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“Let’s get the cure,” Leyna says to Xander, and I take one of his hands and hold on tight as he walks back into the research lab. He lets me touch him but something is wrong. He doesn’t hold on to me like he used to, and his muscles are tensed.
“What have you done?” Leyna asks. For the first time since I’ve known her, her voice sounds small. And shocked.
“Oker asked me to get rid of them,” Xander says.
The sink is full of empty tubes.
“Oker told me that he’d been wrong about the camassia cure,” Xander says. “He was planning to make something new, and he didn’t want us to waste time trying out anything else before he had his new cure ready. ”
“So what was he going to put in this new cure?” Colin asks. He wants to know. He, at least, appears to be listening, instead of automatically assuming that Xander destroyed the cures for his own reasons. Anna would listen, too, if she were here. What is she doing now? What’s going to happen to Hunter? How is Ky?
“I asked Oker,” Xander says, “but he wouldn’t tell me. ”
But then, saying this, he loses Colin. “You’re saying that Oker trusted you enough to ask you to ruin all the cures, but he didn’t trust you enough to tell you what he was going to find? Or how he planned to make the new cure?”
“Yes,” Xander says. “That’s what I’m saying. ”
For a long moment, Leyna and Colin look at Xander. In the sink, one of the empty tubes clinks and settles.
“You don’t believe me,” Xander says. “You think I killed Oker and ruined the cure on my own. Why would I do that?”
“I don’t have to know why you did it,” Colin says. “All I know is that you’ve cost this village time, which we don’t have. ”
Leyna turns to the other two assistants. “Can you make more of the camassia cure?”
“Yes,” Noah says. “But it’s going to take some time. ”
“Get started,” Leyna says. “Now. ”
The villagers take both Xander and Hunter to the prison building. The medics in the infirmary weren’t dead; only unconscious. None of the other still have died, but the villagers will hold Hunter accountable for the earlier two deaths, and for disconnecting the other patients and compromising their health.
And Xander, of course, has destroyed the camassia cure, the villagers’ best and last chance at the Otherlands. Some believe that Xander harmed Oker, but since there’s no evidence to support that, Xander is only being held accountable for the cures. The people look at him like he’s killed something, which I suppose to them, he has, even if it is only the cure and not its creator. It’s true that the still, and the chance of saving them, seems much further away with Oker gone.
“What are you going to do to Xander and Hunter?” I ask Leyna.
“We’ll have another vote after we’ve had time to gather evidence,” Leyna says. “The people will decide. ”
Out in the village circle, I see the villagers and farmers taking back their stones. The water in the troughs spills away.
CHAPTER 44
KY
CHAPTER 45
CASSIA
Suspicions trickle through the village, cold and creeping like winter rain. The farmers and the villagers whisper to each other. Did anyone help Hunter disconnect the still? How much did Cassia know about Xander destroying the cure?
The village leaders decide to keep Xander and Hunter locked away while evidence is gathered. The next vote will decide what happens to them.
I am split into three segments, like Oker’s muddy star. I should be with Ky in the infirmary. I should be with Xander in the prison. I should be sorting for a cure. I can only try to do all three and hope these pieces of myself are enough to find something that can make whole.
“I’m here to visit Xander,” I say to the prison guard.
Hunter looks up as I pass and I stop. It seems wrong to walk by. Besides, I would like to talk to him. So I face him through the bars. His shoulders are strong and his hands are, as always, marked in blue. I remember how he snapped those tubes in the Cavern. He looks strong enough to break through these bars here, I think. Then I realize that he’s past breaking through—he seems broken, in a way I didn’t see even in the Carving when Sarah had just died.
“Hunter,” I say, very gently, “I just want to know. Were you the one who disconnected Ky all those times?”
He nods.
“Was he the only one?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “I disconnected the others, too. Ky was the only one who had someone visiting him often enough to notice. ”
“How did you get past the medics?” I ask.
“It was easiest at night,” Hunter says. I remember how he used to track and kill and stay hidden in a canyon to survive, and I imagine that the infirmary and the village were child’s play to him. And then, left alone in broad daylight, something snapped.
“Why Ky?” I ask. “You came out of the canyon together. I thought the two of you understood each other. ”
“I had to be fair,” Hunter says. “I couldn’t disconnect everyone else and leave Ky alone. ”
The door opens behind me, letting in light. I turn a little. Anna has come in, but she stays out of Hunter’s line of view. She wants to listen.
“Hunter,” I say, “some of them died. ” I wish I could get him to answer me, to tell me why.
Hunter stretches out his arms. I wonder how often he does the markings to keep them so bright. “People dying is what happens if you don’t have the right medicines to save them,” Hunter says.
And now I do understand. “Sarah,” I say. “You couldn’t get the medicine for her. ”
