Unleashed

My lashes dip and darken my world for long moments before lifting to the sunlit earth again. I reach deep, hunting for the will to move on, to fight. Short tufts of straw-like grass dance before my vision as I stare out across the ground.

I take long blinks, the darkness easier to bear than the light. The next time I open my eyes, I know it’s the last. Staying in the light, awake, conscious . . . it takes too much out of me. Every moment uses up energy from my rapidly depleting well.

Except I see something. Against the sun-bleached landscape. Something’s out there, moving, coming toward me. A blurred shape a shade darker than everything else.

Ripples of heat undulate between me and the approaching figure. It grows bigger. Moves closer. Keeps coming. Boots. Dark boots. I know they’re attached to legs, to a person—of course—but I can’t lift my head to see the face. I glimpse only boots.

Is this the angel of death coming for me?

The well-worn pair of hiking boots stops directly before me. They’re unfocused in my failing vision, but I can tell they belong to a man. Too big to be a woman.

The dry, parched flesh of my lips cracks as speech rumbles up from my chest. I don’t know what I’m saying. My voice sounds so far away. Distant as if in a dream.

I pull from some reservoir of strength and turn my head. Look up. Just the slightest movement, but it costs me. For a split second my gaze slides up the long length of a body and locks on a face. Sunlight haloes him, blocking his features, giving him almost an angelic aura. Which kind of shoots down my angel of death suspicion and replaces it with the crazy hope that maybe he’s a guardian angel here to save me. A bit of absurdity that mocks me. Not because guardian angels don’t exist . . . but because I’m stupid enough to imagine one would waste his time with me. My head drops and my eyes fall shut.

I descend into the dark never.

* * *

Press Conference with Emily Rothchilde, Spokesperson for the Wainwright Agency

ROTHCHILDE: Rumors of resistance cells are highly exaggerated.

REPORTER: Then how do you respond to the partnership of US Customs and Border Protection with the Wainwright Agency? Such a measure doesn’t indicate the government’s belief that carriers lack organization.

ROTHCHILDE: We are talking about escaped carriers. They are no more than desperate, ragtag deviants who will soon be expunged from our country. The right of God is on our side.

SIX

WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, I DECIDED I wanted to be more than a music prodigy. Well, maybe not more but something else. I tried out for track. It didn’t dawn on me that my lack of athleticism might be an impediment. For some reason I thought hurdles might be my thing. I cleared the first jump. Unfortunately, not the second. I still have the scar where I gashed my knee open. There was blood everywhere. I actually lost consciousness, waking up with the school nurse huddled over me, an ambulance and my parents on the way. Friends surrounded me. Several of my teachers heard what happened and hurried outside to check on me. Everyone cared. My life was full like that.

Before one advance in science tracked me down in my perfect cocoon. Before a few laws changed everything. And now I have no one.

As I come to, it takes me several moments to realize that my eyes are even open. Darkness surrounds me so thickly, I feel like I’m buried under a blanket. I blink several times, testing that I’m right. That my eyes work properly and I am in fact awake. And alone. There are no familiar faces. No friends waiting for me¸ crowding around to see if I’m okay.

Only pain greets me, saying hello to every part of me. Every limb. Every nerve and pore. Nothing is overlooked. Especially my shoulder. The burn there is poker-hot, deep and incinerating. It drills through sinew and bone and spreads out like branches on a tree, eventually arcing down my spine into my toes.

I’m on my stomach, my face pressed into cool . . . rock, I think. There are sounds. A faint drip of water. The distant scurrying of a small animal. At least I hope it’s a small animal and not something bigger. Like a person. My eyes flare wide.

Boots.

I remember the boots. I focus, trying to remember more. But there’s nothing except those boots, which belonged to a man who was clearly no angel. He was flesh-and-blood real.

My relief at being alive flees as my situation sinks in. I passed out at the feet of some stranger. Clearly he moved me to someplace else. Where has he taken me? He must have seen my imprint. Will he turn me in?

A low glow begins to fill the space I occupy, growing in brightness as if the source of light is being carried toward me. Carried by someone. Boots. My gaze darts wildly, and I see more of my surroundings—which seem to be the walls of a cave. I can’t see who approaches. Someone’s coming from behind.

I hold still, listening carefully to every whisper of sound. Then I hear it. The barest scrape of a shoe inches from my head. I release a silent gasp and then bite my lip, take the dry flesh between my teeth until I taste the coppery tang of blood.

So close. I didn’t realize how close he was. Apparently, Boots walks with a near-silent tread. My mind works, fighting against the panic, the hysteria that threatens to consume me right along with the fever raging through me, eating at my mind. So hot. I burn and know that can’t be good. My decision making is probably impaired. I can think only of worst-case scenarios, imagining the kind of man who stumbled upon me. A criminal. Some drug runner. A carrier with a taste for killing. I almost snort at this—it seems the height of redundancy. A killer carrier. Isn’t that what all carriers are?