“He only discovered it this morning,” Chatterjee was saying. “He was down to his last hours. So he took the portable tank to make a run for the last tanks at the hospital.”
“By himself?” Alex limped over to the nearest cot, but before she could get there, her left leg gave out and she collapsed onto the floor. “None of you would go with him?”
In the back Rocky stepped out from behind the other kids. His voice came, high-pitched and young. “I wanted to go. But Patrick wouldn’t let me. He and Dr. Chatterjee said I couldn’t.”
“Nobody but a ten-year-old?” Alex said. “Nobody?”
A shame-filled silence.
“Not in broad daylight,” Ben called down from the bleachers.
“He’ll be killed,” Alex said. “He’ll be killed before I see him.”
“Probably,” Ben said. “But he was gonna die anyways once that tank ran out. So he didn’t have much of a choice, really.”
I glared up at him. “These tanks were tampered with.”
“Come on, Chance,” Ben said. “Who would want to do that?”
“You.”
He looked directly at me. “I didn’t touch those tanks.”
“Then you had your lackeys do it.”
“I will talk to my guys, and if any of them messed with those tanks, they will answer to me.”
“Liar!” Grabbing her hockey stick, Alex tried to get up to charge Ben, but her leg wouldn’t hold her weight anymore. She fell over, the stick clattering away.
“If I was you,” Ben said, his eyes never leaving mine, “I’d go help your brother. And fast.” He turned his face to the window again. “Doesn’t look like he’s doing so hot out there alone.”
My rage boiled over. Firming my grip on the baling hooks, I started for the bleachers.
Eve stepped in front of me, her hands planted on my chest. “Patrick needs you.”
Every fiber in my body was pulling me up those bleachers to add to Ben’s scars. But she was right.
I turned and ran out, hammering through the double doors, darting past the lookouts, grabbing a key from the windowsill. Charging through the front door, I jumped over the steps, unlocked the padlock, and slipped through the gate. There were no Hosts nearby, but even if there had been, they wouldn’t have stopped me.
The sky brightened as I sprinted through the teachers’ parking lot, hurdling the hedges. Heading toward the hospital, I scanned the front yards for movement. Though a few weeks ago running down a street in broad daylight would have been normal, it felt bizarre now. Exhaustion and stress dragged on me. My chest was heaving, but I kept on.
I was driven by love, sure. But also by guilt.
I hurdled a flower bed, ran across the Everstons’ porch, and leapt over a tricycle on its side. Above the rooftops I could see the rise of the hospital. I shot through a side yard, darting beneath a carport, knifing my body so I wouldn’t slam into a silver Airstream trailer parked in the front driveway.
Squeezing between the trailer and a row of trash bins, I popped out into the front yard.
I heard movement behind me.
When I glanced over my shoulder, three Chasers flew out of the shadows beneath the carport. I must’ve sprinted past them without even noticing.
They’d caught me off guard. As I twisted around, raising the baling hooks, my feet tangled, spilling me onto the ground.
They barreled at me, muscles straining through their skin. There was no time to get up and fight. I crossed the hooks protectively over my head. It was the only thing I could do.
All of a sudden, footsteps hammered overhead.
I squinted up to see a figure flying across the roof of the house, backlit by the rising sun.
Between the portable tank rigged onto his back like a scuba tank, the shotgun angled across his chest, and the heavy-duty mask erasing his features, he looked like a superhero.
The shadow took flight off the roof, passing directly over the heads of the Chasers, swinging the shotgun around so it aimed straight down between his legs.
Thunder.
The scattered buckshot blew the Chasers to pieces on the driveway before me.
The form continued overhead, landing on the Airstream with a thump, cratering the metal.
I was on my back, my arm raised against the morning glare.
“Chance.” My brother’s voice was distorted through the mask. “Get up here now.” Leaning over, he stuck his hand out for me.
Scrambling to my feet, I grabbed it, and he hauled me up.
“Back onto the roof of the house,” he said. “Before others come.”
I ran down the length of the Airstream, dodging the open sunroof, gaining momentum to leap across the gap to the top of the carport. I made it easily. I turned to watch my brother.
The weight of the tank pulling down on him, Patrick sprinted across the Airstream after me. Just as he was about to leap, a clawlike hand shot through the sunroof, grabbing for his ankle, tripping him.
He stumbled, kept his feet, his force carrying him to the end of the Airstream. Somehow he managed to jump across the gap, but he landed hard, rolling over his shoulder.
One of the straps snapped, the tank spinning away from him. The mask pulled free of his mouth, yanked down below his chin, exhaling a hiss of oxygen. The tubing popped free. The tank rolled and rolled toward the edge of the carport roof.
Then it went over.
A second later I heard a clang as it hit the driveway below.
Patrick was holding his breath, his cheeks already turning red, veins standing out in his throat. The collision had knocked the air out of him. I was a few feet away, standing over him, paralyzed.
It was all happening so fast.
I saw his lips part.
Then he pulled in a breath.
ENTRY 40
We were frozen there atop the carport, me on my feet, Patrick knocked over.
He breathed the infected air again.
I didn’t know if we had two seconds or two minutes before he transformed.
“It’s okay.” He tugged the mask off over his head and tossed it to the side. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Anger and grief and denial crushed in on me, all mixed together. “But I got Alex,” I said. “I got her home safe.”
He gave a faint, sad smile. I could read the relief in it. And so much more.
“I know how you feel about her,” he said.
He did? I was shocked.
But my surprise was nothing next to what we were facing.
“Take care of her,” he said. “And make sure she takes care of you.”
He flipped the shotgun around, extending the stock to me.
“Now,” he said. “Are you ready?”
No.
I couldn’t get my mouth to answer.
“Chance,” he said, firmly. “This is gonna happen any second now. Are you ready?”
No.
I took the shotgun. He put his fist around the end of the muzzle, held the bore to his forehead, and looked up at me. Our eyes locked. I watched his lungs fill and contract, fill and contract.
I waited for that full-body shudder.
But nothing happened.
A minute passed. And then another.
Patrick let the shotgun bore slip from his face. “This is weird,” he said.
I coughed out something like a laugh. “This is impossible.”
Noises drifted up from below us, and we peered over the edge of the carport. Hosts were moving up the street from the town square, drawn by the blast.
Patrick stood, swiped the shotgun back from me, and hopped onto the roof of the house, heading back toward school. “Either way,” he said, “let’s get the hell out of here while we can.”
We entered the gym quietly, slipping through the double doors. The kids sat in rows on the basketball courts, the cots cleared to the side for the day. Alex sat on the lowest bleacher, having just finished talking to them all. Judging from the mood, it was clear what news she’d related.