I close my eyes, trying everything I can to push upward. I wish I were as strong as this man—no, I wish I was stronger. I want the ability to turn the knife around on him to stab him through the neck. But that strength isn’t in me, and I am forced to relent to his will. My death.
I can feel the tip of the knife touching my neck. For me to give up just a little will mean death. I can’t give up. Not yet. Then, I hear my name. Someone is shouting it from down the hallway. I don’t recognize the voice immediately, but I hear the sound of gunfire and feel the man’s weight lifted off of me in an instant. Someone has just saved my life, but I don’t know who.
When I open my eyes, my head is looking toward Evie. She’s on the ground, crying. Poor girl doesn’t know what to think. This is why I never wanted to bring her. I never wanted her to go through these things. Past her, the man that was trying to kill me lies dead on the ground.
Who was my savior? Who shot him? I turn my head, and look up. I barely feel alive, so at first I think I’m hallucinating—maybe a dream…or a nightmare. But the pain lets me know that I’m not sleeping.
The man above me isn’t looking at me. Instead, he’s looking at Evie with big tears in his eyes.
Paxton.
I expected Paxton to kill me, but he didn’t. Instead, he helped me into the medical room, dug the bullet out of my thigh with a sterilized knife, patched me up, and tried to make me feel better. I couldn’t understand it.
“I saw you running through the streets with a girl in your arms,” he says as we sit in the medical room. He looks at Evie. She sits in a chair quietly, acting shy of her grandfather. “So this her?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “Don’t touch her. She doesn’t know you.”
“I know,” he says, dipping his head. “It’s just…surreal. She looks so much like my Jessi.” Tears drip down his face as he stares at her. “I miss her, you know?”
“You have to forgive me for feeling a little bit distant,” I say, “but last time I saw you you were trying to kill me.”
“Time changes things,” he says. “Experiences change things. When I came after you, I was a man that served a Shadowface. Now, I’m just a man that’s dying.”
“Dying?” I say.
He nods and sits up a bit straighter, pulling at his collar to reveal a long row of three scratch marks on his upper chest.
“Are those greyskins scratches?” I ask.
“Yes.”
My eyes go wide with horror. “You dressed my wound! You might have infected me!”
“Relax,” he say, holding up his hands. “Look at me. I’m not bleeding. There is no danger to you. Besides, I was sure to keep my hands away from your wound. Only the knife or a cloth touched you. My skin never touched yours, though that wouldn’t infect you. I was cautious. I knew if I told you, you would be scared.”
I want to say something else, but I don’t know what. He’s probably right, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. I’d much rather die from bleeding to death than from the greyskin virus. But perhaps I’m overreacting. I take a few deep breaths and look at Evie. I can’t read her right now. She seems to be in a daze—not happy or unhappy. She sits here having no idea that she is with her grandfather. I’m not so sure it shouldn’t stay that way.
“So, why are you here?” I ask.
“The meeting,” Paxton says. “I’m one of thirty settlement leaders here to meet with whoever this Shadowface person is.”
“So, you never figured out who Shadowface was?” I ask.
Paxton shakes his head. “The meeting was cancelled, or I guess postponed on account of this greyskin crisis. I was one of many who thought it was a ploy to show us his power, but it has apparently turned into much more than that. And you…” he says. “I suppose you have something to do with the attack.”
“I’m just trying to protect Evie,” I say.
“We both know that isn’t true,” he says. “You came knocking on my door about a month ago asking me to join you in a fight against Shadowface. I know you’re part of the attack.”
“And you said you were going to help us, but instead you betrayed us,” I answer.
“Why are you fighting Shadowface?” he asks.
“It’s a shame you’ve been infected, Paxton. There would be so much to tell you. For instance, Shadowface is a woman named Olivia. She ordered someone to use the greyskin virus so she could create this empire. You, Paxton, are just one of thirty pawns. And thirty would turn into much more.”
“But she didn’t create the virus?” he asks.
“No.”
“Do you know who did that?”
I was actually hoping he wouldn’t ask me this question. What’s worse—working with the person who uses the greyskin virus, or working with the one that created it? Though the justification lies in the fact that we’re trying to kill both of them.
“A man named Jeremiah,” I say. “That’s all I really know. But he’s not currently the one with all the power.”
“What was this Olivia planning to use us for?” he asks.
“Her own power. She is a corrupt leader. She lies, murders, and employs murderers for her gain. Why would we have a leader like that?”
“You’re ignorant if you think a leader should be pure and righteous,” Paxton says. “Sometimes leaders have to get their hands dirty because there is no other way.”
“You know all about that, don’t you?”
“I know I mistreated you in the past,” he says. “I’m sorry for that.”
Banishment. Fear. Death. These are the things Paxton has attempted to bring me in the past. How can a simple
sorry
make up for it?
“You know something, Paxton?” I say. “I’ve dreamed about killing you.” I hold my pistol tight in my grip, though I don’t point it at him.
Paxton’s expression doesn’t change. Instead, he looks solemn. “I suppose then that you are happy that I’ve been scratched.”
“I don’t wish that on anyone,” I say. “Personally, I’m glad I don’t have to kill you.”
“Remi, I never meant for things to be this way,” he says.
“And yet, you were the one who made the choices,” I tell him.
I get up from the table, wincing as pain shoots up and down my leg. I grab Evie’s hand and she starts to walk with me out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Paxton asks.
“We’re going to try and find a way out of here,” I tell him. I look at Evie and tell her to wait in the hallway. I stand in the doorway just a few feet away from her. She can’t see Paxton, and he can’t see her. “Evie’s destiny is important. It’s my job to make sure that she’s safe, no matter the cost.”
“Let me talk to her,” he pleads. “I want her to know that she has family—that her grandfather loves her.”
I shake my head. “I can’t let you do that.”
Paxton’s face turns very grim. “Why not?”
“Why confuse her? She doesn’t know you. She won’t understand.”
“But she’s my granddaughter.”
His brow is sweating, his hands shaking. He seems nervous except for his face. His face seems calm. Even after all the things he has put me through, it’s hard for me to see him like this. Only a man faced with his own mortality knows exactly what he wants.
This is what Paxton wants.
I let out a deep breath and turn to Evie in the hallway. I would crouch down to meet her eyes, but the pain in my leg already makes me want to scream. “Evie. The man in here wants to say something to you.”
She looks up at me, almost as if to ask what he wants, but she then looks forward and takes a few bold steps until she’s in the room. Tears return to Paxton’s eyes.
“Hey there, little one,” he says. He looks up at me briefly and swallows. I want to tell him to keep it brief, but how can I deprive a dying man of seeing his granddaughter for the first
and
last time? “I know you don’t know who I am,” he says, “but I want to let you know that you are someone very special to me. Ever since I learned about you, I’ve wanted to meet you.”
Evie stares at him. I know he wants her to say something back, but what could she say? She doesn’t know him or trust him. To her, he’s just another grownup out of all the other grownups that have been around her.
“I love you, Evie,” Paxton says.
He wants to hug her, but he knows I won’t allow it. I know the greyskin virus can only be passed through fluids, but I’m not taking a chance.
“Okay, Evie,” I say. “We have to go.”
She turns to me and takes me by the hand.
“Thank you for helping me with the wound,” I say. I feel so weird about this. I thought the next time I saw Paxton we’d be shooting at each other again.
I turn to leave when he stops me.
“Remi, wait,” he says. He bites at his lower lip and looks away from me. “I don’t want to be thought of as a coward, but I wish you’d do it for me.”
“Do what?” I ask.
He holds up his pistol and shakes his head. “I can’t do it to myself. But I don’t want to turn into one of those things.”
I’ve been there, though I’ve never been infected. Over a month ago I found myself in a place where the greyskins had me trapped. I was less than a second from pulling the trigger and blowing my brains out. But I was rescued.
There is no rescue for the infected.
I take a deep breath and look down at Evie. “Go out into the hallway,” I tell her. “I want you to close your eyes tight, and hold your ears, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Do you know how to hold your ears where you don’t hear anything?” I ask.
Evie nods.
“Do that, okay?”
“Okay.”
Evie walks out into the hallway as I asked. Her eyes close tightly and she puts two fingers in her ears. The life she has to live as a child sickens me. I want to throw up. When I turn to look at Paxton, he’s kneeling on the floor, his back straight. He stares straight ahead into the hallway at Evie.
“I never thought I’d see her,” he says. “Shadowface told me that when I killed you and Gabe, Evie would be brought to me. Next time I talked to Shadowface, I was told that Evie had been killed in Elkhorn before they could get to her.” He shakes his head. “I wish I would have listened to you, Remi. If I would have, I wouldn’t be kneeling on the ground like this.”
I pull back the chamber of the pistol, and Paxton jumps at the clicking noise, shutting his eyes quickly. He opens them to look up at me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I was wrong and I’m sorry.”
Standing about a foot away from him, I hold the gun in front of his forehead.
“If you think I want to do this, you’re wrong,” I say.
“You wouldn’t be wrong to feel that way.”
“I don’t.”
“If I weren’t infected, I would help in the fight against Shadowface. I swear I would now.”
“I believe you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you ready?”
His body is shaking as sweat drips down his face and neck.
“Yes,” he says, taking one last look at Evie before closing his eyes.
Before I pull the trigger, I close my eyes too.
The sewers are not meant for traveling. That’s why we’re taking them. We get to the pool easily enough—the one where I saw Amber shot to death. It makes me shiver to think that her body could still be underneath the black water, rotting away. The four of us—Jeremiah, Stephen, Ethan, and I—are waist-deep in the mucky water, safely away from the greyskins and soldiers that are making a wreck of Anchorage.
Jeremiah holds a bag over his head as he sloshes forward. He said it is full of charges in case we need to blow something up. I look at the pipe that I had crawled through in my escape, thinking he might have to use a charge to blow up the metal grate that Amber and I had to squeeze through. But when I see it, I can tell that someone must have already sawed through the grate, or blown it up already because it’s no longer there. Perhaps it happened when the guards were looking for me.
Filthy, stinking water gushes out as we climb up into the long, metal pipe. Once inside, I stand up straight but everyone else has to dip their heads a little.
“How many turns will we have to make?” Jeremiah asks, strapping the bag to his back.
“Just one,” I say. “And then we have to climb up. You might have to use your explosives to blow up the hatch that leads into the building.”
He nods at me, motioning me with his gun to lead the way. I grip my own handgun tightly, as nervous shaking starting to take over my limbs. I glance at Ethan, but he only stares straight ahead almost like he doesn’t want to look at me.
As the dirty water gushes at our feet, we move forward slowly. Images from last week flash through my brain. Greyskins. Amber. This is the last place in the world that I want to be. The month I spent here was horrible, though it wasn’t nearly as hard on me as it was on Amber. It would have been better, even just, had Amber survived rather than I. She suffered so much in this place—the constant beatings, the torture. I wish there was something I could have done to save her. Most of all I wish I had never gained this power within me. Strangely enough, I miss the old way of life—before I knew about Shadowface, before I ran into those raiders. I miss Lucas. I miss surviving together. Life was much more simple when we were searching for a place to settle, though it seemed just as uncertain as now. I suppose we would have run into Shadowface at some point anyway. But if my powers really reside in my blood as Jeremiah says, then I guess it would have manifested itself eventually.
At least now I’m in a position to finish this. Somehow I’m going to change the future. Mike and Jenna are gone now. I suppose that means I changed something—that I altered that particular future. Maybe it was when I lied to Olivia about what I saw. If I would have just told her the truth about the vision, things would have played out differently. Then again, I can’t beat myself up over it because I don’t know if that’s the case. I might never know. But I still have a chance to change what I saw. Somehow I can kill Jeremiah
and
Olivia. Evie won’t have to give up her life one day to try and stop Jeremiah. She and many others will be spared his treacherous plans; his cannibalistic tendencies. There will be no need for an uprising.