The Ward (31 page)

In my other hand I hold the vial.
Aven’s vial
. So one day we can walk outside together on Mad Ave. Or visit a roof garden. It’s for our futures together. Our microscopic futures, important to no one but ourselves.

If Aven lives, nothing changes.

But if Callum lives . . . If Callum lives, so much could change.
Everything
.

Derek said the water would keep the poison from working, and Callum knows how to make the real cure. . . . Plus, we’ve got my blood.

We would figure out how to stop the governor, together. Get the real cure to everyone. First, tonight. Before the squadrons fly through. We’d have to find more water, but we could do it.
We could end the Blight
. And it’s only even remotely possible if Callum is alive.

My sister.

Callum.

Two lives, one hand.

My mind can’t piece it together, this choice—it rips my core in half. I look around the room, as if I’ll find an answer hiding in the shadows, but I’m only reminded of how alone I am in this. Not even Aven can help me now.

This is not a decision I can make.

Of course . . . if Derek’s right—Callum is already gone. There’s no more choice. It’s just Aven.

Is it sick that part of me hopes he’s right? For fate to leave me with one card and pull away the rest?

It’s time
.

I reach for his wrist to feel for a pulse. It’s not a choice until there’s a pulse. I’m scared of hurting him, so I rotate his palm carefully and place two fingers on his vein. Though I’ve done it before, it’s never been like this. All that learning means nothing, not when my own racing heartbeat makes it almost impossible to check for someone else’s.

I wait for some movement through his veins, but all I feel is the hammer of my own heart.

Focus. Breathe. Focus
.

I try again. Two fingers on the vein. I wait, and I wait, and then, after seconds of no movement—

The slight
bump-bump
. . . I feel it.

My heart’s got no clue where to go—it rises up into my throat, it barrels down my chest. Relief don’t feel like this. But neither does remorse. More salt water beads up behind my eyes.

I’m ashamed of myself, but this choice . . . it’s too much. I can’t do it.

The room begins to spin, hard and fast.

When I blink, everything dims and my stomach heaves. I’m going to retch. I gasp for air, but I can’t hear the sounds I make. Just a white, static rush between my ears.

I wish I’d never found the water.

I can’t do this. . . .
I can’t leave Callum to die.

But I can’t give up on Aven either. Not when I’m so close.

In my head I hear the governor:
My wife is the only person I would kill for
. Hours ago, I asked myself if I would do the same for Aven. Now I have an answer.

Hating every cell in my body for what I’m about to do, I begin to remove my hand from Callum’s side. It’s doused. The blood is hot, burns worse than if it were on fire. I move my palm in millimeters, reaching across his body—for a moment, the vial presses against his cheek.

Even more red, now. There’s so much of it. . . .

I ease away, release the pressure from Callum’s muscles. The hole in his flesh gets wider.

But so many people could be saved. The girl in the contagious ward, with hair bright like Aven’s—

More and more red. I don’t know when it will stop. I watch and wonder, anxious. Unable to take my eyes away, unable to get that girl out of my mind.

She’s not my Aven
. She’s a stranger. They all are. And who decided that life was a numbers game? What if some people deserve life more than others? People like Aven. She deserves it more than anyone I know, and I’d rather have one of her than hundreds of strangers.

That girl ain’t my Aven, but she is somebody else’s Aven
.

My eyes flood up with that thought and I keep ripping. Splitting in two.

And then, he breathes.

A groan, barely audible, so airy it’s lost right away. Almost too quiet for me to hear. Almost. I shake my vision clear and look down to meet his eyes, like I should.

Except he’s not looking at me. I follow his gaze. His eyes are barely open, just a sliver of blue there. He’s looking at the vial.

“For Aven,” he whispers, and I choke.

He understands. . . .
He understands
. He’s ready to let me give it to someone else. A girl he don’t even know. She’s not a genius, and she can’t develop miracle serums.
So why?
I don’t understand—it wouldn’t even be selfish for him to want it for himself.

His life equals many lives.

It strikes me hard—Aven would do the same thing. Callum isn’t her, not by a long shot, but . . . The Ward needs more people like Aven. And here I am, ready to leave him to die. The horror of it is a bullet to my chest.

I unstopper the vial—

How much do I use?
Split it in thirds, that’s what I’ll do. A third on the wound, a third over his broken bones, and the last third he can drink. Hope the serum works better—and faster—than what I gave Aven.

“Here goes,” I mutter, ripping his shirt to expose the slit along his abs. I use the cloth to wipe away what I can of the blood, and hold the vial over the wound. I make sure to pour it deep.

Next I move to reset the bones in his arms. “This may hurt like hell,” I warn, but he’s gone unconscious again and can’t have heard me. Still, the sound of my own voice helps keep me sane, so on I talk. “Emergency first aid. Never had to use it on myself, which is why the Blues taught us, but it’s sure going to come in handy right about now.”

I lift the left arm, snap it back into its rightful position.

His face contorts, he groans louder now, but I keep going. Right arm, right leg, left leg, until it’s time to apply the serum locally.

I pull off his black leather shoes first, then I undo the fancy buckle around his waist. Lifting him up, I start to remove his trousers, making sure the boxers stay on. The pants get caught at his knees and so I lower him, sliding them the rest of the way. At the sight of his bare legs, I blush and look away.

Shirt. He’s in no condition to be moved, so I decide to rip off his shirtsleeves. Using the knife I keep strapped in my boot, I slice off one, then the other, exposing long lines of muscle in his arms. I raise a brow, somewhat surprised, and rush to add more drops onto each.

“I’ve saved the last of it for you to drink, okay?” I don’t expect a reply; I just lift his head and bring the vial to his lips.

His blue eyes watch me from my lap. I see his brows twinge—he’s confused. He doesn’t understand why the vial is over his mouth, and not Aven’s.

In that instant my guilt is a twisting knife. Only his goodness, his confusion, reminds me I must be doing the right thing. “It’s for you now,” I tell him, and feel my eyes turn wet. I leave it at that—he’s in no shape to hear, or understand, why I’m doing this.

I tip the vial over his mouth again—he tries to swallow. I watch his throat move, but he coughs, and blood trails from his mouth. I pull away, wait for the spasm to end. Once more, I tilt the vial. I pour the serum. I make sure every last drop finds its way down.

Too soon, it’s gone. “And now we wait,” I whisper, eyes glued to the empty glass as Callum drifts off into a fitful rest.

I continue to hold his head in my lap, brushing away his hair. I used to do this to Aven—my breath catches at that, and the candle flickers,
yes
.

With that comes the tidal, catastrophic truth: I’ve exchanged the two. Callum for Aven.

How could you?

Fat tears begin to brim over, and the lump in my throat is a brick I don’t know how to swallow. Callum, a boy I hardly know. I choke on the brick, try for air. Palm to forehead, palm to forehead, I run my fingers over the scalp and all the way down—I don’t stop. It’s automatic. I even find myself searching behind the neck for that spot that always seemed to be growing larger. The lump.

I don’t find it. And the ears, too low. The strands of hair stop short too soon. My fingers tangle free too early. This is hearing your favorite story—the one you know by memory, you’ve heard it a hundred times—suddenly end differently.

I don’t stop. Over and over, I shock myself on every different ending. And when I close my eyes to the shadows, try to lose sense of it in the dark, I can’t. I can’t even pretend I haven’t done this.

35

T
he spigot’s steady dripping becomes the second hand on a clock I don’t see, the only reminder I have that time moves forward.

When I can’t do it anymore, when holding his head becomes a betrayal so sharp I can’t stand it, I lift it off my lap and lower him down. He can’t be moved now, but when he can, he’ll need a place nearby to lie. I drag the mattress from the cot to the bathroom door. Then I take his hand in mine and lie on the mattress myself.

I’m alone. I chose it, too. Chose to lose the one person I called family—who was better than family, really. My own blood dropped me on a doorstep. Aven was
—She’s not dead yet
.

Drip, drip, drip
.

“Ren . . .” Callum sounds stronger as his voice echoes against the bathroom tiles, but hearing my name in his mouth—it’s like hearing my shame speak directly to me. It makes me want to resent him for being alive. Using the life I gave him.

I swallow the feeling and crawl off the mattress. The choice has been made, and I made it. He will save people.
We will save lives, together
. “I’m here,” I say, lifting his wrist and wrapping my fingers over his veins to check his pulse again.

I can feel it, the beating of his heart. It’s stronger now. “You’re going to be okay, Callum,” I whisper, and wait for more words, signs of life, but he’s silent again.

He’s going to be okay, I tell myself.
It won’t have been for nothing
. Keeping his hand in mine, I return to the mattress.

More drips. Time passes.

“I’m not dead. . . .” Callum whispers, and my eyes snap open.

I must have fallen asleep. Sliding toward him again, “Callum?” I say, and I squeeze his hand in mine. It’s warmer. Hot, even. When I look down, his eyes are open. Big and blue and clear and awake. “How do you feel?”

His eyes dart around the bathroom, land on every corner. “I’m not dead,” he says again, which I guess is answer enough. And then, looking up at the ceiling, “How am I alive?”

He must not remember.

On the counter, the candle—wick almost at its end—flickers, hissing into wax. The sound catches his attention, and he watches the shadows in the room like they’re ghosts. Follows their haunting all the way to his side. To the vial, now empty.

Callum looks at it. Moves to sit up, but clutches himself, face in a grimace. “Why?” he asks, twisting to look at me head-on.

I wait to answer, not knowing where to start . . . but then I hear him inhale.

Like he’s breathed in the answer.

Through teeth gritted in hurt, “The cure,” he says, forcing his back against the wall. “It’s not—”

“I know. It’s an extermination plan. A poison pill,” I fill in for him. Don’t want the words, or their meaning, on my tongue too long. “And with the extremists and the protestors on his back—”

“He’ll go through with it,” Callum finishes for me.

Pushing his back farther up the wall, face flushed, “We can’t let it happen,” he says.

“No. We can’t.”

Callum nods. Closes his eyes. “Which is why you saved me.”

“Yes.”

He’s silent, then opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling. “Do you have a plan?” he asks, monotone. I can hear it in his voice; he don’t know what to do with it. The knowledge that I saved him not for
him
, but for what he can do.

I didn’t think about how that might make him feel.

“Get the cure out first?” I offer weakly. Now that the serum actually worked, and Callum is here—alive—I shake my head, realizing how weak of a plan it is.

“We have no more water. And I have no notes,” he counters, groaning and throwing a fist into the tiled floor. “Not to mention that the cure is a poison. Who’s to say the water will counteract it?”

“It will. I asked Derek. He said so.” I take his hand. It’s clammy in mine as I unball his fist, one finger at a time. “And I know where to find more.”

That bath I took . . . Derek had enough water to draw me one, then another, with no worries about rationing. And where else could he constantly keep an eye on things?

Callum’s eyes flicker toward his hand. My hand. Our hands together. Shifting himself toward me, “Let me guess. Derek. Your bookie.”

“My bookie,” I answer, exhaling as Callum closes his eyes once more.

My bookie. Derek.

No
, I correct myself.

Someone who would sit by and watch as hundreds are killed
.

A murderer.

Callum walks upstairs after his shower, a towel wrapped carefully around his waist, loose, avoiding the wound.

“Let me check your side one more time,” I insist, and then realize that as he’s no longer on death’s doorstep, that request is a tad more awkward. Especially the half-naked bit.

He rolls his eyes—this is the fifth time I’ve asked him that. But he walks over anyway and turns to the side, showing me the flesh under his rib cage. “You need to leave,” he says.

“Not until I’m sure you’ll still be alive when I’m done,” I answer, leaning down to get a better look at the wound. I try my best to look at him without
looking
at him. I feel my face start to burn, but as soon as I get a better look at the almost-mortal wound at his side, the embarrassment kind of dies. A gory flesh wound tends to do that sort of thing.

By now, the bleeding has stopped entirely. The two folds of sliced skin are taut together, and dark maroon crusts along the line. I whistle my amazement, timid as I press my fingers around the worst of it. “Well,” I say, standing up. “The serum definitely works on wounds. Enough of those phytowhosits, it would seem. Faster than the original stuff without a doubt.”