Demitria Lunetta - In the End

“Find Ken,” Kay says. “He’ll have access to information I don’t. He can give you a better idea of how Baby is, of how to get her out. Do you understand?”

I want to go . I want to be doing something. But she’s right. This is my only option.

“Okay.”

“Just be careful.”

“I will,” I promise.

“If . . . When you find him, he may not trust you. Tell him that you’re my friend. And then tell him this. Tell him ‘Ted doesn’t need you.’ He’ll know what it means. He’ll know I sent you.”

My earpiece goes dead. “Kay?” I whisper. “Kay . . . are you still there?”

After a few long seconds her voice cuts back in. “Gareth is telling me I have to go.”

“Wait . . . what about my mother? What about Adam? Are they safe?”

There’s a long pause, and I thinks she’s cut out, but I hear a sigh and before she’s gone for good, she responds.

“Sunshine, no one is safe.”

I try to wait for Jacks to return, but after a few minutes of pacing I decide to go find him. I double-check my weapons and am about to leave when Jacks appears.

“Hey, I just came to see if you needed anything.” He looks me over. “Are you okay?”

I cross my arms and try to rub the cold from them. “No.”

He doesn’t say anything, just waits for me to go on.

“Baby . . . uh, my sister. She’s really in trouble.”

“How could you know that?”

“I . . .” I close my eyes, trying to think. “I didn’t tell you everything. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure I could trust you.”

Jacks puts his arms on my shoulders and makes me sit on the bottom bunk. I think he’s going to sit next to me, but instead he pulls up a chair.

“Tell me.”

And so I tell him everything. About Dr. Reynolds and my mother. About how I found out about the Floraes and how New Hope doesn’t want anyone to know they were the ones who created them. How I was put in the Ward, and Kay helped me escape. I tell him about my earpiece and what Kay told me. I tell him about Ken and how he worked for Hutsen-Prime. How he might be able to access information about Baby—

“Wait. Hutsen-Prime?” Jacks cuts in.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Amy, Doc has Hutsen-Prime boxes in his office. I thought they were a chemical company or something. It’s where the flu shots come from.”

It takes a minute for it to sink in. “They have to be from New Hope. And if Doc is working with New Hope, he’s probably working with Dr. Reynolds. . . . But that also means he’ll know where Ken is.” I look up at Jacks. “We have to go see Doc.”

“You think Doc is . . . what, like a spy or something?” He looks incredulous.

“I don’t know what Doc is, but if he’s injecting people with something from New Hope, I doubt it’s a flu shot. If Ken is working on a vaccine, maybe Doc is testing it.” I look down and see I’m clenching and unclenching my fists. Anger, fear, hope, love—all tossing around inside of me. I try to calm myself. Doc isn’t Dr. Reynolds, but my rage flares when I think of all the damage Dr. Reynolds has done. If Doc is helping him, he’s just as guilty. “I need to find out what Doc knows.”

“How?” Jacks asks, his voice heavy with concern. “How are you going to find that out?”

I stand, my hand going to the Guardian gun at my hip. “Any way I have to.”

“Whoa, Amy. Let’s take this down a notch. I’m sure Doc will tell us if we just ask him. You need a second to calm down.”

“Jacks, every second could count.”

“I get that. Just”—he takes a breath—“just don’t hurt Doc.”

I stare at him for a moment, remembering that Doc is Jacks’s father. “Fine,” I say, nodding once.

I spring into action, and we’re out of the cell, Jacks hurrying to catch up with me. But as we rush down the stairs and out of the cellblock, something’s bothering me.

“Your father really didn’t tell you anything about New Hope or Hutsen-Prime?” I whisper.

He shakes his head as we enter the exercise yard and make our way through the makeshift shelters. “Amy, as far as I know, my father was a second-rate doctor who blew his career and his marriage because he couldn’t stop popping pills. The only one who would give him a job was my uncle.”

We’re at the front wall now. Jacks grabs my arm and looks into my eyes. “He’s a loser, Amy. He can barely keep his shit together. I doubt he’s part of some crazy conspiracy.”

I think about my mother, her part in New Hope and creating the bacteria that caused the Florae infection. I think about Rice, all his secrets, many I still didn’t know. “You can’t know someone completely,” I say. “Not truly.”

He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, then leads me through a side door and straight to Doc’s office.

Doc’s sitting at his desk, looking over papers while chewing on a pen. When he hears us, he looks up.

“Jacks,” he says, pleased. His eyes flick to me, and his expression changes from genuine happiness to feigned delight. “Amy. Hi there. Have you changed your mind about the flu shot?”

That’s all it takes. His phony smile, his false upbeat voice. For a second I see Dr. Reynolds, not Doc, sitting in his chair. I walk over to him, spin his chair around, and pull out my knife.

“I know you’re working with New Hope.” I push the blade to his neck. “And you are going to tell me everything that I want to know.”

“Amy!” Jacks screams, his hand gripping my shoulder. “Amy. Let me ask him,” he says firmly.

“Jacks, I have to know.”

“Okay. But you need to calm down.”

I back off slowly, dropping my knife to my side, and step away.

“Wh-what is this about?” Doc asks Jacks quietly, his face white.

“Amy has been telling me some things,” Jacks says, his voice even. “Things about you and a place called New Hope.” Doc glances over at me and he looks nervous. “I hear those flu shots might actually be something else.”

Even though we have no proof, just my assumptions, Jacks sounds confident, as if he’s completely sure of what he’s saying. The power in his voice is impressive. As Jacks talks, Doc tries to look unaffected, but he begins to shift nervously in his chair.

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says with a tight, pinched face.

“Doc.” Jacks leans in. “Dad.” The word is strained coming from Jacks’s mouth, but it has the desired effect. Doc studies Jacks’s face, his expression conflicted. Jacks continues in his soothing voice, “There’s no reason to keep secrets from me.”

My fingers twitch around the hilt of my knife, and Doc’s eyes flick to it. “Tell us,” I snap, unable control my tone.

“Well . . .” He shrugs, unable to meet Jacks’s gaze. “You seem to already know most of it anyway. New Hope sends me the vaccine, and I give it to the people here, tell them it’s a flu shot. Then we see if it works.”

He says all this so nonchalantly, as if the fact that Dr. Reynolds is using Fort Black as his personal laboratory is nothing at all. I’d thought Ken was sent to study the people here, but it’s far worse—they’re using them as lab rats.

I push aside my horror. “How do you know if it works?” I manage to ask. “Most people stay behind the walls.”

“Most, but not all. Sometimes we’ll get a Scrapper who’s been bitten or one of the men who clean up the Florae bodies or someone on garbage duty.” Another little shrug. “Sometimes I have to create situations in which to test the effectiveness.”

Before I can ask what he means, he moves to stand up. My knife rises with him, and then his hands come up too. “I just want to show you,” he says. He goes to the cabinet and retrieves a paper. “Here, look.” He shoves the paper at me. I glance at it. At the top is typed F1T13. Under that are a lot of chemical names I don’t understand, followed by instructions to remove the site of infection if a patient becomes exposed to a Florae’s bodily fluid.