April Henry - The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

I close the door, then tap the temperature gauge above the warmer. “Look at this sensor. The eggs have to be incubated at a certain temperature. Three degrees hotter and they’ll go into a danger zone.”

Ty squints. “I think that’s three degrees Celsius. Do you know what that is in Fahrenheit?”

“Six? Ten? Whatever it is, it can’t be that much. And then they’ll start to cook.”

I start scrabbling around on the janitor’s cart where Ty dumped the contents of the guard’s pockets. I remember seeing a red and white pack of Marlboros, so there must be a lighter, right? At first, I’m looking for something lightweight, plastic and colorful, but I don’t find it amid the coins, sticks of gum, and car keys. Then I realize what the guard really has is an old silver Zippo. I flip open the lid and thumb the wheel. A bright orange flame appears.

Ty and I grin at each other. Then I snap the lid closed, snuffing the flame.

Ty lifts the shredder off a wastebasket sitting next to one of the desks and starts pulling out handfuls of paper confetti, perfect for feeding a fire.

“How do you like your eggs?”

“Hard cooked.” I smile. “You get that going while I find the finished vaccine for Max. And then let’s get out of here.”

At the other end of the room, I pull open the third door from the left, the one where my mom said I would find the vaccine. This time it’s a real cooler. The shelves are crowded. I push small plastic bottles from one side to the other. With every second, my anxiety level increases. What if they moved the vaccine to another room? What if someone has knocked it over or used it up? My mom thought it was on the top shelf, but I don’t find it there. Not on the second either. It’s not until I check the third shelf that I find it. It doesn’t look like much, just a clear plastic bottle with a handwritten label that reads HV VACCINE. Suddenly, the band that’s been constricting my heart loosens.

I’m ready to drop it into the insulated lunch bag we brought from home to keep the vaccine cool, but my thoughts keep turning. When the first workers show up tomorrow, they’ll untie the security guard. And Nowell will hear about how two teens broke in. He’ll know who we are. What he won’t know is why we were here, why we came to the last place he’d expect us to be. He’ll hunt for clues explaining why we were here by looking for what’s missing. If he figures out it’s the vaccine, he might guess it’s my brother who’s in trouble. He knows my parents are already vaccinated.

The less Nowell knows or guesses, the better. I need to throw him off the trail. I think of a plan.

A minute later, I hear a door close. I think it’s Ty shutting the door to the warmer, but when I turn to look at him, his expression is frozen. I know, even before I follow his gaze, that we’re in big trouble.

A man is standing in the doorway, holding a gun. With a swept-back mane of silver hair, he’s dressed in a well-cut dark suit that goes a long way to hiding his bulk. I look down at his feet. At the sight of his oxblood shoes, my blood chills.

He smiles at me, a smile that stops before it reaches his cold gray eyes. “Well, hello, Cady. Like a bad penny, you just keep turning up. Only this time you’ve brought a friend.” Kirk Nowell’s familiar voice sounds cheerful. It’s the voice of a morning TV show host. But the look in his eyes gives him away, calculating and mean.

“I have a little problem,” Nowell says. “Elizabeth isn’t answering her phone. And yet she’s here at the lab in the middle of the night. When she’s supposed to be getting you to reveal your parents’ whereabouts. And then I realized that someone must be using her ID badge.”

“How did you know anyone was here?” I ask. My voice pleases me. It’s as calm as his.

His laugh sounds like something breaking. With his free hand, he taps a phone protruding from his breast pocket. “There’s an app for that.” The false smile leaves his face.

My expression doesn’t change. I won’t let him see how afraid I am. Not just for me but for Max and Ty. If I don’t bring back the vaccine, Max will die.

The only reason I won’t bring back the vaccine is if I’m dead myself.

Which seems just like the kind of thing Nowell wants.

I can already imagine him adding another chapter to the story he’s been writing about me. He’ll say I broke in here looking for animal tranquilizers or stuff to steal, and that during a confrontation he was forced to kill me and the one-step-up-from-homeless guy I had picked up along the way. And after he’s managed to hunt down and really kill my brother as well as my parents, he’ll work out a way to make it look like I did that, too. Killed them as part of my drug-addled spree. Just like I supposedly killed Officer Dillow.

His voice interrupts my thoughts. “You must have Michael’s and Elizabeth’s guns. Pick them up by the barrels and put them on the floor. Now.” He swivels his own gun to point it at Ty. “Or I shoot him in the head.”

I have no doubt that he means what he says. And while there must be something we could do—some tricky move that would both distract him and leave us unscathed—I can’t think of what it is. We both reach under our coveralls. Nowell’s expression doesn’t change, but I can see his finger tighten infinitesimally on the trigger. A second later, the two guns are on the floor. Leaving us what for weapons? A mop? A broom?

“So why are you two here?” Nowell says thoughtfully. “Why would you risk everything to come here? And to this room in particular. Not the room where the hantavirus is being manufactured. The room your father found because he couldn’t leave well enough alone.” His face changes as understanding dawns. “When your father left, he stole a sample. Did something happen to that sample? Did someone become contaminated?”

There’s no point in lying anymore. “It’s Max.”

“So it’s been”—Nowell’s eyes flick upward, thinking, but are back to me before I can make any kind of move—“what? Thirty-six hours? That means late tomorrow your little brother will start running a fever that just keeps climbing. And his back and hips will ache like someone’s trying to tear the meat from his bones. Then his lungs will begin to fill with blood, and he’ll struggle for breath. Have you ever seen anyone die like that? It’s not pretty. They panic, like a drowning swimmer, but there’s nothing you can do because they’re drowning from the inside, and there’s no medicine that can save them. And finally he’ll die. Your little brother will die, and there’ll be nothing you and your parents will be able to do but watch.”

“Not if we get him the vaccine,” I say. Don’t act. Be. I’m another person now, an even more desperate version of me. Max’s life depends on it. “Please. Max is only three years old. He doesn’t know anything. He can’t hurt you in any way. Just let him live. Let me bring the vaccine to him, and after that I don’t care what happens to me.”

Nowell’s reply is full of lilting sarcasm. “He doesn’t know anything, just like you didn’t know anything? Your parents have already taught me what happens when I trust someone in your family. They could have been rich beyond their wildest imaginings. And no one would have been hurt. People would have paid well to make sure that didn’t happen. It was simply a matter of wealth transference.”

As he speaks, he moves toward the third cooler. The cooler with the container labeled HV VACCINE. Still keeping the gun trained on us, he opens it, reaches in with one hand, and unerringly finds the bottle.

“No, I’m sorry, Cady, but I can’t let you take this. Your parents knew there would be a price if they went against me. Now they have to be prepared to pay it.” He takes the bottle I just had within my grasp, and in one motion he unscrews the cap with his thumb.