“It is not your fault,” Jared says.
“And I don’t know how, but Vaughn has gotten his hooks into my brother,” I say. “He’s made my brother believe that I’m dead. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how he knew I had a brother, but if I can just find my brother—if I can just explain, I know I can stop him from destroying another lab. But I don’t know when he’s planning to do it. I don’t know how much time we have.”
I don’t realize how quickly the tears have begun to overpower me, until Jared offers me a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket.
“Thanks,” I sniffle.
“Well, it’ll be dark soon,” he says. “There’s no sense leaving now. We can leave at sunrise. Your friends here should be awake by then.”
Friends. That’s the least complicated way to describe what they are to me.
“I’ve already dragged them through enough danger,” I say. “Would they be safe here? At least until I come back?”
“Safe and sound,” Jared says. “This place is heavily guarded.”
I don’t like the idea of leaving Cecily and Linden behind, but I know it’s the only option I have. Rowan is my brother, my responsibility. Whatever damage he’s done is because of this hatred he has toward hope, and I’m his symbol for hope. The sister who supposedly perished because of her stupid pro-science notions.
As the night progresses, Jared brings light blankets that smell of Madame’s perfumes. I drape one of them over Cecily and Linden, who have barely moved at all.
I lie beside them and try to sleep, but all night I’m visited by images of flame and ash. There’s no sense in calling out for my brother. In this wasteland of rubble and bodies, he’s nowhere to be found.
We leave just before dawn. Jared tells the other guards that he’s taking me on another of Madame’s missions and that they aren’t to let Linden and Cecily leave the compound.
“Sure you want to leave them behind?” he asks me as I’m climbing into the rusty car.
Right now I’d love nothing more than to have them with me. And I know they’ll be angry when they wake up and realize I’m gone. But am I sure about leaving them behind? Sure that it will be safer for them? Sure that this is something I need to do alone?
“Yes,” I say. And Jared turns the key in the ignition, and we’re on our way to Lexington.
There’s a little screen mounted over the dashboard that displays an electronic map of where we are, the red line of a road twisting and conforming to Jared’s steering.
I can’t help but stare at it. It’s nothing like any of Reed’s inventions, and I think it might be an antique from the twenty-first century. After the wars devastated the rest of the planet and before the virus took over, technology was at its most advanced. That much I know. Hospitals and businesses were sprawling. And then the virus was discovered, and it all deteriorated. What took generations to build took less than fifty short years to come undone.
Jared sees my interest. “Madame hates that thing. She says it’s how the spies keep track of people.” That last part is said as he rolls his eyes. Madame’s fictitious spies are a recurring figment of her opium delirium.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s a positioning system. Like a digital map. It reads data from satellite signals.”
“I thought all the satellites stopped working years ago,” I say.
“Just one of many rumors,” Jared says. “The president still has use for them, I think. There are plenty of theories about what the president’s role really is. Then again, maybe he’s just this useless figurehead like everyone says, and the rumors are a way to keep hoping.”
It’s quiet for a while, and then I say, “I heard a theory.”
Jared glances at me before focusing on the road again.
“I heard that the other countries and continents still exist.” Reed’s theory seemed outrageous to me when I first heard it, but now nothing seems too crazy to be considered.
Jared laughs. “That one’s been going around for years,” he says. “Plenty have tried to prove it.”
“What happened to them?” I ask.
“Oh, they came back with tales of the wide blue yonder,” Jared says, and laughs. “They were killed, of course. What did you think?”
I set myself up for that. I ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach and watch the map twist and unfold.
The Lexington Research and Wellness Institute is the heart of a ramshackle city. It’s a multistory brick building, in pristine condition compared to the deteriorating housing complexes that surround it. Multifamily homes with boarded windows, a squat grocery store that doesn’t appear to have any electricity, other buildings that could be more housing developments or orphanages. There are traffic lights still hanging from overhead wires, nonfunctioning.
As is the case with many research towns, the hospital and laboratory is probably the area’s only source of income. Because the president is so adamant about the human race not dying out entirely, he funds these types of institutes, which create jobs locally and provide a shelter for the wounded or the dying.
Situations like Cecily’s when she had her miscarriage, for instance.
If people still believe there’s cause to heal, they’ll believe there’s a chance they’ll be cured before the virus claims them or their children.