Duality (The Hitchhiker Strain) (17 page)

Chapter 22 – Savannah

I remember when I first met Pierce. It wasn't long after most of the survivors still living in Ravencrest had moved into the school together to increase our chances of survival. We figured that we had a better chance with other people th
an we would ever have alone, and Pierce had had the same idea. He'd been in the New England area on a trip over from the U.K. to visit American universities even though he was barely in his first year of high school. He had always been a smart kid and his parents weren’t exactly short on cash. They thought they were doing him a favor by planning ahead, so they sent him to spend two weeks with his aunt to scope out his post-secondary options. After his aunt turned, Pierce ended up alone in a country where he didn't know anyone, and with major outbreaks starting up everywhere, there was no way to cross any international borders. He had no way of getting back home.

His loss, our gain.

It took him months of wandering and falling in with the wrong kinds of people again and again, but he ended up with us. Some of the adults had been out looking for food—back then there were still countless stashes of priceless supplies to be found—and they came back with Pierce with them as well. We were still a little wary of strangers, but he was a scrawny kid who probably wouldn't have survived much longer on his own. Those first few days, he barely spoke at all, and I know a few people were whispering about how he was stuck up and would never pull his weight. I figured he needed some time to decompress—a feeling I knew too well. It didn't take long before I practically had to beg him to stop quoting facts and figures at me. That kid could run on.

Belle was the closest person to his age for the entire time we lived in the high sch
ool, but they were both at that super awkward, ‘can't so much as look at a person of the opposite sex without blushing’ stage, so he got lumped in with us. Alex and his family had already joined our ranks too, but we didn't really become a group until there were four of us. Pierce turned us into family.

Today will be the first day in fourteen and a half years where Pierce doesn't exist anymore. It doesn't seem real, and yet he
’s slipping further away from me with every second. I try to remember all of the ways I worked to keep my parents’ memory alive and hope those same things will work for my friend, but no matter how hard I concentrate on our time together, I can't force any funny anecdotes to surface in my mind. All I can see is his face, slack in death. I don't want that to erase all of the things he was when he was still alive, but right now I can't help it. He deserved so much better than what he got, and every moment that passes, I'm one step closer to having to inflict this same pain on the other people who loved him.

Even looking at Alex and seeing our shared pain in everything from his eyes to the way he holds his shoulders to his grip on the steering wheel is too much to bear. Instead, I turn and stare out the window, watching the abandoned cars th
at have been rolled to the side of the road pass by in a blur, willing time to slow down.

It's still
dawn when we make it to the Park-N-Eat. As always, when I most needed time to slow down is exactly when it chose to speed up.

The small fast-food restaur
ant looks abandoned. It is too small to house everyone overnight, so I’m not surprised. It’s easy to see where they’ve gone since there’s a small armada of cars, vans, and trucks sitting right outside the grocery store on the other end of this strip mall. Alex brings Dooley’s car over to join the others, not bothering to worry about things like designated parking spaces or blocking potential exit lanes. I’m not sure what his hurry is. The sooner we’re out of this car, the sooner we have to face everyone else.

The outside door to the store is locked, but someone jumps up to let us in as soon as our three tired faces appear at the window. I
’m glad they thought to post a guard overnight even though they would be relatively safe with two sets of lockable doors—we’re in enemy territory now.

“
Morning,” I mumble, not even bothering to look up from my shoes. Mrs. Applegate stops to whisper quietly with the night guard but Alex and I head right inside.

“
Oh thank God,” Paulson says with a gruff sigh. He’s sitting at a makeshift desk at what used to be a cash register and is the only person in sight. I’m guessing he had the others sleep in the warehouse section of the building or at least closer to the back of the store. It’s easier to have everyone get out quickly from the truck-loading bays than through the main door that leads out into an exposed parking lot. It doesn’t look like he’s gotten any sleep for himself yet.

I offer a weak smile, but Alex jumps right in without ceremony. “
Is my mom okay? Where is everyone?”

“
They’re fine, they’re fine. I’m sure your mother is already awake and checking on her latest patients near the housewares aisle.”

Alex gestures for me to follow him in the direction Paulson indicated, but I wave him on ahead. There
’s no point putting this off any longer. I have news to deliver. After that, I should go find Liam and apologize for all of this. I never expected to put him in the middle of quite this much action. He probably won’t be happy that I left him with all of these strangers overnight, but I'm hoping he'll focus on being happy that I'm alive and in one piece.

"Liam is already gone," Paulson tells me, practically reading my mind. Or maybe it
’s just a safe assumption that I’d be worry about my friend, who I haven’t seen since the fighting. "He took Tilly. She was running out of time.” Dark bags sit under Paulson’s eyes. I’m sure he’s had to make a lot of tough calls during the night. “It might have been too late for her already. I don't know how this works. I told him to go and do whatever he had to. To get her the cure if at all possible."

So he told Liam that I'd told him about the cure. My heart sinks. There's no way I'll be able to head him off and cushion the blow for the Initiative that I've revealed what they've been working on. Now
I'll be lucky if they let me back in at all, let alone everyone else. Still, it's hard to be angry. What else could Paulson have done, knowing a little girl's life was hanging in the balance? He hasn't told everyone else yet, which is all I really asked of him.

"Okay." I nod.

He watches me, but I'm not sure for what. Maybe by this point he’s used to me jumping in with ideas and demands. Instead, he's about to have a heartbroken teenage daughter on his hands. I'm a little surprised he hasn't asked about Pierce already, but things have probably been too crazy to really do any kind of roll call yet. He might not realize how many people are missing let alone that Belle's new boyfriend didn’t make it back with everyone else. Now I have to…

"Pierce didn't make it!" I clap my hand over my mouth even though it
’s too late to trap the words inside. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I pictured this conversation starting with me describing the scenario and then letting Paulson draw his own conclusions. Not this. Never this.

Paulson stares at me, unblinking. I'm st
ill too stunned at my own ineptitude to continue. Saying it out loud is even worse than picturing the whole thing over and over again has been. Every new person who knows diminishes the chance that this is all a horrible dream I could wake up from at any minute.

Paulson
’s face mirrors my own. Pierce’s loss means something different to him than it does to Alex and me, but it still won’t be easy to get through. "I'll tell her," he says finally, defeated. I can see that even the idea of that conversation is physically hurting him. There's no way I could sit Belle down and tell her the news without being crushed by the weight of my own grief in the process. Even now, tears are fighting to break free from behind my eyes.

"Thanks. Umm... Let me know if there's any
thing I can do to help her?"
Like what, Savannah? What could you possibly do to make this better? Absolutely nothing.

"I will." Paulson doesn't move right away. I can tell that he's bracing himself for what's going to come next. While I'll have to spend th
e rest of my life remembering what Pierce looked like in death, he'll spend his remembering Belle's reaction to yet another piece of awful news when she's already survived far more than any one person should have to. “Get some rest,” he orders right before turning to go. “We’re planning to meet and regroup around lunchtime. Everything will be decided then.”

When he finally goes, I
’m not sure where I’m supposed to go next now that I know Liam isn’t here. I briefly consider going to find Alex, wishing desperately that Cole or Zack were here, but decide against it. He's going through exactly the same thing I am right now, but he has his girlfriend here to console him. Finding them now would make me an unwelcome addition to what is going to be a very private and painful moment. Later, Alex and I will find a way to remember our friend beyond this terrible day. Depending on how many people died yesterday and how much upheaval is coming for the group next, there probably won’t be any true funerals for every person lost. We'll each need to find our own ways to remember the people we cared about, exactly like we've been doing for almost a year now.

I
’ve never regretted that there wasn't something more formal to remember my parents by. Viewings always creeped me out, and even funerals never seemed to offer real closure—just more grief forced down your throat while you were stuck in a church surrounded by people judging you on how you respond to loss. I've lived through more loss now than either of my parents experienced in their entire lives and I still don't know if there's a good way to handle it. Before this, I would have said to push it back. Don’t ignore it until it goes away—loss never really leaves you—but don't let it slow you down either. It hurts too much and it doesn't help. Now, I don't know what the right answer is.

Ultimately, I find the long-abandoned manager
’s office. I’m surprised no one else has claimed the space already. The two boxy desk chairs that sit on either side of his desk are far too small for me to spread out on, but they’re the best option I have for a bed. It doesn’t take long to push them together, lie down, and curl up to make myself as small as possible. I leave the door open, trusting that the noise of everyone else milling around will wake me in a few hours, and do my best to get some sleep.

I
’m surrounded by all that’s left of the town I grew up in—remnants of some of the most important moments of my childhood. A nurse who worked in the hospital where I was born. The crossing-guard from my elementary school. The woman who took me in the night after my parents were killed. The janitor who swept the halls of my high school, the same building we’d all later moved in to in order to hold back all of the things that were out to get us for a little bit longer. And now here we are, stuffed into the skeleton of a chain grocery store, all huddled around each other to try and figure out what to do next.

While everyone else is watching the man they have come to look up to as their leader, I'm watchin
g his daughter. She's nodding along with Paulson's speech—I can't even bring myself to listen—but her expression is crumpling by the second. I'm surprised she's even managed to come and sit here with everyone this soon after getting the news. She's stronger than I gave her credit for, but watching her is still killing me.

I want to sit down beside her. She did the same thing for me after my parents died. But as Belle's lip continues to quiver, I suspect that
acknowledging her pain will bring it to the surface faster. She lets out a soft hiccup that probably goes unnoticed by anyone else and my heart breaks a little more.

I try to focus on whatever is going on around me. Paulson is talking about how the people I've been working for might be able to help those
of our group who were bitten. He never outright says the word ‘cure’ and still the others are nodding enthusiastically. A few of them are looking at me as though I'm supposed to chime in and I force myself to keep my eyes still on Belle, at a loss for big speeches or grand gestures. I don’t have it in me today. All I can do is do my best to look like I’m holding myself together.

Everything I'm feeling is reflected in Belle. Her posture, her face, and the one tear that has escaped the prison she created for
her pain.
I can’t do this anymore.

Excusing myself without ceremony, I duck behind Alex in order to skirt around the outside of the space that was cleared for this meeting. When I reach Belle near the front of the group, I can hear each breath that comes
from between her lips, slow and shaky.

"Come with me," I whisper, leaning down to grab her hand from where it's resting on her lap. She looks up at me with those big, blue Belle eyes. They're shining with more emotion than I can fathom. I turn away before
I start crying too, pulling her along with me. I pause so she can move around the wooden bench that she shares with two middle-aged women, but after a second, she's moving with me back toward the front of the store and the solitude of the manager’s office.

"Let
’s find somewhere quiet," I suggest once she's walking beside me of her own free will. "I'm sure your dad can manage without us for a while. I mean, how boring is all that logistics stuff anyway?"