Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel) (23 page)

Aimee opened her mouth… and then shut it again.

Nathan wasn’t finished yet. “Ash has been nothing but ethical and fucking heroic since this shit storm began. So are we done with the uninformed judgmental bullshit?”

Aimee turned to me.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

I shrugged wearily “I didn’t either. I—”

Suddenly it was too much. Lil hated me. On top of Kaitlyn’s death, and Kai’s, and Mack’s… losing Gabriel… it was just too damn much.

I burst into tears.

Crap. Defeated, I put my head down on the table and cried.

Arms wrapped around me.

“It’s okay,” a voice murmured. Simone.

“No, it’s not,” I sobbed.

“Yes, it is… Shhhh…” Hands rubbed my back, my hair, and several voices continued to tell me things would be okay. One of them sounded suspiciously like Aimee.

I opened my eyes and sat up. Sure enough, there she was, right beside me.

“You don’t really mean it,” I said.

Aimee looked at me, then back at her daughter, who sat across the room eating her soup.

“I want to believe that it is.”

“So do I.” I heaved a sigh. “But it’s not okay. And it’s not going to be for a long time.”

She looked as if she wanted to argue, then just nodded her agreement.

“I need to go find Lil,” I said, sitting up. I grabbed a handful of napkins and blew my nose.

“She’s not going to listen to you,” Simone said. “Certainly not now, and maybe not for a long time.”

“I know,” I said tiredly. “But I have to try.” I started to get to my feet, but Nathan held my shoulder with one hand, and kept me in my chair.

“No, you don’t,” Nathan said. “Leave her alone for a little while.”

“So what do I do?” I hated the uncertain tone in my voice.

“Just wait a little bit,” Nathan said. “Let her calm down.”

I nodded. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right.

“Maybe you should let someone else talk to her first,” Simone said gently.

I drained the dregs from my cup, and gave her a watery smile. JT refilled it, and I nodded my thanks.

“No, I need to be the one to talk to her.” Simone started to speak, and I held up my hand. “Maybe someone else can go with me, but I’m the one she has a problem with.”

Simone shook her head.

“Ashley, she’s not going to be rational. Her condition, when untreated, results in exactly the kind of erratic behavior and increasing paranoia Lil’s been exhibiting over the past few days.”

I stayed silent.

Simone sighed.

“Fine. Then take someone else with you. She’s already unstable, and she might even try and hurt you again.” She looked me straight in the eye. “I don’t think she’d be able to forgive herself for that.”

I flinched. The mug was bad enough, but the thought she might try something else…

This just sucks.

Tony cleared his throat.

“No, it’s best if it’s not you… or Nathan,” Simone said, and she placed a hand over Tony’s. “Lil sees you both as the enemy right now, because you helped Ashley get the medicine. Best if it’s someone neutral.”

“I could go.”

We all turned to stare. Griff was studying his bowl of soup as if it contained the meaning of life.

Was he serious?

“She doesn’t know you.” Tony spoke up before I had the chance, his tone hostile. “What makes you think you could make a difference?”

Griff looked up. “Exactly. She doesn’t know me. So there’s no reason for her to feel betrayed by me is there?”

Tony opened his mouth and then shut it again. Simone and Nathan exchanged looks, ending with a nod.

“Not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Nathan said.

JT raised his hand.

“Um, actually it kind of is.” He folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head to one side. “I’ll go.”

“You were on the same mission, Spider-Man,” Griff said coldly. “What makes you think the girl will trust you?”

I spoke before JT could answer.

“He has a point,” I said. Both JT and Tony started to protest and I held up a hand. “Look, Lil knows Griff and I haven’t exactly… gotten along. If I’m the enemy, she might see him as a friend. She seemed to be heading that way already, before my epic fail with her meds.”

“Sorry about that, Ash,” Gentry said.

“Not your fault,” I assured him. “I’m tired and I wasn’t thinking.” I turned my attention back to JT. “Griff saved my life less than an hour ago. I’m willing to chance it, at least long enough to sort things out with Lil.”

“Kind of you,” Griff murmured.

“Fair enough,” JT said. “But I still don’t trust him. So how about I tag along, and stay out of sight? That way, if you’re right—” He glanced at Griff. “—maybe Mr. Manslaughter here can actually help out.” He turned back to me.

“And if I’m right, you’ll have backup.”

Griff gave an indifferent shrug. “Works for me.”

“Fine,” I said. I looked at Simone. “So how long do we wait?”

Aimee spoke up. “As the mother of a pre-adolescent, I’d recommend about half an hour. Long enough for her to get in a good sulk, but not so long she’ll start feeling offended that you haven’t come after her.” She glanced at her daughter, still oblivious to all the drama. “It’s an art, really.”

“Okay, Guru Mom,” I said, “any ideas where she might have gone back there?”

“Grace always runs off to her tree fort or her room, depending on the weather. She wants to be surrounded by the stuff that makes her happy.”

I laughed, albeit a bit sadly.

“Lil loves animals. Got any petting zoos back there?” Then it hit me.

Oh, shit…

“Even more important,” I said slowly, “are there any back doors in and out of this place?”

Led by Appel, Griff, JT, and I moved rapidly down the dimly lit corridor past the bathrooms, a series of storage areas, and some very basic medical facilities. Nothing fancy, and certainly nothing that would interest an angry nineteen-year-old.

As it turned out, there were three “back doors” to the facility.

“One’s right there through the kitchen,” Appel told us. “It’s locked tight at both ends. Comes out under a fountain in the back of the House of Hospitality. You’d have to know where it is to get in from the outside, and either have a key or some major firepower.”

“What about the other ones?” I asked.

“There’s a utility passage, at the very end of the corridors. It’s not easy to find, so she probably didn’t go out that way,” he said. “Your best bet is down this way.” He pointed. “It’s dark, and difficult to negotiate, but if she can find it, she can get out.” With that, he headed back towards the main room, leaving us to our search.

The corridor was easy enough to locate—narrow, as Appel had indicated, and dark enough that JT needed a flashlight to navigate. Judging from the accumulated grime, it hadn’t been used in a while. Until now.

“She definitely went this way,” I said, looking at the Lil-sized footprints on the dusty floor. Encouraged, I picked up my pace to a slow trot, despite feeling all of the aches and pains of the last twenty-four hours. Every second that passed meant a greater chance that Lil had reached the other end, and was headed for the San Diego Zoo, no doubt with some crazy plan to free all the animals.

“Dammit,” I growled as the corridor stretched on into darkness, with no end in sight. There weren’t any doors to break up the grimy stretch of concrete. “Does this thing even go anywhere?”

JT patted me on the back. He’d placed himself between me and Griff, who moved swiftly and silently ahead of us, and behaved himself.

“We’ll get there,” JT said.

* * *

And he was right. About five minutes later the corridor dead-ended into a chamber with a metal ladder on the opposite wall. Lil’s footprints led right to the ladder. I ran over and clutched the bottom rung.

Up above about twenty feet there was a grate, through which darkening blue sky could be seen. Even from a distance, I could tell that it had been pushed aside, and only partially shoved back into place.

I sagged in despair, only my grip on the ladder keeping me standing.

“She’s out,” I said dully. “She’s on her way to the zoo, and it’s nearly dark. How the hell are we going to find her?”

“I’ll go look for her,” JT said, coming over beside me.

I shook my head. “No, I can’t just stay here. And you’ll need backup, especially since you can’t see in the dark as well as a wild card.”

“But I can move faster than you can,” JT insisted. “And I’ve got pretty damn fine night vision. I’m young and spry, remember? I’ll go up top, get up high, and see if I can spot her. She probably hasn’t gotten too far.”

“We’ll wait here for five minutes,” Griff said. “And then we’re heading up top, too.”

“Five minutes,” JT nodded. “I can totally work with that.” With that, he scaled the ladder like a circus acrobat, shoved the grate aside far enough to scramble past, pushed it back into place and vanished.

As soon as he was gone, I started pacing like one of the caged animals Lil wanted to free, my boots crunching in years of accumulated grit.

“She’ll be fine,” Griff said, leaning against the wall and watching me pace.

“How do you know that?” I snapped. “She’s a wild card, but she’s not invulnerable. She’s also not rational right now, which means she could see a swarm of fifty zoms and think she could take them all.”

“She may not be rational, but she’s not stupid,” he countered. “She’s on a mission, so she’s going to focus on that, right?”

My pace slowed ever so slightly as I took in the logic of his words.

“And as much as I hate to admit it,” he added, “if anyone is going to be able to spot her before she gets too far, it’s the kid from District B13.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, so I just kept pacing, and looked at my watch. Except I wasn’t wearing one, so I looked at my wrist with its Kevlar armor and wondered how much time had passed.

“It hasn’t been five minutes,” Griff said. He held out an iPhone. “See?”

I was about to reply when an explosion sounded somewhere in the distance, followed by gunfire. But this wasn’t outside—it came from back where the rest were waiting.

“What the hell?” Griff shoved his phone back in his pocket.

I ran to the chamber entrance. More gunfire, punctuated by screams. The tone changed from terror to pain, the pitch rising in a keening wail.

I looked up at the grate. And then I thought of Aimee and Grace, who had no way to defend themselves.

I made my choice quickly, even though it hurt my heart to make it.

I looked at Griff.

“We have to go back.”

He nodded, reaching into his vest pocket this time.

I ran over to the ladder and stared up, willing JT to reappear with Lil in tow, so I didn’t have to play
Sophie’s Choice
. No such luck though.

“Don’t worry,” Griff said softly, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll find her.”

I nodded. Then it sank in.

“You mean
we’ll
find her,” I said.

“No, love,” Griff said. “I’ll find her.” The reassuring hand tightened. I started to turn toward him just as something sharp stabbed into my right arm, between the plates of Kevlar.

“What the fu—”

Things started going fuzzy. I felt myself go limp, Griff catching me before I hit the ground.

“Trust me,” he whispered as he scooped me up in his arms. “You’ll thank me for this later.”

No
, I thought as my world spiraled down into a pinpoint of black.
I’ll kill you for this.

“La ‘ilaha ‘illa Allah. Muhammadur-Rasul Allah.” The mechanical drone blared from the public address system in the Al-Masjid al-Haram mosque.

There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.

Aziz tried yet again to adjust the hang of his ihram. The outfit was nothing more than a pair of sheets of humble white homespun cloth—one forming a simple kilt secured with a sash, and the other draped over his shoulders. It didn’t suit the Moroccan youth or his lanky teenage frame.

Around him, the mass of pilgrims walked in solemn orbits around the imposing black cube of the Kaaba shrine, the geographic center of the Muslim universe and the holiest shrine in Islam. The pilgrims came from everywhere around the globe, able to speak dozens of languages. But here they spoke Arabic, the sounds of their litanies and prayers reverberating throughout the open courtyard in a susurrating chorus.

Unfortunately many had differing attitudes toward how frequently one should bathe, so the hot desert air around Aziz’s face was as fierce as an open oven, and thick with the ripe smell of unwashed human flesh.

Aziz knew he should be feeling the exhilaration of the umrah, and of the closeness to this sacred spot, but instead he felt annoyance and rising anxiety. The anxiety came from the troubling news and wild rumors burning across the globe via the Internet. The source of his annoyance, however, was more immediate—his fellow pilgrim Omar, an elderly local who had taken it upon himself to mentor his new young friend.

“In the Jahiliyyah, the days of ignorance before the coming of the Prophet, blessings be upon him and peace,” Omar said, continuing his endless diatribe, “all the tribes and sects of Araby would come here to Mecca for the Hajj, even the Christians. It’s true!” He stretched out a leathery hand and gestured grandly to the great black curtained shrine.

“In those days, the Kaaba was a nest of idolatry, with a graven image for every god of every tribe within a thousand leagues—hundreds of them!”

Aziz nodded without comment. His mind was more focused on heading over to the Kentucky Fried Chicken next door, when the time came to break his fast. He fussed with his drape again, and tried to check his cell phone, without angering the old Arab. Just a decade ago, bringing a camera phone into the shrine would have been an unthinkable blasphemy. Today the mosque embraced technology, and was on a 24/7 Hajjcam livefeed.

Enamored with the sound of his own lecture, Omar didn’t notice Aziz’s distraction.