The Worlds We Make

  “Of course, of course. Let me just get a map.…” There was a crackle as she stepped away. “Listen,” she said when she returned. “I’m going to give you directions for how to approach the center once you get to the city, and you need to follow them exactly. When you’re inside our walls, you’ll be safe, but until then…Oh, I wish there was an easier way for us to send someone to you. But even if we could manage to take a vehicle out without getting overwhelmed, it would definitely be followed, and I don’t know how well we could protect you if we led some of these people to you out in the open. We just don’t have the means to spread ourselves that thin and keep the center secure.”

  Michael knew we were headed her way. He’d probably been expecting we’d arrive in Atlanta before now. “Has it gotten worse?” I asked. “You said there were people trying to break in?”

  “It’s—” She cut herself off with an indrawn breath. “It’ll be fine. We’ll get you here. They’re all just hurting themselves in the long run. Where are you now?”

  The memory of her comments a few days ago, about who would get the vaccine and who might not, made my skin prickle. But now wasn’t the time to get into that. “We’re just east of a place called Clermont,” I said. “Near a river.”

  “Clermont…That’s not far at all! You still have access to a vehicle?”

  “Yes, and we’re ready to go.”

  “All right. We may be talking face-to-face in just a couple hours. You’ll want to go toward Clermont and get yourselves onto 129 heading south. From there on you should see signs for Atlanta. When you have a choice, stay on the—”

  Whatever she said next was lost in the sudden bang of the doors slamming open. “Don’t move!” a voice bellowed as we sprang to our feet. The mic slipped from my hand and dropped to the floor. Before I could grope for the gun I’d set on the couch beside me, two figures had barged into the living room from the front hall, another hustling through the dining room from the back, and I found myself staring into the mouths of a shotgun and two pistols.

  The four of us froze. My mouth went dry. This was it. The moment I’d been afraid of for so long, and I hadn’t been the slightest bit prepared.

  “Kaelyn?” Dr. Guzman said through the radio’s speaker. “Kaelyn, are you there?”

  The larger of the two men jerked his head toward the other, a skinny guy not much older than me, who bent without lowering his gun and flicked the switch off. The woman moved behind Anika. Leo’s hand twitched to his side, and the larger man—the group’s leader, I guessed—tracked it. He stepped forward, yanked out the pistol Leo had stuck behind his belt, and then grabbed my gun off the couch. His black hair was dripping, his amber skin flecked with water. The face masks all three of them wore were drooping with moisture. They must have walked through the rain. That was why we hadn’t heard them coming.

  “Get that one too,” the man said, motioning to the rifle by Justin’s feet. The woman tugged it away with her heel and kicked it toward the dining room. Then she patted down Anika with her free hand, tossing aside the hunting knife before checking Justin. She arched an eyebrow at the flare gun she found in his coat pocket and chucked it after the knife. The other guy smacked his hands down Leo’s sides, and mine.

  When he was done, the leader shifted his shotgun so it pointed at each of us in turn.

  “Where is it?” he demanded. “Where’s the vaccine?”

  Justin’s gaze darted through the room and then caught mine. He didn’t know. None of them knew, I realized. I’d only meant to keep the samples cold, but I’d effectively hidden them as well.

  “We don’t have it anymore!” Anika burst out. “These other guys took it from us. We barely got away from them.”

  She let out a squeak as the woman snatched at her hair and wrenched her head back, placing the pistol against her temple.

  “Oh, really?” the woman said.

  Justin’s hand leapt toward Anika. The younger guy swung his gun toward him, his damp coppery hair dark as dried blood in the dim light. The leader poked me in the side with his shotgun, but his attention was fixed on Anika now.

  “I’m finding it hard to believe you,” he said. “Maybe if I fire a few rounds into your friends, you’ll remember better?”

  Anika quivered. I didn’t think this was the response she’d been going for. Her lips parted, a shaky breath escaping over them, and in that moment I could see her searching for the words to give up the vaccine. But she didn’t know how. And our captors had no clue. They could murder me to threaten her and never know they were killing the only person who had the answer.

  My heart thumped. I could tell them that, but then they’d hurt the others to get me to talk. As long as they thought some of us were expendable—

  Then we had to make them believe none of us were.

  The idea had hardly formed in my mind before my mouth was moving. “You don’t want to do that,” I said. “You shoot any of us and you’ll never find what you’re looking for.”

  Three hostile pairs of eyes turned on me.

  “What are you talking about?” the leader growled.

  “There’s more than one sample,” I said, scrambling to put my thoughts in a coherent order. “And notebooks, with information on how to make more. Whenever we stop somewhere, we all take one part of the set and hide it without telling anyone else. You need all of us, or Michael’s not going to be happy.”

  The copper-haired guy stiffened at the mention of their boss. The woman snorted. “Sounds pretty stupid to me.”

  “Maybe,” Leo jumped in. “But it’s true. You think we trusted each other enough to be sure that none of us would sneak off with everything if we could? We all want a piece of the reward.”

  “Yeah,” Justin said. “I didn’t want these guys skipping out and leaving me empty-handed. It was only fair if we each had something.”

  The leader eyed us one by one. I suspected it wasn’t too hard for him to imagine distrusting his colleagues. “Check the house,” he said to the other guy. “If they hid anything, find it.”

  As the copper-haired guy shuffled off, the woman tapped her gun against Anika’s forehead. “And if we can’t, we just rough ’em up until they talk. No big deal.”

  Anika cringed. “No way,” I said quickly. It was one thing for her to have played along with our team, and another to withstand torture for us. But Anika had as much to lose as me or Justin or Leo. “We’re not that stupid. As soon as you get what you want from us, you’ll kill us. Hurt me all you want, but I plan on staying alive.”

  “I didn’t come this far to die for nothing,” Leo said, quietly but firmly.

  “Me neither,” Justin added, jutting out his chin. Anika looked at him, and her shoulders squared.

  “I’d rather die than tell you assholes anything,” she said.

  The woman whipped back her pistol and cracked Anika across the head, grabbing her when she staggered. All Anika let out was a muffled gasp. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. Justin’s face had tightened, his eyes seething.

  “Hold it, Marissa,” the leader said as the woman raised her gun again. “Let me think.” His forehead had furrowed. I guessed he’d expected us to be easily intimidated. He didn’t know what we’d already been through to get this far.

  “Last we heard, there were six of you,” he said after a moment. “Where are the others?”

  Gav and Tobias. I kept my mouth pressed shut.

  Marissa sighed and reached back to squeeze some of the rainwater from her long brown braid. “One of them was sick, the report said, right? He’s probably dead now.”

  “And the other one?” the leader said, glowering at us. We all stared back at him, silent. His jaw clenched. Good. Let him worry about that instead of finding the vaccine.

  God, I wished Gav and Tobias were here. Or rather, somewhere outside the house, strategizing a way to overpower these thugs. They’d known how to fight. I’d kept the four of us alive, but I didn’t know how to get us out of this. Even
if one of our captors made a mistake, gave us an opening, I didn’t think any of us had the skill to disarm them and get the upper hand.

  We’d just have to wait, and see what opportunities we got. As long as we were alive, we had a chance.

  “Well, this is fun,” Marissa said drily.

  The leader turned his glare on her. “Let’s see what Connor turns up. If we find the vaccine, we don’t need them to talk.”

  But when the other guy trudged back downstairs a few minutes later, of course he’d found nothing. From the dust streaking his windbreaker, it looked like he’d even crawled into the attic.

  “I don’t even know what I’m looking for, Chay,” he said. Unlike the other two, his voice rolled with a southern drawl—a local recruit, presumably. “Maybe I should take one of them with me.”

  “They’d probably get the drop on you the second you’re out of our sight,” Marissa sneered.

  “Go look outside,” Chay said. “And hurry up.”

  Muttering to himself, Connor stomped off. I struggled to keep my expression calm as the back door thumped shut behind him. Would he think to look under the dock? I focused on breathing evenly, in and out, as the seconds ticked away.

  “Why don’t we shoot them all in the kneecaps, see how brave they’re feeling then?” Marissa said, after we’d been standing there for what felt like an hour.

  “And if they don’t talk?” Chay said. “They’d bleed to death, and Michael’ll kill us. Fucking hell.”

  “So let him figure out what to do with them, then,” she said. “We did our job; we tracked ’em down. It’s not our fault they’re crazy.”

  “You want to call him and explain that?”

  “Let’s bring ’em in. Then they’re his problem. One of those useless doctors can probably figure out how to torture them ‘safely.’”

  “And he’s really going to like that,” Chay snapped. “Just shut up, all right?”

  Despite my fear, a tiny spark of triumph lit inside me. They had the guns, they had the strength, but they hadn’t overpowered us. As long as they didn’t find the cold box, we were the ones in control.

  Connor pushed back into the house through the front door, thoroughly soaked.

  “There’s no vaccine, there’s no notebooks, there’s no nothing,” he said. “You want to take a look?”

  “Maybe I should,” Chay said. “Get over here. And don’t do anything stupid.” As Connor drew out his pistol and took Chay’s place, Chay stalked off. A minute later, furniture started toppling upstairs, the thuds echoing through the ceiling. He marched back down and began ripping everything out of the kitchen cabinets, pots clattering and dishes smashing. Then he too headed out the back door.

  When he came back, I knew from the way the door smacked shut that he’d been equally unsuccessful. He stepped into the living room, his expression dark.

  “Fine,” he said. “You want to play games, you can come play with Michael. We’ll see how much you enjoy that.”

  Every muscle in me balked. Here in this house we might have gotten some slight advantage. On Michael’s home turf, we’d be ten times as screwed.

  And leaving the house meant leaving the vaccine too. I thought I’d wedged it under the dock securely, but what if the current jostled it free? What if someone else came by and spotted it?

  Our captors were still debating the details.

  “Are they all going to fit in the Humvee?” Connor asked.

  “They’ve got a car out there we can take,” Marissa said. “A station wagon sounds about your speed, Connor. Who’s got the key?”

  She held out her free hand into the midst of our group. None of us moved. I squeezed my fingers into my palms in an effort to stop my arms from trembling.

  “Look,” Chay said, “it works like this. You give us the key and you can sit comfortably in the back. You don’t, and we throw you in the trunk of the Humvee. Your choice.”

  “What if we want to stay here?” Justin said. “Michael wants to talk, he can come to us.”

  Chay’s gaze flicked to Connor. “Go get the cuffs.”

  Connor ducked out the front door, and returned a moment later with a canvas bag I guessed they’d left on the porch. I could tell from the light in his eyes that he was probably grinning under his face mask. He pulled a pair of steel handcuffs out of the bag and tossed them to Chay. Before I had time to process what was happening, Chay had already snapped one side around my left wrist.

  My body reacted automatically. I yanked away from him, whipping my other arm out of his reach. As he wrenched me around by the shoulder, Leo lunged at him. In that instant, I thought we might have a chance.

  Then Chay slammed the butt of his shotgun into Leo’s face. Leo stumbled back, clutching his nose as blood streaked over his lips and chin. Justin made a dash for us, and Connor caught him with a kick to his bad leg, ramming his elbow into Justin’s back as Justin fell. Anika gave a little cry, but as she shifted forward, Marissa yanked her head back.

  I swung my foot out at Chay. He dodged, twisting me around and snatching my other wrist. Before I could blink, he’d jammed on the second cuff and shoved me onto the armchair with a painful jolt, my arms locked behind my back.

  “You’re all coming one way or another,” Chay said, sounding not even a little out of breath. “Anyone want to reconsider how?”

  A stark certainty settled over me. We couldn’t fight them. And if we were going, I wanted to at least be able to see where we were going. But I didn’t want to make it even more obvious that I was the leader of the group by speaking up yet again.

  I raised my head, trying to catch Anika’s eye. Marissa had spun her sideways, snapping another set of cuffs onto her wrists. My gaze leapt to the others. Connor was crouched over Justin on the floor. Leo, who had raised his sleeve to his face to staunch the blood, caught my desperate glance.

  “Give them the key, Anika,” he said, his voice ragged with pain. A maroon bruise was already blooming across his right cheekbone, and his nose looked slightly crooked. Rage coursed through me. If Chay had really hurt him—Then what? I was going to kick his ass like I’d completely failed to do a minute ago, when I’d still had the use of my hands? I closed my eyes, my anger deflating as quickly as it had come. We were alive, but we were pretty much helpless. The best we could hope for right now was to avoid provoking them into hurting us even more.

  “I can’t,” Anika said, the cuffs clinking as she jiggled them. “It’s in my front pocket.”

  Marissa pulled the key out. “You ride with Connor,” Chay told her. “I think I can handle two of these kids on my own.”

  Connor hauled Justin to his feet. Justin staggered, trying to keep all his weight on his uninjured leg. His eyes were wild. Dangerously wild. I squirmed around so I was sitting up and tapped his good ankle with my toe.

  “Hey,” I said. Stay cool, I wanted to add. Or, more to the point, Don’t get yourself killed. This wasn’t a moment when attempted heroics would do us any good.

  He looked at me, and my expression must have said it for me. His fury faded, as if he was just realizing what I’d already figured out. The only way we could help ourselves right now was to play along.

  “If you two are so chummy, why don’t you stick together?” Connor said. He nudged Justin forward and gestured for me to get up. I swayed to my feet without argument. Chay cuffed Leo.

  “Take their stuff,” he said to the others, picking up our radio. “Michael will want to see everything.”

  They scooped up our bags and ushered us out into the rain. Chay motioned Leo and Anika in front of him with his shotgun, directing them down the drive. Marissa unlocked the doors of the station wagon and pushed Justin and me into the back. Justin winced as his foot hit the floor awkwardly, but he didn’t make a sound.

  “Michael’s not going to like this,” Connor commented as he took the wheel. Marissa plopped into the seat beside him, angling herself so she could keep an eye on us in the back.

  “Th
at’s their problem,” she said, giving us a sharkish smile.

  A short distance around the bend in the driveway, we caught up with the white Humvee. Chay raised his hand in acknowledgment and drove on ahead of us. Connor followed him onto the narrow road Justin and Anika must have walked down less than half an hour ago.

  I stared out the window, watching for signs, landmarks. We needed to know how to get back here. When I glanced over at Justin a little while later, he appeared to be doing the same thing.

  Good, I thought as I turned back. Two sets of memories to help us find the house and the cold box again. As long as I had something to focus on, it wasn’t as hard to ignore the panic screaming in the back of my head. The imagined possibilities of all the ways Michael might find to pry the information he wanted out of us. Out of me. Because I was the one it would come down to, if the others broke and admitted I had hidden everything.

  Despite my best efforts, my stomach started to churn. How long did we have before none of this even mattered anymore? The river water had felt freezing cold, but it wouldn’t stay that way as the weather warmed. The samples might be okay for a few days—a week? Could I hope for longer than that?

  My arms were aching in their cramped position behind my back. The minutes ticked away from us. Eventually, the forest gave way to a scattering of small towns, one leading into the next with only brief stretches of farmland in between. Connor kept close behind the Humvee. Chay was driving fast. I wondered how Leo was holding up. What kind of complications could result from a broken nose?

  We passed a series of untended fields, then another town and two farms. Chay took a left and then a right. The rain eased up, but the sky was still too gray for me to make out the sun.

  It felt as though at least a couple hours had gone by before the Humvee finally slowed. It veered onto a winding road off the highway and drove on until it reached a gate in a chain-link fence. Beyond the fence, a lane curved between lawns of patchy grass to a cluster of brick and concrete buildings. A woman with a two-way radio at her hip hopped down from the booth outside the fence and talked to Chay for a moment before opening the gate for us. Connor followed the Humvee inside.