“I wasn’t prancing,” Sammy said over her shoulder. “Del and I came to rescue you.”
Lucy jerked away. She felt the dull thud of anger again.
“Del!” she said. “Rescue us? She’s the reason we’re here. She led us into a trap.”
He shook his head. “Me and Henry tried to follow you guys. It was pretty hard going until I spotted some of Aidan’s trail markers. We met up with her by the Needle. She had Lottie and Patrick with her. Henry took them back to the camp, and we continued on. Del insisted on coming back even though she’s so exhausted she can hardly walk.”
Lucy closed her ears to the note of sympathy in his voice.
“Where is she now? How do you know she isn’t raising the alarm?”
“I know her,” he said. Oddly, it was the exact opposite of what Aidan had said on the stairs when they realized Del had tricked them.
“If she gets in my way, I’ll hurt her,” Lucy promised. “You bring weapons?”
He showed her a small knife and a hammer. He grinned. The knife had a curved blade and looked wickedly sharp.
“Nice tiny sickle,” she said sarcastically. “You plan the whole look with the robes and the mask and everything?”
He pulled the mask up over his head and stowed it in a hidden pocket under his robes.
“Just working the plague victim–grim reaper angle. In case I run into anyone. You’d be amazed the effect a simple black cloak can have.” A broad smile spread across his charred face. “It’s a billhook, though. Sickles are those long cut-your-head-off tools. Wish I had one of those.”
“All kidding aside. Are you prepared to use it?” she asked.
He looked serious. She saw his throat work and wondered if his mouth was as dry as her own.
“I guess so. You?”
“I will if I have to,” she said, realizing it was true.
She slipped her knife into her pocket, then closed and locked the door to the sleeping chamber. The door out to the hallway was shut. Everything was quiet. Gray light leaked through the thick curtains.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she asked.
“About eleven thirty, midnight,” he said.
“Of the day after we left?”
He nodded. “What’s up with you? You seem kind of out of it.”
No wonder she still felt groggy. She tried to do the math. The sleeping pills had put her out for about sixteen hours. “I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’m still lively enough to take you down.”
“You jumped me from behind,” he said, with a hurt expression.
“I don’t think anyone’s going to be playing fair here, so be prepared for some dirty fighting.” She looked around the room. “See anyone on your way up?” she asked.
He shook his head. “All clear. The dogs were barking up a storm. Maybe they smelled me.”
“They’re locked up somewhere though, right?”
“Basement, I think. Del said something about kennels.”
Lucy hurried over to the desk. Her backpack was still under the chair. She slipped the straps over her shoulders and looked around for her frog spear. It was nowhere to be seen. She remembered how Del had knocked it out of her hands and she knotted her fists.
Her medical folder was still centered carefully on the desktop. Behind it stood the refrigerated cabinet. Lucy stared at the papers—so much information gathered about her without her knowledge. It was weird. And there were probably at least eight new vials of her blood stored in the refrigerator. She felt sick. Although she’d told Dr. Lessing how she felt, the woman had still gone ahead with her plan. She had taken away Lucy’s ability to choose. Lucy rubbed her arms, felt the prickle of new scabs.
“Del’s getting the rest of the kids. Do you know where Aidan is?” Sammy asked.
“I’m hoping he’s still next door. There may be someone with him. But give me a minute, will you? It’s important.”
Sammy cast a look around. “Listen,” he said. “I didn’t see anyone on the way up, but this place must have guards, right?”
“There aren’t so many of them anymore. I think a few have bailed. Maybe ten total. They won’t be expecting a rescue mission.” She rested her hand on his arm. “This is seriously important.”
He nodded. “Okay, but be quick. This place gives me the creeps.”
She stood still, willing her brain to work. It wasn’t fair. She wanted to have the choice to decide what to do with her life. But perhaps this was a gift, and it was bigger than she was? She thought of her parents, her sister and brother, of Leo and the terrible pain he had suffered. Maybe if a cure made from her blood had existed they would still be alive. Of course, she argued, if Dr. Lessing hadn’t infected Leo in some mad experiment, he’d never have gotten sick. Figuring out the morality of the doctor’s motivation was impossible. There was some single-minded craziness going on there, she was sure of it.
But Lucy could make a difference.
There were vials of her blood in the refrigerator, and she remembered the doctor saying something about a synthetic duplicate. The question was, what should Lucy do about it?
She moved around to the front of the desk. A white lab coat draped over the chair smelled of Mercurochrome and rubbing alcohol and evoked Dr. Lessing as clearly as if she were standing there. Lucy felt a flutter of fear. Looking increasingly nervous, Sammy followed her over to the desk. Lucy flipped open the front cover of the folder. There was the photo, beginning to fade now. Her hair longer. Her face younger. High school seemed centuries ago. Words jumped out at her.
“Subject shows natural resilience to the highest degree. Possible living source of Mother Vaccine. Risk of death to the subject from controlled blood extraction—97.2%.”
“God,” Lucy said. Her hand started shaking.
“What’s all this medical mumbo jumbo?” Sammy asked, poking his finger at the page.
“It’s all about me, Sammy. My blood.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “Why would they have a file like this on you? There must be a hundred pages. What’s your blood made of? Twenty-four karat gold?”
She shook her head.
“We have to destroy this stuff.” She picked up the folder. It was heavy; the papers spilled from it. She kneeled and picked them up. There was a report from when she’d sliced open her calf running through the glass door. There were even the results from the mandatory state physicals all students had to take. Her entire physical history, gathered in one place. I’ll take it with me, she decided. She pulled opened the rest of the drawers. They slid easily on metal runners. More folders filed neatly. Unfamiliar names. She wondered if any were kids like her, before remembering that the doctor had called her an anomaly. Lucy ignored them, moving on to a thin stack of notebooks covered in Dr. Lessing’s neat handwriting. She opened one, scanned the pages, filled with numbers and strange symbols, reams of medical language she couldn’t begin to understand, and some diary-like entries, which seemed oddly personal. Lucy’s name leapt off of the pages. Opening her backpack, she stashed them and her medical folder inside. Then she turned to the cabinet holding the samples. It stood as tall as she was. She opened the door and gazed at the rows of glass vials glistening like rubies. There were ten neatly labeled with her name.
She could destroy them; it would be easy. But she hesitated. Insane as Dr. Lessing seemed, she was trying to protect the human race.
“Whoa,” said Sammy. He kept an eye on the door.
Lucy spared a glance for him. “This is evil stuff, Sammy. That’s my blood in there, and who knows what else.”
His teasing expression turned serious.
“Okay. Finish what you’ve got to do, and then let’s find Aidan and get out of here.”
Lucy debated. She picked up one of the tubes and held it in her hand. If a cure really did reside in her blood, then it would be wrong not to give that much at least. She tried to see past the emotional, the feeling that she had been violated, and the knowledge that she had been drugged against her will. With a sigh, she closed the cabinet door. Hardly knowing why, she decided to take one and leave the rest.