The Culling

  She may not have heard us, but she’s seen … she knows …

  Our eyes hold one more second. Then she whips around and plunges her hands through the membrane nearest her.

  I shove my own hand through the gash.

  Sharp fingernails dig into my flesh—

  thirty-seven

  I try to jerk my arm away, but it’s held tightly by an infected man with splotchy, yellow-gray skin and bloodshot eyes. His cheeks are gaunt. Blood vessels underlie his face like a road map.

  To make these innocent infected people, whose minds are as scrambled as rabid Canids, protect the very antidote that could save their own lives is truly sickening. Revulsion and pity fuse in the pit of my stomach.

  The man opens his mouth wide, releasing a jet of blood and teeth that douses my jumpsuit. That pungent, rotting odor wafts past his cavernous throat, suffocating me. It’s as if his insides have already putrefied.

  This is what’s going to happen to Cole, to Digory, to me if I don’t get the vials in time.

  Still in the diseased man’s grasp, I stretch my fingers until they’re grazing the packet of precious antidote, pulling it out by my fingertips … slowly … a fraction of an inch at a time … until I’m able to grasp it firmly.

  The man senses what I’m doing and leans forward, his mouth opened wide—

  I shove my other hand through and grip his scraggly hair, yanking his head back just before he can sink what’s left of his teeth into me.

  And then we’re deadlocked, the infected man still grasping my arm, preventing me from pulling out the cure.

  Somewhere nearby, Digory shouts something unintelligible even while Ophelia lets out a savage battle cry that pierces through the grotesque chorus of groans.

  But I can only focus on holding my attacker’s foaming mouth at bay with the last remnants of my strength. I’m losing the struggle. Strands of his hair rip from his skull and through my fingers.

  His mouth hovers above my arm—

  My fingernails dig through the packet and grasp the empty hypodermic by the plunger, just as his craggy lips graze my flesh. I jab the plunger through his eye, feeling it sink into the mushy tissue. Warm pulp seeps through my fingers as I rip my hand away, snatching the packet free.

  Digory’s perched on a rise above me, the upper half of his body buried inside another membrane. I can tell by the way his body’s thrashing that he’s struggling with someone, just like I was.

  “Lucian!” His voice sounds muffled. “I almost have one! Don’t stop! Keep going!”

  I’m torn. I don’t want to leave him. I can’t. But already I can feel the sickness overwhelming me, wringing the energy from me, fogging my brain and vision to the point where I can barely distinguish shapes a few feet away. I cough up another wad of bloodied phlegm.

  If this is what it’s doing to me, I’m heartsick at the thought of what it must be doing to little Cole. But I can’t chance taking the antidote now—not until I’ve secured another one.

  My breath comes in horrible rasps.

  “Got it! ” Ophelia’s shriek sounds like a battle cry. She’s little more than a blur, holding up an equally distorted reddish object.

  The second packet.

  That means Digory and I have to compete against each other for the remaining two packets of the antidote … and he’s practically got one already …

  One of us isn’t going to make it.

  Something grabs at Ophelia’s ankle. “Don’t touch me!” she shrieks. I can just make out the toe of her boot mashing against the thing, over and over. Loud splintering noises assault my sensitive ears.

  CRACK!

  She stops kicking. That can’t be a head slumping over at her feet, can it? But, as hazy as my eyesight is, I can tell that’s exactly what it is, or was, until she caved in its skull with her unrelenting fury. She flicks a clump off the end of her boot. Then she stoops and rips away more of the membrane, which comes loose with a plop.

  Her head swivels in my direction. “I wouldn’t want the two of you to get lonely.” She giggles and sprints up the stairs.

  “Ungh!” Digory grunts. He’s climbing the stairs, teetering up them, more like it. His hand clutches blinking green.

  It’s official. Only one dose of antivirus left.

  My wobbling legs give way and I sink to my knees, bracing myself against the rise above me. Then I’m pulling myself up to the next step, then the next, crawling, squirming like a slug even as I push my face into the slick-coated membranes searching for the final packet.

  A choir of growls oozes out of the gap where Ophelia retrieved her vials, freezing me in place. A tangle of limbs pushes through, clawing at the air. Dark forms slink into the outer room with us.

  That’s what Ophelia did by ripping out the membrane. She opened up the gap so that—

  “They’re getting through! ” The fear propels me up the next stair.

  And there, flashing through the crystalline layer between rises, is the last of the packets, tempting me to my potential doom.

  I plunge my hand through, heedless of the possibility that ravenous jaws are waiting to snap at my fingers and chew them off. But nothing stops me as I grasp the packet and pull it back through.

  A shadow falls over me.

  The infected are busy creeping through the opening Ophelia made for them and heading my way.

  I tear the packet open with my mouth, leaving bloody teeth marks on it. Then I’m fumbling with the vial. My heart tries to lurch out my throat when the cure almost tumbles from my grasp. But I seize it at the last moment and shove the hypodermic inside it, letting it gulp up the precious fluid.

  Digory kicks a snarling contaminated man in the gut and sends him reeling against two others, buying us valuable seconds. But just beyond them, more dark shapes loom, hissing, reaching for us.

  I graze the skin above my vein with the hypodermic. I hate myself for being so selfish and for what this will mean to Digory. He’s going to have to choose between his husband’s life or his own. But if I don’t take the antivirus now, I’ll pass out before I can outrun this diseased mob and make it up to Cole with his vial.

  Digory sees what I’m about to do and nods.

  Then I can’t bear the pain of looking at him anymore and I turn away, plunging the antivirus into my vein.

  It starts off like a small sting, then spreads like wildfire through my blood. I feel like I’m burning both inside and out. The needle clatters to the ground. I grip my stomach against the pain. My eyes dim even further. My head feels like it’s going to cave in and my brains are going to pop through my eyes and ears.

  Just when the pain gets the most intolerable, it suddenly washes away like a quick-moving tide. The fever dissipates and the clouds over my eyes disperse. I still feel like a Squawker has plowed into me, but its more weariness than infection now.

  I swipe at the cold sweat coating my face with my forearm just in time to see two of the sick grappling with Digory. If he weren’t ill, he’d be able to hold his own. But in his weakened state, they’re steadily gaining the upper hand. My eyes widen, now able to take in every terrifying detail.

  One of them’s about to bite into the wrist holding Digory’s hypodermic packet.

  “Watch out! ” I lunge and shove the man away before he can sink his teeth into Digory’s flesh. The man falls to the ground and grabs my ankle, but I kick it away.

  I spin around. Digory punches the second one in the jaw and he topples backward, sprawling down the stairs.

  “Th-thanks … ” Digory rasps, trying to smile.

  But my relief’s short-lived. Half a dozen more of the infected drones are scrambling up the stairs, trampling the two on the ground in their effort to reach us.

  Crunch!

  One of our pursuers grinds a heel into the jaw of the man I just pushed, and shatters
it.

  “Let’s go! ” I grab Digory’s arm and sling it over my shoulder, running on pure adrenaline now. It’s awkward going. I’m too weak, and he’s too heavy. But I manage to haul him up the stairs, dogged every step of the way by the unrelenting pack.

  Just a few more steps to go and we’ll be at the top, and I can get the remedy to Cole.

  Recruit Juniper. Your Incentive has received the antivirus. Proceed immediately through the next gateway to your final Trial.

  There’s the woosh of a door sliding open just as Digory and I stagger over the last step. Digory leans against the tube marked Tycho Incentive Storage.

  Aside from the three steel capsules, one of which is now blinking green, there’s an open door with nothing but darkness beyond. Ophelia must be halfway to the next Trial by now.

  I rip out my second packet and am about to shove it into the receiving slot of Cole’s tube when Ophelia steps out from behind the capsule and tears it away from my hand.

  My breath crystallizes in my lungs. “What the hell are you—?”

  “Now you can get a taste of what it feels like to lose someone you love, Spark.” A smile rips across her face, from one of her ears to the other. She draws back the hand clutching Cole’s salvation.

  I stumble forward on liquid legs, my hands flailing for the packet.

  Her face twists into a snarl. She hurls the cure back down the stairs …

  I drop to my knees, watching, stunned, as the packet twirls end over end, the vial of antivirus glinting in the light, moving farther and farther away from my brother, taking his life with it in the process.

  It shatters against the far wall, exploding into a million gleaming shards, just as my entire universe implodes in on itself.

  As my cheek slams into the cold floor, I see Ophelia’s boot withdrawing. Then she runs through the door and disappears.

  I punch my fist into the base of Cole’s storage tube—his coffin—feeling as if my soul’s been ripped out, and I squeeze my eyes shut for what will probably be the last time.

  Recruit Spark. Your Incentive has received the antivirus. Proceed immediately through the next gateway to your final Trial.

  My eyes flutter open.

  I bolt upright.

  Arms lock around me from behind and drag me away from the looming infected bodies, toward the gateway that Ophelia disappeared through.

  I manage to turn around.

  It’s Digory. He looks paler than I’ve ever seen him. Trails of dried blood cake his nostrils. A grayish film coats his once brilliant blue eyes.

  But he still smiles at me. “Lucian … ” he croaks. “You …

  gotta … go … now … ”

  Behind him, Cole’s tube is blinking green, just like Maddie’s.

  How is that possible? I saw Ophelia destroy Cole’s cure with my own eyes.

  And that’s when it hits me. Digory sacrificed not only his husband’s life but his own, so that Cole might live.

  I grip his forearms. “What about you? What about your husband?” My eyes flit toward the tube still pulsing red.

  He shakes his head. “F-forget … about … me … save …

  your … brother … ”

  He collapses. I don’t have the strength to hold him up so I slide down with him.

  Beyond us, the horde’s making its way onto the landing and lumbering toward us.

  I seize Digory’s wrists. “I’m not leaving you here! ”

  I pull with every fiber of strength I have left, dragging him across the floor toward the doorway. One of the infected springs from the ground, gripping his ankle.

  I pull Digory through the doorway and hit the button on the panel on the other side, praying it’s the locking mechanism.

  For a split second, nothing happens.

  The sickly woman opens her mouth right above Digory’s ankle …

  Then the door wooshes closed again. There’s a sharp snap as it severs the infected woman’s hand and slams shut at last. The hand’s still gripping Digory’s foot, jetting out gobs of dark blood from the jagged end with each twitch.

  Kneeling beside him, I pry it off and hurl it away from us. “It’s going to be okay now, Digory.”

  His eyes are closed, his chest bobbing up and down with each raspy breath. I touch my palm to his forehead. It’s like touching fire.

  Recruit Tycho, your actions have caused you to forfeit your participation. You must remain behind and await collection. Recruit Spark, continue now or face forfeiture as well.

  I can see a light, down the sloping path Ophelia took.

  What am I going to do? She’s going to reach Maddie before I reach Cole.

  “Lucky,” a voice whispers in the dark behind me.

  Even before I whirl to see the figure emerging from the shadows, I know who it is. That voice is branded into me forever.

  Cassius.

  thirty-eight

  I spring to my feet.

  He’s the cause of all of this. All the pain, the suffering.

  I’m so overwhelmed by rage, I’m paralyzed. I can only watch as Cassius slinks into the light. Behind him, I can see the outlines of two Imps holding weapons. Styles and Renquist. Of course the coward wouldn’t come to see me alone.

  He looks at me with shock and pity, holding out his arms. “Oh, Lucky … look at you … I … I never wanted things to be like this … ” He takes a step forward.

  I shrink from his disgusting hands. “What do you want, Cassius, huh? Killing Mrs. Bledsoe wasn’t enough for you? You need to make sure you destroy everyone I care about?” My fingernails pierce my palms.

  It doesn’t matter about the Imps protecting him. I’m going to kill him right now.

  He shakes his head, dislodging tears from those hateful eyes. “You have to listen to me, Lucky. I feel terrible about what’s happened. I’ve come to set things right between us.”

  A hollow laugh bursts from my lips. “Set things right?”

  His eyes pierce mine. “I can make sure you get Cole back.”

  The words stop me cold. “What’re you talking about?”

  He steps aside. A side door in the tunnel opens, letting in a stream of harsh artificial light that knifes through the dimness, causing me to squint against it. Beyond the door I can see a gangway leading to a Squawker.

  “That’s my private transport,” Cassius says in hushed tones. “Right now, Recruit Juniper is traversing the sea to get to the final Trial. I can fly you instead. You’ll get there ahead of her and be reunited with Cole before she even arrives.”

  His words are like hypnosis. I walk past him to the threshold, staring at the Squawker that could mean Cole’s salvation.

  “You want me to cheat,” I mutter. I search the ceiling for cameras. “Aren’t you afraid your fellow officials will find out about this?”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve risked making sure all the surveillance in this sector has been disabled, just so I could give you this chance.”

  After everything the five of us went through—all our hard work training at Infiernos, the horrors we endured. That’s what it all comes down to. Rigging the final Trial.

  He sidles up to me, but I’m too deep in thought to move. “It could all be over in a few minutes. Your brother will be safe. And all this will be over and behind us.” He rests his forehead against my shoulder. “Aren’t you tired, Lucky? Don’t you want to rest at last?”

  Everything I’ve dreamed since this whole ordeal began is right at my fingertips. How many times have I thought to myself that I’d do anything to rescue Cole from this nightmare?

  And now here’s my chance.

  If I kill Cassius now …

  I press my fingers into my throbbing temple. “Yes,” I mutter. “So tired … I can’t do this anymore … ”

  But what about—
>
  I run over to Digory. “I can’t leave you.”

  He’s sitting up, his eyes barely open and coated in a gray film. “There’s nothing you can do for me now,” he says, patting my hand. “Besides … I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes.” He tries to laugh but it devolves into a choking fit that takes a minute to subside. “Listen to him, Lucian. Do what he says. Your brother needs you.”

  Cassius wraps his hand around my arm and gently tugs. “For once, Tycho’s right. If you’re to beat Juniper, we have to go now.”

  As much as I’ve hated Cassius up to this point, I hate him even more now.

  Hate him for being right.

  Digory’s hand grips my shoulder and squeezes. “I’ll …

  be … okay. Don’t … worry.” We hold each other’s gaze for what seems like forever.

  I feel shell-shocked. I can only nod as Cassius pulls me away.

  The next few minutes are a haze. Cassius leads me through the doorway and across the gangway, leaving Digory further and further behind us with every step.

  When we reach the entrance to the Squawker, Styles and Renquist position themselves to flank the hatchway as Cassius takes a step inside.

  I freeze, gripping the handrails.

  Cassius turns to me. He smiles again and holds out his hand. “It’ll all be over soon, Lucky, you’ll see. You’ll have Cole back and we can be a family, just like we used to be.”

  The gangplank whirs to life.

  I turn to watch it slide away from the tunnel, leaving Digory cut off from everyone … awaiting death …

  Alone.

  Our eyes meet.

  Once I step into this Squawker and the hatch seals, I’ll never see him again.

  Cassius takes my hand. “I was just so angry before, Lucky, but it’s all over now. In time, you’ll forgive me, just like I’ve already forgiven you. And now that Tycho’s no longer between us, things will be different. I promise.”

  He pulls me through the Squawker’s hatch—

  Digory saved Cole’s life at a terrible cost. And here I am, wallowing in the empty promises of a liar and a murderer, leaving Digory to die all alone.