Until We End (13 page)

Brooks positioned his white queen for the kill. He was an offensive chess player, just like me. Lonnie had a million chances to defend his king throughout the game, but he barely knew where the pieces were supposed to go. He stared at the board so hard that sweat began to bead on his forehead, but it was too late. No amount of coaching from me could help him.

I knelt closer, analyzing Brooks' set up. It was flawless.

Then one of Lonnie's laughs turned into a cough so violent that he rocked forward and had to throw out a hand to keep from face-planting on the board. I tried to steady him, but jerked away. His skin was burning hot.

I looked up at Brooks and stopped breathing. His face was spattered with blood.

Brooks ran to him. I couldn't move, staring from Lonnie to the chessboard. Blood speckled its tiles and red stained the crown of the white queen.

I snapped out of it when I heard Brooks' voice.

“No,” he groaned. “Not
again
.”

I stumbled to his side. Lonnie had collapsed back on the couch, sweat mixing with tears that had begun to leak down his cheeks. His green eyes were stricken with red, rolling wildly in their sockets, unseeing, until they fixed on Brooks.

Lonnie tried to speak, but this horrible gurgling sound came out of his mouth instead of words and pushed him into another violent coughing fit. Brooks clutched his shoulders and tried to still his flailing, but Lonnie was too far gone.

His fever would have pushed him into delirium by now, and it would continue to rise well into the triple digits. He was shaking so hard it looked like he was having a seizure; his body in a desperate struggle to keep his temperature down, but it was hopeless.

I blotted the sweat from his face with the corner of my t-shirt. A distant part of my brain registered that coming into contact with his bodily fluids was the surest way to contract the virus, but I couldn't stop myself. I just wanted him to be clean again.

My mind flashed to what Dad told me about the virus's victims.

Blood began to seep from his nose. The symptom: ruptured sinuses.

His breath sounded wet, like he was being held underwater, and his skin started turning blue. I knew it was because fluid had begun to fill his lungs. It would suffocate him. He'd feel like he was drowning as he died.

I kept blotting his face. Lonnie fought for every breath, right up until his last one.

For a moment, he looked up at me out of bloodshot eyes and I almost thought he recognized me.

Then he was gone.

I don't know how long we both knelt beside the couch, staring at Lonnie.

Every now and then, I'd surface a little. I'd imagine it was my dad's face that I stroked with shaky fingers,
his
ash-blond hair that was caked with blood and sweat.
His
body that was getting stiff and cold.

I shut down.

It could have been hours later that Jackson and Lu came back, or it could've been minutes. All I knew was that one minute Brooks and I were keeping silent vigil, and the next Jackson had an iron grip around my bicep and was pulling me away. I heard shouting. Lu.

I looked back to see her standing over Brooks and Lonnie.

“What are you doing?” she screeched at Brooks. “
Get out of here!”

He didn't even look at her.

Jackson pushed me through the front door of the warehouse and led me around the corner to a row of barrels I hadn't noticed before.

“Strip,” he ordered, voice muffled like he was far away instead of standing right in front of me. I took a reflexive step back and looked down at my shirt, soaked with Lonnie's blood and sweat, the gruesome mixture dripping onto my jeans.

Jackson grunted and grabbed me by the arm, then yanked my shirt over my head, leaving me only in my bra. The feel of air on my naked skin chased away any sense of shock that might have lingered, and I tried to shove him back, but he was as solid as a boulder and wouldn't budge. When he reached for the button of my jeans, I screamed and pushed harder.

“Don't be stupid!” His fingers dug into my shoulders as he tightened his grip and pushed me toward one of the barrels. “You've been too close to him. You have to sanitize.” He pulled the lid off one of the barrels and the sharp scent of bleach and other, unidentifiable chemicals reached my nose. “Take your pants off and get in,” he said.

“Get in
there
?” The barrel was plenty big, but the chemicals smelled strong enough to rip my skin off.

“Unless you want to end up like Smith, yes.”

Shit.

Shit
.

I turned around so I didn't have to see Jackson watching me. My fingers trembled as I unbuttoned and stepped out of my pants.

I gripped the edge of the barrel and hoisted myself in. The water was warm, sloshing to chest level, but the heat just made the chemical smell worse.

“Dunk your head,” Jackson ordered. I stared at the water with its opaque white whorls. My skin already itched where it touched me.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to think, then took a giant breath and went under. The water burned the sensitive skin of my face as soon as it washed over me and tried to rush up my nose. I brought my hand around to stopper my nostrils and was just about to surface when I felt Jackson's hand on my head. I tried to push against it, but his grip was strong as latticed steel, holding me under.

My lungs convulsed in protest, begging me to exhale, and spots burst on the backs of my eyelids. The air pressure building in my chest expanded into my head. The acid in the water crawled over my skin, eating it, making it burn like I was on fire, and still Jackson held me under.

Mouth locked tight against the chemical soup, I reached up to get a hold on Jackson's arm, and then pushedfor all I was worth. As soon as his grip loosened, I shot up. I didn't dare open my eyes or mouth, but I was able to find the edge of the barrel and stumble out.

“Breathe,” I heard Jackson say. He pressed a rough piece of fabric over my eyes and dried the skin around my nose and mouth. I gasped for air and gagged. Blood drained from my head and a wave of nausea threatened to bring me to knees. I cracked my lids experimentally and when I found that no water got in them, I did the only thing that seemed right at the moment.

I punched him in the face.

He staggered backward with his hand on his jaw and looked down at me, nostrils pinched and teeth bared. I took a step back. Sometimes you just
know
when a person's got a screw loose. Jackson had several.

“Watch yourself, little girl,” he said.

A splash sounded from behind me. I put my back to the wall — no way was I about to turn my back on Jackson — and looked to see what made it. Brooks emerged from a barrel farther down the line, soaking wet, clad only in his boxers. I was too sick to enjoy the view.

The fumes surrounded me. My head ached with each noxious breath I took and tears streamed from my eyes, trying to expel the chemicals. I sank to the ground as my legs gave out.

Digging my elbows into my knees for balance, I swayed, clutching my head, struggling to see past the tears. My stomach roiled at the chemical stench, and I tried to hold the vomit down but my body had a mind of its own. I fell onto my side. Acid filled my mouth and vomit rose in my throat, expelling what little my stomach contained.

Jackson gave a disgusted grunt as he walked away. I tried crawling a few feet to escape the sight of my vomit and the smell of the bleach, but my hands were a blur and the ground wasn't steady; my lungs refused to inflate.

Then someone was pulling me to my feet. I looked up and saw Brooks, fully clothed and soaking wet, steering me to the far side of the walkway. We turned the corner and left the stench behind.

He led me to a small set of stairs on the edge of the pavement, held my hands as he lowered me to the ground, and then walked away.

My body and mind were breaking. I could think now that the reek couldn't reach me, but my thoughts were as poisonous as the fumes. Lonnie's death replayed in my head. The way his bright blond hair had turned black from sweat, his skin blue and pale and dripping with blood.

That same thing had happened to my dad. All of his paranoid apocalyptic preparations rendered inadequate in the face of an invisible killer. How could a person prepare for
that?

A dip in bleach might not even be enough to kill the virus, and if it wasn't then I was dead. How could I have been so stupid?
Direct contact with the bodily fluids of the infected.
Dad told me that was the surest way to contract the virus.

I imagined my lungs flooded with fluid, drowning on dry land and burning with a fever hot enough to fry my brain cells. No amount of information from Dad, not even seeing those hills of bodies, could have prepared me for watching the virus kill up close.

I bit my knuckle to stifle a sob. My skin itched, sprouting red rashes with raised bumps. The summer sun only made the irritation worse. I groaned as a breeze rustled the treetops and brushed my skin. Even that whisper-soft touch stung.

I put my head down when I heard footsteps getting closer, hoping they would walk right past me. I hated feeling so weak.

It was Brooks. He sat down next to me and draped a thick, fluffy beach towel around my shoulders. I wiped my face clear of the last few teardrops and brought my head up.

When I looked at him, I felt a connection between us, much more than the attraction we shared before Lonnie's death. Watching someone die together like we did forms a bond. It was hard to look at him now without feeling something deeper. A need to touch his skin, just to feel its warmth.

Brooks clasped his hands and stared out at the pine trees. “That was your first?” he asked.

“My first what? My first time watching someone die?” I tried to laugh, but my voice caught. “Not quite.” The woman I shot was my first.

“The first time you've seen the virus kill someone.”

I shuddered. “Yes.”

“It gets easier,” Brooks said, nodding absently.

“It does?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him. “Was it
easy
watching Lonnie die?”

“You know it wasn't,” he said. “Losing someone is never easy. The aftermath gets easier, though.”

Now he looked at me. “There were twenty-five of us in the beginning,” he said, “and now we're down to three. It's only a matter of time before the rest of us die, too. Once I understood that, things got easier. I stopped imagining how dying would feel and just accepted that it would happen.”

Brooks reached up to touch a lock of my hair. It was still wet and dripping. “We do what we can to buy ourselves time. But we don't spend time dreading it,” he said. “In that way, it's easier.”

Accept that I would die? That Coby would die? Impossible.

“I can't do that,” I said.

“Yes, you can. You just won't.”

I pulled the towel more tightly around my shoulders. “You don't understand.”

“Of course I do. You're not the only who's lost someone.”

God. Couldn't I say anything right? “I'm sorry. But Lonnie—“ I said, searching for the right words, trying not to cry, “—he died so fast. Is it always like that?”

“Yeah,” Brooks said. “Be glad for that.”

I thought I was. At least he didn't have to suffer long.

“People like you and Lu…” I said. “It seems like you were born for this world.”

He smiled a little. “You wouldn't think that if you'd seen us six months ago.”

“What was your life like, before the virus?” I asked.

“Peachy,” he said. “I was in foster homes, getting shuffled from one to the next. I never stayed in one place for more than a few months. When I finally turned eighteen, I joined the army. And it gave me a family.

“Put these on.” He handed me a stack of clothes I recognized as his. “I understand, you know. About your brother. I get it.” He stood and started to walk away, then stopped. “We'll be leaving soon, to take care of Smith. Tomorrow, we'll find your brother.”

I sat on those steps for a long time, watching the three of them walk around in silvery biohazard gear that made them look like spacemen. But when the two bigger space suits — Jackson and Brooks — carried the bloodstained green sofa and a Lonnie-sized body bag out of the warehouse, I looked away.

They put the body bag into the back of the Humvee and then carried the couch out to the yard, where they poured gasoline on it and set it on fire. I stared into the flames as they got into the Hummer and drove off. Even from fifty feet away, it seemed like I could feel the heat from the fire licking my face.

Four days I'd known Lonnie. Four days since Coby went missing and this hellish journey began, and I was still no closer to finding him. I couldn't sit here any longer, waiting for the virus to kill me, like Brooks. I had to do something.

Brother Charlie had suggested that I just go to a shelter and ask if Coby was there — but that seemed too easy. Brooks said it'd be suicide.

But what if Coby was really there? What if he was being pumped full of meds that might kill him? Testing a vaccine for the virus probably meant risking exposure in the hopes that the person's immune system learns how to fight it. No wonder so many people died at the shelters. It would be so easy for everything to go wrong and Coby was so young. His immune system was still developing, still weak. If they tested on him, he would die.

I couldn't let that happen. If going to the shelter meant I'd find Coby, that I could have even a small chance of getting him out, it would be worth it.

But I still didn't even know where the shelter
was
. Maybe I could straight up ask Brooks… but he hadn't even told me about it. Charlie had. Bet Brooks wouldn't appreciate finding that out.

I covered my face with my hands and bit my lip to stop a scream of frustration. Of one thing I was certain: I would never find Coby if I didn't at least try.