April Henry - The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die

“No!” I scream. Before I can get to him, he laughs and pours it down the sink. I slap my palm over the drain, but it’s all seeped away. The bottle is empty.

And Nowell is laughing. Laughing as I scream.

Behind us, an alarm begins to sound, an unending high-pitched drone. Nowell’s head whips around. Smoke is seeping from under the warmer door.

“What have you done?” His voice is nearly drowned out by the alarm. “What have you idiots done?”

Nowell runs over and grabs the handle of the warmer. But when he wrenches open the door, a flash of orange explodes out. A fireball envelops him, rolling up and over his body. And then everything goes dark.

When I wake up, I’m lying on my back on a narrow bed made with white linens. The ceiling is white acoustical tile and the walls are pale green. It’s the third time in a row I’ve woken up someplace I didn’t recognize. First the cabin. Then Ty’s bedroom. Now I guess it’s a hospital room.

Only this time my mom is asleep in a chair next to me. When I sit up, she starts awake. Her eyes dart around the room, and then she takes a deep, shaky breath and hugs me so hard I can’t breathe. But I don’t mind.

“Max?” I ask her when she finally loosens her grip. My voice is a croak. She pulls back but keeps her hands on my shoulders.

“It looks like he’ll be okay. Thanks to you, Cady.” Mom kisses my cheek and then takes my good hand in hers. I notice that they are both bandaged, not just the one with the missing fingernails. “He got the vaccine a couple of hours ago.”

“He did?” I realize it’s still dark outside. Still nighttime.

“You were so smart, Cady”—violet shadows lie under her eyes—“switching the vaccine to an unmarked bottle and putting it in the insulated lunch bag. That kept it cool when the fire flashed over. Nowell thought he poured the vaccine down the drain, but it was really just a vial of water. Max is running a little bit of a fever, and they’re monitoring him, but so far, it’s just a precaution.” She takes a shaky breath. “I was so worried I had lost both of you. I don’t think I could live if I did.”

“And Daddy?” The word slips out. I haven’t called him Daddy since I was Max’s age. But I feel like a little kid. I want to be a little kid again, when my parents could keep me safe.

Mom blinks a few times, but before I can get too worried she gently squeezes my shoulder and says, “He had to have some surgery and now they’ve got him on IV antibiotics because of the wound in his shoulder. But he should be okay, too.”

“And Ty? The guy who was helping me?” He was closer to Nowell when Nowell opened the door.

“He’s got some first- and second-degree burns, like you. And like you, they say he’ll be okay.” She leans down and hugs me again. “Oh, Cady, we’re so lucky to have you as a daughter,” she whispers in my ear. “You saved us. You saved us all.”

We’re both quiet for a long moment. I’m trying to take in that it’s all over. Really over. Everyone is safe.

“What happened? All we were doing was trying to heat up the eggs so that Nowell wouldn’t be able to use the virus inside them to make a vaccine. We lit a fire and closed the door to the warmer. But when he opened the door, it exploded.”

“I guess it’s called a backdraft. The fire had been starved of oxygen and then got a fresh supply when Kirk pulled the door open. Thank God the building is new enough that it has a sprinkler system. It could have been much worse.”

I remember angry orange flames, the gray smoke that suddenly rolled over me. Screaming Ty’s name, I had dropped to the floor. And that’s the last thing I really remember. I have fainter memories of water falling like rain, sirens, people lifting me up.

“How did the firemen know to come?”

“The fire triggered the sprinklers, and the sprinkler system automatically notified the fire department and told them which floor the fire was on,” Mom says. “When the firefighters found the security guard tied up, they called the police. Nowell was still holding a gun, and Ty was able to tell them something about what was going on. Now Homeland Security is investigating.”

“And Nowell? Is he dead?”

“Kirk’s got second-degree flash burns, and he’s lost his hair and eyebrows. I understand he has some upper airway issues due to the heat of the gases. But he’ll live. Which I guess is a good thing.” Mom gives me a crooked smile. “And Elizabeth and Michael are in custody.”

I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry that Nowell is alive. The rest is very good. And suddenly my eyes are so heavy that I have to close them again.

But this time I know I’m safe.

Next to me, Ty sticks out his tongue and tips his head back, balancing on his ski poles. He’s trying to catch one of the fat flakes that are beginning to drift down from the pale sky. The woods around us are deserted, just sparkling snow and dark evergreens and the faint tracks left by our cross-country skis. Even though being here was Ty’s suggestion, I worried it would remind him too much of his dad’s accident. But we’re on cross-country skis, sticking to groomed trails and keeping well away from the trees.

“Gah one!” Ty snaps his mouth shut and raises his head to look at me, grinning.

“It’s amazing to think each one is different.” With the fingertip of my glove, I nudge a snowflake that has just landed on the sleeve of my turquoise down jacket. It shimmers and then turns into a rivulet of water.

“Just like people.”

“And fingerprints,” I say with a shiver. It’s about twenty degrees outside, cold enough that each breath is sharp in my nose. But that isn’t why I can feel gooseflesh walking up my arms underneath my thick wool sweater.

Fingerprints make me think of criminals, which makes me think of Kirk Nowell, Elizabeth Tanzir, and Michael Brenner. All three are in jail and have been denied bail after having been deemed flight risks. Their trials won’t take place until summer. There’s another half dozen guys who helped hunt for me and my parents, but they’re busy cutting deals with the prosecutors. Nowell is facing the most serious charges, including murder for shooting poor Officer Dillow.

Nowell tracked me to Newberry Ranch (and later to Ty’s apartment) through Brenner’s work-issued cell phone, which had a built-in GPS. Like James had guessed, Nowell used a spoof card to make Officer Dillow think he was calling from Sagebrush. Brenner is the one who hacked into Facebook and put up my fake profile and status updates.

Ty sees me shiver. “Cold?” He shifts one of his ski poles, puts his arm around me, and runs his hand up and down my arm. Is he just being nice, or does it mean something more? We’ve been texting each other a few times a day, but living in different cities, we’ve hardly spent any time together since the police finished questioning us. Ty came to Portland last month when we were part of a big award ceremony held by the governor. We were surrounded by hero cops and hero firefighters. All those folks in uniform got to their feet and applauded us for stopping Z-Biotech’s plan.

Now, three months after everything happened, our lives have mostly returned to normal. We’re both back at school and complaining about homework. I’m not on the cover of magazines anymore, and I no longer have to worry about turning on the TV and hearing my name. When the man whose car we stole heard the whole story, he decided not to press charges.

We came here this weekend so my parents could talk to contractors about having a new cabin built on the same site. They had asked me if they should sell it, wondered if the bad memories would overwhelm me. But now that I have my memory back, I know there are so many more good memories. Plus there’s Ty himself, only forty-five minutes away.