Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (24 page)

“But Amory was bitten back at the safe house, and nothing happened to him.”

“Haven.” Logan pulled the covers away and looked at me seriously. “You can’t tell them yet. They’ll make us leave camp. Just give me a few days. I-I’m —” Her voice broke. “I’m not ready to die yet.”

I nodded, willing myself not to cry. I wanted to grab Logan and hug her as hard as I could, but I forced myself to keep her at arm’s length. I couldn’t get emotional — couldn’t break down. I had to make a plan.
 

If Logan was infected, we had weeks, maybe a few months before she would have to be put down. It just depended on how quickly the virus spread. I tried to remember how long my mother had been herself after infection, but my memory of that time was fuzzy.
 

Then another thought occurred to me: We needed to warn the others. Everyone at Murphy’s camp thought they were safe because they had received the vaccine, which made them vulnerable. I couldn’t delay the truth for long.

“Can I get you anything?” I asked.

Logan shook her head.

“I’ll tell the others you still aren’t feeling well. We should have a couple days before anyone gets too suspicious.”

Her eyes were puffy and watery. The yellowish hue mixed with the pale pallor of her skin had a startling effect. “Thanks.”

I closed the cabin door behind me and almost smacked right into Greyson, who was sauntering up the steps to check on Logan. His easy grin and the bounce in his step made my stomach ache.

“Hey,” I said uneasily.

“Hey yourself. How’s Logan?”

“Oh, you know . . . she’s still got the chills. In and out. She’s sleeping again.”

“Right.” The way he said it, looking at me out of the corner of his eye, I could tell he knew something was off.

“You want to get some breakfast?”

“I already ate.” Greyson paused, still eyeing me suspiciously. “But I’ll go sit with you. I’m just going to go in and check on her real quick.”

“She’s sleeping,” I repeated too quickly.

Greyson glanced around to make sure we weren’t being watched and took a step toward me. “Haven, what’s going on?”

I sighed. There was no point trying to hide anything from Greyson. He always knew when I was lying. Grabbing his arm, I pulled him away from our cabin and into the trees until we were out of sight.

We stopped, Greyson staring at me expectantly.
 

“Logan’s infected.”

He backed away, blinking in confusion. “What? No. Is this a joke?”

I gave him a serious look, bracing myself for his reaction.

“No. She’s vaccinated. Murphy said her fever was just her body fighting off the virus. She was weakened by all the blood loss from the attack . . .”

I shook my head slowly.
 

“Haven . . .”

“My mom was infected. I knew something was wrong with Mariah before anyone else did. I recognize the signs. It’s all in the eyes, and hers have already turned.”

He stared at me, flabbergasted. “What?”

“Her body isn’t fighting it off.”

Greyson shook his head, struggling to process the information. “But that means . . . the vaccine doesn’t work.”

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet.”

“Haven! We have to tell Murphy! All these people . . . they think they’re safe with the vaccine. If nobody is really immune, they can still get infected.”

“We don’t know that. When Amory and I got trapped in Sector X, the safe house was attacked by a horde of carriers. Amory got bitten, but he didn’t turn. Aren’t you curious why Logan is infected and he’s not?”

“Yeah, of course. But we need to tell him what’s going on.”

“We can’t.”

“Haven, we
have
to!” Suddenly he looked seven feet tall — angry and intimidating. “You can’t keep this from them! It isn’t just about us anymore. People’s lives are at stake!”

“Just give me a few days.”

“To do
what?
” he snapped. “You know better than anyone how this ends.”

Cold helplessness shot through my chest, and I took a step back, shuddering at the finality in his voice. “I can’t kill her.”

He swallowed, looking helpless and devastated. “Do you see another way?” His voice broke on the last word, and I felt hot tears burning in my throat.

For a long moment, we just stared at each other. My heart was breaking, and Greyson was wound so tight I thought he might be close to tears, too. His warm brown eyes had turned to stone, and he was breathing heavily.
 

“I’m not going to give up on her,” I whispered.

“Me neither, but — Jesus, Haven!” He turned away from me, yanking a fistful of his hair in frustration. “How long do we have?”

“A few weeks . . . maybe a couple months. It just depends on how quickly the virus progresses.”

He raked a hand over his face. “I can’t believe this.”

“I know.”

Then he turned, aiming a hard kick at the nearest tree and swearing loudly. “God!” he yelled. “It isn’t
right!
Why
did this have to happen? It’s like we walk out of one shitty situation right into another. Everything we do just makes things worse!”

I watched him, a little terrified by his outburst.
 

“I’m sorry.”

Greyson shook his head, and I took this to mean he didn’t blame me. He just needed a minute away from everyone else to vent.
 

He stood still, shoulders heaving as he panted, trying to recover. Finally he looked at me, and I knew it had passed. He was himself again.

“Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “I won’t say a word to Murphy.”

I softened a bit, taking a step toward him and pulling him into a hug. “I know you won’t.”
 

He seemed to deflate in my arms. I squeezed him once and pulled back, not trusting myself to keep a level head with Greyson and Logan breaking down. “I should go,” I said. “I’m late for supply duty.”

He nodded. “What should I tell Amory?”

“Nothing yet,” I said, feeling a stab of guilt as the words left my mouth. “I need to think.”

Schlepping back to camp toward the supply cabin, I felt an even heavier weight on my chest than before I’d told Greyson. Tentatively pushing open the cabin door, I was immediately engulfed by a collapsing pile of linens.
 

The room was larger than the cabin I shared with Logan and the other women, but every available inch was crowded with supplies: stacks of clothing, pyramids of canned goods, buckets of ammunition, guns and knives hanging on hooks around the room, hatchets, toilet paper, pots and pans, flour, sugar, coffee. There was a pillar of wooden crates that had not been unpacked to my left, and the dim lighting made it difficult to see a path through the stuff.

“You’re late,” said a voice from the abyss.
 

“I’m sorry.”

A diminutive woman with army fatigues ballooning over tall combat boots emerged from behind a wall of canned corn carrying a clipboard. Her hair was pulled back into a tight French braid at the back of her head, and harsh square glasses rested on the bridge of her nose.
 

“In case you can’t tell, we’re drowning here,” she snapped. “There’s a supply run scheduled for today, and I have no room to put anything! I have canned corn coming out my ass but not enough ammo or first aid supplies.”

My heart thudded painfully in my chest at her mention of a supply run, and I instantly wished I had not gotten on her bad side so quickly.

She shoved the clipboard into my hands, and my vision immediately clouded as I squinted down at the minuscule rows of numbers. In tiny, cramped handwriting was the description of an item, followed by a number for each week to show how many had been used or lost.

“You won’t get to everything this week,” she said. “Pay special attention to our commodity items: flour, coffee, sugar, toilet paper, antiseptic. We check the weapons and ammunition daily. If anything goes missing, it’s on your head. If someone needs something, you write down what they took. All the food goes through the mess hall. This isn’t a vending machine. Always bolt the door when you leave to keep out bears.”

The door creaked open, and Ida stepped inside. “It’s almost time to go. Are you ready, Mrs. Miller?”

Miller squinted up at me over her bifocals, and a gleam of satisfaction twinkled in her muddy brown eyes. “Take the new girl. I have things to do.” Then she wrinkled her nose despite her obvious delight. “Hell, I’d like to go on an adventure now and again, but I’m stuck here trying to keep this place afloat.”

Yanking the clipboard out of my hands, she pulled a folded slip of paper out of her pocket. “Here’s my list. Don’t short me on ammunition. We’re running low.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Ida.

Miller turned back to her work, and I followed Ida through the maze of clothes and food outside. She looked uncharacteristically grim. “Go get your weapon. It’s time to go.”

The tone of her voice scared me, but I was glad to escape Miller and the cramped supply cabin. She reminded me a bit of Shriver, but without Shriver’s obvious care for the people she tended.

I was burning to tell Ida about Logan because
she
would know what to do, but the thought of getting back on the road to visit the Exchange pushed the virus out of my mind.
 

Back in the cabin, I grabbed my SCAR, two knives, and extra magazines. I wasn’t sure if the real danger would be the PMC or carriers, but I thought it best to be prepared for both. When I emerged, I was surprised to see Ida waiting with a gun slung over her shoulder. During my time on the farm, I’d never seen her wield a weapon.

The truck we had taken into camp was already idling on the edge of the narrow dirt road, and two of the hunters were loading packages of venison into the back.
 

“This week’s location requires us to get on the main road,” she explained. “The stretch we’ll use doesn’t have any rovers, but we still need to be on high alert. Trucks like these are a dead giveaway. Whatever happens, we can’t lead the PMC back to camp.”

Ida turned to one of the hunters, a scraggly man in his late forties with several days’ worth of scruff on his chin. “How much will that get me?”

He appraised the pile of deer meat, scratching his stubble. “It’s a good haul. I wouldn’t take any less than four hundred rounds.”

When the last package was loaded, Ida thanked the men and climbed up into the cab of the truck. I followed, nervously taking in the men’s weary expressions. Even they seemed to think we might not return.
 

With her long skirt, Ida looked comical in the driver’s seat, but she deftly put the truck in gear and pulled out of camp.

The narrow dirt road quickly opened out to a wider gravel drive, which must have been the entrance to camp when the place was a tourist spot. The snow along the road was punctuated with rustic-looking signs with cheery messages carved into the wood: “Have a safe trip!” and “Visit us again!”
 

The ride smoothed out as we turned onto a smaller county road, which wound around sharp curves and made me feel a little carsick. Finally we reached the highway, and Ida squinted in both directions. The road was empty. There was no going back now.

As we drove, I noticed that Ida’s eyes kept darting nervously to the rearview mirror. We were silent for several minutes, and I kept expecting to see an overpass with rovers looming in the distance or the flash of blue PMC lights on the horizon.

Soon, however, when we hadn’t seen another vehicle for miles, Ida appeared to relax. Without the imminent threat of danger, the sick feeling in my stomach returned. I needed Ida’s advice, and she deserved to know about Logan.

“I have to tell you something,” I said.

Ida turned her head toward me, looking vaguely surprised.
 

“But you can’t tell anyone . . . especially Murphy. Not yet.”

“I won’t make that promise, Haven. Not if it’s something he needs to know. We are guests at Murphy’s camp. He’s responsible for all those people.”

“You can’t. Please. Just not for a few days.”

She looked conflicted but sighed. “Go on, then. Your secrets are safe with me.”

I took a deep breath. “Logan is infected.”

The words hung in the cab between us.
 

“That’s impossible.”

“She is. I don’t know how, but all the signs are there.”

Ida’s mouth was hanging open slightly. She was staring out into the empty road, looking completely lost.

“I’m sorry. I know you love Logan.”

“Couldn’t love her more if she were my own blood. How did this happen?”

I didn’t answer. I knew she wasn’t talking about Logan becoming infected.
 

“We need to let Murphy know,” she said abruptly. “All his people think they are safe.”

“Won’t he make us kill Logan?”

Ida shook her head. “Murphy’s not a cruel man. But Logan will need to be put down eventually.”

Taken aback by her matter-of-fact tone, I stared out at the road, contemplating life without Logan.
 

“What stage was the . . . carrier who bit her?” Ida said the word “carrier” with some hesitation. I knew she didn’t like using a word that implied they were anything other than human.

“Stage five.”

She nodded. “There’s been speculation that those are the ones that spread the virus. The data we have isn’t very good since the outbreak happened so suddenly, but most of the recent cases I’ve seen have been from someone getting bitten by a carrier with the sores.”

“Maybe it’s bloodborne.”

Ida shook her head. “It doesn’t explain the first outbreaks. How did all those people come in contact with infected blood?”

“There were two major outbreaks, right? One in the winter and one in the summer, meaning they had to come in contact with the virus sometime in late fall and spring. What happened to all those people?”

Ida was deep in thought. “The first outbreak was much worse. Almost everyone was infected between last October and November, and there were a lot of elderly people who became sick.”

“Maybe the vaccine only works if your immune system is capable of fighting the virus,” I said, thinking of Logan lying on that cot looking like a corpse.