The Worlds We Make

  “There isn’t much to smile about anyway,” I said.

  “I don’t know. I’m pretty happy to have that Nathan guy nowhere near us. And…with what I saw in the gym…”

  Drew.

  Leo looked up at me, and lowered his voice. “We all just have to wait for the right moment.”

  “Yeah,” I said, even as I started to choke up. The right moment? Even with Drew on our side, this situation seemed hopeless. We were restrained and behind bars, surrounded by dozens of people who’d have gleefully watched us die if not for the information they believed we had. It wasn’t just one chance we needed; it was several. All in a neat row. And we needed them before Michael broke us down.

  I blinked hard, clutching at the forced calm that had kept me going so far. “Hey,” Leo said. He shifted closer to me, crossing one arm over the other so he could clasp my hand. “It’s not all on you. We’re in this together.”

  A hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat. “That doesn’t make me feel much better. You must wish you’d stayed back on the island.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I’m glad I came.”

  “How can you say that?”

  He paused. “You know I was in a bad place when I got home. I was so caught up in feeling guilty about the crap I’d had to do to make it back.…But I’ve had a lot of time to think now; a lot of time for things to sink in.” His grip on my hand tightened. “I saved a kid’s life this morning. Just like that. Maybe that starts to balance out all the awful things we’ve been through. We have chances to do something like that, something good, all the time. You got one when you talked to Michael’s daughter. We’re going to get more. I’m not giving up yet.”

  “Right,” I said, my despair receding a few inches. Drew had come through for us before. I had to believe he could again. Or that we could find a way to get ourselves out of this disaster like we had so many already. If we weren’t going to believe there was a chance, we might as well give up right now.

  “What do you think Michael’s going to do?” Justin asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Although my imagination had come up with lots of unpleasant possibilities. Across from me, Anika sank down with her back against the bars, pulling her knees up in front of her. “Do you have any idea?” I asked her.

  “Only that it won’t be good,” she said. “Look at this place—look at how many people he’s brought on board. I told you, he knows how to get what he wants.” She shuddered. “And I’m with Leo about Nathan. I wish someone would shoot him.”

  “Michael kind of looked like he wanted to,” Justin remarked.

  “Maybe,” Leo said. “But if you get rid of all the people who want to do the dirty work, you have to start doing it yourself.”

  I wasn’t convinced that Michael planned to keep his hands clean. He’d pursued us across an entire continent to get the vaccine—there was no way he was backing down now.

  I settled onto the cold concrete and tried to let go of those thoughts. To relax, as much as I could, so I’d be stronger when Michael did appear.

  As time slipped past, the light in the basement didn’t change. I had no concept of how long we’d been down there until footsteps tapped along the hall and our guards exchanged a few words before switching off. Four hours. My stomach pinched and gurgled, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten since the sandwich that morning. Anika licked her lips.

  “Hey,” she called through the doorway. “I need to talk to someone, just for a second.”

  Marissa poked her head into the room, scowling. “What?”

  Anika got to her feet, stepping as close as she could to the front of the cell, but keeping her head low, her shoulders slumped, unthreatening. “I just wondered if we could get a little water?”

  “You’re asking for favors now?”

  “I get that we’re not supposed to be comfortable,” Anika said, in the same appeasing tone she’d used on me when we first met, after she’d stalked us back to our apartment in Toronto. “And obviously you’re going to do your job. I just thought it might be better for Michael too if we’re not completely dehydrated.”

  Marissa’s scowl didn’t budge. She pulled back into the hall without another word. I thought Anika’s gambit hadn’t worked, until a minute later a crackle of radio static carried through the wall. A new set of footsteps joined our two guards, and Marissa ducked back in with a small bottle of water.

  “This is all you get until tomorrow,” she said. “For all of you. I hope you know how to share.”

  She smacked the bottle down just inside the bars and marched out of the room. Anika groped, and then resorted to using her foot to slide the bottle into reach. She opened it and took a long gulp that made me feel just how parched my own mouth was. When she twisted the cap back on and passed it over to me, still mostly full, she was smiling.

  “Thanks,” I said with honest gratitude.

  “Thank you,” she said, meeting my eyes and then looking away. “I mean, for jumping in, when they started in on me at the house…I don’t know what I would have done.”

  It sounded like an admission of guilt. I sipped the water, but my gut had clenched.

  The only thing keeping her and the rest of us alive was staying quiet. I could only hope she’d remember that, no matter what Michael had in store.

  Just after the second guard change, the hall lights dimmed even more. Sleep seemed like a lost cause. My legs were sore against the hard concrete, and my arms still throbbed from being cuffed. My stomach was a knot of hunger. But at some point exhaustion overwhelmed my anxious thoughts and pulled me under. I woke with a start to the sound of shoes scraping over the floor just outside the cell.

  Two figures had come to a halt by the cell door. I looked up blearily and snapped fully awake. One of them was Drew.

  My pulse leapt, but I forced myself to gaze aimlessly at the wall where Anika was hunched in sleep, as if I didn’t care what was happening outside. I watched them from the corner of my eyes. My brother was facing the Warden who’d come in with him, a stocky guy with freckles who looked to be about the same age as Drew. In the neighboring cell, Leo stirred.

  “I’ll be fine,” Drew said, touching the other guy’s arm. “Give me five minutes.”

  The guy frowned, but nodded before he headed out. I heard him stop beyond the doorway and murmur a few words to someone there. Drew turned toward the cell. I pulled myself to my feet in front of him. My head swam.

  It had been four months since I’d last talked to Drew face-to-face. Looking at him, I could almost believe it’d been four years. He’d turned nineteen earlier this month, but the weariness in his eyes made him look much older. He was thinner too. The sweater he wore hung loosely off his narrow shoulders, and his cheekbones jutted from his lean face. His light brown skin had turned sallow.

  “You almost made it, Kaelyn,” he murmured. “You were so close. I did everything I could.”

  Any doubts I might have had about his allegiances vanished. I ached to hug him through the bars. I’d gone without my real family for so long—it felt like a miracle having him there, alive if not perfectly well. But the handcuffs held me back. And if we had only five minutes, there wasn’t time for a real reunion.

  “Can you get us out?” I asked under my breath.

  “Not right now,” he said, stepping closer to the bars and keeping his voice low, “but I’ll try. It’s going to be complicated. I’ve got a lot of logistics to figure out.”

  “We don’t have much time. The vaccine samples—I’m not sure how long they’ll stay cool enough, where I left them.”

  He nodded. “I wondered about that.”

  “And Michael…” I trailed off, not finding the words to express how frightened I was under the stoic front I was trying to maintain.

  “I have to figure things out,” Drew repeated. “It’s more than just getting you out of this room. You’ll need a car to get away in. And something to stop anyone else from following you right away. I think I can
make it happen, but it’ll take some planning.”

  I hadn’t even thought that far. If he got us a car, we could drive back to the house, pick up the vaccine, and head to Atlanta in a matter of hours.

  Atlanta, where Michael probably still had Wardens posted around the CDC.

  “Our radio transceiver,” I said. “The people who brought us here took it. We’ll need a way to reach our contact at the CDC. She was going to tell us how to get to them safely, but she didn’t have the chance.”

  “That won’t be too hard.” He smiled crookedly. “I’m kind of the main radio guy around here. It’s because I’d shown off my tech skills that Michael approved me coming down, when he heard you were heading this way and called for more support. I just wish I could have stopped this from happening at all.”

  He fell silent, and for a moment, all we could do was stare at each other. He was really here. I’d known he was alive from the first time we’d talked over the radio, but it hadn’t seemed completely real until right now.

  “Drew,” I said, “you’ll come with us, won’t you? If we can make it to the CDC, we’ll be protected there.”

  Drew hesitated, and his gaze darted toward the doorway. Toward the freckled guy who was making the other guard chuckle at some joke. My brother’s expression was so familiar, and yet it took me a second to place where I’d seen it before. On Justin’s face, and Tobias’s, when they looked at Anika.

  On Leo’s, sometimes, when he looked at me.

  “Oh,” I said.

  A flush spread across his face. “Zack’s a good guy,” he said. “He wouldn’t be with the Wardens if Michael hadn’t ‘conscripted’ his mom—she’s a doctor. He transferred down here so we could stay together. He even lied for me to get me in here.”

  “Does he know what you’re really talking to me about?”

  “No.”

  “So you’re picking them,” I said, straining to stay quiet. “You’re sticking with Michael and the Wardens instead of coming with me? You won’t need them anymore, Drew. Once the CDC is making the vaccine, whatever power Michael has won’t matter so much.” I could almost understand why Drew had joined up with them to begin with, how it had helped him survive and keep track of what was going on, but how could he stay now?

  “He’s not going to give up that easily,” Drew said. “What if you need my help here again? And I can’t just run off on Zack, Kae. I don’t know if I could have kept going this long if I hadn’t had someone who makes me feel the way he does.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I remembered with painful clarity how one fond look from Gav had been able to buoy me through an entire horrible day.

  “Okay,” I said. “I—I’m glad you found someone.”

  The someone in question peered around the doorway, his eyebrows raised. When Drew held up a finger, Zack ducked back out.

  “I’ve got to get going,” Drew said. “But listen. Keeping you, and Dad’s vaccine, safe—that’s still my first priority. That’s why I lied to Zack, even though I think he’d understand. That’s why I’m going to do everything I can to get all of you out and on the road again. I swear.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and then, before I knew the words were coming, “I missed you.”

  “Same here.” He reached between the bars to quickly squeeze my hand. “Dad would be proud, you know.”

  He was just stepping away when brisk footsteps echoed down the hall outside. Drew stiffened, and then strode toward the doorway. He was almost there when he had to dodge to the side to make way, as the last person I wanted to see swept into the room.

  Nathan paused, slicking back a strand of his dark hair. He considered Drew and then us prisoners. I edged backward, hugging myself as if Drew had been harassing me rather than reassuring me. It was easy to pretend. Nathan’s pointed gaze was already making me feel queasy.

  In the other cell, Leo sat up. I wondered how much of my hushed conversation with Drew he’d heard.

  “This is quite the party,” Nathan said, his glib voice bouncing around the small room. Anika jerked awake, and Justin raised his head, rubbing his eyes. But Nathan turned back to Drew.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Drew shrugged. “I had an idea I thought might get them to fess up. It didn’t work.” He shot us a feigned glare.

  “Really?” Nathan said. I shrank farther into the shadows at the back of the cell, hoping in the dim light he wouldn’t notice the family resemblance between Drew and me. We were hardly twins, but side by side, it might be noticeable.

  Thankfully, it appeared Nathan had other things on his mind. “Trying to impress the boss, or figured you’d grab the vaccine for yourself?” he went on. “I’m not sure which is more stupid.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Drew said. “Like I said, it didn’t work.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Nathan said. “You’re never going to talk anything out of them. Maybe Michael’s too much of a bleeding heart to see it, but it’s going to take a few cuts and jabs to open them up, so to speak.”

  He strode closer to the cells, his smirk so wide it made the hairs on my arms rise. I clamped my mouth shut, suspecting any protest would only encourage him.

  Unfortunately, not all of us had a fully developed sense of self-preservation. “I’ve been shot, and that didn’t break me,” Justin retorted. He clambered to his feet near the cell door.

  “You heard Michael,” Drew said to Nathan with an edge in his tone. “No torture. Not yet, anyway. You’re planning to go against his direct orders, and you call me stupid?”

  “If I bring in the vaccine, Michael’s not going to care how I got it.” Nathan clapped his hands together. “I think I’ll start with that one,” he said, nodding to Justin. “He’ll be fun. Where are the keys?”

  “I have them.” The guard Zack had been talking to entered the room with his burly arms crossed over his chest and Zack close behind him. The older man didn’t bother to hide the disapproval in his frown. When Nathan held out a hand, he shook his head.

  “I follow Michael’s orders.”

  “And you really think they’re good ones?” Nathan sneered. “We’re babying these vermin. Give them one good ass-kicking, and you know they’d give it all up. Watch.”

  With no other warning, he sidestepped and snatched Justin’s wrist through the bars. Justin jerked away, not fast enough. With a twist of his hand, Nathan flipped Justin’s arm upside down and wrenched it forward, so sharply Justin gave a pained gasp. I lunged toward them before I could catch myself, as if I could do anything to help with the cell wall between us. Gripping the bars, I braced myself for the sound of bone cracking.

  “Hands off!” the guard hollered. When Nathan didn’t immediately let go, he hauled back and slammed his fist into the younger man’s face. Nathan staggered against the cell door, releasing Justin’s arm to cup his wounded cheek. Justin lurched backward, his face white and his jaw clenched tight. Then he sprang at Nathan. At the same moment, Nathan swiveled away from the cell, whipping a flip-blade knife from his suit jacket pocket.

  “I could kill you,” Nathan snarled at the guard. In that instant, the rabid fury in his eyes reminded me of the bear chasing Leo and the boy, and I believed he would. But as Zack and Drew flanked the guard, that fury faded into hostile disdain. Nathan flicked the blade back into its handle.

  “You’re going to regret doing that,” he said, and then glanced at us. “And I’ll be back, with Michael’s permission or the keys. So give it a little thought, whether maybe you’d like to spill your secrets without the pain first.”

  He shot one last glower at the guard and stalked out of the room.

  The guard was scowling. “Can’t wait for the day he pushes too far and Michael puts a bullet in his brain, like the last dozen guys who got too full of themselves,” he muttered as soon as Nathan was out of earshot.

  “Don’t think I protected you because I like you,” he added, toward us. “If Michael gives him the okay, you’re all Nate’s.
”

  He headed back into the hall, with Zack trailing behind. Drew hesitated, looking as if he wanted to say something comforting. But I was pretty sure there was nothing comforting that could be said. He bobbed his head to me, and then the four of us were alone again in the darkened prison room.

  Through the rest of the night, every time my mind started to drift, some sound would yank me back into consciousness, my pulse tripping with the certainty that Nathan had returned with his knife and a key. But it wasn’t until a while after the hall lights had brightened for the morning that more visitors arrived.

  A guy I didn’t recognize came in just long enough to toss a box of crackers into my and Anika’s cell. They were crumbly and stale, but I gulped down my share so quickly I hardly tasted them. It was only a couple handfuls, not nearly enough to dull my hunger.

  I had just passed the last of the water over to the guys when Chay strode in with Connor lurking behind him. “You,” Chay said, pointing at Leo. “You’re first.”

  “First for what?” Justin demanded as one of our guards unlocked the cell door. Chay ignored him.

  The second he stepped into the cell, Justin took a swing at him. “No!” I said. Chay caught Justin’s fist easily and shoved his arm against the bars, blocking Justin’s legs with one of his own at the same time. Justin winced. His wrist was mottled with purple splotches where Nathan had grabbed him yesterday.

  “Cuff his hands behind his back again,” Chay said to Connor, jerking his head toward Leo. “I don’t want any more of this clowning around.”

  “Asshole,” Justin muttered. Leo bowed his head as Connor escorted him out, looking as though he was biting back harsh words of his own. Chay released Justin and followed.

  I stepped closer to the door, watching them prod Leo into the hall and then off to the right. There was nothing we could do. I tugged at my cuffs again, as if they might have gotten looser overnight, and the metal pinched my wrist. The pain was only a slight distraction from the fear stabbing through me.