Whimper (17 page)

“So, what did you do that pissed Zoe off so much?” Brianna’s voice interrupted my building panic.

“Thank God,” I sighed. At least Brianna was okay and hadn’t abandoned me. “When I woke up alone I started thinking the worst.”

“You usually do. I was going over the documents I found and trying to piece together the history and timeline. I figured you’d be out for a while and I really didn’t want to hang out here in the dungeon with your drippy ass.” She pulled a piece of black plastic from my back with disdain.

“You’re usually nicer to me after I almost die,” I complained, trying to make it sound like a joke.

“You’re usually smarter about trying to prevent it. So what happened tonight? Zoe has barely said a word to anyone and Zack is getting worried,” she asked as she held out a hand to pull me to my feet. I took the bottle of water she handed me, cracked the seal and drank slowly. I wanted to get out of my wet clothes and eat something, but Brianna was going to demand answers first.

“Remember the girl I befriended to get information about the other experiments? Amie Winters? She was working in the mobile lab when we broke in last night,” I began.

“Oh shit! How did you keep her quiet? Is she going to report you? Do we need to leave?” Brianna asked, hysteria seeping into her voice.

“No, I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. She freaked out at first, but she ended up helping. She offered to work on a vaccine with me and collaborate on my findings actually.”

“But?” Brianna asked, sensing the hesitation in my voice.

“But I’m not sure if I should trust her. She does work for the CDC and she was involved in the human testing and everything else I objected to. I can’t be certain she isn’t more involved than she wants me to believe,” I answered.

“Is that what Zoe is worked up about?” Brianna asked, finally allowing me to move into the basement so I could dry off.

Crap. I guess I had to come clean at some point. I might as well bare my sins to my sister first. She at least would forgive me. “She hasn’t told me what she’s upset about yet, but I have a pretty good guess. I didn’t want to tell you before because I was embarrassed and sort of ashamed. I used Amie to get information, but I wasn’t merely friendly in order to get it. I mean, I was friendly, but I also…umm,” I scrubbed my hands over my face, wishing I could run away from having this conversation with my baby sister.

Brianna was staring at me with wide eyed astonishment, evidently trying to piece together what I was hinting at. “Elliott, are you trying to tell me that you were screwing her to get access to her research?” she asked.

God I didn’t want to have this conversation. I squeezed the bridge of my nose, shaking my head to clear it. “Kind of? Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. She wanted a boyfriend and I wanted to know what they were doing with my research. It just sort of happened. One minute I was asking her out for coffee and then…”

“You were naked on the coffee table,” Brianna finished for me. What the hell had she been doing at school before I interrupted her life? She was way too comfortable with this conversation.

“Anyway! Amie kept bringing up our relationship and her feelings, God she even had pictures on her phone. Who takes pictures of you while you’re sleeping, by the way? It was a mess. I have no idea what Zoe is going to say about the whole thing and I don’t know how to explain it without sounding like even more of a jackass. I didn’t have any feelings for her. She annoyed me beyond belief and she was basically a means to an end. I can’t say that to Zoe!”

Brianna rolled her eyes at me. “Come on, Saint Elliott. Zoe’s a big girl. I doubt that she’s so naïve that she thought you’d been saving yourself for her. The whole situation is fucked up. If she was willing to stick around when you told her you created a virus capable of killing off most of our generation and then shot yourself up with it, I’m willing to bet she’ll keep an open mind about the coffee table sex.” Brianna grinned.

“There was no coffee table, please stop!” I groaned. When did my discomfort become so entertaining?

“But clearly there was sex! You are so bad. I’m actually impressed that you were able to stoop so low in order to get what you needed. It’s like you were a spy or something,” she laughed, turning around so that I could change my clothes. “You should talk to her. Explain what really happened. They’re trusting us a lot, she probably feels used herself. Make sure she doesn’t think that she’s a means to an end too. Unless…she’s not is she?” Brianna suddenly sounded uncertain.

“No! God, no, Bri! If I could I’d keep her out of this entirely. I don’t want her to be in danger because of me. I’m terrified something is going to happen and I won’t be able to do enough to protect her. I’m confused and excited about her, but it’s terrible timing. I can’t be normal anymore, not with a death sentence hanging over my head and the constant threat that I might infect someone else.” I jammed my foot into my shoe, disgusted with myself and my situation.

“Elliott, I don’t think anyone can be normal any more. Like it or not, this is our reality and these are our lives. We might be in danger, but we’re still alive. You need to decide if you can forgive yourself enough to allow someone else to risk herself for you. Talk to her. Now. Otherwise you’ll get lost in your research results and make it all that much worse.”

I groaned, but she was right. I needed to talk to Zoe now and clear the air before I left tonight and made things worse. It couldn’t be any worse than telling Brianna about it. Shit. It could be worse actually.

I followed Brianna upstairs and squinted at the sunlight streaming in from between the slats on the windows. It didn’t seem like it should be daylight yet. My internal clock was certainly confused. I probably needed a few more hours sleep and my body felt like I’d recently been backed over by a dump truck carrying concrete blocks.

“She’s upstairs in her room,” Brianna prompted, pointing towards the stairs. Nag.

I slowly forced myself up the stairs, one foot in front of the other. Reluctance had me moving like I was about to face a firing squad. The wallpapered hallway still had the panel that hid Zack’s WTSHTF stash was slightly askew. I wondered what other secrets this mini fortress had hidden under its roof. Brianna had papers spread all over the top of her mattress and her laptop notes sitting in the middle of it. I was tempted to stall, to sneak in and look over her discoveries, but I kept walking. “Like pulling off a Band-Aid, get in there quick, explain yourself, and get it over with,” I murmured under my breath, then took a hit of my inhaler, in case things got heated.

I knocked on the heavy woodwork since the door stood askew. “Zoe? Can I come in? I need to explain some things.”

“I wouldn’t bother,” a muffled voice from the bed replied. “I probably wouldn’t be able to understand what you’re talking about anyway.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled by her response.

“You want to go over all the crap you learned from my test results and even when you dumb it waaaay down, I am still at a total loss. I don’t understand mitochondrial DNA, polypeptide bonds, flootherwhoveit cycles, or whatever else you’re going to tell me about. Don’t waste your breath.” She rolled over on the bed, covering her face with a pillow.

I wanted to laugh, but held it in. It probably wasn’t the best time for her to think I was laughing at her. “I’m pretty sure that last thing doesn’t exist. But it really doesn’t matter. I haven’t even looked at the results since we got back. I wanted to talk to you first.” I cautiously sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting to see if she’d tell me off or let me stay. In the meantime, I glanced around the room, taking in all the facets of Zoe held within these light gray walls. There were lots of traces of the little girl version here, a teddy bear sitting on the storage trunk, a dollhouse in the corner. Pictures of friends were tacked up all over a corkboard, but none of the photos appeared recent. An 8x10 of Zoe, Zack, and an older man sat in a frame on her dresser next to a candle and a dried rose. Her uncle maybe?

“Why are you still sitting here?” she asked, still muffled.

“Because I need to talk to you,” I answered simply. I was itching to get to my lab work, but Zoe came first. Wow. The realization that she was actually becoming that important to me took my breath away for a second.

Zoe sat up suddenly, tossing the pillow against her white headboard. “What, Elliott? What do we have to talk about? About how you aren’t who I thought you were? About how you’re keeping secrets while my brother and I are risking our lives to help you? About how I’m an idiot for believing that I could know
anything
about someone I just met? Huh? Is that what you want to talk about? Or have I pretty much said it all?”

Startled, I said the first thing that popped into my head. “I fucked up, Zoe. I did. I didn’t tell you the details about Amie and I should have. I wanted you to think I was a good guy, and I didn’t want to admit to Brianna or to you that I could stoop so low. I pretended to be interested in her in order to get information. I slept with her in order to keep getting that information. I’m not proud of it, but I felt like it was the only way to keep her talking and to keep her trust. I can barely stand her, but I went along with it anyway out of desperation.”

“She is an annoying bitch,” Zoe responded begrudgingly. “You still lied by omission. Plus, I can’t believe you actually agreed to blindly meet with her tonight by
yourself
! She’s probably turning you in right now and planning to take credit for all of your work.”

“It is very possible that’s exactly what she’s doing, but once we barged in on her I didn’t feel like I had much choice beyond cooperating with her. I haven’t decided if I’m going tonight or not. It depends entirely upon what I find. I may be desperate enough to try it again.”

“That really doesn’t make me feel better,” Zoe argued, “since you just told me what happens when you’re feeling desperate around her.”

She was jealous! I tried to keep the smile from my face, but it was really difficult. “I’ll never be that desperate ever again. I promise.
Never,
ever again. Forgive me?”

“How do I know you aren’t using
me
because you’re desperate?” she asked, her voice flippant but I could still hear the worry there. It made my chest hurt like a metal band had suddenly clamped around my ribcage. I couldn’t make a joke of it, even if she was trying to.

“Zoe, I’ll leave right now if you want me to. I hate that you’re in danger because of me. It’s tearing me up. I don’t know how to prove to you that you’re different, that
we’re
different. We haven’t had much time and everything is in chaos, I know. But when I’m with you, the only things I’m desperate about are how badly I want to kiss you and how much I want to be able to stay right where I am.” I stared into her sapphire blue eyes, willing her to believe me and wishing that my life was different. Why couldn’t I have become a psychiatrist like my mom instead of wanting to fulfill Dad’s life ambition? I could be on this campus for a symposium or something and stop into Firebrand for a drink. No viruses, no patient zero, just a guy meeting a girl. “I wish,” I started to say, to explain what was going on in my head.

“There’s no point in wishing things were different. You can wish all you want to, but it never changes a damn thing. All we can do is make the best of what we have and work our asses off to make what we have better,” Zoe replied emphatically. “So get busy finding a cure for this virus. The only way I’m ever going out on a date with you is if we save the free world from a viral apocalypse first. I don’t think that’s asking too much, is it?”

I sent Elliott down to his lab, my emotions still in a tangle. Was he being honest? Was he playing me? I always thought I was good at reading people, but I couldn’t help but feel like maybe my emotions were overriding my good sense. My uncle would probably tell me to listen to my heart, but he was always a big softie. Everyone in my family followed their hearts and it never led them to anything but disaster as far as I could see. Maybe it was better to let your head do the steering.
      

If I had been thinking more clearly then Zack and I would be locked safely in our monster-proof house while Elliott and Brianna stayed in their dingy little hotel room. They’d be nothing more than two faces I recognized from the bar. I’d be safer, but that scenario didn’t feel right either.

My bar. I was worried about it, and all of my employees too. They were my friends, but I had no idea how to help them. Where were they? Were they safe or were they out there, roaming the streets with the “undead”?

I snuggled in my bed a little longer, wishing I could turn my brain off and go to sleep. The little bit of rest I had managed had been plagued with dreams about shambling corpses. Nightmares? Nah, merely reliving the day, right? I finally gave up and begrudgingly pulled myself out from under my sheets. I even straightened my ponytail and pulled on a pair of yoga pants instead of my jammie shorts. My bedroom still felt oppressively warm, but the forecast kept promising cooler temperatures were on their way. Would cold keep the virus from spreading as quickly? It somehow seemed to help Elliott. I would have to do a better job of asking questions so I could help plan our next move. It was time to shake off the pity party. I wasn’t ready to completely forgive or forget, but I did need to move on.