Rafe gave me a disgruntled look but he nodded.
“So Cosmo won’t go feral, right?” I pressed. “It’s fine if he sleeps inside the cottage with us.” I didn’t wait for Rafe to answer. I turned to Cosmo and smiled. “Why don’t you go pick out which bed you want?”
He eyed Rafe warily and pointed to the kitchen. “I sleep in there.”
“You don’t have to,” I said. “We’re here if a feral breaks in.”
“Have you ever slept in a bed, Cosmo?” Everson asked.
Cosmo dropped the glasses he’d been holding and ran back into the kitchen, shaking his head as he went.
“Nice going. You hurt his feelings,” Rafe said with a smirk.
I started for the kitchen but Everson strode past me and disappeared through the swinging door.
“What are you doing?” I asked as Rafe slung a couple of canteens over his shoulder.
“Going to the lake,” he said, as if it were obvious. “We need water.” He caught my look of horror. “I’ll boil it.”
“No, the weevlings! And the rogue feral?”
He gestured to the ax he’d tucked into his belt. “Not my first road trip.”
He shouldn’t be the one to go; I’d used up the water. “Can’t we get it in the morning?”
“It’ll take me ten minutes.” He shoved the couch aside enough to crack open the door. “Then I’ll check the garage for a jack.” He paused in the doorway. “Unless you want to go skinny-dipping. I’d risk being out at night for that.”
“Funny,” I said.
“What? You don’t know how to swim?” he teased.
“Not in an unchlorinated lake in the Feral Zone at night, I don’t.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” He slipped outside. “Come out if you change your mind,” he said and pulled the door closed behind him.
Without a second thought, I settled next to the fireplace and tossed on another chair leg. A surge of smoke warmed my face and I smothered a cough against my arm. Everson came in with the blanket around his shoulders. He shrugged it off and joined me on the floor, looking grouchy.
“How’s Cosmo?” I asked.
“Curled up in the pantry. He says only ‘people’ get to sleep in beds.”
“He’s a person,” I protested.
“Apparently not in Chicago.” Everson snagged his gray shirt from the back of the chair where it had been drying and pulled it on.
With him so close, I suddenly felt as dirty and drab as an old dish towel. I hadn’t washed my face since yesterday. I should have done it when we were by the — No. What a stupid thought — washing my face while Everson rinsed the blood out of his pants. My father was missing, I was camping in the Feral Zone, and suddenly I wanted to clean up in case this boy glanced over? Considering how intently he was watching the fire, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Anyway, being grubby was a good thing. I was officially a fetch now. A profession that required going unnoticed — especially by line guards. Even the ones with nice hands.
“You’re staring.” He looked over — not out-and-out smiling, but clearly in an improved mood.
My stomach dropped. “I was thinking …” I struggled to come up with an excuse. “That they’re probably worried about you back on Arsenal.”
He shrugged. “Let ’em worry.”
“So, no girlfriend then, waiting back at camp … worrying.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to throw myself into the fire. I had wondered, but what was the point of humiliating myself? I was here to do a fetch, not fall for some boy.
If Everson thought I was pathetic, he didn’t let on. “Nope.” He leaned back to prop himself up on his elbows, legs outstretched. “Guards don’t do it for me,” he said finally.
“Got something against camo?”
“No. It looks good on the right person.” He shot me a smile, which warmed me right down to my toes.
When he didn’t say anything more, I asked, “Is it because you’re not a guard on the inside?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Line guards have one job: Keep the virus out of the West. We’re trained to think of ourselves as the first line of defense. The wall is the second. And the ferals? They’re ‘the enemy who have the potential to infect and/or kill every man, woman, and child in America.’”
“Sick people aren’t the enemy,” I protested.
“The patrol doesn’t call them sick because then you might feel sorry for them. And when you spot one on a raft, trying to cross the river, you’d hesitate instead of shooting him in the head like you’re supposed to. There’s no gray area for line guards. Empathy just messes them up. Which is why the captain says: To protect the population, you have to stop seeing the people.” Everson sat up again, looking like he’d just swallowed vinegar. “I don’t ever want to stop seeing the people. But I can’t say that to another guard.”
Everything about this boy was so right — from his compassion to his soft lips. It was almost enough to make me forget that kissing spread germs. “What you’re doing — coming here, searching for the strains that Dr. Solis needs — it’s really noble.”
Everson frowned. “It’s not. It’s what the line patrol should be doing. The Titan Corporation started this. They should fix it, not just put up a wall.” His shoulders drew together, like he was keeping something vast trapped inside of him. “Know why Ilsa Prejean hired scientists to find a way to create chimeras in the first place? Because she wanted a Minotaur for her maze.” He practically spit the words.
His bile wasn’t unusual. Titan’s CEO had gone from being the most loved woman in America — universally admired for her incredible imagination — to the most hated. Even now, nineteen years later, people were still sending her death threats. “I read that she’s a total recluse now, terrified to leave her penthouse, and that she looks like Howard Hughes. Scary, unkempt.”
“She doesn’t look like Howard Hughes,” Everson said, his eyes on the fire.
“How do you know?”
He took a breath and turned to me. “Ilsa Prejean is my mother.”
20
I stared at Everson. He may as well have said that he was the crown prince of fairyland. Or demonland, according to my dad, who hated the Titan Corporation as much as he hated cancer.
“And there it is.” Everson nodded at my expression. “Man, do I love getting that look.”
He was the baby born during the construction of the wall. The baby whose birth had turned a lot of people into savages. They’d plotted — publically — to infect him with Ferae so that Ilsa Prejean would know what it was like to lose a child. No wonder she was paranoid about his health. I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “Why is your last name Cruz?”
“It was my dad’s name.”
An itchy, rashy feeling erupted across my skin. Ilsa Prejean’s hubris had destroyed the world, and yet she was richer than ever — richer than 99 percent of the country. Her company, Titan, had single-handedly brought down America, but had gone on to become one of the most powerful corporations in history. And Everson would inherit it all.
“Why are you here?” I asked hoarsely. “On this side of the wall?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not to me.” There had been so many clues. The captain refusing to risk Everson’s health when he’d wanted to take the bullet out of Bangor’s leg. Bearly and Fairfax being assigned to look out for him. Even Rafe had noticed that Everson was treated differently. I should have figured it out back in the supply closet. He’d certainly dropped enough hints. I managed to get my feet beneath me and stood.