“No, I’mOnegative.”
She nods. “Yes, but you’re also Rh null.” She presses her hand to Marcus’s skin in different spots. “I don’t think he has a fever. That’s good.”
“You really think this might work?” My voice breaks.
She meets my gaze. “It worked on rats. I don’t think your lymphocytes—your white blood cells—resist aromium like other people’s. I think they break it down. Your body has slowly been adapting an immune response to aromium since you were injected with it.”
My voice is thick with emotion as I say, “My mom.”
She gives me a soft smile. “I don’t have the equipment to determine whether it’s your blood or your genetic makeup, but you couldn’t be Rh null without a gene you inherited from both of your parents. If it’s genetic makeup, that’s all your mom.”
When I blink, tears course down my cheeks. I carry my parents with me, and I’m overwhelmed by this new knowledge. It may be the two of them who save not only Marcus, but everyone with aromium.
Ellison reaches for my hand. “Hopefully I got to Marcus in time. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up because I still had more testing to do, but ... I believe the stabilizer you’ve been trying to make has been inside you this whole time.”
46
“Flying bombers is a job with a beginning, middle, and end. The mission is clear. But working undercover can mess with your mind. We can reassign you at any time if it’s too much.” -- Decoded message from ILF handler Hiro Tanaka to ILF undercover operative Nightingale
One Week Later
Briar
“Did you hear about Chance’s new slogan for this place?”
Amira walks into Marcus’s treatment room in the Sub, setting her bow down on an empty chair.
“Not yet,” Marcus says, sitting up in his bed.
“Fifteen arms and unlimited possibilities.” She grins at me. “Perfect, right?”
I laugh because it kind of is. The day after the New America soldiers left, we held an election. Those of us who are leaving theisland didn’t take part. A council of eight leaders was elected—four from the Dust Walkers and four from Rising Tide.
The eight of them have been meeting in private for several hours a day for the past few days, working out new rules and setting priorities.
The Tiders proposed that if they all agreed to destroy the aromium shield, a leader for the council could be elected from the four representatives from our camp. Chance got the job.
I understand why the Tiders wanted that, but it still scared me. They all agreed on another thing, too, though—everyone on the island, now and in the future, must get Ellison’s stabilizer.
It works even better than Ellison hoped it would. Marcus woke up within twenty-four hours of his first dose, and the others who have gotten the stabilizer have all reacted well to it.
The stabilizer allows people to retain the positive effects of aromium, like speed, strength, and less need for sleep and food, while eliminating the negative ones.
No more volatile rage, jealousy and thirst for violence. And no more primal need to fuck any willing partner to create aromium-enhanced babies.
We have a lot of pregnant Tiders in camp, but moving forward, the numbers should drop off.
“Chance is funny,” Marcus says. “Who knew?”
“Are you ever planning to get off your ass and help around here?” Amira asks him dryly.
He scowls while I roll my eyes and say, “Ellison says one more day of bed rest.”
“I’m fine,” Marcus says. “And the sooner we get this place back on its feet, the sooner we can leave.”
He and I are taking Pax, Olin, Amira, and Evander back to the mainland with us. Evander isn’t healthy enough for the trip yet, but he’ll have at least another week to rest and recover.
After his one-man sub docked in the grotto the day after Ingrid’s soldiers left, he somehow managed to crawl onto the beach, where one of our fishing crews found him. When they carried his badly beaten body back to camp and Ellison examined him, she said she didn’t think he’d make it.
