“I’m sorry that I lied to you,” she says. “I was tired of trying to explain visions that I didn’t understand.”
“So you fed me some crap about finding a rock in the middle of a grassy field?”
“Yeah,” she says.
I can’t help but smile at her, the thought making me laugh. “I thought the vision was pretty lame, but I can’t say I look forward to the real one.”
“Getting attached?” she asks.
I shrug, not really knowing how I feel. “It’s not attachment,” I say. “I feel guilty. I was selfish. I so wanted to live in Crestwood where it was safe and warm, and I would have a purpose. And because of that desire, I ended up in Elkhorn, and because I ended up here, the whole place was destroyed. Lydia was killed.” I shake my head, my eyes starting to water, though I look away quickly, trying to force the tears down. “Lydia didn’t like me from the start, and now I know why. She sensed something was wrong. She knew only bad could come from my being here.”
“You can’t look at it that way,” Waverly says. “You can’t blame yourself for trying to survive.”
“I could have survived better,” I say. “I was set on a mission to tell Paxton about Evie the moment I learned about her. She was my key to staying in Crestwood behind thick walls where I would have my own place.”
“And at some point you would have been caught up in the whole Shadowface problem anyway.”
“I could have chosen a different side,” I say. “Somehow I defaulted against her.”
“You really think you could be on her side knowing what you know now?” she asks. “I’ve met with Olivia. She is the person you described seeing when you were hiding in the closet at the university. She is the one that is responsible for the greyskin virus.”
“Sort of,” I say. “There was a man with her—a professor. He was the one that created the virus. Olivia was the one that took advantage of it.”
Waverly stares at the ground and when her eyes widen, I can tell that some wild thought has entered her mind.
“What is it?” I ask.
“How could we have been so stupid?” she whispers.
“What do you mean?”
“Jeremiah,” she says. “He’s the professor. He’s the man that was with Olivia at the university. The man you heard talking was Jeremiah!”
She’s on her feet now, pacing back and forth. I stand too, but I don’t quite grasp why she’s saying all this.
“I can’t believe I’m just now making the connection,” she says, her fingers interlocked in her hair.
“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, holding up a hand. “There’s no way to know that for sure.”
“The evidence is pretty stacked against him,” Waverly says. “When Mitch had me under his control, he started talking to Samuel. He mentioned something about Olivia being his mother. That means that Jeremiah and Olivia were together.”
“Your point?”
“My point is, Jeremiah was a professor,” she says. “Remember the meeting we had about a week before the battle here? He was explaining what Starborns were. He mentioned being a professor that studied microbiology. Remi…I think Jeremiah created the greyskin virus.”
My head is spinning. Could Jeremiah have been the one in the room with Olivia? Was he the one that had been talking about killing police officers that had been investigating him? Was he the one that killed my friend, Willow?
I sit back down on the floor, my legs feeling weak. “I think I’m going to be sick,” I say.
“This war,” Waverly says, “is about power. Jeremiah has been so fixated on taking Olivia out before she reveals herself to the settlement leaders, and now I understand why.”
I look up at Waverly. She’s still pacing.
“He doesn’t want to stop Olivia from taking over the settlements,” Waverly says. “He wants to take her place. He wants to make everyone think he was Shadowface. And when he does, he’s going to continue with Olivia’s plan.” She shakes her head and lets out a deep breath. “If we help him, all we’re doing is giving power to someone worse than Olivia.”
Days of sitting at the kitchen table with my eyes closed—trying to make sure every command is followed; every step is taken with care; every spoken word said with certainty—is starting to take its toll. I’m tired. What little sleep I’ve had feels restless because I usually wake in a sweat, my neck and back aching. For days I’ve paid careful attention to my subjects. Especially Taylor who guards Olivia’s bunker in Anchorage. Though he never comes across her, he is always near her.
When I had sent him back to Anchorage, my biggest fear was that Taylor wouldn’t be allowed back to his former post. I was afraid the security would be so tight that he would get reassigned to wall duty or some other useless position. But this had not been the case. He was questioned, yes, but I was sitting here guiding him every step of the way. Shadowface’s guards took him back with little difficulty, and Taylor continued his mission to prepare for my arrival. Which, I might add, is less involved than I previously expected.
Though I’m tired, the more I use this power that I have stolen, the more I am amazed by it. Before, I had to use words. Now, I can use thoughts. And the more I train myself to use thoughts, the more I can see. Closing my eyes helps me see my subjects as if I am standing next to them, telling them what to do.
I have wondered if it would work to simply think of a person (my father, for example), and control his mind from such a long distance. But that is where I have seemed to hit a wall. I am limited to a personal connection. I am able to continue following Taylor because he was here with me when I sent him on his mission, and I have consciously followed him ever since. I imagine that if I lost connection from him for long enough, he would soon be free of my mental grasp. That is why I cannot let my mind wander.
It is time for me to move on Anchorage and finish what I have started. Soon, there will be rest. There will be peace. I won’t have to bother with this new power because I won’t need it any longer. I will be dead.
I walk out into the yard and thousands of eyes focus on me. Behind each of those eyes is an almost completely functionless brain, focused primarily on the need to eat—to pass on the virus.
Sometimes I feel like the virus itself is a living, breathing, thinking organism. But it is not. It is flawed. Stifled. The virus wants to grow. If it had a will, a desire, it would want to pass from person-to-person through the air like a cold. A misplaced cough or a sneeze would be enough to pass on to another individual. But the virus requires passage through fluids, thus it is limited. The virus has found a way to bring a desire within its subject to feed—this guarantees the growth of the virus.
I know how to tell a greyskin to do anything. I don’t even have to concentrate around them. I walk forward into the yard, sometimes even rubbing shoulders with a greyskin. All it can do is look at me. Perhaps all it desires is to eat my flesh, but what does that matter? It won’t.
I know what direction to tell them to go. It’s time for them to start moving toward Anchorage. There, the greyskins will be free. The man I have on the inside with my father will let me know when Jeremiah is in Anchorage too. Jeremiah knows when Olivia is going to reveal herself. I was really counting on Waverly to tell Jeremiah about it, and I’m pleased that she did. I was afraid I would have had to use Ethan to tell him and that would have been no good. It would have raised unnecessary questions. That part no longer matters. Now, Jeremiah will be there in the nick of time. Of course, I will be waiting.
The giant herd begins moving with my command. They stumble northward and will be at Anchorage in a few days. They will not feed until they get there. Then, they can eat all they want. When I’m done, Anchorage will be just another ghost town.
My mother? The greyskins can have her. My father? He’s mine.
I think about Ethan. I haven’t used him a lot yet—just enough to keep my connection with him, and to establish that he wants to help my father in his mission. Now it’s time to implement my plan with him. He’s going to help Jeremiah find me. I’ve got to remember to let him speak as he wants so long as he doesn’t endanger the mission or my plan. If I try to dictate every word, he won’t sound like himself. I’ve had him avoid Waverly so far, but I fear that I’m making him too suspicious.
A smile spreads across my face. He’s the one that will bring Jeremiah to me, and then he will kill the others. I’ve planned this out perfectly.
One Month Ago
I held the minds of Waverly and Samuel in my hands. I was so new to the power within my veins that every command had to be spoken—but that didn’t deter me. My heart was pounding and I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to wipe the tears from my cheeks but they were only replaced by more. Ashley’s body lay on the floor and the man who had killed her stood right in front of me. The girl responsible was behind me, but she would do nothing without my permission. I looked at Samuel and I wanted to kill him, but I had a job to do. If I could get to Shadowface, I could kill her. I could do what Ashley had set out to do.
“Turn it on and call out to Shadowface,” I told Samuel. “Tell her that you’ve got the cylinder and you have Waverly in custody. And tell her that she will want to see it for herself.”
Samuel brought the radio up to his mouth and did as I instructed. When he finished, there was a long pause from the other end, and I wasn’t sure if Olivia had gotten the message.
“She’s not going to come,” Samuel said. “It would be too dangerous for her.”
His words made me even more angry. I knew he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want Ashley’s death to be in vain.
“Tell her something that will convince her to come,” I said. I could feel my jaw tighten. My teeth hurt as I clenched so hard.
Samuel stared at me, and for just a second he seemed to smile. What was he about to do? Had he found a loophole in my power? Had he figured out a way to disobey my direct order? Surely not.
“You will want to come here yourself,” Samuel said. “Your son, Mitch, is waiting for you.”
“No!” I screamed out. That wasn’t what I wanted. How could I have been so stupid? My orders hadn’t been specific enough. I should have told him not to say anything about me. I did the only thing I could think to do. I charged forward and tackled Samuel to the floor. I punched him in the face over and over. I didn’t think about my hold over his mind or Waverly’s. All I thought about was killing Samuel for his insubordination. For killing Ashley.
I was going to keep hitting him until he stopped struggling, but a deafening explosion blew open the door and wall to my back, throwing me off of Samuel and against the wall. It felt like my head had split open. I couldn’t concentrate. I tried to give a command to someone, anyone, but I wasn’t coherent enough.
My ears were ringing. Anything I saw was through short glimpses. I didn’t know if I was closing my eyes or if I had hit my head so hard that I was losing my vision.
I covered my aching head with my arms. Then there were two more explosions. I didn’t know where they were or where they were coming from. Something Samuel must have said let soldiers know that he was under duress. I stayed on the floor as Shadowface’s soldiers ran into the room, guns drawn. I thought that I had come to the end and that they would shoot me for sure. Even with a pounding headache and ringing ears, I managed to take another peek at Ashley’s body, and suddenly the thought of dying didn’t seem so bad. In fact, I welcomed it now.
I pressed my palms against the floor and started to get up. One of the soldiers approached me with his gun. If I wanted to, could have commanded him to stop. Maybe. My head pounded so much that the words might not have come to my lips in time. I fully expected him to point the gun at my chest and fire a round that would end my life. But instead, he pulled his gun up in the air, and the butt of his rifle met the side of my head. Then, all I saw was black, and I heard nothing.
When I woke up, the room was empty save for a couple of dead bodies and myself. Pieces of drywall, metal, and wood were scattered everywhere, and the room was on fire. It was starting to fill with smoke, and I knew I didn’t have long before the building would be engulfed in flames. The room was getting hot. My head pounded. My senses were disoriented. I knelt next to Ashley’s body and placed a hand on her neck. There was no time to carry her outside, or bury her. The other woman, Lydia…what had been her role in this? Why did she lie here dead with Ashley? Had that been part of Waverly’s plan too? Did Samuel take pleasure in killing both of them?
I hated them all. I missed Ashley.
I kissed her dusty forehead and ran toward the stairs, leaving her to burn with the building. On my way down, I wiped muddy tears from my cheeks, thinking about the conversation I had with my father the night before. He had told me all about my mother. He had told me all about his involvement with the greyskin virus. He admitted to me that all he wanted was power—that it was never about bringing Shadowface to justice, but taking her place. He had been using me. He was using everyone. He deserved to die.
But there was a turmoil within me. He was my father. For so many years I had groped for his attention. I always wanted him to notice me. To be proud of me. He had always provided for me too. Though he was a terrible father, I never went hungry. I was provided the best education. He made a way for me to be anything I wanted to be. But didn’t he take all that away when he created the virus? Did he know from the beginning that it was going to be a global problem? I doubt he knew it would spread so quickly. How could anyone have conceived of that?