don’t need to say it, to give a voice to the energy crackling between us. Both of us can feel it. Both of us know it’s there, but I have to find a way to crush this before it grows any stronger.
‘I know you feel this,’ he urges. ‘I know it’s not just me.’
I close my eyes. He’s right. There is something flowing through my veins, some magnetism tugging me to him, dragging me by the heart. It’s all I can do to brace myself against the jeep’s side, trying not to hear the softness in his voice, to feel the way his scent is curling into my senses.
I’m a heartbeat away from pulling him closer, from turning my face up to his. I need to stop this madness, and I need to stop it now.
I open my eyes. ‘Where’s Dax?’
The question is a slap. I hate myself for asking it, and I hate the pain that flies across Cole’s face. It only lasts a moment before a wall slams down and he steps away again, wiping any trace of vulnerability away.
‘He’s with Leoben. They’re north of us, on the highway.’
I nod, biting down hard on my lip. ‘We need to tell them about this plume if they haven’t already seen it.’
He turns to the cloud on the horizon. ‘They’ll be fine. They’re both vaccinated.’
I shift my weight, gingerly sliding out of the back of the jeep. A dull ache shoots through my knee, but the worst of the pain is gone. ‘It’s not them I’m worried about – it’s the virus. I’ve never seen multiple people blow at the same time like this, but I should have anticipated it. This changes everything.’
‘Why?’
I swallow, putting weight on my leg, wincing through the pain. ‘Because it means the virus is evolving, and it’s doing it fast. I can’t rest, not even for a few days. It’s not safe. We need to hurry, Cole. We need to unlock the vaccine.’
CHAPTER 28
We drive for three hours with barely any talk between us until we hit an empty stretch of highway near the Montana border. We met up with Leoben and Dax just north of Homestake, and they’re now following us, carrying the clonebox in their jeep. According to our dashboard, we’ve been skirting round a cyclone cell, but the storm has shifted direction, and we’re now driving through its centre. Rain thuds against the windshield then flies off reflectively, repelled by the glass’s ultrahydrophobic coating. Walls of rain and angry clouds stretch as far as I can see, forming a canopy above the eerie desolation of Wyoming’s wide, abandoned plains.
My eyes are locked on the horizon, scanning instinctively for more Hydra clouds, even though my non-enhanced vision is too poor to see through the rain. There’s a twinge of a headache in the base of my skull, but it’s nothing like the full-blown migraines I usually get. That might have something to do with the healing tech pulsing through my veins, working constantly on my knee. It’s still aching, but the worst of the pain has passed.
I keep running my fingers over the gauze wrapped around my forearm, searching for a hint of silicone growing beneath my skin. It’s too swollen to feel much, but I don’t think there’s anything there yet, and there might not be for at least another day. When Marcus cut out my healing tech, my panel only had to regrow a tiny part of itself. Now the backup node in my spine is regrowing an entire panel. I already have the network of gold-flecked cables stretched throughout my body, so I only need to regrow the silicone and reinstall the apps. Still, if we keep to the schedule we’re on now, I won’t live to see it turn back on.
Brave, I tell myself. This is my mantra. I will be strong; I will be brave. All I have to do is let Cole drive, let Dax set up the equipment, and find a way to say my goodbyes. Not that I have many people left to say goodbye to. Only Agnes, and now I can’t even comm her any more. She might have tried to call, or sent me a text, to tell me what happened to her. I won’t be able to check until my panel is grown.
Which means I’ll probably never know.
Cole glances over, watching me prod at my forearm. ‘Are you sure it’s safe for you to grow a normal panel?’