Rachel Caine - Terminated

“It’s not a vote,” Patrick said. “It’s your sister’s life, and I’m not letting that happen. I’ve fought too hard. I’m not going to just—give up. There’s another way.”

“Not one that works,” Manny said. He spun the computer around. “Just press enter. It’s ready to send.”

On the screen was a text box, a pop-up that read simply INITIATE TRANSMISSION? Two buttons. The OK button was highlighted.

“Liam?” Manny said. The older man stood still for a moment, and Bryn saw a tremor in his fingers . . . but then he shook his head and looked away. “Patrick?”

“Fuck you,” Patrick said tightly. “No.”

“Pansy?”

“No,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

That left the four of them. The infected.

“No,” Riley said, unprompted. “Not at that price.”

“You mean, at the price of your life?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” she said, and Bryn thought she saw the same flat, predatory expression in her eyes that Jane had so often flashed. We’ve changed, she thought, and felt a chill. We’ll keep changing. He’s right. We might still be human, but it won’t last.

Joe just shook his head when Manny’s gaze flicked to him. That left Bryn and Annie.

Bryn held out her hand. Annie took it.

“Together?” she asked.

“Bryn!” Patrick grabbed her. “No. No, you can’t do this.”

“Yes, I can,” she said. “You don’t see it. You’ve never seen it.”

“Seen what ?”

“The monster,” she said. “And I don’t want you to ever see that.”

She reached for the button.

Riley hit her from behind and sent her crashing face-first onto the corner of the desk; bone shattered, blood splattered. Bryn rolled, throwing her off balance, and managed to get her arm up in time to stop Riley’s knife from punching into her eye. It went through the meat of her forearm, and caught between the bones; she used that, and twisted, yanking it out of Riley’s fingers. She punched Riley, punched her again, tossed her into the wall, and buried the knife in the other woman’s chest, low and center, cutting her diaphragm. Riley screamed, lost air, and clawed at Bryn desperately, opening gouges and drawing blood.

“This,” Bryn managed to gasp out. “This is what we are now. No future, no family, no children coming after us. Just the monsters, until we’re gone, and we’ll get worse. This is the future. Push the button! ”

Patrick had forgotten her sister, riveted by the horrifying violence she and Riley were inflicting on each other.

Nobody thought to stop her as Annie, weeping, walked to the desk and pressed ENTER.

Patrick screamed out a raw, wordless scream of denial and horror and loss, but it was too late. Her hand was steady and calm, and in the aftermath, Bryn went limp and sat back, waiting. They were all waiting.

Patrick rushed to her and took her in his arms, rocking her. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, God, no, don’t do this, don’t do this. . . .”

“I never should have come back in the first place,” she said. “I’m sorry. I love you.”

Annie sat down next to her and crossed her long, elegant legs, sitting Indian-style like the little girl she’d been, not so long ago. “Do you remember what happened to Sharon?” she asked Bryn.

“Sharon . . .” She walked away from home. She never came back.

“Brynnie, I swear—I swear it was an accident. I never meant it—we were just arguing, the way we always did. She pushed me and I was in the kitchen cutting an apple, and I fell down. Then she slipped and fell on the knife, and it cut her on the thigh, and the blood—there was so much blood. I didn’t try to do it—I didn’t. I wouldn’t . Dad tried to save her. He used that belt, you know, the one in the bathroom? He tied it up in a tourniquet around her leg, right here.” She traced the spot with her fingertips on her own leg. “But she died. And they didn’t want anyone to know. Dad took her away, and Mom and I cleaned it all up. I don’t know where he took her. But I’m a monster, too, Bryn. From that moment, I was a monster. I never told anybody, but—I wanted you to know before we go. I’m so sorry.”

Bryn hugged her, and held on to Patrick. Riley was still bleeding, and although the wound seemed to be knitting closed, it was taking longer than usual.

Joe let out a slow, trembling sigh. “I feel—” He lurched, caught himself, and slid down into a chair. He ran both hands over his bald head. “Can I talk to Kylie and the kids?”

Pansy, tears coursing down her face, took out her cell phone and dialed a number. She held the phone up to him.

Bryn felt it, then. A lurch inside, as if something had started to glitch. A bad part in a smooth-running machine.

Annie’s breath caught, as if she felt it, too. Then she let out a slow sigh, and her head slid over to rest on Bryn’s shoulder.

There wasn’t any pain. She was just . . . gone.

That quickly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bryn told her. It was too late, but she said it anyway. “You were just a kid, sweetie. It wasn’t your fault.” She glanced down. Her sister’s eyes were open, and at peace.

Riley was still fighting, but it didn’t last long. She couldn’t speak, but the fire was there, raging and fighting, until it finally guttered out. Then she was gone, too.

Joe’s low voice stopped. Bryn heard Pansy let out a low, anguished sob.

Mr. French had laid his warm weight down in her lap, and he was whimpering with distress. He knew, too. Poor thing. She put a hand on his warm head.

“You have to let me go,” Bryn said to Patrick. “Please let go now. I can’t be a monster. We can’t be that.”

He knew. Finally, at last, he knew. She felt it in the way he kissed her.

And that was the last thing she felt.

One last glimpse of light, one last whisper of sound. Manny’s voice. Get the . . .

She was curious, even now. Get what?

But then it didn’t matter, and she was gone, too.

She didn’t feel it, that exact moment when the world came back; it happened in slow stages. A flare of light peeking in between her fluttering eyelids. A dreadful dry taste in her mouth, like smothering on dust. The shock of nerves sparking like short circuits.

Pain. A lot of it, slow hot waves washing up and down her body like tides.

Faces.

“She’s coming back,” someone said. She heard the words, but she didn’t understand them. Her brain felt sluggish and unresponsive, late to a party her body had already crashed. “Sinus rhythm. Oh my God.”

She was so tired. Closed her eyes a moment, and opened them because someone was rubbing knuckles against her breastbone. “Ow,” she whispered. Her lips felt painfully dry. As she blinked away fog, she felt the firm pressure of a straw against her lips, and automatically sucked in a mouthful of sweet, cool water. She swallowed it, took a second mouthful, and then the straw was withdrawn.

“Hey.” The voice was rough and familiar, and this time, when she blinked, she saw that it was Patrick. He looked . . . different. He’d grown his hair out, hadn’t he? Thinner, too. She reached out clumsily, more of a flail than a controlled motion, and he took her hand in his and kissed the back of it.

She remembered, then. Not everything, just pieces . . . Manny. The computer. Annie’s slim fingers pressing ENTER.

Going away.

“No,” she whispered. “Can’t—can’t come back—”

“You didn’t,” Patrick said. His eyes were shimmering with tears, but he blinked them away and didn’t let them quite fall. “Not on your own. Manny said that if you were healed well enough before the nanites died, your autonomic system might come back online. So he shocked you until your heart started beating again. It wasn’t the nanites that brought you back. We brought you back.”