Inhuman

20

I stared at Everson. He may as well have said that he was the crown prince of fairyland. Or demonland, according to my dad, who hated the Titan Corporation as much as he hated cancer.

“And there it is.” Everson nodded at my expression. “Man, do I love getting that look.”

He was the baby born during the construction of the wall. The baby whose birth had turned a lot of people into savages. They’d plotted — publically — to infect him with Ferae so that Ilsa Prejean would know what it was like to lose a child. No wonder she was paranoid about his health. I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “Why is your last name Cruz?”

“It was my dad’s name.”

An itchy, rashy feeling erupted across my skin. Ilsa Prejean’s hubris had destroyed the world, and yet she was richer than ever — richer than 99 percent of the country. Her company, Titan, had single-handedly brought down America, but had gone on to become one of the most powerful corporations in history. And Everson would inherit it all.

“Why are you here?” I asked hoarsely. “On this side of the wall?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not to me.” There had been so many clues. The captain refusing to risk Everson’s health when he’d wanted to take the bullet out of Bangor’s leg. Bearly and Fairfax being assigned to look out for him. Even Rafe had noticed that Everson was treated differently. I should have figured it out back in the supply closet. He’d certainly dropped enough hints. I managed to get my feet beneath me and stood.

“Wait, Lane.” He tried to take my hand but I stepped away.

“That’s why the others all do what you say.”

“No one does what I say,” he said irritably. “I’m a guard. Lowest of the low. I went through boot camp like everyone else. I sleep in the barracks and eat the same crap food. I don’t get special treatment.”

“You got flown over the wall in a two-seater plane,” I said.

His eyebrows lifted. “How do you know that?”

“Your mother owns the line patrol. You weren’t assigned to work with Dr. Solis because you’re good at science. She arranged it.”

“She arranged it because I didn’t give her a choice.” He got to his feet. “Everything I told you was true. I did finish the college courseware. That’s how I found out who she was and what she’d done — in an online biology lecture. Something my tutors failed to mention.”

“When you blackmailed the captain, all you did was threaten to tell your mother about him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and it worked. I’m here, collecting information that’ll get us one step closer to a cure.”

“I thought you were risking arrest,” I said, “but you can go back anytime you want.”

“What does that matter?”

It mattered because he could break the law — cross the quarantine line — and no one would ever threaten to execute him. “This is just a field trip for you. This is Rafe’s life….” I didn’t know what my point was. I just felt stupid — really stupid — and … what? Betrayed?

“Last I checked, you grew up safe and sound in the West too,” he said tightly.

“Not in a germ-free penthouse, surrounded by tutors and bodyguards.”

“Actually, it was in one of the old Titan labyrinths and it was a great time, let me tell you.”

“Don’t.” I backed away from him. “Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. Cosmo was locked in a zoo.”

“Is that my fault?”

“It’s your mother’s.”

He flinched like I’d hauled off and hit him, and then looked away. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

I took a breath. I used to think people were over the top in their hatred for Ilsa Prejean. Especially my father. But now that I’d met Cosmo and spent time in this ruined world …

“I get it,” I said softly. “You’re here to try to make up for what she did. But I’m going to bed now because …” I lifted and dropped my hand. “Just because.” I couldn’t explain my sudden overwhelming sadness and exhaustion. I just knew that if I didn’t go upstairs right now, I’d end up on the floor, curled in a ball.

I heard Rafe come through the front door as I climbed the stairs. “Hey, where are you going?” he called.

I didn’t glance back. “To bed.”

“What’d you do?” he asked Everson accusingly.

“I was born,” Everson replied, sounding tired.

I shouldn’t have hurt him, but I ached too much to go back down now. I just wanted to be alone. I crawled onto the queen bed. Let the guys fight over the top bunk. Finally, in the dark, I let loose my tears. I cried for the children like Cosmo, trying to survive on their own in the Feral Zone. And for the “scary people” living in cages in a zoo. People who had been human and had lost everything — families and lives, and finally their minds — to a virus that shouldn’t exist.

My father should have been doing more than bringing crates of medicine to Moline. He should have pushed farther into the zone and come more often. And he should have told me about this place so that I could have been helping too.

The bats swarmed around me, but I couldn’t get away because I was chained to a radiator in the middle of a meadow. And then there was my green silk gown that was so tight fitting, I couldn’t move my legs to take even a step. But suddenly I remembered the switchblade hidden in my sleeve. Nudging it out, I tried to slash at the bats but there were too many. They tore at my gown with sharp teeth and claws and dive-bombed my chest. Screaming, I tried to stab them but only ended up cutting myself as the swarming creatures tore my flesh off in strips.

I lurched awake with a cry, my hands pressed over my heart as I tried to keep my skin in place. Slowly, my senses kicked in and I began to separate fact from fantasy. Just a nightmare, I told myself, that’s all. A dream couldn’t hurt me.

“Lane, are you all right?” Everson asked from the doorway.

Wearily, I nodded and rolled to my side. I didn’t want to talk about it. Or anything else. The nightmare had left me feeling raw and vulnerable, and now embarrassment was kicking in. And the bed smelled like mice, even though I’d changed the sheets and blanket. Or maybe the whole room reeked of rodents. I could hear them too. Small rustlings in the box springs. I sat up, jammed my pants into my socks, and curled up under the blanket. The mattress dipped as Everson sat down next to me and propped a pillow behind him.

I scrunched myself into a ball and pressed my face to the cool sheet. What was he doing? I’d been wretched to him. But when he slid his arm under me, I was too surprised to protest.

“Come here.” His voice was heavy and rich.

I rolled to face him. “I’m sorry I was so mean about your mother,” I whispered.

“I’ve heard meaner.” A shaft of moonlight streamed through the shuttered window and fell across his face. He didn’t look mad at all. “Bad dream?”

“Awful.”

“Put your head down,” he coaxed.

I’d never laid this close to a boy before — let alone in a bed. This was a bad idea. “Just for a minute,” he said.

He smelled like smoke from the fireplace — a cozy, comforting smell. It would be nice to let someone else keep an eye on the window. I let my head sink onto his shoulder and heard the soft cadence of his heart.

I’ll just lie here for a minute, I told myself and closed my eyes. Only a minute.

I was dreaming again — but this dream was of a very different sort. In some part of my mind, I was aware that the morning had broken, but I wasn’t ready to open my eyes and get up. I felt cozy and safe with my Great Dane stretched out on the bed beside me. My eyes tore open. That wasn’t my dog’s warm body so close to mine. It was Everson’s. Thank goodness, he was still asleep; his steady breathing told me so.

Blades of sunlight streamed in through cracks in the shutters. Without moving, I tried to remember how we’d ended up this way. Nothing had happened last night; I was sure of it. I was still in my clothes and Everson was touching me only lightly, his hand on my hip. But somehow I felt different. I smiled. Almost laughed. Maybe it was just the high of realizing I was alive. I hadn’t gotten paralyzed by a chimpacabra or eaten by weevlings. I was on my way to Chicago; I would do the fetch and my father would be fine. Or maybe this buzzing feeling inside of me was from something else entirely. All I knew was that I wanted to snuggle back into Everson and savor it. The thought sent ripples of heat through me. Actually, what I really wanted was to turn in his arms and kiss him. But I wanted him to stay asleep while I did it. Was that asking for too much?

Yes, I told myself firmly. Kissing a sleeping boy would be crossing the line, and I’d done more than enough line crossing these past few days. I sighed and lay still, enjoying the way his breath tickled the back of my neck — until the sounds of someone moving downstairs startled me right out of the bed. The last thing I wanted was to give Rafe anything else to tease me about. He was already obnoxious enough about Everson. With real ammunition, Rafe would humiliate me. So, before the boy on the bed so much as cracked an eyelid, I bolted from the room.

The wide pine planks of the living room floor creaked as I crossed them to peer through the sliver of space between the shutters into the backyard. Outside, red and gold leaves dappled the ground. I used to love mornings like this, cold and sunny. I put my fingers on the chilled window, overcome with a memory of my father. I was six, and we’d been having a picnic in a freshly mowed public park. That grass smell was in the air, and my dad had tossed me up into it. Flinging me to the sky and laughing as he caught me with both hands. I remembered screaming with joy at each drop — the scariest moments. Now I avoided that breathless, out-of-control feeling. When had that started?

I found Cosmo in the kitchen sharpening a knife, which sent a crawly feeling up the back of my neck. Rafe entered and dropped other sharp objects on the counter — a screwdriver, a nail file, a letter opener. “Sleep well?” he asked me.

His expression was bland but I didn’t miss the insinuation in his voice. “Nothing happened.”

“Course not,” he said with a smirk. “Two silkies together … Kinda hard to get any friction going.”

I rolled my eyes but wasn’t going to get drawn into that topic. “Not that I care what you do,” Rafe went on as he lazed against the counter. “You being who you are, I have taken myself out of this triangle.”

“What triangle?”

“Come on. One girl, two guys. Oh, he’s so smart and strong,” Rafe said in a falsetto while pressing his clasped hands to his cheek. “But he’s so hot. Anguish, anguish.”

I crossed my arms. “And which one of those is you?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I fit both. Point is, crush on the stiff all you want. Doesn’t concern me.” He held out his hand and Cosmo offered up the knife he’d been working on. “Though you do know Mack hates line guards, right?” Rafe swiped the knife along the back of his wrist. “He thinks they’re evil drones.”

“Killer robots, actually,” I corrected.

“Same thing.” The blade shaved off a patch of the golden hair on Rafe’s arm with the precision of a razor. “Not bad,” he pronounced and then glanced at me. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell on you.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” I headed for the stack of canned fruit.

“Uh huh.” He tucked the knife into his ankle sheath, which had been empty ever since the line guards arrested him in Moline. “When you’re done with those,” he told Cosmo with a nod at the pile, “put ’em in my knapsack.”

I stopped sorting through the cans. “Why are you bossing him around?”

“He likes it.” Rafe turned to Cosmo. “You’re fine, right?”

Cosmo bobbed his head enthusiastically. “A-okay.”

“See?” Rafe said to me. “He wants to make himself useful. Because he knows that if he doesn’t” — Rafe sent him a pointed look — “he can’t come with us.”

“He’s not coming,” I burst out, only to see the little manimal’s face crumple. “Cosmo, you told me that the king locks manimals in cages. Why would you want to chance getting caught again?”

His lower lip curled out. “I want to see my mom.”

“He wants to see his mom,” Rafe repeated, in case I didn’t feel bad enough already.

“What’s in it for you?” I asked him. “You’re not doing this to be nice.”

“He’ll come in handy. He’s strong.”

“He’s eight.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to him.” Rafe tuned to Cosmo. “Show her.”

Cosmo curled back his lips and bared his teeth. He reminded me of a puppy, playing tough.

“Scary, huh?” Rafe said and then hunkered near Cosmo like a coach. “Now, gimme some ugly.” Cosmo hunched and lowered his brows. “Growl.” Cosmo did and Rafe stood triumphantly. “Would you look at that? That is the best get-back face I have ever seen. Do that when we’re in Chicago and no one’s gonna mess with us.” He pointed at me. “Lemme see your get-back face.”

“I don’t have one,” I said and selected a can of pineapple chunks.

“Everyone should have one. What if you need to scare off some freak?” he scolded. “You use your get-back face. You gotta work on it. Perfect it.”

“I’ll get on that.” I headed for the table. “He’s not coming with us,” I whispered as I passed Rafe.

While I devoured the pineapple chunks, I practiced holding the letter opener like a weapon. What I really wanted was my dad’s machete, but it was in my messenger bag, which I’d left by the lake.

Rafe made a face at my lame attempt at a jab. “Didn’t Mack show you how to use a knife?”

“Yeah, for self-defense,” I admitted. “But I never practiced.”

Rafe settled on the counter with a can of Dinty Moore beef stew. “He tried to teach me manners,” he said, then poured the stew into his mouth straight out of the can.

“How much time did my dad spend with you when he was here?”

Rafe wiped his chin on his sleeve with an exaggerated groan. “Are we doing the sibling rivalry thing again? ’Cause you win. Every category, every time.”

“I just don’t get why he didn’t tell me he was a fetch. I mean, I understand it logically. But it feels like he lied to me.”

“He did. So what?”

“So what?” I snapped. Cosmo glanced from Rafe to me, looking nervous.

“He didn’t want you worrying about him.” Rafe chucked the empty can into the sink. “He wants you to be happy and safe. And that’s a good thing, having someone look out for you like that.”

How was I supposed to be happy or safe if something happened to my dad? “I’m going out to the lake,” I said abruptly. There was no explaining anything to this boy.

“I’ll come with you.”

I needed to pee. As much as I hated the idea of being outside alone, the thought of Rafe hearing me urinate was worse. “No.” I pulled on my borrowed boots but didn’t tie them. “I want privacy.”

Rafe looked like he was about to argue but then he shrugged. “Yell if you see anything with teeth.”

The morning echoed with woodpeckers’ knocking and the love songs of frogs. Stomping through milkweed and patches of black-eyed Susans, I made my way to the reeds where hopefully I couldn’t be seen from the porch. Nearby a gaggle of geese were preening their feathers in the sun. They were huge birds and made me a little nervous — which was pathetic. I’d come face-to-face with a chimpacabra and piranha-bats, and now I was scared of a few geese? They didn’t even have teeth, so I had no excuse to yell for Rafe. Not that I would have.

My boots and pants were soaked with dew by the time I reached a dense patch of cattails near the water’s edge. After taking care of my most pressing need, I pushed through the stalks topped with fluffy seed heads and found a rocky patch of shore where I could hunker and wash my hands. The lake was sparkling, clear, and excruciatingly cold. I lifted my dial and got some shots of the lake and autumn colors.

I tucked my dial into my shirt, kicked off my boots, rolled up my pants, and waded in. The chill bordered on painful, but it was exactly the kind of jump-start I’d been hoping for. Now I just needed to find my dad’s messenger bag. I pivoted to scan the bank behind me, only to have my guts turn to liquid.

The dogs from last night were back.

They slunk through the reeds, spreading out along the bank. They might be half-starved, but they were huge and, worse, smart enough to stay silent as they surrounded their prey — me. I inhaled sharply, preparing to scream for Rafe to bring the gun when the pack leader stopped short and pricked up his ears. The black mutt lifted his snout to the wind and then dropped into a crouch with a whine.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The enormous dog began to back off. With its hackles raised, the mutt glared past me to the woods on the other side of the lake. A low growl rose from its throat. Underbrush crunched somewhere behind me. I was desperate to turn and see what the dog was sensing, but I couldn’t take my eyes from the rest of the pack. One of them might still crash into the shallow water and leap for my throat. But no, they all crept back as they too sniffed the air. Whatever was prowling through the trees had the whole pack cowering. And if these dogs were terrified, I knew I’d better run too. The lead dog gave a sharp bark that ended in a yelp, and then as one, the pack reeled about and raced up the hill out of sight.

“You looked like you could use some help,” a deep voice purred.

I whirled to see Chorda, the tiger-man, step out of the woods.