Page 37

“No, you’re right. I punish myself every day for it. I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat, if I could.”

“If he loves you as much as you say, there isn’t a chance he’d let you.”

“He wouldn’t. You’re right. But I’d still do it.” Tears gather in her eyes, and she looks around the cave, as if trying to stave them off. “I … feel like I died with him, anyway. The freedom I have. The air I breathe. It doesn’t matter to me. None of it matters without him.”

I try to look at the situation from her point of view. She’s not a villain, after all, but a young girl in love, and motives don’t get any purer than that. “Cali, I understand your reasons for going back. But what you’re proposing is … what I fear every night that I close my eyes. I see those mutations come to life inside my head, and I can hear that countdown sounding off the final steps toward those doors.”

“Then, you can imagine my nightmares while knowing the one I love wasn’t as fortunate to escape.”

“I can. But that doesn’t mean I’m willing to send the one I love back inside to chase what I believe doesn’t actually exist.”

“How do you propose you’ll survive the pregnancy without it?”

“I don’t.” Rolling my shoulders fails to alleviate the snaking fear that climbs my spine at the thought of giving birth after what I witnessed. “If we haven’t evolved with this disease enough to survive it, then that’s a consequence we face.”

The door slides aside to show Six, Kenny, and the two males who arrived with her, one of which I’ve learned is Cadmus. The other wears the frayed uniform of a Legion soldier, and his role in all of this is a mystery to me. His alliance with them doesn’t seem forced, or under any sort of duress.

The space is cramped with the larger males, but I direct them to sit around the unlit fire pit. The conversation is one that could take place outside the cave, but I’m hoping to avoid rousing panic from the others, who remain hopeful of our future out east.

I don’t hesitate to probe what I already know after my earlier conversation with Kenny. To end this insane idea and lay to rest any possibility that we’ll be heading back inside that building. “Kenny, what are the chances of getting back inside Calico? Of unsealing those doors?”

“We’re … still on this topic?” His gaze flits from me to the newcomers, and then to Six. “It’s not possible, at all. There is no getting inside.”

“You know the computers. You designed the system,” Cali urges, and from the desperation bleeding in her voice, it’s clear the bulk of her motive is finding her Alpha. Not that I blame her, of course. If it were Six trapped inside that hospital, I’d probably be as batshit crazy to formulate a similar plan. But I have no interest in sending my man back into that hellhole.

“The computers are only accessible from the inside. It’s an impenetrable seal. For good reason! Those mutations would wipe out all of what’s left of us.”

“I don’t believe anything is completely impenetrable,” the girl argues.

“You could drive a tank into those steel doors, and they’ll not budge,” Kenny throws back, the tight clip of his jaw revealing the resentment he harbors toward the girl. “They were designed by the military, well before the Dredge hit, to effectively seal in any threat. There’s no way in, or out. Whatever was left inside is dead.”

The younger male sitting beside Cadmus lowers his gaze, eyes wide with alarm. “My brother was trapped inside.” A flicker of anger twists his face, and before anyone can stop him, he leaps onto Kenny. “You fucking murdered my brother!” He manages to hammer one hit to Kenny’s face, before Cadmus lifts him away. “You didn’t give them enough time to evacuate!”

Eyes flinching, Kenny daubs his bloody lip, pausing to examine the blood on his knuckles as he sits up.

“Everyone settle down.” Eyes scanning over them, I catch the murderous stare still plastered to the soldier’s face with his gaze directed toward Kenny. “We’re here to discuss what’s a possibility, and what isn’t.”

Kenny sniffs, kicking himself back against the wall, away from the group. “They were given the standard time. Any more, and we’d have risked Level Three mutations escaping. Surely, you know what lives below that facility.”

“The cure. Isn’t that right?” An air of sarcasm lingers in Cali’s voice.

“There was talk that samples from early in the disease might contain proteins that make the organism less … virulent. Pathogenic. Something that could be used to develop a vaccine. It’s stuff I’m not familiar with, but the docs seemed to have theories that they could produce an attenuated virus.”

“’The hell is that?” Six crosses his arms, keeping his eyes on the other Alpha in the room.

“A virus that doesn’t cause disease,” I answer for Kenny. “Used to create vaccines.”

“I don’t know any more than that.” With a shrug, Kenny shakes his head. “Just what I overheard in meetings.”

“So, it does exist.” The intrigue in Six’s voice seems to grow thicker with every morsel of information he gathers.

“No one knows. The lab is connected to tunnels underground that have become inhabited by more violent Ragers. Early mutations. Even if you could breach the doors, which you can’t, you’d have to get past the mutations. And who knows what state that lab is in? It hasn’t been accessed in almost thirty years.”

“How do they survive? These mutations?” I can’t imagine what that place must be like now. And if those things are still alive? They’ve surely not grown docile.

“How does anything survive? Evolution. Nature finds a way.”

I stare back at Six, whose furrowed brow tells of thoughts churning inside his head. Plans he wouldn’t dare share with me. “There you have it. Your answer. There’s no getting inside.”