Born to Fight (21 page)

I look down at his clenched fist and do something I don’t do—ever. I take it in my hands, surrounding it with mine. It feels like his hand is throbbing with anger still. I have to fight to stay focused on why we're here and not think about the feelings his hands make me have.

Bernie glances back at us, as he makes a turn under a streetlight. He winks. I frown.

It takes us a few moments to get to the spot he went in. It's an alley and he's standing at the end of it in the dark.

"Medical research building," he whispers as we get there.

It's tall and shiny, like everything else.

"There's a back entrance. I always take it. My card will get me in. You want to come too or wait out here?"

I struggle to see his face in the dark, "We come."

He turns and walks closer to the building. He moves and the door opens. I see the card slider as we walk in. The lights turn on as we walk inside. They do the motion thing. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but it's annoying.

It looks like the breeder farm hallways when we get inside.

The lights exasperate the hell out of me, the entire way to the stairs. "We don’t do elevators, only stairs in the city. It's seven flights."

I raise an eyebrow, "You sure like it here."

He sighs, "I did. I loved it. It was like almost being back to normal, only without the fashion and luxuries. But the basics are here. I just can't risk Star. When she's older we will come and live here, but she needs to get past the breeder age. If they find out what she is… well you know."

I nod. I do.

"Is it weird, she's your sister?" he asks as we climb the second set of stairs.

Will coughs nervously, "What?"

I see the look on his face and wrinkle my nose, "Oh my God—you had sex with her, didn’t you?"

His eyes widen. Bernie turns and looks at him, "Not cool."

Will sputters, "No. I swear. It's not like that. It wasn’t like that."

I'm disgusted, because I friggin’ knew it and because I'm a notch on his god-dammed belt, like my sister. I blow past them both and continue to climb.

"Bern, I never slept with her. I swear to the Gods. I never. You know me. She tried a few times, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not after… just not after."

I ignore his words. Their footsteps start again behind me.

"I trust you," Bernie mumbles.

I don’t. I look back to see the guilty, red face and fight the sneer on my lips.

I am almost running the stairs, ignoring them and the wind I'm sucking by the time I reach the door with the seven on it. I fling it open and walk into a hallway like the farms. The whole place is like a replica.

Bernie opens the door, almost wheezing. I look back, "Did they only let one building designer live through it all? Why do all these look the same?"

He laughs, "Cost and ease. Whew. I haven’t done those stairs in a while."

Will is huffing next to him. He gives me a pleading look. I give him a look. He gives it back.

Bernie grabs my hand, "Come on, scowly. You've been grumpy all day. It's not that bad here."

I look around, it's dark inside and no one is here, just like he said.

We walk down a hall into an open lab. It's huge. He walks to a room with a huge, red sign on it that says BIOHAZARD.

He winks at me and opens the door.

"You're immune aren't you?"

He nods, "Will stay out here. You're not."

He pulls me inside of the room. It's dark until we are inside, then the lights flash dimly and slowly grow in brightness. The lab is white and big. The wall where the door is, is all windows. I can see Will through it. He still looks pissed.

"Can he hear us?"

Bernie looks at Will and then me, "No."

"Do you really believe he didn’t sleep with Star?"

He shakes his head, "No. She has been in love with him since he saved her. She was raped in the back of a truck at the farms." He shudders, "She doesn't really remember much, blocking it out, I guess. Anyway, she remembers Will. He came and saved her. He beat them to death with his bare hands. He broke several fingers and knuckles. It was horrid. He was covered in blood. I don’t know what happened to him in the farm, but he was a savage when he left."

I look at the intensity in his blue eyes, "It's weird. He's the most gentle person in the world one minute and a total psycho the next."

He snorts, "Who isn’t nowadays?" He sounds distracted. I look at the huge glass canisters he's touching.

"What's that?"

He looks back at me, "The vaccine. We need to give it to Will. You go do that and I'll get the cure."

I frown, "It's a real cure?"

He nods, "As long as it hasn’t mutated again. It should work fine. The research is done in Spokane." His eyes flash when he says it. I grimace and take the needle he passes me. It's huge and filled with a pale, yellow syrup-looking liquid.

"Shoot it into his arm. He's gonna get crazy sick for a couple hours and then be fine."

I give him a look as he passes me a packet.

He shakes his head, "I know. Not ideal, but it's our best hope."

"He's going to be sick as we flee the city with the stolen cure?"

He laughs, "You really are a true skeptic, aren't you?"

His flippant behavior drives me insane. I take a deep breath and walk to the door.

"Wipe him with the cloth in the packet and then stick him."

I nod and close the door. Will looks down on me, "You think I'm lying don’t you?"

I hold up the packet, "I need to wipe your arm. This is the vaccine." I tear the packet with my teeth and tug the wet wipe out. I always get excited when I find these. I wipe his arm in the thick spot and try not to think about anything but the wipe. My hand shakes with the huge needle in it. When I lift it, his eyes widen, "Really?"

I nod and look in his dark-blue eyes. I smile bitterly and slide the needle in slowly. He winces as I press the liquid in slowly.

I pull the needle out and toss it and the wipe in the garbage can, next to the desk beside us.

He grasps my hand, but I stop his kiss with my evil grin, "You're going to be horribly sick for a day or so."

He cocks an eyebrow, "What?"

"It makes you really sick." I can't help but smile when I say it.

He rolls his eyes, "Why, because Bernie said so? He gets a sliver and feels sick. I'll be fine."

I shrug, "Ok. He has the cure, I think."

Bernie walks out holding a small cylinder. He looks sweaty and off, "We need to go now. This can only stay active for a short amount of time."

We follow him out of the lab and down the hall. I can't help but feel like it's all too easy.

"Doesn’t anyone guard the lab?" I ask.

He nods, "They do, but they rarely come up the stairs. It's too bloody far to check every floor."

Will laughs, "That sounds dumb. They don’t put in elevators, so then the guards don’t want to climb the stairs?"

Bernie chuckles and starts down the stairs, "I'm not one of the engineers who decided this. I told them it was stupid, but they never listened to me."

"Have you stolen the cure before?" I ask, starting to feel weird.

He shakes his head, "Nope. I haven’t ever used it either. I heard it only works if the person taking it hasn’t got the fever bad yet. That takes five days to set in and get so high the brain damage happens."

We reach the bottom of the stairs and enter the hallway with the lights that turn off as we walk.

As we leave the building he hands the cylinder to me, "I'll go get the truck. You wait here, okay?"

I want to say no. I don’t trust him. It's sudden. I don’t like that we've put so much faith in him. But I don't. I take it and wait for him to betray us. I don’t have a choice. We can't walk down the street with a cylinder, not without people giving us a look.

I look at Will, "Starting to feel sick so soon?"

He nods and I fight the grin that wants to take over.

He grabs my arm, "What if he poisoned me?"

I sigh and point down the alley, "You are the one who said to trust him. You are the one who said he was going to help us. Is that possible?"

He takes deep breaths and then nods, "Yeah. It might be possible."

I growl, "For fuck's sake." I grab his arm and drag him down the alley. We cross the silent street and enter an alley across the way. I drag him behind another building and up another alley. We walk for a few minutes and then I hear it. I pass him the cylinder, "Don’t drop this, I don’t care if you're dying."

He scowls, "She's my sister too." I like that he said too.

I scoff and walk up to the corner of the building in front of us. A group of the weird breeder kids are standing in front of something. In the dark, I can barely make them out. I squint and manage to count five or six.

"Shit," I whisper and turn back around to grab his empty hand, "We gotta go." I see a window on the ground level and try to open it, but it doesn’t move.

I pull him down the alley further. We reach a building with stairs. We climb a few flights until we can see the road we were on. I sit. He sits beside me. I can feel him starting to shake. I take the cylinder and put it beside me. I wipe away the sweat forming on his brow.

He lifts one corner of his lip, "I'm sorry."

I scowl, "For what?" I have a bad feeling he's about to confess to sleeping with Star, who is my sister.

He shakes his head slowly, "For trusting him."

I watch the road for the truck, "he might be on our side. He might truly be good."

He leans on me, "I doubt it. We aren’t that lucky."

I laugh and then sigh, "I know." The hopelessness of it all is writhing around inside of me. Anna is infected, she is going to turn in a few days. I have the cure, if it's even the cure and Will is possibly dying next to me. Maybe he's going to turn. Maybe it's all been a lie. I grip his hand.

He kisses my cheek, "Thank you."

I look at him and shake my head, "For what? Poisoning you?"

He kisses my lips softy, "Giving me a chance to be the person I would have been, before."

I see the sweet face and feel the soft lips, and I can't see him any other way any more. I can't see the man beating the other men to death, or the man who gripped me and shook me so hard, he left finger marks on me. I see the man I wanted him to be all along.

"Thank you for not ruining the chance I gave you," I whisper back. Our silence is broken by the sound of a truck. I see him stop at the end of the alley and get out. He scratches his head and looks around.

"He looks innocent to me," I mutter.

Will nods. I run down the stairs and down the alley to the end of the building. As I get to the end of the building, I see headlights. I freeze and press myself against the glass window. I wave back at Will. He does the same. A truck stops behind Bernie.

"Bernard!" A man's voice rings out into the dark.

Bernie turns and I see his face change. He looks scared, truly scared.

"Richard, what's up?" Bernie sounds nervous.

My heart is attempting to beat out of my chest, and my lungs are with my stomach in my throat.

I hear footsteps.

"Why were you in the lab this late? Michael sent me to find you, when he heard you were there."

Bernie shakes his head, "Friend got sick. Thought I would try to save her."

A man with dark hair and the same linen clothes as the rest of us, walks up to Bernie. There are other men with the man.

"What friend?"

Bernie shakes his head, "Girlfriend of mine."

Richard’s hands go out, "Is she in the city?"

Bernie shakes his head, "No. She's at a friend's house. I came here to get the cure for her. I thought you wanted it tested on pure people, not wasted on the borderland trash."

Richard crosses his arms. I can't see him in the light from the trucks. He shakes his head, "I do. Why didn’t you bring her here? Or Spokane?"

Bernie crosses his arms too, but he looks like he's hugging himself, "She's sick. I didn’t want to risk anyone else."

"When was she bit?"

"Yesterday."

Richard nods, "Okay. Michael doesn’t like people sneaking around his lab. You know that."

Bernie nods nervously, "I know. I'm sorry, Richard."

"The guards said you had some friends with you when you came through."

Bernie looks stunned. He swallows and I can tell he's lying from the distance I am. He licks his lips, "I did. A nurse and doctor from the breeder farms. One of the outlying ones, where they don’t really come here much. It was one of the ones that was destroyed. They're staying at my place for a few weeks. I'm never there anyway."

"Get in the truck, they'll drive you to the girl."

Bernie hesitates and then walks toward Richard and the men, "She's a long ways off."

"Okay. The guys haven’t been out of the city in a while. Michael will need a report on how things are out there, anyway."

Bernie nods once, "Okay."

Richard looks at him, "Where's the cure."

I want to smack myself in the head.

Bernie stops. He doesn’t know what to do, neither do it.

One of the guards slams him against the truck, "Why are you lying?"

Bernie shakes his head, "I must have left it in the lab."

I take a deep breath and walk from the alley. One of the guards turns and looks at me.

I smile, "Good evening."

He frowns. The others look.

I wave, "Hey, Bernard."

He waves, looking lost.

The men all watch me walk up to them, "What's going on?" I ask casually.

Richard scowls, "This is none of your concern."

I clear my throat, "I'm staying with Bernard."

He raises an eyebrow, "You are the nurse he's got staying with him?" His eyes are dark in the dim light of the headlights.

I swallow and nod, "I am."

"What's your name?"

I panic trying to remember the name on the card, "Lainy Swanson."

He looks me over once, "You look young. How old are you?"

"Twenty seven."

He arches an eyebrow, "And you're a nurse?"

I scowl, "I am."

"Your institution was attacked then? By the vigilante?"