Chapter 8 #2
Delilah is notably missing from dinner. When no one mentions her absence, I decide not to ask, either.
While Chase and I eat, Veronica and Maverick chitchat about life at Camp Sunnyside.
It seems as though my initial impressions are spot on.
This is a settlement that’s run more like the Grave than East Jersey, and Veronica is the one in charge.
We’re here because she wanted us to join her group of rebels, and she only wanted to do that because she thinks she can use us.
I’m not offended by that. After the Turning, if you’re not useful, you might not survive. Going rogue and fighting lurkers on your own is one thing, but if you join up with a group and they have a reason to keep you alive… your odds of surviving jump through the roof.
I figure that she plans on using our hunting skills at the very least. I might not have started out the best lurker killer, but by borrowing my sister’s confidence, I’ve flamed so many over the last month that my name would be right at the top of the leaderboard alongside Chase’s if we were back at the Grave.
Not to mention my sensing ability. I’m waiting for Veronica to point out how useful that can be in a community like hers, but while she glosses over how I’ll be the only one at Sunnyside with that ability, it seems more like an afterthought.
And then, in between munching on a hunk of cucumber of her own, she says three little letters that guarantees she has all of our attention: IED.
“I’ve given a list of supplies I need to Veronica,” explains Maverick. “Some of us are going to go scavenging tomorrow morning, see if we can start gathering what we need to replace the bombs we lost.”
Ah. No wonder he seems to have perked up.
At first, I thought it was because he was secretly enjoying how blatantly the head of the camp seems to flirt with him, but after sitting down with her for longer than two minutes, it’s clear that Veronica’s default is to acting flirty with everyone.
Me, Chase, the balding man who is sitting at the table behind us, the sweet-faced younger girl who passes by, waving nervously at Veronica…
she has a smile and a quip for each of us, and I notice that, beneath the charm, is a leader that knows all of her people, puts them at ease while ensuring that they’re doing what they’re supposed to be.
She slips commands between compliments, and even if Tamera—the name of the pretty brunette who waved at her—seems nervous to approach Veronica, she sets her at ease, then tells her to find Aaron so that he can set her up with a partner for tonight’s border checks.
And, yet, she doesn’t quite come out and tell us what she expects from us other than Mav’s announcement that he’s going to start stockpiling his homemade bombs again as soon as he can.
He obviously plans on returning to Manhattan. And while I like the idea of getting back at Project Phoenix in theory, we need a lot more than sixty-four survivors plus Caroline to take down the powerful Men in Black.
And then Veronica says that she has something that will change everything: a series of paper, hand-drawn maps and schematics that outline the entire NRI building, the streets surrounding it, the buildings that were owned by the department of our former government, and sewer entrances beneath them.
She prods Mav in the arm. “I told Maverick that he needed Jules’s map before he did anything. But the stubborn lughead decided to head into the city before I had the chance to make it back to the camp.
“You tried to talk me out of bombing the NRI.”
“Of course I did. My sister was still in there.” She has a point. “But I have Delilah in camp with me, and a score to settle with those pricks. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t need Jules’s map. We’d have Jules himself.”
Chase has been silent for most of the conversation. I chalked it up to him finally having the chance to eat a filling meal for the first time in ages, and when he got up to grab seconds, he came back for another slice of fresh bread for me after he noticed how quickly I scarfed the other one down.
I’m just as curious to know who this Jules is, but it’s Chase who asks Veronica.
“Jules. Julian Flynn, the facilities manager at the NRI. He was Delilah’s partner.”
“At work?”
“Yeah. You could say that. They met there, but it wasn’t long until they were involved. You know. Romantically. My sister… we don’t really believe in labels in our family. She thought it was silly at her big age of thirty-six, calling Julian her boyfriend, so he was her partner.”
I think about what she said when we were escaping the facility. No wonder the name set off alarm bells in my head. Delilah mentioned that she was helping us break out of the NRI because of what happened to Jules and Lindsay. “He was a victim, too.”
“That’s right.”
“But he didn’t Turn like my Lindsay did,” says Maverick. “Julian got the first Injection.” A shadow falls over his face. “Julian actually helped me explain to Linds that, if her entire team was taking it, she should, too.”
“So he was like Delilah then.” I gesture vaguely toward my eyes. “Half-lurker. But if he was one of the first ones who took it… how did he die?”
“They killed him. Their stupid fucking experiments… Jules wasn’t a scientist. Lindsay and me…
we’re biochemists. Jules was responsible for keeping our lab up and running.
After the Turning… they said it was an accident, but the ones in charge of the project…
they loved their fucking experiments. They used my partner as bait to see if the subjects injected with PP-56 would feed on one injected with PP-55. The answer was yes.”