“You paged me?” Dr. Reynolds enters the room, eyeing me.
“Ms. Harris isn’t reacting well to her treatments,” she says loudly, upset. “The electroshock therapy has obviously worsened her condition.”
“Please,” I beg. “Let me go.”
“The trial treatments were a mistake,” she tells him, frowning.
“How were we supposed to know that?” Dr. Reynolds asks calmly. “She seemed like a promising candidate.”
“Perhaps we should continue with her original medication,” Dr. Thorpe suggests.
“It was ineffective against her psychosis.” Dr. Reynolds glances at me. “Maybe if we up the dosage?” Dr. Reynolds scribbles on my chart before he hands it to Dr. Thorpe.
She reads it and stops. “But that’s nearly twice the dosage!”
Dr. Reynolds looks at her. “Do you disagree with my prescription?” he asks coldly.
Dr. Thorpe flinches slightly. “No . . . I agree completely.”
Dr. Reynolds leaves, but Dr. Thorpe stays and stares at me for a moment. She takes a deep breath before stepping outside my room, returning a few moments later to give me a shot. The sedative takes effect almost immediately. I begin to lose myself.
She stands over me as I try to keep my eyes open.
“Please . . . ,” I whisper. “If you tie me up, I can’t escape from Them. Please . . .”
Dr. Thorpe’s figure blurs as the medicine takes hold. “There is nothing to worry about,” she tells me as I lose consciousness. “Everything is just fine.”
The past few weeks were hell. Kay was riding my ass even harder than usual. On top of that, my mother was almost never around. If it wasn’t for Vivian, I would have been lost. I’d drafted her to help me babysit and sometimes she slept over. We talked about everything we missed from Before. Baby loved our sleepovers and tried to stay up with us but always conked out long before we did.
That evening, though, I was alone on the couch in my pajamas, reading. My muscles ached and I was tired from training. All I wanted to do was relax.
Amy. Suddenly Baby was standing over me, back from the bedroom. The noise has stopped. Baby looked half relieved, half frightened.
What do you mean? I asked.
The noise is gone. Baby explained. The humming.
What hum—? I sucked in a breath as I realized what she was trying to say. The sonic emitters. If it was quiet, it meant . . .
My thoughts were interrupted by a scream that sliced through the silence. I jumped off the couch, flipping off lights as I went. Baby, stay there, I told her as I ran to our bedroom. I looked out the window into the courtyard below.
A chill settled over me and I began to tremble. A pack of Them was in the Quad, feasting. I crouched down, my head in my hands, rocking back and forth. I couldn’t let myself completely break down. Baby watched me from the doorway.
Baby, it’s Them. They’re here now.
Baby shook her head, not wanting to believe me.
I froze and tried to think. We couldn’t run, I knew that much. We couldn’t wait either. Wooden doors didn’t offer much protection. They would be busy for a few minutes with the people outside, but They’d managed to spread across the world in a matter of days. It wouldn’t take Them long to wipe out the population of New Hope.
My mother would be prepared for something like this. I took a deep breath to calm down. Then I remembered Adam, in his room. Baby, check on Adam. If he’s awake, make sure he’s quiet. She nodded, her instinctive survival skills resurfacing.
I ran down the hall and surveyed my mother’s room. She would have a gun somewhere, but she’d want to keep it away from Adam. My eye caught a metal box on the highest shelf in the closet. I pulled over her desk chair to retrieve it. Please don’t be locked. Shaking, I fiddled with the catch.
The box swung open and I half laughed, half cried out. There was a gun and a full clip of bullets. It was a Guardian gun, completely silent. The kind I’d been practicing with for months. I quickly loaded the clip and ran to check on Baby.
She was standing over Adam’s crib, silently watching him. She turned when I entered the room, though I hadn’t made a sound.
The noise is back now, she told me. The emitters were on again, but that wouldn’t help with the Floraes already inside New Hope. It would only agitate Them.
I have to go. I have to find Them. The ones that got inside. The people of New Hope were loud and ignorant. They didn’t know how to deal with the Floraes in anything but theory.
Should I come? Baby asked. I can help you hear Them.
No, stay with Adam. He needs you now. Make sure he’s quiet. If one of Them gets in, hide.
What if he cries? Her face was desperate. She loved him too.
Make him understand. If you have to, leave him. As soon as I signed the words, I regretted them, but I didn’t have time to rethink my decision. I couldn’t allow Baby to die. It was better one of them survived than neither. I shook the dark thought from my head as I hurried downstairs.
I silently slipped through the door and quickly scanned the area. They were everywhere in the Quad: at least ten had already found victims, several more crouched, ready to run down anything They heard. One loped toward me and I reacted automatically, aiming for its head, just like in target practice. I squeezed the trigger.
It fell, twitching, and two more pounced on it, tearing into its yellow-green flesh. There were quite a few feeding, but I left them for now. They wouldn’t be done for a while and I was more concerned with the creatures still looking for food. After, I could go back and pick off the feeding Floraes one by one.
I heard one behind me and spun around to fire.
“Cool it, it’s just me.”
Kay’s voice came from the hood of a synth-suit. She blended in with the night and I had to squint to make out her form.
Her voice carried across the Quad, and several Floraes looked up at us, torn between their fresh kills and the promise of more meat. I sprinted quickly to her side and placed my head next to her ear.
“What is happening?!” I whispered desperately.
Kay shook her head. “I wish I knew.”
“Do you have an extra synth-suit?”
“At the Rumble Room . . . I can’t spare a Guardian to go with you, but I could give you my keycard . . .”
“That would take too long. Forget it. I’ll be fine without one. I’m used to this.”
“Good luck,” Kay whispered, and disappeared into the night. Hopefully the Guardians were prepared. This wasn’t search and rescue, this was war. The Guardians were accustomed to meeting the Floraes with other Guardians as backup. We had to protect the people of New Hope now. They were absolutely defenseless.
I felt dangerously exposed with the moonlight reflecting off my pale skin and white pajamas. But at least I had a gun. I snapped into focus.
There was a Florae to my left. I knew it had spotted me because of its frenzied snarl and its sudden galloping strides. I turned and shot it in the shoulder, which barely slowed it down. I re-aimed and managed to get its neck. Its momentum threw it forward and it fell at my feet, its head flopping to the side. Black-green blood spurted and I jumped back. I didn’t want the scent of blood on me.