Resistant Read online

  “Partly. And for all the same reasons we told you. But when she realized that, despite all her years of research, you were the only experiment that succeeded, she was also beginning to suspect that the Task Force for Epidemiology and Antimicrobial Research was never planning to release a cure to the world. They were going to market it, commercialize it, control the world with it. And probably weaponize the diseases for which only they held the cure.”

  Rory shook her head. “And you’re telling me no amount of research has found any antibodies that work?”

  Byron sighed and shrugged helplessly. “Before Persy . . . Before she died, I was in the loop. She disengaged from almost everything related to the task force, and any minor research she did here was to, frankly, try to figure out why your immune system was so magical. But still, she traveled back to Boston infrequently to stay informed, consult for TEAR, just hoping she could pick up a clue. This pandemic isn’t going to end, and having her daughter be the pawn in a worldwide battle to find a cure was unthinkable.”

  Rory shook her head and leaned over the table. “If I’m so magical, why am I at risk? Why wouldn’t I just give my blood or stem cells to the research labs and let them solve this?”

  Navy remarked, “And you’re worried about trusting me?”

  Her gaze snapped to him. “Yes. I am.”

  “What do you think they would do if you raised your hand and said, ‘I seem to be the cure?’” Navy asked her. Her answer came without hesitation.

  “Identify the useful antibodies, test them in vitro and then in vivo, create a recombinant version through a stem-cell line, and mass-produce them for humanity.” She raised an eyebrow in challenge.

  Navy came closer to her. “TEAR is run by a cabal of survivors who live in terror of dying as painfully and miserably as one-seventh of the nation already has. So far, every survivor they’ve asked to volunteer has never been seen by their families again. Your database, if they discovered it, could put thousands more families at risk. If they find you, they find the database. And they’ll torture you to get any details they want. Once those details are available, you’ll only be useful to them—in a coma,” he added as he leaned an arm on the back of his chair and brought his face close to hers, “until you die.” He held her eyes and watched the anger slowly recede, replaced as he had hoped by a dawning awareness of her situation. Shifting to a crouch beside her chair so their eyes were level, Navy softened his tone. “We aren’t here to ruin your life. We’re here to extend it. You need to trust us, and you need to leave.”

  Despite her determination to keep a mental distance from Navy, she found his nearness still made every nerve ending alert. Meeting his frighteningly focused eyes, she took a short breath. “And go where? This is our home.”

  “It can’t be anymore. We have a base; we’ll take you there, and our scientists can work with you to try to develop a treatment—from whatever it is your body has learned.”

  Army said reassuringly, “A cure for everyone.”

  Rory looked to Byron, whose decision clearly was already made, but who also seemed resolved to follow her wishes. Her expression pleaded for guidance.

  “Maybe, someday, we can come back here again. After you’ve made the world a better place. You have a gift, one that you didn’t ask for or even earn. Do you remember Keats’ line about the Muses?” It was one of his favorite pieces of poetry.

  She closed her eyes, frowned, and then spoke softly. “‘But strength alone though of the Muses born, is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn . . .’” She opened her eyes. “I can’t remember the rest.”

  He completed it. “‘Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, and thorns of life, forgetting the great end of poesy, that it should be a friend to soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.’

  “Poetry and music are no different gifts than science. Being gifted the way you are, it could do the damage of a fallen angel. Or it could lift the thoughts and soothe the cares of man.” Byron covered her hand in his and squeezed it.

  Rory clenched her jaw against tears. She’d always known that was a quote her father loved; until today she hadn’t understood why. It hurt to know he’d been hiding something from her for so long, something that obviously pained him, too.

  “Okay. Then we leave, after we let the neighbors know to care for the chickens and take the apples.”

  Navy shook his head. “We can’t let them know. You need to disappear quietly.”

  Rory glared at him. “The chickens will die. The gardens will rot. The neighbors deserve what we have—everybody’s struggling.”

  Army held up a hand over Navy’s firm reply. “Wait. I have an idea. If you were to invite all the neighbors, right away, for a celebration of the harvest . . . would they come?”

  Rory looked to Byron, and they both nodded.

  Army explained, “Do it. We’ll throw a party, have a bonfire, alcohol—all the signs of staying right here and sleeping in tomorrow. We’ll all sneak out under cover of darkness and be miles ahead tomorrow when it’s realized. If you trust someone well enough, you can let them know that they can take everything in a few days.”

  Navy slowly nodded. “It could work. It could work well. Let’s start packing while they call everyone in.”

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  A bonfire roared with festive warmth as neighbors mingled in the twilight, laughing and catching up, enjoying the alcohol brought up from the Stevigson cellars. Last year’s apple cider was keeping everyone warmer than the fire, and a makeshift rotisserie propped over a low area of the fire held a variety of meats and vegetables slowly roasting. Rory stood away from the crowd, committing everything she loved so dearly to a photo in her mind. It felt like an impossibility that she would never see this place again, and yet the future was no clearer than the now.

  When she sensed him behind her, she let out a sigh.

  Navy stood watching her: the long plait she’d put her hair into, the proud posture drooping in sadness. The warmth and light in her demeanor dimmed.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  “Yes.”

  Navy stepped forward. His voice was deep when he said, “You need to trust me, Rory. We’ve got a long road ahead, and we’re bound together.” He could practically see her hackles rise, but she wouldn’t look at him.

  “Everything you’ve told me before noon today is a lie. Don’t tell me who I need to trust.”

  He took her by the elbows and forced her to look him in the eye. “No lies. Just omissions.” Her eyes searched his face, and the cerulean eyes that had sparkled with laughter and intimacy hours ago were now like glaciers. Like all the other people who saw his face and looked away in distaste.

  Icicles dripped from her voice. “Forgive me if I don’t have the energy to parse your deceptions from truth.”

  “What happened between us was real, and you know it, even if you’re angry about it.” With a slow breath, he shook her gently. “Would it help if I said I’m sorry?”

  She considered that. “No. You wouldn’t mean it, and I wouldn’t believe it.”

  Reluctantly, he let her go, fingertips traversing her forearms and hands. A farewell to the hope of touching her again. She had given him a taste of the warmth she could offer, and it had been addictive. But if cool distance was what she wanted from him, it was certainly his area of expertise.

  “We’ll leave at eleven,” he remarked evenly. “I’ve packed you a bag, but there’s room for more, only what you need most. We’re taking the Jeep, but we may have to go on foot, too, and Army’s taking the boat with Byron.”

  “Boat? Where is this base?”

  “Fifty miles off the coast of Nova Scotia.”

  “So the Jeep will take us to . . . ?”

  He shrugged, staring ahead. “Whatever boat we can find to steal and get us there.” He ignored her pointed look at him and commented, “There’s a woman running up behind us. Do I need to be worried
?”

  Turning, Rory saw the oncoming attack and grinned. She left him, and he turned to watch her embrace a young woman about her age who was even taller than Rory. They hugged tightly, Rory reluctant to release her. They leaned back and grinned at each other, obviously reuniting after a longer absence.

  “Birdy, it’s good to see you! I’m so glad you came!”

  The taller woman laughed, a beautiful trilling sound that made even Navy fight back a smile. “Why wouldn’t I?” Rory’s friend was a uniquely beautiful young woman: rangy, strong but feminine, with striking cheekbones dusted by freckles and twinkling cornflower-blue eyes. Curling brown hair was haphazardly tied back, but ringlets escaped around her temples.

  “Well . . . you’ve just been busy, I know. Let’s go have a drink and catch up.”

  Birdy agreed but looked to Navy curiously. “Okay . . . but who’s your friend?”

  Rory looked to him, hesitant. His eyebrow barely lifted in challenge. She had to play polite here.

  “This is Navy. He was traveling through with another friend from the military, and he was right in time to help us with the harvest. Navy, this is my oldest friend, Avis James. We call her Birdy.”

  Birdy let out another adorable guffaw. “No, we don’t. Not since I was twelve. Hi, Navy. You can call me AJ.” She extended an elegant hand, but when he shook it he could feel the calluses of hard work on her palm. “Nice to meet you.” Perceptive eyes took in his dark-lined visage, but her height was almost matched to his and she showed no intimidation.

  “Nice to meet you, AJ.” Yet another person who simply examined his face, then accepted him without question.

  Smiling at her friend, Rory clapped her on the shoulder as she said, “Birdy and I have been friends since we were eight. She’s the best fisherwoman in Massachusetts—” but she halted when AJ winced at the contact and folded her body away in pain.

  “Sorry, Rory. I got nailed there with a hook when we crossed lines with another trawler. Idiot cut the line under pressure and . . .” she whistled a sound of something flying through the air, “bam, right in my shoulder. Had to pop it through, cut the barb to get it out.”

  Rory’s brows furrowed with concern. “I’m sorry, Birdy. Is it infected?”

  “I hope not, but it’s kind of hard to see.”

  “Let me look.” Rory stood behind her, and AJ pointed to the spot so she could tug down the back of AJ’s shirt. A slim bandage did a poor job of covering the swollen, red patch of skin that had streaks of darker red radiating out from it. Rory looked up at Navy and gave a short shake of her head. She tried to hide the fear in her voice when she said, “Let’s go inside and put something on this. C’mon.”

  Inside the house, Rory took AJ and Navy to the basement under the guise that their first aid kit was stored there. But once they were belowground, she headed to another door and paused at the handle.

  “Birdy, we’ve been friends for almost our whole lives. What I’m about to show you—it can’t be shared with anyone, okay?” Rory began. AJ looked from her friend to Navy, who seemed unperturbed by the impending revelation. Actually, his demeanor seemed to AJ to be unflappable at any junction.

  “This is for Rory’s safety,” Navy said to her, sensing that she needed a reason not to be alarmed. AJ nodded.

  “Okay . . .”

  The door opened, and the dirty brick walls of the basement turned into clean white laminate and stainless steel, a small room with lab equipment and a single lab bench in the center, clean of any evidence of research. Though Byron and Rory had not told Navy about the lab, he’d suspected it was here or perhaps under the barn where he and Rory had sought shelter during the storm.

  “You knew my mom was a researcher. This was her lab. I’ve used it some, too, but I’m nowhere near her level of expertise.” Rory’s humility was calming, taking the edge off of AJ’s obvious anxiety. “But there may be something here that can help you. I need to let you in on something, though.”

  AJ eyed her warily. “Dude, you walk me into your secret basement science lair and tell me there’s more secrets to share. You are starting to freak me out. Get to the damned point.”

  Rory smiled and gave silent thanks for her friend’s unique sense of the absurd. “It appears while my mom’s research wasn’t successful, it was effective at making me very resistant to infections. And the research that has continued after she—died—” she tripped a little on the word, eyes dropping. “It hasn’t made progress either. So, there are people looking for me now.”

  “Not good people.” Navy took over for a second, holding AJ’s gaze. “I’m here to protect Rory and Byron, and the best way to protect them is to get them to a safe location, quietly, and solve the science there.”

  AJ needed no help grasping his subtlety. “You’re going to disappear them?” She looked to Rory, who nodded. “So my father’s incessant paranoia about the government hiding a cure, that’s for real?”

  Rory bobbled her head. “Close. They want to sell a cure, once it’s found, only to people who can afford an outrageous price tag.”

  AJ abruptly pointed to Navy’s chest. “I don’t know this guy from Adam. Why are we trusting him?”

  Rory took a long breath. Her eyes held Navy’s, and her next words felt to him like a scalpel slicing a quick, neat slice. “I’m not sure I am. But I have seen evidence that he’s right, and that we’re being watched. My dad knew that the government wasn’t being honest about the real mission of Mom’s research. That’s why they moved here. So, we’re leaving tonight and we’ll be gone tomorrow. I won’t be able to stay in contact without putting you at risk. But I hoped you would come back, take the chickens, take the apples and sell them for your family. And the gardens—anything you need.”

  Navy watched the dawning awareness on AJ’s face that her friend was soon to vanish.

  “This is crazy, Rory.”

  Rory nodded. “It is. And I hate it. But . . . I believe it’s what I should do. Where we’re going, I may be able to resume my mother’s research. Maybe I can help prevent more deaths.”

  “So, if you do this, if you succeed, maybe I won’t have to fear my brothers . . . my dad . . . my future kids . . . dying?”

  Rory nodded. “I hope so.”

  Birdy’s tough shell was an isinglass curtain to Rory. She knew the fear in her eyes was also about her own survival, about the heat likely starting to prickle painfully between her shoulder blades. Rory grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Do you trust me? Remember the fish-blood oath? If I’m right, you’ll heal up in days. And though I’ll be gone, you’ll know then that I made the right decision. I promise I’ll find a way to check in and ask you. Let me do this.”

  Birdy’s glacier-blue eyes slowly sparkled, their old friendship fluent in far more than speech alone. She remembered the children’s fable about a man trading blood with a fish, the one her father had told any children who would sit near his feet. Rory smiled, too.

  “Let you do what?” Navy asked quietly.

  Birdy raised her eyes to him, and he wondered how many people found her sheer power of confidence less than intimidating. “She’s going to give me a blood transfusion.”

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  Navy’s eyes whipped to Rory, who was already rummaging in drawers and withdrawing needles and telltale rubber tourniquets. “You’ve got to check something first, right? What about matching blood types?” There seemed a shortage of protocol in the process. Rory shook her head without looking to him.

  “I already did. I’m type O neg. In fact, I’m type O neg neg, meaning I don’t carry cytomegalovirus, which can infect people who are also not already exposed to it. So there’s actually no one I’m not compatible with.”

  She was already tightening off the rubber cuff above her elbow, painting her skin with iodine wash, and unsheathing a needle. Looking up at him, she said, “Now is the time for all queasy souls to look away.” He almost did, when she pressed the enormous-looking needle into her
skin and it slid through, slicing under the surface like a seabird diving for a fish. The dark red welled into the needle’s tube with the pressure of life wanting to grow, and she had only to let its force slowly depress the plunger for it to fill the fat syringe. “Good enough,” she whispered to herself, and slid the needle out as she replaced it with a square of gauze. With swift, businesslike efficiency, she taped her elbow to hold the gauze, capped the syringe, and shifted her attention to Birdy.

  By the time Navy decided to leave the small lab, the needle from Rory’s arm had already pierced the skin of AJ’s. He was, despite his years in the military, feeling queasy. It was one thing to see men in his unit being treated. Watching Rory’s blood fill a tube, though, caused acute anxiety. When he emerged on the porch, he found Byron rocking in a porch chair, making broken music with his harmonica.

  “Hello, Navy. I see you’ve discovered our lair,” he drawled ironically. He knew the creak of the basement’s door. There was only one reason for Rory, Navy, and AJ to be missing, and that door to also creak.

  Navy’s answer was only a long breath in. Out.

  “Something there you found distasteful? Shocking? Useful?” Byron let out a bitter laugh at the lack of response. “No? Me either.” The harmonica whined a bluesy dirge.

  “AJ has an infection.” He didn’t miss the sharp intake of Byron’s breath against the harmonica’s vocal chords. “Rory gave her a small transfusion.”

  Byron shook his head in dismay. “It took her hours to realize that she has a universally compatible blood type. It took us years to realize the risk of that.” He looked up at Navy and stood from his chair to stand abreast. “Do you have a grasp now for why I kept her in the dark so long?”

  Navy nodded. He almost felt his heels click together in deference and respect. His elbow itched to snap a salute.

  Byron’s body seemed almost to vibrate with fear and anger as he and Navy faced off. “Do you have a grasp of how precious she is? How desperately I need you to protect her?”