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“Looks like we’re back in business,” Kenny says, staring up at the wall of screens that blink to life and show different parts of the hospital. On some of the screens, I catch movement and see the mutations moving about rooms, perhaps frenzied by the bright lights.

“We can see where they’re at from here,” he says, flipping switches that swap the view from one part of the building for another.

“What about Valdys? Is he in his cell?”

The pecking of the computer keyboard seems to correlate to the various shifting screens on the monitor in front of him, and after a few minutes, he arrives at a list of names, pointing to one that has my heart pounding. “Hibernation room.”

A few more clicks, and he swaps one of the screens for an obscured view that’s mostly black.

“Looks like something fucked with the camera.” Kenny flips three more screens adjacent to that one. “Here’s the path to get to the hibernation room. You’ll take the stairwell to the fourth floor. Cryogenics is there, too. There may be others kept alive. The ones in hibernation are given IV fluids, so it’s possible they’re alive, as well.”

Hope blossoms inside my chest and I smile back at Cadmus. “Alive.” Swinging my attention back toward Kenny, I wring the fabric of my shirt, ready to crawl out of my skin with the impatience prodding me. “Okay, fourth floor?”

“I’ll stay here. We’ll communicate through walkie-talkie.” He flicks his fingers, and I fish the piece of equipment out of my bag, handing it off to him. He twists a knob on it and flips it on, indicated by a green light and some fuzz that dies down. “Here’s the channel you’ll use. Push the button when you want to talk and release to listen.” Flexing his fingers around it, he demonstrates his instruction and twists a knob on the top of the device. “Keep the volume low, so you don’t attract the mutations.”

“Got it.”

“Good. We’ll meet at the front entrance.”

Cadmus, Brandon, and I pad up the stairwell to the fourth floor, leaving Titus and Kenny back in the computer room. As we round each new flight, we’re greeted by the mutilated bodies of Legion soldiers, and a few doctors who weren’t so lucky trying to escape. Brandon takes the opportunity to check each one of their tags, determined to find his brother--one way, or another.

“Fourth floor corridor is clear.” Kenny’s voice comes over the walkie-talkie, as we climb the last stretch of stairs.

Cadmus pushes through the door, but it drags as if blocked by something on the other side. Once it’s cracked enough, he peeks his head through and pushes harder, the muscles in his arms bulging with the toil. Brandon and I step through the path he’s created, and find a pile of bodies against the door. Along the corridor lay a few more bodies, but it seems most are gathered here.

Strange.

A sign just below the ceiling reads: Cryogenics. Below it, an arrow points to the right.

“Follow the signs to Cryo,” Kenny instructs.

In spite of the all clear, my muscles remain poised for an attack. Unless it’s just my nerves bunching me up that way. Excitement, perhaps.

At the first intersection of hallways, a new sign on the wall reads: Hibernation Lab. We follow the direction of the arrow below it, and arrive at a door at the end of the hallway, which opens into an expansive room that’s made up of rows of glass cases, some empty, some covered in blood. The sight of them sends a sinking feeling to my stomach.

“Valdys is chamber eighty-six, at the end of the fourth row.” Kenny’s voice offers a small bit of hope, as I hustle through rows of these chambers, as he called them, trying not to look at them as I pass. We reach the second row, skirting around a wall of capsules toward the back of the room, and I bend forward to read seventy-nine on one of the pods. An empty one, thank goodness. Eighty. Eight-one. Eighty-two. Eighty-three. Eighty-four. Blood stains on the outside of the chamber churn the nausea in my gut, and I notice pieces of bone sticking out from the half-mutilated body inside that chamber. Eighty-five. I lift my gaze to eight-six.

My muscles turn weak.

A cold hollow fills my chest.

I collapse to the floor.

No.

Chapter 24

Wren

Tears gathered in my eyes blur the camera’s view, as Six, Ratchet, and Jed reach the end of the hallway. If I had to imagine, Six is probably mentally punishing himself for what happened to Tinker. And here I’m wallowing in the guilt of being thankful he was able to get away before one of those things snatched him up, as well.

I’ve seen cruelty, have been on the receiving end of some of the most vicious monsters ever put on this earth, but watching Tinker’s body torn apart in sport is a vision that will haunt me for the rest of my life. It’s something that, in spite of the atrocities of this world, still manages to snake itself beneath the skin and strangle what’s left of one’s humanity.

Jed peers into a window of the lab and clicks his flashlight on, making one sweep, before heading toward the door. He pushes through, and the scraping sound against whatever litters the floor is one that tenses my muscles. This whole place serves as a constant stream of stress and agony. I pray they’ve reached the lab that houses the sample, because I don’t think my gut can handle any more of it.

The three of them enter the lab, which looks like every other in the building, with it’s rusted, dilapidated equipment and distraught appearance, as if something came through with a sledgehammer and swung without care, or consequence.

Jed crosses the room toward a cupboard labeled: R1 Protein Isolates. “So, we found that, if we dehydrated the isolates, it actually preserved their form within the prion and, with serial dilutions, begins to produce the proteins again. A reactivation of the organism.” He clears a space on the lab counter and arranges a tray of test tubes he pulls from the cupboard. “I need you to keep lookout while I do this.”