Forever Between (Between Life and Death Book 2) (24 page)

It’s true. I’m just anxious. My mom used to say that money burned a hole in my pocket because I couldn’t wait to spend my allowance the moment I got it. Now, it’s two vials of nanites and they aren’t in my pocket, but they are burning holes of anxiety through me nonetheless.

“I can wait till tomorrow,” I concede, though it pains me to do so.

Savannah lets out a sigh and her hands slap against her legs in a combination of exasperation and something else, maybe dread for what she has to do. She’s not a doctor or a nurse and she never wanted to be either of those things, but she’s got the strongest stomach of the two of us. And, in Gloria’s case, she’s got the one qualification Gloria will need in the person who tends her injuries; she’s female.

Maribelle’s crying has diminished and I can see her nestled into her mother’s side, Gloria’s hand catching the light as she strokes her daughter’s bright blonde curls. From here, the details are washed out by the bright light and the darkness around them, but to me, Gloria looks exhausted and peaceful. It’s an odd mix, but beautiful.

“Let’s just give them some time. We can wait,” I say.

Eight Days Ago - Explaining to No One

Emily is as quiet as she ever gets. After seven birds and a fresh bucket of water—which she plunges her head into and then chokes on as much as she drinks—she’s sated and standing against the wall. Sometimes she sits, sometimes she lies down, but there’s no rhyme or reason for any of those behaviors. She doesn’t sleep, but she does go still and quiet sometimes.

She won’t do that right now because I’m here. She may not be hungry, but she wouldn’t turn down a meal in the form of me if I came within range. That, and the presence of anyone else keeps her tuned up too much for whatever form of relaxation in-betweeners are capable of.

She’s got her wrist chain to her lips, the metal almost acting as a sort of pacifier I think. But her eyes are on me and I have to try to explain. She’s not like Sam at all, something I’m not sure I’m too sad about, because I don’t want her to really understand what’s going on. So far, she’s not said anything or made any noise I can extrapolate meaning from, no matter how much I wish I could.

To me, she looks like Emily. Most likely, she’s nothing more than an in-betweener with the faintest possibility of Emily being inside that squished brain somewhere. She used to wonder aloud—and I caught the fire of that question from her—if the nanites might not heal her somehow even though they weren’t designed for her type of brain tumor.

I’d listened as she went on about inflammation, involuntary body functions disrupted by her tumor’s location—assuming it was growing in the same location as it had before—and the potential for brain bleeds. Her logic was that those were the things that would kill her and those were things that at least some of the nanite constellation might correct.

And given that she first started getting her headaches again a few months before she found me two years ago, it’s likely she was already infected and the nanites
were
working on those things inside her. She says she should have gotten much worse long before she did. The nanites probably gave her a longer life. Ironic.

Even though she was dying, she had a light in her eyes at the possibilities sometimes. It reminded me of how we got into this mess in the first place; people too enthusiastic over possibilities and not enthusiastic enough over the possible consequences. But, as it turns out, she might have been right. And that sort of stinks because that means I should have killed her much sooner than I did. Whatever help those nanites provided while she was alive, they are certainly providing more help now that she’s been dead.

I hate being wrong about when to murder the person I’m closest to in this seriously crappy world.

“Hey, Em. I gotta talk to you about something,” I say, then bring my voice down a level because the desktop-ghouls in the next cage return a chorus of growls. They’ve been fed too, but I think they get bored tied to desks all the time.

Emily ducks her head a little, her good eye focusing on me and her mouth stilling on her chain for a moment. It’s just my noise that interests her and, intellectually I realize that. Even so, there’s a tiny voice in my head that insists she’s listening to me.

“I’m going to try to get to the hospital at the military base. I know there’s not much chance anyone will be there and even less chance someone left some old nanites lying around with instructions, but I’ve got to give it a try. Oh, and I’m bringing the hard drive, of course.”

I have serious doubts that even if there is anyone there, that whatever raiding barbarians or looters are left are going to have any experience with nanite software, but I’m keeping those thoughts private. I don’t want any of the others to try to talk me out of this again, and I don’t want Emily to know I feel that way for sure. It feels like it would be an insult.

Emily moves forward a little. Her chains rattle and a low growl comes out of her throat, the movement making bloody drool drip down her chin in little red rivulets. Her head weaves a little when I let out a particularly loud sigh.

“What if I can’t get what you need?” I ask quietly.

There’s no response other than a cessation of her growling. We’re going tomorrow and I felt like I needed to tell her that I was going. Now, I just feel stupid. She’s not like Sam. Maybe Sam
was
one of a kind. Maybe the time the brain was without oxygen doesn’t really matter at all and he was just special.

I stand and brush the ever-present concrete dust from my jeans. Outside the barrier, I start to put the piece of metal we use as a door back in place. The racket makes the desktop tribe pipe up with their various individual moans, groans, and growls, but the sudden emphatic rattle of chains makes me peek back inside at Emily. That can only be her.

Her weaker side isn’t moving as vigorously as her stronger one, but there’s no mistaking that she’s worked up. The metal is heavy, so I set it back down, but leave a gap big enough that I can still see her and she can still see me.

For a long moment, we stare at each other, me still while she opens and closes her mouth in rhythmic in-betweener fashion, making her bleeding mouth worse with the motions. I had a brief flash of hope, but it passes and I say, “Bye, Emily. I’ll come back.”

I slide the metal into place, her chains rattling again in accompaniment. Her chains stop their noise and I peek through the slit, just making sure she’s okay one last time.

“Rahn,” Emily intones. Then she screws up her face and yells, “Frahn!”

Veronica
. It can only be that. It doesn’t sound that much different from the way she was talking near the end, just before she quit speaking altogether.

I push my hand through the viewing slit and wave my fingers to get her attention. She seems vague and blank again, whatever is animating her no longer interested in my name.

“I promise. I’ll be back. Just hang on.”

Today - Doctor, Doctor

“Do you think we paralyzed her or something?” I ask, watching Emily as she lays flat on her back, her arms and legs tied so that she’s sort of spread-eagled. She’s still an in-betweener, albeit a very still one at the moment, and keeping her tied makes her less dangerous if she wakes. She hasn’t moved on her own at all since we put the nanites into her spine yesterday.

“I followed the diagram exactly!” Savannah says, biting at a thumbnail. And she did, best I can tell.

“It was like a freaking cartoon. Drawn in sharpie, and not the fine point ones either,” Charlie tosses in.

I give him a look and he shuts his mouth. “Not helpful,” I say, just to make sure that my opinion on that comment is fully recognized.

Savannah winces as she bites off something still attached to skin and then stuff her hands into her pockets to keep from biting more of her nails. She gives me an uncertain look and suggests, “Maybe we didn’t wait long enough after putting the first vial into the second.”

“No, no! We’re not going to play that game again,” I say, my words coming out sharper than I mean them to. “The instructions weren’t perfect but we followed them. We just have to wait.”

Charlie squats on his haunches and reaches out to run a finger along the inside of Emily’s upturned palm. That should make her react due to basic reflexes, but nothing happens. The slightly curled fingers don’t twitch or close. Nothing. He sighs and Savannah lays a hand on his shoulder.

“And she never said this was normal? You asked what should happen, right?” Savannah asks.

“Of course, I did. She didn’t exactly remember everything. She said that the first time there was a great deal of pain, but she was already in so much pain she wasn’t sure whether it was caused by the nanites or not. And, well, this is a slightly different situation,” I say, trying to head off any talk of getting rid of her.

Charlie says, “I’m sure that guy didn’t say that these were re-programmed nanites. He specifically said that these were the right kind for her cancer. I’m right, right?”

I nod, but who knows if we really heard that or just think that we did. It wasn’t exactly the right atmosphere for paying attention to small details with them sneaking into our room in the middle of the night while we were being held prisoner. It won’t help anything to express doubt right now, though. “That’s what he said. But who knows how long those things can stay effective in storage,” I say. The day is warm, finally warm, but the dim light and concrete seem to suck the heat out of everything and I shiver a little. Perhaps it’s just foreboding.

*****

For three days, I’ve been watching Emily as much as I can. That’s too long for an in-betweener to go without food. I’ve read her an entire science fiction novel of the sort she used to like and tried to tempt her with disgusting mashed up raw birds swimming in their own blood. Not so much as a flared nostril greeted my offerings.

Using a dropper, I do manage to get water into her mouth a few drops at a time. She swallows at fairly regular intervals, though not in response to my dropper touching her lips. It doesn’t matter, so long as she swallows the little bit she has in her mouth, I’m happy. Still, it’s not enough and her lips are lined with flaking, dry skin I can only temporarily make disappear with lip balm.

Savannah is kind and has been bringing my lunch here so that I don’t have to leave Emily during my watch for very long. My stomach is growling loudly, so I know she should be coming soon. I’ve made a little nest for myself here and it’s quite comfortable, but I have to admit, I do miss moving around and making the hours pass by working outside.

Charlie has added his own touches to the nest and he uses it while he’s here to watch. It makes me feel a bit less like a lone watcher to know that he does that. Not the others, though. Savannah’s patience stretches to bringing me meals and the others take over the burden of extra watches, but it does not stretch to actively watching what they consider to be a corpse in need of another killing.

My voice is scratchy from all the reading aloud and the light coming in from the open door is just bright enough to make reading to myself bearable. I’ve got a new book—well, new to me—that someone recovered during one of our recent runs. The city library burned, and most houses have been afflicted by the incessant dampness that seeps in through the broken windows, but even considering that, we find books in plenty.

I get excited about each new book I’ve not yet read. I’ve even started a sort of old-fashioned card catalog we have so many books. In one house, we found a whole slew of books on how to do things in the old ways. Mysterious things like pickling—which we used with mixed success last year—filled the pages and suddenly, our haphazard piles of books seemed unacceptable to me. Even fiction has its hints at things that might come in use. So, over the winter, I started our card catalog and everyone helped in their own way, suggesting categories and writing on cards in careful block letters.

“Emily, I’m going to read for a bit here by the door. I’m not leaving you,” I say as I stroll toward the cone of light the spreads on the floor near the door.

It’s now my habit to simply let her know everything that I do or anything that happens. I do it almost absently and without any expectation of an answer, so it takes me a moment to digest the word that comes back to me.

“Ogay,” Emily says.

I freeze. The book falls from my hand with a flutter and a thump to the concrete and raises up a little cloud of dust. I must be imagining it. Must be.

When I turn, she looks almost the same, except for one thing. Her good eye is open and fixed upon me.

“Emily?”

“Ungry,” Emily says with her scratchy voice.

There’s an undertone there, a low and thrumming reminder of her in-betweener status. My quick steps toward her—my thoughtless intention to hug her—are brought up short and I stop again. Caution is called for.

“Then I’ll get you some food,” I say, smiling at her and hoping for a smile in return. “How do you feel aside from that?”

The pause before she answers is so long my heart sinks a little, thinking she’s gone back down into that unresponsive sleep of before.

“Ungry, dirsdy,” she says, her one eye seeming to glow with the words, her face predatory and gleaming as she watches me.

Epilogue

Three Weeks From Today - Forever Between

“Morning, Emily! Breakfast!” I say, putting a bright spin on the words as I walk toward the cage.

A growl and the rattle of chains greets me, the gloom still heavy at the cage end of the warehouse since the big doors are still rolled down. I nod toward them and Charlie jogs off to open them for the day. The seasons shifted from a too-cool spring to a fierce early summer very suddenly, almost from one day to the next. If the doors don’t come up, the temperature will quickly move from the stuffy warmth of now to a blazing,
oven-hot swelter later on.

Our five in-betweener guests still on their boards already smell bad enough without cooking them on top of everything else. Really. The smell in there is almost mind-bogglingly bad.