Outcasts (37 page)

“Nuts, what do you expect me to do? To say?”

“Figure it out.”

The lower levels of our tower had been cleaned out and expanded where possible. A small fraction had been devoted to macabre labs and sterile operating rooms. But the remainder was an absolute secret. Only a handful knew. His most trusted.

Five hundred people lived down here. And another five hundred in a nearby tower’s basement, identical in every way. One thousand of the Father’s most prized possessions. He called them the Inheritors. The Inheritors spent twenty hours a day here. Only four hours above ground. Four hours allowed in the sunlight. Four hours in the secret gardens. They weren’t mistreated. In fact, much energy had been spent on making them as comfortable as possible. But confinement is hard.

In the beginning there were a thousand in the basement. Two thousand total, between the two towers. Approximately five hundred were already gone from each. Fifty percent. The Father had predicted sixty, so we’re doing something right. He is pleased with fifty.
Was
pleased.

Nuts rolled me across the concrete floor towards the sealed double doors. One of the chair’s wheels squeaked and echoed off the distant walls. “Nuts,” I said desperately, “I’m not ready. You talk to them.”

“I don’t talk. I fix. I build.”

He punched in a code. The heavy doors clicked and moved inwards with an electric whir. We entered.

The room was low-ceilinged and vast, painted in pink and yellow colors intended to be cheerful but which appeared drab under fluorescent bulbs. On the far side of this room, doors led to sleeping quarters. Kitchens. Bathrooms. This was the play area. Toys everywhere. Rocking chairs. Televisions. Books. The faint smell of urine.

The women were awake. All two hundred and fifty of them. They paced. They wrung their hands. They drank. They waited for news.

I couldn’t lead these women, even though I was Infected and they weren’t. What did that matter? I was younger than them. Not a leader. Not wise. No vision. No confidence. Two hundred and fifty women here. Two hundred and fifty in the other tower. And only one me.

Five hundred women. And five hundred babies.

Most of their babies slept. Of the two hundred and fifty babies housed here, about fifty of them bounced in their mother’s arms. They cried. They nursed. They sucked on a bottle.

The babies were of all races and nationalities and between the ages of one and eight months. They had two things in common. One, they were unlucky enough to be born in or around Los Angeles during the previous year. Two, at birth they had been given a small injection of the Father’s blood.

The implications staggered me. Nineteen years ago, give or take a year, the Father and a man named Carter had injected forty babies with tainted blood. Nineteen long years ago. Of those forty, only seven survived the virus. The Outlaw, Tank Ware, Carla, me, Walter, Troy and Melissa. Those seven were enough to shake America’s foundations. Carla, Troy and Melissa were dead. I should be.

Just seven. Out of forty.

What would happen with five hundred Inheritors? Five hundred Infected babies. Their destiny sealed. Madness boiled inside. Madness and fate. Doomed to power, possibly as powerful as the Outlaw himself. Possessing the combined might to forever break the planet.

This was the Father’s long-term plan. Infected babies growing up in the loving arms of their mothers. Growing up to rule the world.

The mothers knew the Father was dead.

They wanted answers. Wanted hope.

I had none to offer. We needed a leader.

Katie was sitting up in bed, blinking against sunlight with big brown eyes. No, they were hazel in this light. Almost green. That was new. She shifted her shoulders awkwardly, stiffly. She glanced at the needle in her arm. At the bed. At the room. At me.

“Katie!” I whispered. I bottled up my excitement and fifty other emotions. Dr. Whitmer cautioned against early stimulus. I went to her bed slowly. “Are you…can you…can you hear me?”

She closed her eyes and moaned. Her face had changed. The muscles and skin hugged her skull in harder edges. She still looked like Katie, but a Katie who won triathlons.

She moved in a dream state. Not fully awake. Operating on long dormant impulse. A shudder wracked her body. She tried to speak but couldn’t. Her arms raised in a half stretch and she took a deep, deep breath through her nose. Paused. Her eyes snapped open again. Sharpened. Examined me. Frowned. Her mouth moved soundlessly.

“Don’t move,” I said. “I’ll get you something to drink. Take it easy. You’ve been asleep for months. We need to call your mom.”

I went to the window for a bottle of water and my phone. The Chosen still watched expectantly. Except now they all stood. Every single one. On their feet. What were they waiting for? I was at a complete loss. A shiver ran through the crowd and they began generating a noise. A murmur of corporate excitement, a faint stridulation. Some of them were hopping.

I accidentally caught a reflection in the glass of the open window. A reflection of myself. And of Katie. She had moved out of bed. Silently. Now standing behind me. Trailing tubes and sheets. Glaring at me without familiarity. Glaring with wild eyes that no longer belonged to Katie Lopez. Belonging now to a stranger.

She struck me in the lower back. Doctors told me later she pulverized my 4th and 5th lumbar vertebra and sacrum bones with that kick. Had my adrenaline been pumping, blood racing, muscles tensed by the disease, ready for combat, I could have absorbed the impact. Instead my spinal column snapped neatly in half. I was propelled out of the window, spinning like a broken toy. I fell three stories, landing on and collapsing the ambulance’s roof. The ambulance I’d prepared for rapid departure.

The Chosen reacted like howler monkeys, jumping and screaming in delight.

Above their din, an alien noise sounded. A roar. High-pitched and ferocious, louder than the others. I felt it in my bones. Felt the ambulance roof tremble.

The enraged howl of an alpha. Of a goddess.

We meet in secret because we’re outlaws. The President actively searches for us. Because we’ve broken away from the government. Because we commandeered almost half his resources and manpower. Because we’ve attempted to abduct or eliminate the Blue-Eyed Witch three times. All failures.

We’re forced to operate in shadows. We gather in a vacant high school two hours outside Los Angeles. Feels similar to the middle school we met in almost a year ago. A lifetime.

The taskforce I’ve gathered is part resistance, part American government. Traitors to the President. Saboteurs against Blue-Eyes. All of us have seen combat in the prior months. All of us have killed our American brothers.

We’re in way over our heads.

“We’ve got a lot to cover,” I say, turning on the battery-powered projector. “Let’s get started.”

But I can’t muster the energy. I’m exhausted. Like everyone else. It’s been a long day. A long month. A long year. The American public is on our side. The majority roots for us in secret. But that’s no substitute for sleep.

We have nuclear warheads. And we’re divided on what to do with them. We can’t even bear to bring the subject up.

Someone asks, “Where’s the Shooter? She’s usually here.”

“Samantha’s busy,” I answer. “She didn’t tell me. Something with PuckDaddy. Or Carter. I forget which. I trust her.”

“Any update on the Outlaw?”

I smile wearily. There, at least, is some good news. “Chase is up and running. Finally. He might never leap buildings in a single bound again, but considering our physicians expected him to be paralyzed the rest of his life…”

“How soon will he be back in the field?

“Soon. Although we shouldn’t expect much help from him. Not in the near future. He doesn’t plan on joining the resistance. At least not yet.”

The room rings with shocked silence. Dashed hopes. And quiet outrage.

Someone finally blurts, “
What
??”

“Don’t get me wrong. He’s our ally. But Chase only has one thing on his mind.”

He scoffs. “He’s going after the Crimson Witch?”

I slam my hand on the table. The room jumps. “We are
not
calling her that. Not ever.”

“You prefer The Butcher?”

I answer, “No. Not even that. Not around me. I don’t care what she’s called on the internet. Don’t care about the photographs. Don’t care about the rumors. Pick a different name.”

“What’s she call herself? Carmine? What does the Outlaw think he can do? Carmine tried to kill him, for crying out loud. Broke his back.”

I rub my eyes and admit, “I don’t know. But Katie Lopez deserves better than these nicknames.”

“Deserves better? She killed all those people. She’s ruthless. She and her growing army are…hell, I don’t know what to call them.”

I don’t answer. I have nothing to say. He’s right. We all know it. I know it. I stare out of the dusty window westward towards Los Angeles, towards Carmine. Towards Katie Lopez.

He grumbles, “We
need
the Outlaw. And he’s going to get himself slaughtered.”

“Maybe. But he believes he can make her remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Everything.”

MANY thanks to the readers who left Amazon feedback over the past year. You helped launch my career. I’m beyond thankful.

Many thanks for the Goodreads ratings too.

Text me. I reply to as many as I can. (260) 673-5450

I took minor shortcuts with Californian geography and with military procedures and with modern medicine. I know I did. They simplified the story, else we’d get bogged down. You already have my apologies, but you can yell at me anyway if you like. =)

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A big thank you to everyone involved

- artists Anne Pierson and Damonza.

- beta readers Sarah, Liz, Becky, Will, Anne, Megan, and Debbie.

- Polgarus

- to my friends and family for the encouragement

- especially to my wife for letting her husband chase dreams. You are everything.