“Why?” I ask, astonished.
He smirks. “Because the chances of you changing your mind are nil,” he says. “And I’m not about to let you walk out alone into your death. So that leaves me no other option.”
My stomach flips. That Ryan would do that for me, it’s more than my heart can handle.
“I’m coming too.”
I turn and am floored to see Molly smiling back.
“Unless I’d be a third wheel,” she adds wryly.
“You won’t,” Zeke adds. “Because I’ll be with you all.”
I look from one to the other, relief swelling inside of me that I’m not doing this alone. And gratitude. I am touched that they care about me so much that they’d all risk their lives for me.
“Brooke,” the Commander says, “come to my office tomorrow morning. All of you,” he adds, addressing Zeke, Ryan, and Molly. “We’ll formulate a plan for your departure.”
My stomach flips again at the thought that this is really happening, and that the Commander is going to help me. My whole body is a mixture of excitement and anticipation. After six months of dreaming about leaving this place, it’s finally about to happen.
But there’s something else there too, a deep, hollow sensation inside of me. I realize it’s the thought of leaving Charlie, Ben, and Bree behind. I know they won’t come with me. Bree loves Fort Noix too much, Charlie is her hopelessly devoted shadow who will do anything she asks, and Ben’s too unwell to come even if he wanted to.
But I cannot change my mind now—and I don’t want to. Other survivors might be out there. And among them, I even dare to hope, my father.
I have sealed my fate.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When I enter my room, Bree, sitting on the bottom bunk bed, puts her book down and stares at me. That look kills me. She’s annoyed at me for rocking the boat, for bringing disorder and chaos into her previously stable life, but I decide not to sugar coat it. Bree’s matured a lot over the last few months. She deserves the truth. I sit beside her on the bed. She looks so serious, so grown up. I feel a pang of loss for the little girl she used to be.
“Bree, I’m sorry,” I begin, but she cuts me off.
“I think the Commander’s right,” she says, seriously. “Fort Noix is the first place we’ve been safe. We don’t have to worry about slaverunners or going hungry. Have you already forgotten what it was like out there? Don’t you remember how it felt to be starving? I never want to feel that again.” There’s accusation in her tone.
“But there are other people out there,” I argue gently. “Other survivors. Don’t you think we should find them?”
Bree just shakes her head. “No. I don’t. The Commander would let them in if they made it here just like he did with us. But I don’t think we should go looking for them. It’s way too dangerous.”
“What if one of them was Dad?” I contest.
Bree frowns. She looks even madder than before.
“We don’t even know if Dad’s alive,” she says.
“We don’t know for certain,” I admit. “But I have this feeling deep inside of me that he is. Like if the Commander can survive this long, then why not Dad? He was one of the best in the platoon, you heard the Commander say that.”
“But what does your thinking Dad’s alive have to do with going to Texas?”
I know she’s going to think I’m crazy, but she has to understand why I’m so adamant about leaving. “The radio message. I think it was from Dad.”
Bree looks at me sadly. “I see Mom all the time, too. It’s just part of grief.”
“It’s not like that,” I snap. “I’m not seeing ghosts.” She goes to roll her eyes but I grab her roughly by the shoulder. “Listen,” I demand. “The message is from a military base. Dad was in the military. It’s in Texas. Dad trained in Texas. He said ‘Moore,’ right at the end!”
Bree wrenches her shoulders from my grasp. “And that’s enough for you to just up and leave?”
“That and a feeling right in here,” I say, touching my heart, “that Dad is alive out there somewhere and now that we’re strong enough to find him we should.”
Bree sighs heavily. “Nothing I say will change your mind, will it?”
I look down into my lap, ashamed. “You know I don’t want to leave you.”
“Do I?” she snaps.
“Of course I don’t!” I cry. “You’re my sister. I love you.”
She flashes me a haughty look. “You left Mom.”
The words sting more than a slap to the face. My little Bree, whom I did everything in the world for, is challenging me over one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make, one that I made to make sure she stayed alive.
I’m not prepared to argue with her. It feels as though being at Fort Noix has turned her from a helpless kid into an independent one. She’s acting like she doesn’t need me anymore. Maybe she doesn’t.
I stand from the bed and climb into the top bunk. With an angry sigh I stare at the ceiling.
“I love you, Bree,” I say. “Whatever happens, remember that.”
She doesn’t say anything back.
I pace down the darkened corridor, tiptoeing so no one can hear my footsteps. I’m deep in the bowels of Fort Noix, though I can’t quite recall how I got here.
At the far end of the corridor, light seeps out from beneath a door. It’s one of those big steel doors like in a submarine. I realize then that I’m far, far underground.
I creep up to the door and press my ear against it. Inside, I can just about make out a deep rumbling voice with a strong South Carolina accent. It’s the Commander.
I can only hear some of the words he’s saying but it’s enough to gather that he’s speaking to someone about the radio message, about the group of survivors in America. Then I pick out something that makes my heart stop.
“Laurence Moore.”
That’s my dad’s name. What’s the Commander doing talking about my dad?
I shove the door open. The Commander’s back is to me. He’s bent over a large machine which I assume to be some kind of radio device. It takes up the whole other half of the room. A single light bulb hangs from the ceiling, casting a dirty dark yellow light over the room, making the shadows stark.
When I barge into the room, he spins around to face me. But it’s not the Commander I come face to face with. It’s my dad.
He’s in full military gear, looking exactly like he did the last time I saw him. Behind him the radio bleeps and crackles.
Confused, I start to stagger back, but all at once, the ground beneath my dad gives way. The entire floor to the secret bunker room is collapsing. He screams as he plunges down, with bits of the huge radio machine falling after him.
“Dad!” I cry, reaching for him.
It’s no use. He’s fallen a good thirty feet to the bottom of a long pit. The wires of the device have snapped and dangle against the wall. Every time they touch, electricity zaps across them, sending sparks down on my dad. He peers up at me, terrified.
That’s when I realize I’m not alone. All around the perimeter of the room, looking down at my dad in the pit, are hundreds upon hundreds of biovictims. They shout and jeer, waving their fists in the air.
My dad is in an arena.
From the far end, a door opens and a huge spider, at least ten feet tall, crawls into the arena. Its legs are as thick as tree trunks. It scuttles toward my dad as fast as a tiger. The spectators go wild.