I snake the SUV between abandoned cars and debris, expecting to run into an impassable section of road sooner or later. Still, I don’t dare take the viable roads Eklyptors cleared for their purposes, not while carrying strictly human cargo.
“What’s your name?” I ask the girl.
“Hannah,” she says from her crouched position at the foot of the passenger seat.
I can’t afford to let her sit where an Eklyptor might spot her. If they see two people but sense only one, they’ll give chase. Our chances are precarious enough riding on these roads. My hope is that the Igniter battle She-Bird mentioned will keep the skies and streets clear for now.
“I’m Marci,” I say.
“Where are you taking me?” Hannah’s question is full of suspicion, as if I didn’t just save her life and she decided to repay the favor.
“To safety.”
“Why had they let you go?” She’s surely having second thoughts about putting herself in my charge. Her eyes are wide and scared. She looks as frightened and paranoid as a mouse. But who can blame her? Only God knows what she’s been through, what she’s had to do to survive. Very likely it’s the paranoia that’s kept her alive this long.
It’s a heck of a good question, anyway, one I cannot answer. I got her in the car with a promise to tell her everything, but now that we’re on our way, I don’t have to tell her jack. The situation is too complicated to explain. I can’t tell her I’m a Symbiot. Not when I’m hoping James will take her with him. There are very few Symbiots among James’s ranks, and their identities are revealed on a need-to-know basis. I know only three others: James, Aydan and Rheema. If there are more within the ranks, they’re hidden from me as well. I doubt IgNiTe, the group of human rebels who openly defy Eklyptors, would appreciate the news. Everyone is doing their best to keep their spirits up; there is no point in giving them more to worry about.
“Well, um … I’m a spy.” I can’t think of anything else to tell her. Besides, it’s not a lie.
She shakes her head, looking as if I just told her I’m a hungry werewolf with rabid thoughts of taking a chunk out of her.
“I’m with IgNiTe,” I add, hoping this will ease her fears.
“IgNiTe?!” she exclaims. From the excited ring of her voice, it seems I have quickly risen from werebeast status to saint. “Are you serious?!”
Man, I feel like a celebrity. I nod and keep driving north. The further away from downtown we go, the clearer the streets become and the slower my heart beats. Scouts keep closer to headquarters. Their numbers are limited, and Elliot likes to keep them close. He won’t be happy to learn that two of them are dead. It’s not like he can easily replace them—not when it takes years to morph and grow additional appendages.
Hannah seems content for a few minutes, then the questions begin again.
“But how does that work if … if you’re human?”
Smart girl. Surely another reason she’s still alive. She should make a nice addition to James’s ranks. This fight can use every person we can get, especially if they’re intelligent.
“Uh, some of them like to keep humans around, like pets.” My stomach twists. The simple idea of being a traitorous, Eklyptor pet makes me want to retch.
Hannah’s nose wrinkles with a disgusted grimace. “That has to be horrible. How can you stand it?”
I shrug.
“And what if they decide to turn you?”
“It’s a risk, but these are desperate times.”
She puts a hand over her mouth. “I couldn’t do it. I would just …” She muffles her words and shakes her head, looking horrified.
“It isn’t easy. I assure you.”
We don’t speak for a few blocks. I’ve managed to take us completely out of downtown, and I’m well on my way to my rendezvous spot with James.
Hannah hugs her legs to her chest and rests her chin on her knees, looking pensive. “Will IgNiTe take me?”
“If you’re willing to fight. If you’re not, they’ll find a safe place for you. One of the underground human communities.”
“They really exist?!” she asks as if I just told her Sasquatch is real, and she can’t wait to meet him. “We heard rumors, but we never saw them.”
“We?” I ask, then immediately regret it.
She stares down and pulls at her jacket as if it’s out of place, which it isn’t. You’d think I would have learned by now. I’ve lost enough people in this fight to understand the touchy subjects.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t …” I trail off. There’s nothing to say.
The silence between us is heavy for a long moment, then Hannah speaks, “Mom, Dad, my sister, Josephine, and Mack, our dog.” She worries at a hangnail, pretty much obliterating it.
I don’t want to hear this. I don’t. If she expects wise words from me I have none. If she expects sympathy—I have plenty of that, heck, I even have empathy—but I’ve never been good at expressing it.
“We lived in a condo right on Olive Way. We were at home when all hell broke loose. We stayed holed up in there until the food ran out. About two weeks.” Hannah pauses and takes a deep breath.
The Eklyptors never bothered searching people’s houses. A good number of citizens just came voluntarily in the beginning of The Takeover, believing the lies the beasts spread through the news channels, the ones that said the authorities would provide answers and help. They were like mice crawling inside the lion’s mouth. They never stood a chance, because Eklyptors took control of everything that was important: hospitals, government, police. They had their infected monsters in place, ready to assume power as soon as hostilities began. As for the humans who stayed hidden, Eklyptors knew they would soon have to come out in search of food. The creeps are in this for the long run. So why hurry?
“We tried to talk to the neighbors,” she continues, “but the few that were still there wanted nothing to do with us. One guy even threatened us with a gun, saying we wanted to steal his provisions. The empty units had already been raided by them. We found a few cans of soup, but that was it. So Dad … he decided to go out to find stuff to eat. He took Mack with him and made us stay back. It was so hard waiting for him, not knowing if he was all right. We were so relieved when he came back. He ran into no trouble, was even able to fill a backpack with enough food for a few days. Stuff like canned tuna, crackers and Slim Jims.”
A vivid image of her family huddled together, dividing up the few items, pops into my mind. How many families went through the same? How many are still together?
“Of course, the food didn’t last,” Hannah continues. “Dad felt confident he could go out and get more. He hadn’t run into any problems the first time, so he assured us it would be fine. We still didn’t like it. He had no idea how awful waiting for him had been. I told him we should stay together, but he wanted to make sure we were safe. He said that was his priority.”
Hannah doesn’t need to say what happened next. Her story is charged with the power of an awful punch line.
Her father never came back.
She cries silently. Her hands flutter to and away from her face as she wipes tears off her cheeks and jawline.
I clench the steering wheel and look straight ahead. I doubt there’s a human left on Earth who doesn’t have a nightmare story to recount. I have my share of them, but I’m not burdening her with mine, am I?
What does she expect me to say?
Apparently nothing, because she goes on, oblivious to my discomfort.
“We stayed there for two days, eating little more than cracker crumbs and crying ourselves crazy. Finally, I convinced Mom we had to go out and look for him. In case Dad came back, we left him a note that said we’d be back every night. We packed what we could. Flashlight, matches, first-aid kit, stuff like that.
“We were terrified, but at least we were doing something, instead of just waiting like useless fools. First, we went to the convenience store where Dad went the first time. He’d said there was nothing left there, so it was unlikely he’d gone back, but it was all we had to go by. It was so hard moving through the streets. We kept expecting someone to jump us from every door and alley.” She gives a dry laugh. “I saw people watching us from their condos. They just stared at us from behind their curtains. No one offered to help. No one.”
She lifts her chin and looks over at me. I throw a quick glance her way. The wonder and gratitude in her eyes let me know how surprised she is that someone, namely me, gave a damn and risked everything to save her life.
Yep, it was nuts. Even I can’t believe it, so she should shut up before she makes me regret it.
But Hannah is on a roll, and I don’t have the heart to tell her to stop. Maybe she needs this, maybe it’s therapy. Too bad I’m not a shrink.
“I used my cell phone to navigate us, snapping pictures of the areas we had checked. It’s so odd that phones and TVs and all that crap still works when everything else’s gone to hell.” She shakes her head. “Anyway, it was slow going. We hid and crouched more than anything else. We almost got spotted a couple of times by … people driving past. Then, just when we were about to go back home, we … we found Mack. He was Josephine’s dog, a good-hearted black Labrador. He was dead. Shot in the head and laying by the side of the street.
“Josephine lost it. She went hysterical, screaming and crying, clinging to Mom. We tried to calm her down, but we couldn’t. ‘If Mack is dead. Dad is dead,’ she kept saying over and over again.
“Then, all of sudden, this man comes out of one of the buildings. He looked furious and dangerous. At first, I thought he was one of them, but he was mad because of the racket Josephine was making. Not like he made it any better by yelling at her to ‘shut the fuck up unless you want the Eklyptors to show up.’
“When Josephine wouldn’t shut up, he tore her away from Mom and slapped her across the face. He looked like he was ready to kill her. Mom and I pulled him away and that’s when he pulled out a gun and he just …” Hannah trails off, too choked up by her tears to continue.
The corners of my eyes prickle. I think of Dad, Mom, Xave, all gone. The pain of their absence smarts like a wound freshly opened. It always rides right under my skin, but it hasn’t resurfaced is some time—not when hatred and revenge-lust are my prevalent emotions while living among Eklyptors.
I want to curse Hannah, want to blame her for pouring salt on the wound and reminding me of my own misery and loneliness, but she’s gone through enough as it is. The last thing she needs is my brand of bitterness undoing the little comfort she’s found in pouring her heart out.
After her tears run out, Hannah takes a deep breath and shifts in her spot, one hand digging inside her blue jacket. I look sideways at the exact moment she pulls out a small revolver from the depths of her puffy top layer. I nearly slam on the brakes, expecting her to point the gun at me, but she just lets it dangle between her thumb and index finger.
“I killed him,” she confesses, though not with regret. She sets the gun on the seat at her side, mouth twisted in disgust. “He shot Josephine and Mom, but I … I fought him. I took the gun from him and … I used every single bullet. I’m still waiting for the guilt to keep me up at night, but the only regret I have is killing him too fast. I wish I’d made him suffer. I wish I’d let him linger, knowing he was gonna die. I’d have loved to see the fear on his face. Does that make me a monster?”
This a rhetorical question, right? She must know the answer. Except she looks up at me, her blue eyes full of fear for what my answer might be.
“You might be asking the wrong person.” I take the next right and notice a car ahead of us. The way is fairly clear on this road. The obstructing debris—shattered glass, broken down cars, chairs and tables from the nearby restaurants—have been moved to the sides. I don’t warn Hannah or remind her to stay low. She’s scared enough as it is and wouldn’t risk even a small peek out of the window.
“Why do you say that?” she asks.
I sigh and bite down my response. Butt out, those are the words that come to mind first, but I make an effort to be civilized. The fact that I live with animals doesn’t mean I should act like one. I would have answered her that way before The Takeover, but only because at the time she would have been able to find someone else to bond with. Post-Eklyptors, not so much. The going is tough. People who love you and understand you drop like flies at your feet. Now it sort of feels like any stranger you meet can be your friend, as long as they’re the human kind, that is.
“Because I happen to know real monsters. To me, you’re just a girl.”
The car ahead of us turns onto another road. I don’t get to feel at ease for long, though, because another one appears; this one headed in our direction in the opposite lane. It’s a couple of blocks away, so I still don’t say anything. Instead, I look for a way to turn, but the intersecting streets are barricaded. I clench my jaw.
Hannah rests a cheek on her drawn-up knees. Blond hair spills to the side, tangled and dirty. She looks like she hasn’t showered in weeks and, judging by the red circles under her eyes, hasn’t slept much either.
“I keep thinking maybe Dad’s out there, somewhere.” Hannah closes her eyes as if she’s having a daydream. I think she is.
“Stay down,” I say behind my hand. “A car is going to pass by. Don’t freak out.”
Hannah holds her legs tighter, going rigid with tension. I keep my left hand on the wheel and the right one on the gun on my lap. When the car passes—a red BMW—I exchange a glance with its passenger. From here, he looks perfectly human, but my head buzzes, letting me know he’s an Eklyptor. He nods and keeps on his way. I breathe a sigh of relief.
As long as we don’t encounter any morphed creatures with super noses or thermal vision, they won’t detect Hannah. If we run into more scouts, however, we’re screwed. I worry at the leather steering wheel with a sharp thumbnail, leaving marks behind.
We ride in silence for a few blocks. We run into a few other cars, but we pass them without problems, although not without considerable heartburn. For the most part, the drivers look perfectly human, except for one with colorful, butterfly-like patterns on her skin.
The older Eklyptors who have managed to develop useful traits are higher in the pecking order. They were the commanders for the different factions during The Takeover. The newer Eklyptors are the regular “citizens.” They are the ones keeping things going, showing up to work to make sure the cities they stole from us don’t fall apart. So the further we move away from downtown, we should be less likely to run into enhanced beasts. I relax a little.
Finally, I turn onto 15th Avenue East, the road that leads to Lake View Cemetery and my rendezvous with James.
“We’re almost there,” I say.
I stop at an intersection. A car comes to a sudden stop on the opposite corner. My gaze locks with the driver’s. I wait for the buzzing to begin. It doesn’t. I judge the distance between us. The guy is close enough. My head should be buzzing.
He’s human!
My eyes widen in surprise. When he notices my startled expression, his eyes grow as wide as mine and, in the same instant, he steps on the gas and sends his tires screeching and smoking. His car, a white truck, seems to sit still on the spot for a moment, revving, then tears down the street, going from zero to sixty before I blink. I watch him fly by the front of my SUV and disappear down the intersecting street like a bat out of hell.
“Wow.” In spite of everything I’ve seen since I learned about Eklyptors, I’m surprised by this. It’s too terrible an example of what our once-trusting society has become. It makes me wonder about how it used to be. Did we really use to sit next to each other at the movie theater? Dine in crowded restaurants? Shake each other’s hands and say “nice to meet you”?
“What is it?” Hannah asks in a trembling whisper.
“Nothing. It’s fine. Just another used-to-be dying in front of my eyes.”
I move forward, knowing that guy is feeling pretty stupid right about now, though he’s probably also breathing a sigh of relief.
We arrive at the cemetery a few minutes later. The main gate is open. I drive through it slowly, the speedometer needle barely moving from zero. I stop by the same statue of a virgin where I met James once before, the day he took me to The Tank for the first time. I look around but don’t see him anywhere.
“Stay put,” I tell Hannah, then open the door and step out of the car.
A few clouds float above. They are gray, full of the threat of rain. The sun hides behind one of them, and I wish it wasn’t so. A cemetery has enough gloom as it is. A heavy silence seeps from the tombstones and saturates the air. My soul goes quiet and still with respect for the dead. My heart finds a certain peace at the thought of at least some of us being in a better place.
The peace doesn’t last that long. Only until a gust of wind whirls around the SUV and ends up right behind me.
I stiffen. “Hello, James.”
“Guerrero,” he says, pressing one arm around my neck and a gun to my temple. “Hands up.”
“Who’s that?” James demands, gesturing toward Hannah.
I’m sandwiched between the open door and the fastest human being on the planet, as far as I know, anyway. Hannah is still huddled on the passenger-side floorboard. She looks up at us, arms wrapped around her knees, visibly shaking.
I take a deep breath to calm myself. A gun to my temple is a new threat. I wonder if James is serious and took the safety off and everything.
Of course he’s serious, Marci. Don’t be stupid! A heart attack is nothing.
“Um, just a girl. Her name is Hannah.” I remember hearing somewhere that if an assailant knows your name, he’s less likely to kill you. Since he already knows mine, I give him the girl’s. “I was on my way here when I saw her. I wouldn’t have brought her, but two scouts spotted her, too. I couldn’t let them take her.”
“It’s hard enough to trust you already. This is pushing it.”
“I know. I know. But what would you have done?”
James says nothing to that.
“It’s … it’s true,” Hannah says from within the SUV, her voice so weak and shaky it’s barely audible. “She saved my life.”
“Don’t make any sudden moves.” James removes his arm from around my neck and proceeds to relieve me of my gun. When that is done, he steps back and moves his own weapon from my temple to the back of my neck. “Now, step away from the car.”
I do as he says. He sidesteps with me, staying at my back. When we are about ten feet from the SUV, he says, “Hannah, I’m going to need you to get out of the car. Hands up in the air.”
There are no signs of movement within the SUV. I think of the revolver she was carrying and hope she doesn’t try anything stupid. James almost strangled me once. I doubt that, under the circumstances, it would be hard to get him in a trigger-happy mood.
“Did you hear me?” James’s voice goes up a notch. The kind of deep tone a father might use on his daughter.
“I did. I’m coming out. I’m coming. Please don’t shoot,” Hannah says shrilly.
She wriggles herself out of the tight space and pushes onto the passenger seat, her hands up in the air.
“Now, slowly, open the door and come around the car, hands where I can see them,” James instructs.
Hannah follows the instructions closely, keeping her hands above her ears as she rounds the front of the SUV. She stops about ten paces away from us and gives James a small nod as if saying: “See, I’m just a girl.”
“All right, now take off your jacket and throw it aside,” James says.
Hannah frowns at the request but does as she’s told. It is a puffy jacket. Much could be concealed under it. She’s left in a tight fitting t-shirt that barely hides her thin frame.
“Now both of you, move away from the car.” James gives me a slight push.
Hannah and I walk side by side down the middle of the road, James following but staying a fair distance away.
“All right, that’s good. Turn around.”
We stop and face him. James reaches into his back pocket and tosses me a pair of handcuffs. I catch them in midair. I get my first good glimpse of him since the attack at Elliot’s headquarters. James looks harried, the crow’s feet around his eyes more pronounced than before. His normally well-shaved head is sprouting a few hairs from the sides, and his shoulders appear narrower. He’s never been a big man, just average height and build, but he always looked fit. I guess this war is getting the best of him. I’m sure getting shot didn’t help either.
“Cuff her,” James says, his gray eyes as intense as ever.
“Is that necessary?” I ask, though I know it’s a stupid question. We can’t trust anyone.
“I’m taking no chances.”
I face Hannah. “I’m sorry. He has a lot to safeguard, but I promise he won’t hurt you if you don’t cause any trouble.”
She nods shakily and lowers her arms. I clamp one cuff to her right wrist, then walk behind her and secure the other at her lower back. As soon as I’m done, I put my hands up again.
“Sit on the sidewalk and stay put, Hannah,” James says in a voice that is sounding kinder by the minute. “Like Marci said, just do as I say and everything will be fine.”
“I will, Mister …” Hannah sits with some difficulty. She lowers her head and sniffles a few times, but quickly composes herself.
“You can call me James.”
“Thank you, Mister James.”
He smirks and shakes his head. After a pensive moment, he jerks his head and the gun to one side, signaling me to move away from Hannah. As we walk toward the opposite sidewalk, I notice James’s ultra-firm grip on the gun. It seems he’s taking no chances with my telekinetic powers either. Ha! Like I’ve learned to control them. I can only wish.
James’s gray eyes drill into mine. “So … still Marci?”
I cock my head to one side and nod.
He sighs. “It’s a damn thing. I want to trust you, but …”
“Don’t feel bad. I’ve given you plenty of reasons not to.”
An image of my bloody hands after I failed to stop Azrael from killing Oso flashes in front of my eyes. My heart tightens with the regret that assaults me every time I think of that kind man, and of the way that petty creature took his life. A wave of disgust runs through me as I imagine the parasitic agent lodged, seething, lurking, inside my brain.
“Report,” James says.
I take a deep breath, trying to remember everything that’s happened since the last time I met with Aydan—too long ago for comfort. After IgNiTe’s attack at Whitehouse headquarters and the eradication of his Spawners, things have been busy for the Seattle resistance. Without Spawners the Whitehouse faction can’t grow its base—an advantage IgNiTe must fight to maintain.
“Well, everyone’s still in turmoil,” I say. “Lyra says Elliot has been busy doing damage control. He has been meeting with his captains, making plans few are privy to. He’s being extremely paranoid. He had his tech people check the network, but I made sure they didn’t find any of my hacks. So I’ve been able to watch the security system closely and have seen very little going on in the building. Whatever meetings he’s holding, they must be happening elsewhere. I suspect he has gone low tech. He’s taking no chances. The bastard. I wish you would just let me put a bullet between his eyes.”
“Stick to your orders, Marci. Killing Elliot would make his faction unpredictable. I know you’ve sworn revenge but, take it from me, you should strive to live for more, find a worthy reason. Revenge will blind you to the things that truly matter.”
“I know. I know.” Maybe James is right, but, at the moment, nothing sounds better than making Elliot pay.
James grunts and casts a quick glance in Hannah’s direction, frowning.
I continue, “Anyway, Lyra suspects he’s planning a trip to England, something in the next couple of months. She thinks he’s going to get the Spawners who survived the attack in the Glasgow safe house. The one the London IgNiTe cell couldn’t destroy entirely.”
“Yeah, that was unfortunate. The Takeover was more effective there, and our IgNiTe cells are weakened. I wish they’d been strong enough to carry out the job.” He runs a hand over his bald head. “But I can’t blame them, I suppose. They did their best. I wonder how many Spawners survived.”
“Don’t know.”
“At least we’ve slowed down the rate at which they’re infecting people.” The way he says this lets me know he thinks it’s not enough. “I wish we could destroy Hailstone’s Spawners, too.” A muscle jumps in his jaw, showing his frustration. “Anymore on Whitehouse trying to reach out to Hailstone to form an alliance?”
“No. That’s not going to happen. Lyra killing Zara Hailstone took care of that possibility. I doubt Luke would be up to working with his mother’s murderer.” The bitterness I feel is obvious in my voice.
Zara was not Luke’s biological mother. Her faction kidnapped him right from the NICU the day he was born, sending my family into lifelong turmoil. Karen is his real mother. The woman who, in spite of raising me and supposedly giving birth to me, isn’t my genetic match. Talk about an identity crisis. I don’t even know where the hell I come from. It turns my head and stomach just to think about it, and something tells me I don’t want to find out.
God, what a freakin’ soap opera.
“Even if Luke was game, Elliot would rather destroy them for daring to attack him. He’s dying to find out where they are hiding. He even has a task force dedicated to it, a small one, but still.”
James rubs his chin. “Is that so?”
I nod.
“We definitely need to keep an eye on that situation in case we can take advantage of it. What else?”
I pull out a thumb drive from my jacket pocket. “I’ve found some info I’m sure you’ll find valuable. Every day there’s less and less going through the network, especially this type of stuff, but I caught this.”
James holsters his gun and takes the thumb drive. I give him raised eyebrows as if asking “so you trust me, now?” He shrugs. It’s not like he really has anything to fear from me. I don’t have a weapon, and he could run a million circles around me in the time it would take to make up my mind to attack him.
“So what is it?” He gestures toward the thumb drive as he slips it into the breast pocket of his brown leather jacket.
“Weapon and ammunition delivery dates and routes,” I say, a huge smile spreading over my lips.
James’s eyes go wide. He puts a hand over his breast pocket protectively. For a moment, he looks on the verge of saying something but, instead, he presses his lips into a tight line. I know he can’t trust me with any details, but it’s better this way.
“It should be a win-win all around,” I put in. “Fewer weapons for Eklyptors, more for Igniters.”
His gray eyes narrow in assent, and I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get. If IgNiTe is hurting for weapons, that’s not something I need to know—not when I sleep in the lion’s den every night, and I’m prime candidate for “Deranged Agent Takeover Syndrome.”
“We’ll check it out thoroughly. Thank you. Now …” He sticks his hand inside his jacket and pulls out an orange zip bag. “I need your blood.”
I frown. “What for? Kristen’s tests don’t work on me. She must be checking for antibodies, so I’ll always test positive after that crazy fucker took over me.” I gesture toward my head.
“We know that, but—”
“Look, I’m not an Eklyptor.” I know the conviction in my tone is useless after all the trouble Azrael caused for IgNiTe, but it’s there nonetheless.
“You can’t blame me for wanting more proof than your word,” James says firmly, though not unkindly. “Kristen wants to take another look at your blood. Maybe there’s a marker that sets you apart from Eklyptors, and she can develop a test that puts you in the clear. Wouldn’t that be nice? For all of us.”
I scoff. “Sounds too good to be true, but yeah … it would be nice.” I dare not think of what could happen if James and the crew were certain that I’m human. Would they let me go with them? Would my stint with Whitehouse come to an end?
James gestures to my arm. I take off my jacket and let it fall to the ground. He pulls out a thick elastic band from the bag and wraps it around by bicep. With surprising practice, he prepares the syringe, finds a vein and sticks the needle in the crook of my elbow. I wince, watching as he presses a glass vial into the cartridge and blood begins to flow and fill the tube. He removes the elastic band and draws two more tubes of blood.
“Done.” He pulls the needle and stuffs everything back in the zip bag.
“It didn’t hurt,” I say, surprised.
“Yeah, I’m a regular old nurse these days. Been getting lots of practice.”
I can only imagine all the people they’ve had to test. Aydan told me there are camps where the elderly, children and those humans who can’t fight are kept safely. As is to be expected, everyone is tested carefully before being sent there—buzzing or not. Of course, those who can fight are also scrutinized. In their case, it’s actually a daily thing, to ensure no one is infected while out on duty.
Suddenly, I remember Hannah and wonder how all of this looks from her perspective. I glance over her way. She’s sitting still as if frozen, her eyes wide and full of questions.
“I’ll have to test her before I take her with me. We all carry a handful of tests for emergencies. There’s no buzzing coming from her, but one can never be too careful.” He pulls another bag from his jacket. This one is blue. “I’ll keep one and give you the rest. Maybe there’s somewhere you can hide them just in case.” He takes one small packet out of the bag and hands me the rest.
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