When I open my eyes, Dax’s face has paled. The light above us blinks out, and the music outside dies away, leaving only the crackle of the bonfire. The cheering and singing of the crowd morphs into a swell of confused voices.
‘Power outage?’ I ask, groping for the light switch on the wall. ‘Dax, pull up your sleeve. I need some light.’
But he doesn’t reply.
My fingers brush the door handle. I grab it and swing the door open, letting in a slice of light from the windows on the other side of the hallway, where the bonfire is raging. ‘Dax? Are you OK?’
He’s standing like a statue, his lips moving slightly, the way he looks when he’s deep in a coding session. The freckled curves of his cheekbones glow orange, lit up by the bonfire’s flickering light.
No, not the bonfire. The light is coming from his panel.
It’s suddenly glowing bright orange.
‘What the hell is happening?’ I ask.
‘It’s the vaccine,’ Dax whispers. ‘It’s incredible.’
‘What’s incredible? Why is your panel orange?’
‘It’s an attack.’ Dax’s brow furrows with concentration, his body growing rigid. ‘But I can’t stop it. You need to get help, Princess. Quickly, run.’
My stomach lurches. I want to ask more, but the urgency in Dax’s voice sends a knife of fear through me. I back out of the room nervously and scan the hallway. It’s empty, with no sign of Cole or Leoben. Beyond the windows, the crowd is wild and raucous again, the sound of firecrackers echoing in the air. The celebrations are back in full swing.
‘Cole?’ I call out, jogging down the hallway. I reach a corridor and glance down it, but it’s empty. Everyone is outside at the fire. Cole must still be talking to Leoben.
A crack rings out behind me, and one of the windows shatters. I drop instinctively into a crouch. Squares of broken glass ricochet off the walls, skittering across the tiles, making me suddenly aware of my bare feet. With the window broken, the sound from outside rushes in – the roar of the fire and a frenzy of wild, shouting voices.
Adrenaline kicks through me. The sound I heard before wasn’t firecrackers, it was gunfire. The people around the fire were cheering just a few minutes ago.
Now they’re screaming.
I push myself up, inching higher until I can see out the closest window. Dax said this was an attack, but he didn’t say who was behind it. If it’s Cartaxus, I’d expect copters and drones, but the sky is empty. In the flickering light of the bonfire all I can make out is a writhing mass of silhouettes.
I creep closer, dodging the broken glass, staring into the night. There are no trucks, no gun-wielding troops rounding people up. There isn’t any order to the fighting at all, but the people in the crowd are all screaming and fighting with one another. It looks like a mass attack of the Wrath, but that makes no sense. There are no second-stagers here, no hint of the scent to send the crowd into a frenzy. It’s like everyone has suddenly just gone crazy.
And all their panels are blazing a bright, neon orange.
I suck in a breath, dropping back into a crouch, panic rising inside me. This isn’t an attack – there are no soldiers out there, no drones dropping bombs. This is worse. It’s the vaccine. The daemon code that was added to it in the decryption must be affecting these people somehow. It’s sent them all into the Wrath, and now they’re killing one another like animals.
And it’s all my fault.
A door creaks back down the hallway. I turn my head, tensed. Dax steps from the school’s sick bay, his shoulders hunched, his movements jerky. His panel still glows orange, and he has something in his hand. It looks like the swabber, but in the dancing light of the fire it might be a gun.
‘Going somewhere, Princess?’ Dax asks, tilting his head. His voice is off, eerie and low.
‘Dax?’ I ask, my voice wavering. ‘Dax, what are you doing?’
He lifts his hand towards me, his shadow leaping across the walls. The bonfire’s light shows his face twisted in a snarl. I realize a heartbeat too late that he’s lost his mind too, and I push myself to my feet and run.
That’s when the bullet hits me.
CHAPTER 39
The colour bleeds from my vision. The doors set into the hallway blink into black-and-white smudges as I fly from my feet. I land hard on my side and roll to my back, gasping for air. The ceiling must be dark, but right now it’s a sheet of pulsing, throbbing white.
Dax shot me. I know this even though there’s no pain yet. I felt the bullet. I heard the sound.
I still can’t believe he actually shot me.
‘Dax,’ I gasp, rolling to my side, sucking in a lungful of air. The wound in my shoulder erupts like a fireball. I try to push myself to my knees, but the pain licks through me, and I fall back to the floor.
Footsteps echo down the hallway. I pull myself into a ball, waiting for another bullet. Instead, Dax just stands above me, pale and wide-eyed. He stares in confusion at the gun in his hand.
‘P-Princess?’ He unloads the gun, hurling it down the hallway, then drops to his knees beside me. He presses his hands to his face in horror.
‘Dax,’ I cry. This is him again. Maybe the attack has passed. I grit my teeth, grabbing the wall, forcing myself up. The crowd outside is still fighting, screaming, roaring. Gunshots pepper the air. Dax seems to be himself again, but everyone else still sounds insane.
He takes my arm to help me up. ‘You have to run, Princess. I’m losing control. I can’t fight it much longer.’
‘But I need your help. We need to stop this – I can’t do it without you.’
His eyes glaze over. He’s fighting whatever the hell this attack is. ‘I don’t think this is happening anywhere else,’ he whispers. ‘It’s just Sunnyvale. Cartaxus, they … they don’t believe me.’ His voice breaks. ‘Princess, I shot you. You need to run before it comes back and I hurt you again.’
‘No,’ I say, grabbing his collar. ‘Just listen to me, Dax. I know you can fight this. You have to try.’
He shakes his head. ‘It’s too late. I can’t stop it. I can feel it – I want to hurt you, I want to …’ His voice rises into a growl.
‘No,’ I cry, stepping away as he doubles over, struggling for control. ‘Dax, listen to my voice. Fight it, please! I can’t do this on my own!’
‘No!’ he shouts. He grips his hair in his fists and screams, every muscle in his body rigid. A shudder passes through him, and his eyes snap up to mine, wild and empty.
The snarl is back on his face. Every trace of my friend is gone.
‘Oh shit.’ I stumble backwards, finally remembering the nightstick. I jerk my hand up to my neck, searching for the pendant. Dax is on me in a blur, his hands whipping out to grab both my wrists, slamming me back into the wall.
My shoulder erupts with pain, the back of my head bouncing off the concrete. Pinpricks of light dance in my vision. Dax’s hands fly to my neck. He wrenches the silver chain away and waves the pendant in my face.
‘Nightstick, Princess? Very sneaky.’