Rebecca Levene - Kill or Cure

"Not Ash's story though," Soren said. "Seems like his story has quite a long epilogue."

"Yeah." I took the wheel again and looked out over the waves ahead of us, where the American coast was finally approaching. "I can only guess what happened next. He must have made it away from the base with his followers. I suppose he tried to give them the Cure like he'd been intending, but my guess is that it didn't work. It was designed specifically for non O-negs. I don't know what it would have done in its original form to anyone who was O-neg, but I suspect it might have been fatal. So he would have had to do more research, refine it. If he took what he needed from the base when he left, that would have been possible." And now I thought about it, some of the equipment in that laboratory in Havana had looked familiar. I shrugged. "Then at some point he came to Cuba and tested it out."

"But why?" Soren asked. "What exactly was he hoping to achieve?"

"I don't know, but I know it's nothing good. When I heard the Voice something inside me knew that it was the voice of madness, and I rejected it. But Ash embraced it, and I think maybe he wants everyone else to embrace it too. Cuba was just the start. It was a failed experiment – that's why he abandoned it. But there's no question in my mind that he's going to try again."

"And you intend to find him," Kelis said. It wasn't a question.

"I have to," I said. "I'm the only one who can possibly understand what it is he's trying to do. Which means I'm the only one who's got a chance of stopping him."

"OK," Haru said. "And why exactly should we help you do that?"

"Because Cuba was only the beginning. You can leave me if you like. That's why I told you the truth – so you can make a real choice. All I ask is that you don't make mine for me. Leave me free to follow Ash. Because you all might regret it if I don't."

I got up to take the wheel after that, leaving them free to make their decision without me around. But the truth was, without them I was sunk. There was no way I'd be able to make it all the way to Las Vegas on my own. Even with them to back me up it was a long-shot.

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" Kelis asked. If there was anyone who might follow me, I knew it was her. For all the wrong reasons, though, and wasn't it wrong of me to exploit that? I shot her a quick look but she was watching the waves, not me.

"I was afraid of what you'd do if you knew I was Infected too."

"Are you infectious?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. That's what Ash's research was all about, you see – making the Cure transmittable, because that wasn't how we originally designed it."

"Its weapons tech, isn't it? The Cure." Kelis said.

"Ash's contribution was, yeah. We put stuff in there that we didn't fully understand – or at least I didn't. We were desperate enough to try anything."

"Do you think someone somewhere planned this all?" she asked me. "The Cull and the Cure?"

"That's another reason to find Ash, isn't it?" I said. "To answer that question."

She nodded and I thought that maybe she was going to tell me that she'd made her decision and she would come with me. But instead her hand reached out to clasp mine over the wheel. Her eyes strained towards the distant coastline of Florida.

"What is it?" I said. There were black dots on the shore that might have been people, but that wasn't unexpected. Miami was a big place and there was no reason to think it would be entirely deserted after the Cull.

She didn't answer me, just called out for Soren. He leapt up to join her, Haru and Ingo hanging behind. Ingo's dark face was sweating lightly, drops of crystal on mahogany, no clue there about what decision he'd made. Haru would go where the group went, I knew that, seeking safety in numbers. And Soren, I supposed, would follow Kelis. But that was something else I shouldn't be taking advantage of.

"Shit!" Soren said. "You're right."

"Right about what, exactly?" Haru asked. Kelis' hand was still over mine on the wheel but she wasn't moving it and I kept on steering a straight course towards whatever was waiting for us on the shore. We were close enough now that I could make out little figures, flashes of red and brighter colours on their clothing. I felt the first stirrings of unease.

"Are those..?" I said.

"Yeah," Kelis said. "I recognise the formation. Standard when facing a sea attack. All the island garrisons practised it."

"Those are Queen M's men?" Haru said, finally cottoning on.

"I think so," I said.

"I know so," Kelis said impatiently.

"This is no surprise," Ingo said calmly. "The tracking devices were never removed from Soren and Kelis."

Of course he was right. Haru turned an unloving look on the two of them and I remembered that he'd been all for leaving them behind. "OK," I said, "it's not a problem. I'll just turn and we'll make landfall somewhere else." I tried to shift my grip on the wheel to do just that, but Kelis held my hand firm.

"No point," she said. "While the trackers are in us she can just follow us along the shore. We'll run out of fuel before she runs out of patience. Besides – she's almost certainly got boats of her own. Faster than this, probably."

"There are only two options," Soren said. "Fight or surrender."

"There's a third option," Haru said sourly. I knew he meant to throw Soren and Kelis overboard and they knew it too. Soren half turned to him and Haru instantly backed away, demonstrating exactly why it was an entirely empty threat.

"Then I guess we fight," I said.

I took out my gun again. The weight of it had begun to feel very comfortable in my hand. I wondered if this was how it had been for my husband: first a burden, then a useful tool and finally an end in itself. The adrenaline was already surging through my body and that was addictive too, the rush of it, even the bitter taste it brought to the back of my throat.

Haru had taken the wheel from me. I could see the white of his knuckles as he gripped it and I knew that he was forcing himself not to turn aside. I guess he knew that Queen M's men might kill him, but Kelis would shoot him for sure if he didn't do as she'd ordered.

The coastline ahead of us looked like a cleaned-up version of Havana: white sand and smart resort hotels. Like in one of those old make-over shows, Havana was the before and Miami the after. The people had been made-over too: not shambling wrecks but whole and tooled-up, and lethal.

The front of the boat didn't offer much protection, not if there was any heavy artillery facing us. We were gambling that Queen M wanted to ask questions first and shoot later. There must be a reason she'd followed Kelis and Soren specifically – to find me, I was guessing – and she wasn't the type to waste resources on petty revenge. She wanted something from us other than our corpses.

On the other hand, if our corpses were all she could get, I was sure she'd settle for that. Fifty feet from the coast now and I could recognise some of the faces. The hardcore loyalists who hadn't fled the flagship when everyone had their chance. It was no kind of surprise to see Curtis among them, Queen M's top recruitment agent.

"Hold your fire," Soren said.

Kelis shot him a look and I think for a moment she suspected he was changing his mind. But he was right. The longer we could delay the moment when the cold war turned hot, the better our chances. If they wanted us alive, they wouldn't shoot first.

Twenty feet from the shore and we weren't slowing down. Kelis had clasped her hands over Haru's, forcing him to stay his course. His face was sweating and desperate. The boat began to judder and shake, jarring over the rocks in the sand, rising higher and higher above the water line. I clung on hard, knowing that if I fell that would be the end. The boat was the only protection we had.