The kids’ faces were as blank as dolls’, as blank as those of the Hosts themselves. Shock hung like a cloud in the room. It was so much to come to terms with, especially for the younger ones.
But they deserved the truth.
They deserved to know what was in store for them at the Lawrenceville Cannery if they were ever caught.
No one noticed me and Patrick standing at the back of the gym.
At last the spell broke. A few of the kids started crying. JoJo sat between the Mendez twins, trying to comfort them, but they were inconsolable.
“I don’t understand,” Eve said. “Why would they do this?”
Dr. Chatterjee rose unevenly on his braced legs, his hands clasped before him. “If these beings are indeed implanting offspring as Alex suggests…” He paused uneasily, cleared his throat. This was obviously difficult for him to talk about. “Then young specimens would provide the best… nutrients… for the growing offspring. Children have a lot of good healthy tissue for the offspring to…” He forced out the next words. “Feed off.” A deep breath. “As for the bones, the epiphyses-the growth plates-are most active in children, which could serve to accelerate maturation for a parasitic entity.” Seeming to lose his train of thought, he stopped briefly, his mouth wavering. “I’d hypothesize that the older kids are being used because hormone levels are highest during puberty, which would best support growth…” He took off his eyeglasses, wiped them on the hem of his shirt. For a moment he looked lost.
Then he did something that caught us all off guard. He lowered his eyes into the fold of his hand and wept. We remained silent while his sobs filled the gym.
“If you can’t handle this,” Ben said, hopping up onto the bleachers and walking behind Chatterjee and Alex, “then you’re in serious trouble. Because kids getting implanted isn’t what we should be worried about right now.”
“What should we be worried about?” Dezi Siegler called out.
Ben took his time and looked at the crowd. The heel of his hand rested on the butt of his stun gun. “You should be worried about who’s gonna protect you when those things hatch.”
A chill of fear rippled through the kids.
Patrick broke the silence from the back of the gym: “Know what I’m worried about?”
Every head turned; every face lit with amazement.
There my brother stood, without a mask. Breathing real air.
“I’m worried about who loosened the valves on my tanks and let all the oxygen out,” Patrick said, striding forward. “I couldn’t have this conversation with you before, Ben. I was in too much of a rush to save my life. But turns out I don’t need the tanks after all.”
Ben looked shaken. Forgetting he was in the bleachers, he tried to take a step back, the bench behind him catching him at the calves. He sat down hard in the footwell.
At the sight of my brother, Alex stood, bearing most of her weight on her good leg. “Patrick? How are you breathing?”
As my brother threaded his way through the kids, they gazed up in wonderment. He reached the bleachers, and Alex threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him hard. They kissed.
I stood to the side, doing my best not to look.
Patrick and Alex broke apart, and he turned to face the others, his arm around her. Everyone clapped. I could feel heat rise to my face; I only hoped it didn’t show.
“I’m lucky to be alive,” Patrick said. “And I’m even luckier Chance is my brother.” He dipped his head, a rare show of embarrassment. “Thanks for bringing Alex back.”
Everyone’s attention swung to me. Eve watched me very closely.
I gave a dumb little wave because I didn’t know what else to do. Then I took the black cowboy hat off my head.
And put it back on Patrick’s where it belonged.
ENTRY 41
Moths swirled in the shafts of light falling through the windows of the biology lab. Once Dr. Chatterjee had examined Alex’s leg and prescribed ice, Advil, and rest, she’d curled up on her cot and fallen asleep. Then he’d asked to meet with me and Patrick privately. He’d led us to his old classroom. Sitting behind his dusty desk now, he played with a DNA model made of rubber.
“The unidentified-particulate readings haven’t diminished since your eighteenth birthday, Patrick,” he said. “Not one bit.”
“Do you think he might have passed some window of vulnerability or something?” I asked.
“I don’t think that’s likely.”
“Why not?”
“Because so far everything about these spores, these… beings, has been maximally aggressive and effective. A brief infection window is neither. Plus, Occam’s razor dictates that the simplest solution is often the correct one.” Chatterjee spun the rubber ladder in his hands. “Which in this case would be genetic immunity.”
“If I have it, then Chance has it, too,” Patrick said. “I mean, these things are hereditary, right?”
The hope in his voice was so clear. As was the desperation.
“We won’t know for two and a half more years,” Chatterjee said, “when Chance turns eighteen. But I don’t think it’s as likely as in… other families.”
Watching that genetic model rotating in his hands, I felt my heart pounding. “What do you mean?” I said.
Patrick drew himself upright. “What are you talking about?”
“Your parents wanted to keep it all quiet for some reason. I counseled them against it, but I couldn’t say anything due to medical confidentiality. But now I don’t really see the point anymore, since everyone’s gone. You’re the only ones who… who…”
“Dr. Chatterjee,” Patrick said, his teeth clenched. “Will you please get to the point?”
Chatterjee set the DNA ladder down on his desk, finally looking up at us. “Your mother had some fertility issues. For a time she thought she couldn’t have kids. But your parents wanted children very badly. And your mother wanted to be pregnant, to carry you both. They kept trying to find a way. And finally they did.” He took a deep breath. “You were both born by embryo transfer.”
You could have knocked Patrick and me over with the tap of a finger.
The bags beneath Chatterjee’s eyes made clear what a toll these past weeks had taken on him. Bad news piling on top of bad news, and him the only adult in sight.
“So that means…” My brain was still a half step behind. “Patrick and I might have had different biological mothers?”
“Yes,” Chatterjee said. “If the genetic code that makes Patrick immune is from the maternal side-”
Patrick looked crestfallen. “Then Chance wouldn’t be immune like I am.”
For a moment silence reigned.
I thought about how much bigger than me Patrick always was. Stronger, too. The way everyone joked about how little family resemblance we had. And our personalities also had been different from the gates. Our interests and talents seemed to pull us in different directions from the beginning.
“Wouldn’t you know if the egg donor was the same?” Patrick asked. “I mean, you were our doctor. You delivered us. Wouldn’t that be in a file somewhere?”
“I’m afraid that information was kept confidential even from me. It resides somewhere in a computer system at the donor bank.”
My head felt heavy, filled with smog. I thought about what Alex had told me in the cabin about her father and my mom: They were gonna get married, have kids, the whole thing. Then Dad broke up with her after graduation. I don’t know what it was. Cold feet, fear, whatever. But he never forgave himself for it. Or her.
He’d broken it off with my mom because he’d found out she couldn’t have kids. Or at least she’d thought she couldn’t.
When I came back from my train of thought, Dr. Chatterjee was staring at me, looking dismayed.
“Okay,” I said, trying to keep the disappointment from my voice. “Thanks for telling us.”