“This looks like it could be fun,” West said sarcastically as he took it all in.
Dr. Evans crossed to one of the cabinets along the back wall. He read the labels, bending at the waist as he went down. He pulled the second to bottom one open. Carefully, he thumbed through the few files and pages that were in it.
“Not in here,” he said with a sigh. “Of course not.”
“What happened in here?” Bill asked as he looked around the room.
“When the investigation into NovaTor started, there were some very…aggressive men they sent out,” Dr. Evans said as he knelt and started looking through papers. “Little did they understand the value of all the research in this room.”
“Is there any use in us trying to help you look through all this?” I asked. My skin felt itchy, as if waiting for something to happen at any moment. I couldn’t trust that nothing would. “We could get Morgan settled.”
Dr. Evans looked up at us with dark and annoyed eyes. He had no interest in trying to save that child. But he did need my cooperation. “Go ahead. It probably isn’t the best idea for all of you humans to be in such close quarters to me anyway. The medical labs are on the floor below this one. Get her settled. I’ll come down as soon as I find the code.”
“Unless you need me, I think I’ll stay and help Grandpa,” West said, glancing up at us as he knelt on the paper covered floor.
“No,” I said, giving him a small smile. “You stay.”
He gave an appreciative smile back.
He’d thought beyond a shadow of a doubt that his entire family was gone, and now he’d found his grandfather. They hadn’t gotten the chance to spend any time together yet.
I could give West this one small thing.
The three of us went back up the stairs, out the lobby, and back out to the solar van. Avian opened the doors and leaned over the seat to check on Morgan.
Even I could hear her labored breathing.
It felt like losing Sarah all over again. But this time there were two lives about to be lost.
“She’s not doing very well, is she?” I asked as I leaned against the door.
Avian looked back at me and shook his head. “Her pulse is very slow and she’s running a temperature. If it gets too high, she’ll basically cook the baby.”
“How long do you think she has?” I asked.
“Impossible to say,” he said. “It all depends on if this fever escalates, on how good the medical equipment here is, if any of it still works.”
“We’ll do our best,” Bill said, stepping forward. He and Avian carefully lifted her while I carried her IV bag and the portable oxygen unit.
It took us probably thirty minutes, at least, to get her inside the building, down the two narrow flights of stairs, and into the medical unit. It would have helped if we’d thought to clear the way first. There was debris everywhere.
But finally, with the lights on and a new oxygen tank hooked up, we settled Morgan into a hospital bed. Bill and I stepped back while Avian bustled around, fiddling with her oxygen, hooking up a new IV bag and looking for other equipment we would need.
“I’m looking for a trach tube,” he said when I asked what I could do to help. “She’s eventually going to give out and I’m hoping we can wait until the last second to pull the baby out. We’re going to need a surgical room when that time comes.”
Avian suddenly stilled as he fiddled with Morgan’s wires. His eyes slowly rose up to meet mine.
“It’s okay,” I said, swallowing the cotton ball that formed in my mouth. “I can go look for one. I’ll get things ready.”
“Eve,” he said, his eyes pained. He needed help, but he couldn’t ask me to go looking for the room that was the cause of endless nightmares for me. The room that would change my very personality forever. “I can do it in a bit.”
“No, it’s fine,” I insisted. I rubbed my palms against my pants; they were sweating despite the freezing cold temperatures. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
I turned and exited the room. Faintly, I heard Avian ask Bill to come with me. He followed suit a moment later.
I didn’t mind.
“So how much of this place is familiar?” Bill asked as we walked down a hall. There were endless rooms in this wing, all identical to the one we had placed Morgan in.
“All of it seems vaguely familiar,” I said, shaking my head. My insides had started shaking. “If we were to go to the floor I lived on I think I’d know certain places for sure. I started recovering some memories when the Underground was studying my brain.”
Bill just grunted in acknowledgement, but didn’t push the matter further.
Sometimes Bill was so easy to get along with.
We reached the end of a corridor and, here, there were three sterilized rooms.
I definitely recognized them.
My head was cold.
My body was frozen.
There were voices behind me.
I blacked out.
FIFTEEN
I blinked awake to a dull light overhead. The air was warmer now, but just slightly. There was a heaviness pressing down on me. I sat up to find myself on a hospital bed, a blanket tucked around my arms and legs. My rifle was tipped up against the wall to the side of the door.
I was just about to climb out of the bed when Avian walked in.
His face said everything.
“Avian,” I jumped in before he could even start. “It’s fine. That shouldn’t have happened. I’m rather embarrassed that it did.”
Avian shook his head, his eyes rising to the ceiling. He didn’t come any closer which didn’t make me feel better. Avian kept his distance when he felt he had something to be ashamed of. “That was stupid of me. And insensitive. I feel like the world’s biggest jerk.”
“Stop it,” I chided, starting to feel a bit annoyed.
“Eve, this was exactly like before, when you had your blackouts,” he said, pain in his voice. “You’ve gotten a pretty good hold on your emotions, but no one can expect you to overcome every fear. That’s not an emotion easily blocked out.”
I had to consider that for a moment. Fear wasn’t something I gave much thought to. If anything, it was the emotion I was least familiar with. Maybe it was logical that it was the one emotion that could still send me into a full blackout.
“I’m fine,” I said again, crossing the room to him. I pressed a kiss to his cheek, but he just looked at me with doubt in his eyes. “Seriously. What do you need me to help with now? Though it does seem best if I avoid the surgical rooms.”
“We’re set for now,” he said. We started down the hall, but didn’t go far before we stopped outside a door. I saw Morgan inside. She was now hooked up to a machine that beeped and showed green lines that told us she was still alive. There was a thick band around her belly and another monitor that gave small, quick beats as well.
The baby’s monitor.
“How long was I out?” I asked as I watched the green line jump and fall.
“About forty minutes,” he said, leaning in the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest.
“I have to ask that question way too often,” I said, shaking my head. It was ridiculous.
Avian just gave a small smile. “I’m supposed to send you to the lab when you’re ready.”
“Did he find it?” I asked, my heart suddenly jumping into my throat.
“Yeah,” he said with a nod and a suppressed smile.
Instantly, my heart was sprinting in my chest and my ears suddenly started ringing.
He’d found it. For real. He’d found the code to unblock my own kill code. We really did have a chance at winning this thing.
“I hardly believe it,” I said, shaking my head as my brows furrowed. “The world just seems too far gone.”