Lex Thomas: Quarantine: The Saints

He had finally gotten his brother back. The only thing that mattered was Colton. And Lucy had taken him away again. He couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t take him from me!” Gates shrieked at the top of his lungs. He kept looking everywhere. “GIVE HIM BACK!”

“Shut up, rich boy,” Violent said. She came running out of the fray, and tackled Gates to the ground. His stab wound exploded with pain. She attacked him with fists and fingernails. Gates clamped his hands around the bitch’s neck, and saw her startled eyes blast wide open. He crushed down on her throat with all his strength.

Will and Lucy ran out of the commons, and down two halls. The further they ran, the more the battle sounds faded. Will pulled her into an empty classroom and shut the door. They clung to each other. She hugged him with all her strength. He was alive, and away from the grips of that psychopath. They separated.

“I have to go back,” Lucy said.

“What?”

“I have to help my girls, they’re only in this fight ’cause of me.”

“No, you can’t go back there.”

“I have to.”

“Gates is gonna be going ballistic. I don’t want you around him.”

“You’re the one who shouldn’t be around him. You need to go back to Minnie’s room and hide.”

“Come with me,” Will said.

“I can’t, Will, I told you—”

“I’ll let you kiss me.”

She laughed. She couldn’t help it, she wasn’t expecting that. Will smiled at her. For a moment, she smiled too, but her face went slack when she saw twin lines of blood pour out from Will’s nostrils.

WILL AND LUCY DASHED DOWN THE HALLWAY,toward the quad, holding hands.

“I have another year,” Will said. “I’m supposed to have another year.”

“We don’t know anything until you scan your thumb. It could be anything. Maybe you got hit,” Lucy said.

“I told you I didn’t get hit.”

“I don’t know, Will. Maybe the air’s too dry.”

He wasn’t buying it. And he knew she wasn’t either, but she kept trying to keep him calm.

“It can’t be the virus,” she said. “That just doesn’t make sense.”

Unless Will’s body was just done with puberty. He guessed it was a possibility. He hadn’t grown any taller in months. No matter what the answer was, he still might have to leave school. He should have been thrilled to finally get to leave. To have this all end. But, not now. Not when he’d just gotten Lucy back.

The two of them slowed. There was a corpse on the floor ahead of them, a boy. His legs were splayed, with one shoe off and one shoe on. The white floor around him was a mess of smeared blood. It wasn’t until they were closer that they saw where all that blood had come from. The whole front of the boy’s neck was gone. The flesh had been torn away, and Will could see the front of his spine nestled into the red mulch of shredded neck meat. Above the ragged wound was a face they knew all too well.

Sam’s mouth was open. His eyes were too. They had gone gray. His face was twisted in agony. It was a painful death. Horrible. But Will guessed it was inevitable.

“Oh my god,” Lucy said, staring down at Sam. “Who would do that?”

Will searched inside himself for the satisfaction at seeing Sam destroyed and he couldn’t find it.

“We should keep moving,” Lucy said, and pulled Will forward.

“Wait,” Will said, staying put. He took off his oversized sweatshirt and flung it out like a bed sheet. He let it fall across Sam from his chest to the top of his head. He turned to Lucy and gave her a nod. “Okay.”

They ran for the open door to the quad. Outside, it was raining hard. The air smelled clean. Will and Lucy rushed into the quad. It was one giant square of mud. Will scanned the razor wire perimeter, three floors up, and spotted an adult standing on top of the east wall.

“Thumb check!” Lucy yelled as loud as she could.

The adult lowered the boxy machinery of the disembodied thumb scanner. It dangled from a long pole extended over the razor wire. As they ran for the wall, the figure above became clearer. Rain splashed off his black motorcycle helmet. It was Sam’s father. The thumb scanner spun as Sam’s dad lowered it. When it was ten feet above them, Will could see that the scanner was sealed up in a ziplock freezer bag.

Will unzipped the blue-green seal, wiped his hand on his jeans, and stuck his hand into the bag. He planted his thumb on the scanner.

The rain poured.

“You’re transitioning,” the man shouted down without the benefit of his amp.

Will shook his head.

“No,” he said, his voice barely a rasp. “It can’t be right. This doesn’t make sense.”

If there was pain in Lucy’s face, it was only for a second. A storm gust blew it away. Her hair whipped in her face, and she looked up to the sky.

“He has to be lifted out!” Lucy yelled.

“No,” Sam’s father said. He reeled the scanner back up.

“What do you mean?” she shouted. “He has to graduate! You have to let him out.”

Sam’s father pointed a gloved hand at Will.

“I know who you are, kid,” the man said. “You want out? You bring me Sam, alive. That’s the only way you’re getting out.”

“Will’s going to die if he doesn’t—”

Will put his hand out to stop Lucy short.

“No problem!” Will said.

Lucy looked at Will like he’d gone crazy.

“Just be here waiting when we show,” Will shouted up. The man turned away from the quad. The conversation was over. For now.

“Will, what are you doing?” Lucy said under her breath.

Will shrugged.

“Worth a try.”

Lucy and Will stared at Sam’s body. They had propped his blueing body up to sitting, against the lockers. They’d stripped him of his blood-soaked shirt and dressed him in the oversized sweatshirt Will had worn. They’d stuffed their own socks into the gaping wound in his neck so that the blood wouldn’t seep into the sweatshirt fabric. It was the best they could manage in the time they had, but he still didn’t look close to alive.

“This isn’t going to work,” Lucy said. “They’ll see he’s dead.”

“No, they won’t.”

“You can clearly see he has no neck! Oh god, and they aren’t going to let you out,” Lucy said, going nearly as pale as Sam.

“Hold on,” Will said and he knelt down beside Sam. Will took up both ends of the hood’s drawstring and cinched it tight. The hood closed around Sam’s face in a perfect oval, like an Eskimo. “There. What about that?”

Lucy tilted her head slightly and studied Sam. “Actually,” she said, the tension in her face easing slightly. “That’s not bad.”

Will stood and overcompensated with a big smile. “See? I told you, it’s going to work. I’m gonna get to leave.”

Will’s stomach dropped out of him when he said those words.

“Okay,” Lucy said. He didn’t want her to say “okay.” He wanted her to say, “Don’t go! Never leave me!”

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said.

“You have to.”

“It’s too soon.”

“I know.”

“I just got you back,” he said.

“I know. But we don’t have a choice.”

“How are you so calm about this all the sudden?” Will said.

Lucy’s face was unaffected, flat, still.

“I’m just trying to keep my shit together,” she said. “The second you leave, I’m going to lose it.”

Will forced himself to slow his breathing. He nodded. She was right. There was no point in crying about it now. Will went in for a kiss, and he made sure to make it count. It would have to tide him over for a year if this ridiculous plan worked. And if they failed, this would be the last time he would kiss her without a death sentence hanging over his head. He kissed her slowly; he wanted to feel every moment of it. Her lips pushed back with a feather’s weight. Lucy pulled away.