Page 100 of Grave Danger

“Good. My hands and foot are starting to cramp.”

“Nothing like the cramps I’ve been having,” Cody said.

“Cute.” She flicked her gaze up to the rearview mirror. “How’s the antidote doing?”

Cody looked over his shoulder to see Sam clutching the small medical transfer container in his lap. “Good. Fine. Just hoping we get there soon.”

“Me, too,” Agatha said. “Me, too.”

Flashing lights ahead of them forced Agatha to ease up on the accelerator.

“What is that?” Cody said.

“Police cars, I think,” Agatha said.

“It’s a roadblock,” Demmy said. “They’re blocking access to the hospital.”

“Jesus, how bad has it gotten out here?” Ollie’s voice was quiet. “I still can’t get through to my grandmother.”

“We really need to get this drug to the hospital,” Sam said. “And Dr. Willoughby and I need to talk to them.”

“We’ll get there,” Agatha said. “Have no fear.”

Cody made a face and shook his head. “Fear? Us? How dare you.”

That got a quirk of a smile from Agatha, and two quiet snorts of amusement from Dave and Ollie in the backseat.

As Agatha approached the cruisers parked nose to nose across the road, Cody saw they were from the state police, not the sheriff’s department. He hoped Lucia and her team had merely called in reinforcements and hadn’t all been bitten and turned. Though with Sam’s antidote now available, anyone turned should be able to be brought back. Shouldn’t they?

“Hey, doc,” Cody said over his shoulder.

“Yes?” Sam and Dr. Willoughby said together.

“Oh, right. We have two docs. Even better. How effective is your antidote?”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“If someone has been bitten and turned, is there some kind of cutoff time where you won’t be able to bring them back?”

“Um, well,” Sam said, clearly uncomfortable. “That’s a lot of data we haven’t gathered yet.”

“What he’s not wanting to say is, we don’t know,” Dr. Willoughby cut in.

“I was getting there.”

“Slowly,” she shot back.

Cody gave Demmy a side-eye and found him looking back and smirking. The good Dr. Willoughby was either feeling more herself, or edgy as hell after having come back from joining the living dead squad.

“There’s a lot we don’t know about all of this.”

Agatha stopped a few yards from the cruisers. State police officers slowly came out from the other side of the roadblock. They wore full riot gear, including gas masks, and carried clear shields. Four of them took up position at either end of the roadblock and trained automatic weapons on the car.

“Jesus,” Dave whispered.

“Hands up!”

They all immediately obeyed. Cody’s heart pounded, and he became hyper-aware of things as adrenaline flooded his system. The greasy film of sweat across his forehead. An increased throbbing of the bite wound. Beer cans littering the side of the road, cheap crap leftover from some high school party no doubt. The heavy shadows of night draped across the fields to either side of them.