“I can’t let another drop be spilled for my negligence!” I argued; he just held me tighter.
“Fine.” He rested his forehead against mine. “Let me go with you if you insist.”
I stumbled off the wagon before it had even stopped. There were nurses splayed across the ground outside, the last sign of a desperate escape, slowly disappearing under the steadily gathering snowfall, the ground turning red like a carpet to the entrance.
I burst through the front door. Up the stairs, I hastily flung through the rooms.
Empty.
Empty.
Empty.
Bodies.
Bodies.
Bodies.
There was blood everywhere. An endless loop of similar scenes through each door, forcing myself to be subjected to scene after scene of carnage until I found one with somethingliving.
Nurses’ bodies were displayed in unnatural fashion across the floor, some limbs were missing, while others were unrecognizable.There was not one white linen in the hospital room that wasn’t stained.
The hallway was quiet, only the sound of the howling wind outside. The tiles of the floor were smeared, blood tracking in and out of the rooms, across walls, and staining the viewing windows of the doors.
Yells and shuffles stirred through the hallway.
“What is wrong with you?” Phoebe screamed, the inflected echo bounding down the hallway. “You ruin everything! Why couldn’t you just be happy with what we all had?”
I rounded the corner and shoved the door from where the voices were coming from.
“I saved them! They are free! We are their salvation!” Edith screamed back, shakily holding a knife in her hand.
The heads of the three turned to me when my boot crushed some glass from the door.
Luka was behind Edith, unfeeling and cool in demeanor.
I stepped forward. “What did you do?”
“I-I didn’tdoanything! I helped them!” she cried, holding out the jittery knife. If her eyes strained any harder, I thought they would burst from her head. They darted skittishly, bouncing from person to person, exactly how I would imagine a cornered fox, bared fangs and all.
“Edith, calm down. Whatever you did?—”
Phoebe turned to look at me, just for a moment, before Edith hooked her arm around her neck from behind, pointing the blade under her chin. “Don’t get any closer!” Edith shouted.
I froze in place, my eyes only seeing rage as I saw the blade pointed at Phoebe.
My dear friend gaped at me with horror, unable to contain her panic. Nothing pulled at my gut like seeing her eyes glazed over in fear.
I held my hands up slowly. “Edith,” I warned, “let her go, we can talk through this.” I glanced at Luka behind her, giving him a pleading look, but he just stood there, unable to look at me.
Bastard.
“I know you can see it. It’s the whole reason you decided to use us to make medicine in the first place. Everyone deserves a chance,” Edith croaked.
“All right, all right. Tell me about it.” I lowered my hands calmly.
“The corrupted are not monsters; they are people. They can be used for good; I know they can be good. They remember me after they turn. We could tame them, build an army of them. I’ve been working on this for months, for you! You told me to take initiative.” Edith smiled wildly, loose curls of blond hair sticking out from her head covering, blood smudged across her cheek. “If we all worked together like we do on collection days?—”
