Sophie Littlefield - Banished

On our way to a pizza place that Anna and Kaz raved about, Prairie caught up with me.

“I’m going up to the lab tomorrow, early. There’s only one guard on duty on Sundays. I’m thinking I can wait until he goes to the bathroom or something and get past him. Then I have the prox card to get in the lab.”

She didn’t look all that confident. I figured there was more to the plan, but that she didn’t want me to worry. “Do you want me to come along?”

“No… I think it’s best if I do it alone.”

I didn’t argue. Maybe I should have, but it had been so nice to not think about it for a few hours, and I wasn’t ready to give that up. Instead, I tried to put it out of my mind, telling myself there would be plenty of time to worry later, but when we returned home and got Chub bathed and put to bed, I was exhausted. I hadn’t had more than a few hours of sleep in days, and it hit me hard. I crawled into Kaz’s bed, Chub on his nest of blankets on the floor, and fell into a dreamless sleep.

I woke to someone shaking my arm.

“Hailey, wake up.” It was Kaz, whispering, his face hard to see in the moonlight. “There’s a problem. I’ll get Prairie. Meet me in the kitchen.”

I got up quietly so as not to wake Chub. I splashed water on my face and went to the kitchen. When Prairie and Kaz came in a minute later, she looked completely awake, as though she’d never gone to sleep.

“You’ve been through so much already,” she said when she saw me. “Kaz, I wish you’d let her sleep.”

“She has a right to hear this.”

“What?” I demanded as a door opened down the hall and Anna came into the kitchen.

“What are you all-”

“I had a vision, Mom,” Kaz said. “They need to know.”

Anna tensed up, and I remembered that Kaz said his visions always signaled something bad. “What is it?” she whispered, her face going pale.

“Bryce… he’s medium height? Brown hair, going gray here?” Kaz gestured along his hairline.

“Yes.”

“I saw him, in a room… looked like a motel room? Or a dorm room? There were people in the beds… hurt people. Hurt bad, Prairie, they weren’t even conscious.”

“What was he doing?”

“It wasn’t what he was doing. He was just sitting there, taking notes or something on his laptop-”

“What was it?” Prairie demanded, her voice going high and thin. “What did you see?”

“I’m sorry, Prairie… he’s got another Healer.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, another Healer?”

“I couldn’t see her all that clearly. She had long hair, and she was leaning over them, chanting or talking. I couldn’t hear. I don’t hear anything with the visions.”

“What made you think she was healing them?”

“Well, first of all, it was so obvious they were… dying.” Kaz hesitated. “I mean, they were unconscious, and one of them had his head shaved and what looked like a recent scar. And the other one had a breathing tube and a body cast. Young guys.”

“Military,” Prairie said. “Had to be. Only question is whose.”

“And the Healer, this woman, she put her hands on them, on their faces.” Kaz demonstrated, cupping the sides of his face with his hands. “And after… it was hard to tell because the visions jump around, but, after, they, ah, woke up.”

“Woke up?” Prairie repeated sharply.

“Yes, they moved, you know, opened their eyes, sat up. That was about it, all I saw.”

Prairie was silent, but I could tell she was thinking hard.

“Who could it be?” Anna asked after a moment. “There was no one else in your village? You are sure?”

“No one.” Prairie was vehement. “Clover’s dead. Hailey’s here. Alice is broken. Mary’s dead. There’s no one else. I don’t see where he could have found one.”

“One of ours, then,” Anna said. “The Healers must have made it out of Poland after all.”

“We have to go now. ” It was me speaking, to my amazement. “Prairie, we have to stop him. You have to destroy the research. We can’t let him find her, we can’t let her make zombies.”

“But we can’t-”

“There isn’t much time,” I insisted. “Isn’t that right, Kaz? How much time between your visions and what happens?”

Kaz looked from me to Prairie. “I don’t know. Maybe a day or two. Maybe… less.”

“There still might be time,” I pleaded.

“I’ll help,” Kaz said, pushing his chair back from the table. “The three of us will go. Mom can take care of Chub. You will, won’t you, Mom?”

“What do you mean to do?”

“Whatever needs to be done to stop that bastard.”

“Kaz,” Anna snapped. “There is no need for that.”

“No need for what, Mom? No need to call Prairie’s boss what he is? She’s right-he has to be stopped. We have to destroy everything.”

“What is this we ?” Anna demanded sharply. “There is no we -”

“I’m going with her,” Kaz said. “She can’t do it alone.”

“Do not talk crazy.” Anna was shaking with fear or anger or some combination of the two emotions.

“I’m not crazy,” Kaz said. “Prairie is right. We have to destroy the research and stop this guy.”

“This man is dangerous , Kazimierz. He hired people to kidnap Hailey. They kill all those others.”

“Papa went to war,” Kaz said. “There was killing there, but you didn’t stop him.”

I saw that he wouldn’t back down, and I had a feeling no one was going to be able to tell him what to do. I could relate: no one was ever going to tell me what to do again either.

“Anna,” Prairie said softly. “I understand. I’ll go alone.”

“You can’t!” I protested. “You can’t go alone. Bryce will kill you.”

“Not if I plan,” Prairie said, but I could tell she was grasping at straws. “Not if I come up with a strategy-”

“Strategy is not enough,” Kaz interrupted, his voice hard as steel. “You need help. I can see things. Especially if I’m there, if I’m close. It might make a difference.”

“I can’t ask you that,” Prairie said. She raised her shoulders and let them fall. Her arm, I saw, moved easily, bandage or no bandage. “It’s my fault all this happened, and-”

“I’m not letting you go alone,” I said.

“We’re going with you,” Kaz said. He turned to Anna. “Mom, you didn’t raise me to be afraid. My father was brave, you tell me that every single day of my life. You can’t deny that.”

“Your father is gone , Kaz. I can’t lose you, too… I can’t.”

Anna’s face reflected a mother’s agony. Prairie, too, looked uncertain.

But I knew. I knew that Kaz would not be stopped.

“If something happens, if Kaz gets hurt, we’ll be there too,” I said urgently to Prairie, praying she would understand. We could heal him-he’d be safe with us there.

Anna looked at me carefully, her eyes narrowed. Then she looked at Prairie again. “What do you think?” she asked softly.

“I cannot ask anything more of you,” Prairie said. “Even this, even taking me and Hailey in, this is so dangerous.”

She was right. Bryce didn’t care about the innocent people who got in the way.

He wouldn’t stop. He didn’t care how many people died for his research, for the chance to study Prairie and me and learn how to use our gifts to turn people into killing machines. Everything this man touched seemed to be about killing.

He wanted to use me as a tool, a way to make him stronger and richer and more powerful while other people died.

There was silence in the room. Kaz went to the picture window and stared out into the dark streets with his arms folded across his chest, tense and ready.