They were talking about a blood farm, the same kind they had found in Dansby. Men, women, and children harvested by the ghouls to supply them with a never-ending flow of fresh blood. Because the ghouls couldn’t watch over the “farms” in the daytime, they needed human collaborators to do the job. That was where these men in hazmat suits came in. They wore the suits to distinguish themselves from other humans, to let the ghouls know they were part of the team. Lara had learned all this from a young collaborator named Kevin.
“And then what?” Will asked her.
“What does that mean?”
He was looking at her carefully, in that calm, non-argumentative way that was, nonetheless, argumentative. It sometimes annoyed the hell out of her.
“We can’t take them with us, Lara,” he said. “You know that. What happened the last time we stumbled across one of these farms?”
“We freed one of them.”
“No, we got lucky. We still don’t know how they put those people in a coma. Or if it’s even a coma. Even you didn’t know, and you’re the doctor.”
Third-year medical student, she thought, but didn’t say it out loud.
“We need to stay on course, keep going,” Will continued.
“They could be around here,” she insisted. “Hundreds. Maybe thousands. This city is thousands of times bigger than Dansby.”
“Even more reason not to try to find them.”
“See no evil, hear no evil, is that it?”
“In this case, yes.”
She was flustered. It had been a while since she had thought of Will as someone who wasn’t always and completely on her side. She felt that now, and it was a terrible, hollow feeling. The worst part was, he was so damn cold and detached about it.
“Danny?” she said. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s right,” Danny said, almost apologetically. “Carly, the girls, you, and those teenagers. We don’t have the ability to save any more people. Hell, we don’t even have the space. Once we get everyone to Song Island, and it turns out to be the safe haven we hope it is, then we can come back here. It’s not like they’ll be going anywhere, right?”
She was suddenly annoyed with both of them, but especially with Will. But most of all, she hated knowing they were both right. They had the others to look after. The girls. Josh and Gaby. One of these men had almost killed Josh.
But knowing and accepting were different animals. She felt guilty and angry at the same time, and the feeling made her skin crawl.
“Lara,” Will said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She wanted to shake it off, but she willed herself not to. “This is my call. Okay?”
She looked at him. His call. He was doing it again, taking the burden of the hard decisions, putting it on himself. Because he could handle it. Because he was Will, ex-Army Ranger, ex-SWAT commando, and there was nothing he couldn’t handle.
But she knew better. She saw him at night, when he wasn’t so sure, so steely-eyed, when they made love and he sighed against her like any other man, not the Superman everyone else had come to rely on. She remembered when he had confessed that he was afraid, back in Lancing.
“That scares me,” he had said, “because it means whatever happens, wherever we go, it might not be enough to protect you.”
Protect me. He does everything to protect me.
“What about him?” she asked, looking down at the dead man on the floor.
“I think it’s a bit too late for him, Doc,” Danny said.
“Let’s go,” Will said, “before more of them show up. A city this size has got to have a pretty big blood farm, and it must take more than one asshole to watch over it.”
The others were waiting outside. The trucks were gassed up, and their supplies were back where they belonged. Carly was outside the truck, the girls peering out of a window over her shoulder, the air conditioner blasting away at their hair.
“How many?” Carly asked.
“Just the one,” Danny said.
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Where there’s one, there’re usually more. And they must have heard the gunshots, but they didn’t show up, so…” He shrugged. “Maybe they’re scared and know we’re bad men with guns.”
“Either way, we’re not sticking around to find out,” Will said.
“I like that idea,” Carly nodded.
Danny climbed back into the Frontier with Carly, while Lara followed Will to the Ridgeline.
“I’m sorry,” he said, when it was just the two of them outside.
“Don’t be,” she said. “You’re looking out for us, doing what’s best. And you’re right. We can’t do anything for them anyway.”
She thought about Megan, a girl they had saved from the Dansby blood farm, only to lose track of her during the siege at the facility that very same night. Lara didn’t even know what happened to Megan, and in the months since, she had always wondered if bringing Megan back with them had been the right thing to do. It had felt like the right thing at the time, but Megan might think otherwise now. She would still be at the farm, yes, but she would still be alive.
Or some kind of “alive”…
“Still, I’m sorry,” Will said.
She gave him a pursed smile, her own way of apologizing. He brushed hair out of her eyes, a simple move that always made her feel like a teenager. “What about Gaby?”
“What about her?”
“I think one of us should talk to her. About what happened.”
“She’s a tough kid. She’ll be fine.”
“That’s it? She’s a tough kid so she’ll be fine?”
“I’ve seen people like Gaby before, Lara. She’ll be fine.”
Lara wasn’t convinced as they climbed back into the Ridgeline. Josh and Gaby were in the back, and Lara fought the urge to flinch at the sight of Josh’s face. His eyes were bruised and swollen, his left eye in particular puffed up to twice the size of his right. His nose was broken, with a small Band-Aid over the bridge. His lips were cut, but they had stopped bleeding. Although Lara was sure the teenager was in some pain, he looked more embarrassed than hurt.
Gaby, on the other hand, looked fine sitting next to Josh, handing him a bottle of water every other minute and fussing over him. Lara wondered if it was all a front. Maybe Gaby was going through some things inside her head that she couldn’t express in words. Lara remembered the first time she had killed someone. It still lingered with her, something she didn’t think would ever go away.
And this wasn’t even Gaby’s first time. They knew about Betts and how Gaby killed him so they could escape. Both times, Gaby was justified in what she did. Lara would have done the same in her place. Carly, Will, and Danny, too. But they were older, and they had seen more. Gaby was eighteen, but looking at her now, fussing over Josh, Lara couldn’t tell if that calmness was an act, a brave front, or the real thing.
Either way, that’s a tough girl. Maybe Will’s right.
“You guys ready?” Lara asked.
“Good to go,” Gaby said.
Josh gave her a thumbs-up. When he tried to talk, his words slurred, a combination of the pain medication she had given him and his bruises, so he had stopped trying.
Will started the Ridgeline and eased them back onto the feeder road, where they continued parallel to the highway. There was just enough space along the small roads that they could use them instead of braving the congestion, even though every other half mile meant driving up onto the sidewalks, sometimes even the lawns, before moving back to the streets.
It was slow going, but they were making steady progress. Lara was worried about the Frontier behind them. It was pulling the cargo trailer and had more trouble going up and down the sidewalks, so she kept in touch with Carly as much as possible.