Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Raven dashed outside, her heart thundering. She shielded her eyes against the sun. At the top of the hill beside the wolf enclosure, the figure of her father stood several feet back from something lying in the pathway.
She sprinted up the hill, knowing what she would find, dread like cement filling her chest. Her father glanced up as she approached and came to a halt beside him. He looked like he’d aged ten years in the last ten days.
Zachariah lay sprawled on the sidewalk. His limbs were bent awkwardly beneath him, his features contorted in a mask of pain. Tears of blood stained his gaunt cheeks. His eyes were open, staring in frozen horror. He didn’t move. His chest didn’t rise or fall.
She swallowed hard. “Is he—is he dead?”
“He will be.” Her father holstered the tranquilizer gun. “Stay back.”
She didn’t point out that she’d already been contaminated from less than a foot away. If the mask hadn’t protected her, there was little point in taking precautions now. That horse had already left the barn.
Her father coughed and cleared his throat.
She knelt on the paved path beside the body. He no longer looked like the Zachariah she’d known and loved, the one who always grinned at her, his weathered skin splitting into a hundred grooves and wrinkles, who loved to ruffle her hair, who’d nicknamed her ‘Little Bird’ with great affection.
Something was on Zachariah’s torso. A small gray tube with an orange top stuck out from the man’s concave chest. Her stomach sank like a stone. “What did you do?”
“He’s no longer suffering.” His voice was flat, expressionless.
She jerked out the dart and stared at the syringe, the needle. Reeling, she stumbled to her feet. “You gave him a dose intended for a five-hundred-pound tiger. You stopped his heart. You… you killed him.”
“He was dying anyway.”
It was true. She knew it was true. Still, the thought of pointing a gun, even a tranquilizer gun, at a friend and pulling the trigger set bile roiling in her stomach. She took a steadying breath, then another. “I didn’t say goodbye.”
“He wasn’t himself anymore,” her father said brusquely. “He could barely speak.”
Revulsion filled her, sour acid stinging the back of her throat. It was horrible, too horrible. She felt sick, her whole body going hot, then cold, then hot again. She thought of the virus, possibly inside her, the same virus that had done this to Zachariah.
“I should have kicked him out the moment he coughed.”
She looked sharply at her father. “And abandon him when he most needed us? Where would he go? Who would feed him or bring him water? Who would take care of him?”
“He promised me he’d stay in the loft. He swore to me.”
“He was sick! Crazed with pain.”
“It was a mistake to allow him to stay.”
“He is—was—family.”
“No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t family, and he shouldn’t have been here. I should’ve kicked him out like I wanted to.” His harsh gaze, glittering with anger, slanted toward Raven.
She was the one who’d begged to allow Zachariah to stay, who’d suggested the quarantine in the loft. It was her fault. Her father blamed her for this.
She shook her head, incredulous. Did her father even have a heart? Did he care about anyone else? He hadn’t shed a single tear when her mother left. He would’ve abandoned Zachariah without a backward glance or a second thought.
“We aren’t animals.”
“Aren’t we? It’s survival of the fittest, it always has been. Just now, everyone knows it.”
Anger boiled up inside her, pressing against her ribs, but she shoved it down. It was useless. Her father didn’t care about her outrage. Arguing with him was a waste of precious energy. And she felt tired, so tired.
Tears stung her eyes every time she looked at Zachariah.
She wanted to sit on the back patio with him the way they used to, with steaming mugs of hot cocoa.
She also wanted to tell him a corny joke, like the ones he’d told her when she was little.
Why did the cookie go to the doctor? Because he was feeling crumby.
He was the grandfather she’d never had. Now, he was dead.
“What now?” she asked dully. “We have to bury him. We have to… do something.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“We have to bury him,” she repeated.
Her father glanced down at Zachariah’s body, his eyes narrowing. “I said I’ll take care of it.”
“That’s not the same thing.” Her father was extremely unsentimental. Who knew what his idea of ‘taking care of it’ meant. “He needs to be buried. We have to show our respect.”
“Fine.” Her father expelled a sharp breath. “I will bury him.”
“I’ll help you.”
“No, you won’t.”
“He was my friend, too—”
“I said no!” He coughed again, a deep horrible hacking that shook his shoulders. Taking a step back to keep several feet between himself and Raven, he pulled down his mask to wipe his mouth with the back of his arm.
Raven stared at the mask, aghast. It wasn’t white like it was supposed to be. It was tinged with a sickly, pinkish hue. Her gaze dropped to his right arm. His faded plaid shirtsleeve was speckled with red droplets.
The realization struck her, sharp and swift as an axe blade.
She saw suddenly what she hadn’t noticed before, what she’d refused to notice, choosing to focus instead on her stupid birthday, the stupid gift from her mother, and her ridiculous plans for escape, which seemed suddenly empty and selfish.
Sweat leaked down her father’s face, beaded on his forehead, and stained the underarms of his shirt. Sweat on a cool day. The bruised circles beneath his eyes, which she’d assumed were from lack of sleep. The coughing wasn’t from his asthma.
And the smell. She’d barely noticed before now, but Vlad had. Vlad, who frantically paced behind the iron bars at the bottom of the hill, his lips pulled back from his two-inch teeth.
He snarled and shook his head back and forth repeatedly, unable to rid himself of the pungent stench. The sour, noxious scent turned her stomach. Dread sank in her gut like a stone.
The stink of sickness.
Her father was infected.