Breathless City Read online

  Though it wasn’t something that anyone talked about, everyone knew about the oxygen factory. Everyone knew that it existed. The proof came in the weekly shipments that arrived every Monday without fail. Little was known about the factory. Not about how it started, or how it operated. Anyone who said differently was probably lying. All of humankind depended on the shipments from the factory. Everyone would be dead within weeks without it.

  “Is it true what they say about the oxygen factory?” Dan blurted out, breaking the silence. No longer able to resist the temptation, when all this forbidden knowledge sat right across from him.

  “What do they say about it?” Gavin picked his head up to look at Dan.

  “That it’s filled with hundreds of animals. That they do all sorts of experiments. That they have a cure for the infection. That the people who live there never get sick, and that no one that lives there has ever died,” Dan said all in a rush.

  All of their heads seemed to lean toward Gavin, waiting for his answer. Even Xander in the front seat quit his silent reflections to listen in.

  “No,” Gavin replied mildly. “That’s not true. Except for the part about the experiments. We do those.”

  “How did you get there?” Sam cut in.

  “I was brought to the factory when I was a baby. I don’t remember anything before.” Gavin loosened his arms from their tight grip across his chest as he spoke about his home.

  “Where is it?” Sam asked again.

  “The factory is under the ocean, along the Atlantic coast. Approximately fifty or sixty miles away from here.” Gavin gestured in the direction of the shore, as if he could just touch it.

  Sam paused, seeming startled by the specificity of the answer. “Could we get there from here?”

  “You could try, but you might get eaten along the way. The toxins had a bad effect on some of the aquatic life.” Gavin shook his head.

  “What kind of foods do they have at the oxygen factory?” Ben called out.

  In spite of her anger, Stella found herself fighting against a grin. Out of all the questions he could have asked, Ben was mainly interested in the food.

  “The same things that we ship out to everyone else,” Gavin said simply.

  “But you said you don’t eat meat. Is that a rule or something there?” Sam asked.

  “No, that’s just me. I couldn’t eat meat anymore after I started helping out with slaughtering the pigs.” Gavin shut his eyes briefly as if shutting out a bad memory.

  “How many pigs did you have to kill?” Dan asked.

  “I’ve done thousands. After I became a vegetarian, though, I got taken off that shift permanently. I think my father was worried I wouldn’t be a good worker anymore without the protein or something.”

  His easy answers loosened up the tongues of the others.

  “If there aren’t hundreds of animals at the factory, how many are there?"

  “There are half a million different animal species. Many are living specimens and others are blood samples awaiting regeneration,” Gavin said.

  “How big is the factory?” Dan asked.

  “About the size of a small city, but it expands every year,” Gavin explained. “It’s organized into four different harvest domes. We live in the center where the domes meet.”

  “How did they build the factory under the ocean?”

  “No, who built it?”

  Gavin was cut off from answering as something in the engine popped with a blast like a gunshot. The van jolted and lurched forward. Stella heard the thud as the men in the back were jostled into one another.

  The steering wheel reverberated under her hands and Stella braced her weight against it, fighting to keep the van driving straight. The engine rolled to a halt, sputtering angrily as it died out.

  After turning the ignition once more and hearing a loud, screeching whine, she gave up and turned off the engine.

  When Stella stepped outside, Gavin was already in the front of the van, prying open the hood.

  “Get back, we have to move out,” Xander ordered. When he saw Gavin hesitate by the engine, he continued, “A hundred infected just heard that. I don’t care what you can do, it’s not worth the risk.”

  The men, who had been so busy with questions just moments before, fell silent. None of them would speak up to suggest that they try things a new way. Their old fears and reliance on Xander’s rules settled everything back into place.

  For Xander, safety wasn’t a goal; it was a compulsion. It went back as far as Stella could remember, when Xander was twelve and she was eight. Those days he would check his watch many hundreds of times a day. He would start warning Stella and her dad of the time even three hours before the infected were likely to come out.

  Xander had adopted the guidelines that Stella and her father had lived by and turned them into the Rules:

  Be armed.

  Travel in a group or in pairs.

  Remain quiet.

  Know where the exits are.

  Avoid the infected.

  Avoid contact with potential infected.

  Over short distances, kill the infected silently.

  Only fire at the infected over long distances.

  Do NOT engage in noisemaking, including, but not limited to, screams, power tools, and childbirth.

  Do NOT endanger the living for the dead or the potential dead.

  Do NOT go out into the night.

  At least, those were the rules that Stella had bothered to remember. Over the years at the gang, she began to see new rules trickle in, rules and laws and procedures that were starting to blur the lines between the freedoms they had and the lives of those who lived underground. The punishments for breaking the rules were starting to outweigh any gains they had made in safety.

  Stella knew exactly how Xander would see Gavin now. Gavin was more than just a new rule. Gavin was more than a project or method that could make their lives easier. Gavin was someone who had lived completely outside of all of their systems and outside of everything they knew—a glimpse of a safe world. She had delivered Gavin straight into Xander’s hands, without even giving him any kind of warning.

  Stella caught Gavin’s eye and shook her head discreetly, telling him no. Now was not the time. She had no doubts that Gavin could fix the van, just as she knew that Xander would never agree to it.

  Besides, it was getting late.

  She looked across the landscape, the sand once again taking on a reddish hue with the sun low on the dunes. In less than two hours, the infected would begin to wake. Or just those they hadn’t already awoken from their automobile trouble.

  Stella stepped over to Gavin’s side. She ignored Xander’s gaze following her, just as she ignored his one raised eyebrow. She might as well have built a New York billboard in flashing lights that said she liked Gavin. Right now, she couldn’t care about that.

  "They’re coming," Stella murmured, in a voice low enough that only he would hear it. “Step away from the van and stick close.”

  Stella walked away from the van, distancing herself from the others out in the open. After a beat, Gavin joined her.

  “This is just the quiet that comes before,” Stella whispered. “They know we’re here.”

  One building had caught her attention. It was too open, with cracked windows and a discarded door ripped straight off its hinges. Stella quickly noted all the signs of the infected, from the size of the building to the droppings, right down to the claw marks cutting into the wood. It was exactly the sort of building she had learned to avoid.

  Inside, Stella could start to see shapes moving in the shadows, just little subtle shifts where the darkness became darker. There was no question in her mind that they were there. The only question that mattered was how many.

  She was already unconsciously reaching for her gun. Their group was too large to just slip away. They would have to act fast. They were running out of time to fight.

  Stella aimed her Glock, alerting the others. Without
looking, she could sense her gang falling into position around her. Her attention was trained on that dark space between four corners of an open door. Right now, that was the only space that mattered.

  Ragged, blackened fingernails curved around the doorframe. The nails dug into wood as an infected pulled itself into view. A dirt-streaked face emerged out of the gloom with nostrils flaring wide.

  A shot fired out, and the hand fell out of view.

  Stella gritted her teeth just as she heard Xander murmur, “Damn it.”

  * * *

  That gunshot was too early. If they had waited, more infected would file out of the building. Then they could take down as many as possible and bolt.

  It couldn’t be helped. New gang members rarely developed that cold patience needed to survive out here. Most of them had only been out from underground for a year or two. Many of them would only last a year or two longer.

  The infected could sense when one of their fellows was taken down, especially this close to their home. That shot could awaken their hive mind.

  Stella doubled the grip on her Glock and braced herself. She counted down the time in her mind, all the while watching how the movement behind the door went terribly still.

  The infected erupted out in a swarm. Their swaying, outstretched arms blurred together into one. Watching all of those cracked teeth and wretched bodies was dizzying. Stella forced herself to tune in to individual features and just pick one out of the many. She locked onto a pair of sunken eyes and fired.

  Stella watched it fall to the ground with a shot through the forehead. Those directly behind it stumbled to the ground. It only briefly slowed them down. The fallen infected pushed themselves to their feet, scrambling over the others still on the ground. All too soon they were upright and rushing forward in a blind run, with arms extended and mouths gaping.

  Stella fired again and again, counting the shots around her. They were only outnumbered two to one, but it was enough. They were so close.

  Screams cut off Stella’s mental count. Her eyes flicked over to Gavin, who was unharmed, before finding the source of the sound. Two of them had gotten to Dan.

  Stella could already tell that it was too late. She blasted a hole through the head of one that had sunk its claws into Dan’s arm, just as the second one leaned forward and bit straight into his neck.

  Dan’s eyes clenched shut—he knew what it meant. As the infected latched on tighter, a wail slipped out of his lips, louder than before. Stella knew from experience that he wouldn’t have expected the power behind the bite, which forced those jagged teeth to saw their way into his flesh.

  Dan’s scream distracted the infected. They froze in indecision, torn between the need to protect their home and the drive to feed. Stella took the opportunity. She targeted the infected closest to him and took them out. She dashed toward Dan, ignoring Xander’s yell. “Stella!”

  She maneuvered just close enough and got one clean shot.

  She watched the infected’s head jerk back and dislodge from its grip on Dan. She watched in satisfaction as it dropped to the ground. She had to stop herself from firing once more in revenge. Instead, Stella looked up and assessed her surroundings, just in time to see the last of the infected around her taken down.

  Stella didn’t even have enough time to tell Dan to get up and move before Xander reached them, gun drawn and pointed straight at Dan’s forehead.

  “He has two days,” Stella argued. “Maybe a few more if he’s lucky.”

  “It’s going to happen anyway. He’s just going to put us at risk,” Xander stated.

  Stella replied softly, barely moving her lips so that the others wouldn’t know what was said. “That’s something an administrator would do. You’re better than that.” Xander paused, considering, and Stella added, “Give him a chance to say goodbye. We can always shoot him later.”

  Xander directed his attention back to Dan. “We’ve gotta move, and we aren’t slowing down for you. Keep up or get left behind.”

  “Fine. Just don’t kill me,” Dan managed to get out, clutching his bite wound without looking at either of them.

  “Night falls in an hour and forty minutes. Move,” Xander commanded the rest of them.

  They didn’t need any coaxing. The noise from the shots would wake more infected, alerting them to this location. It was just a matter of time before this place was swarming with them. Weapons in hand, they took off in the direction of their base, passing the infected that were just waking and cocking heads in their direction as they listened after them.

  As they returned to their base, a pale-faced Dan was pushed inside. The bottom of his shirt was ripped off and pressed against his wounds. Stella swallowed at the sight of it. The makeshift bandages were soaked, but not leaving a trail.

  Dan would spend the rest of his days in the same containment room she’d recently gotten Gavin out of—a room few people walked out of alive.

  How much of her blood would it take to save him? Stella never saw the people who got their hands on her blood. Dan wasn’t just exposed to toxins. He was bitten. His body was overloaded with infection. Trying to save him would probably kill her.

  As Stella tried to follow the others inside, Xander demanded to speak with her. He wasn’t subtle about it either. He just grabbed her wrist, halting her. It wasn’t like him to linger outside at any time. Especially this close to dark.

  Stella did not even spare Gavin a glance as she allowed herself to be pulled away. It wouldn’t help things. Whatever else he was, Gavin was safe for now.

  As soon as they were alone, Xander said, “You knew about Gavin.”

  Stella nodded in reply.

  “What do you want from him?” he asked.

  “I want what everyone else wants. I want to survive. Right now, keeping Gavin alive is what we need to do to survive.”

  “No. There’s more to it than that.” Xander stepped closer to her.

  “Of course there is. He’s from the oxygen factory. We’ve never met anyone like him before. Would you expect me to treat him the same as everyone else?”

  “Yes. I guess that makes sense.” Xander grabbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. “But you could have told me. Avoided all of this.”

  Stella looked away. Once, perhaps, she would have gone straight to him. But he was different then.

  She didn’t know what he planned for Gavin. But whatever it was, Gavin deserved better than to be used. She needed to get him home.

  “We were out late today,” Stella said, changing the topic.

  “We had a last-minute change of plans.” Xander ripped his gaze away from Stella.

  “That’s not like you.” Stella frowned. Xander’s usual style was to plan things like this days in advance, down to the last detail. Xander was efficiency incarnate.

  “There was something that I had to do. Something that was more than just survival.” Xander averted his eyes.

  It wasn’t like him to be vague.

  “And that had something to do with Celia’s gang?” Stella asked. The more she thought about it, the less it made sense. When she had gotten back to base, Xander was standing outside, armed and just about to head out. Come to think of it, Xander didn’t usually go out with those kinds of numbers just to check up on a rival gang. No. He had planned to go out somewhere that he knew was going to be dangerous.

  Xander just shook his head no. Stella wondered if he was going to keep silent when he replied, “I couldn’t stop worrying. I was wrong to let you go out there in the first place.”

  He took Stella’s wrist carefully in his hands and began pulling away her sleeves until he uncovered her injury. Xander stared at that dark red, seeping through the layers of gauze. “You got bit again.” He must have been quietly watching her to have noticed the subtle difference between her two sleeves.

  It suddenly clicked together. Stella was so surprised that she said it out loud. “I was that change. You were going to go into the city after me.”

 
“I couldn’t think of anything else for the past two days, just that you could be killed and it would be all my fault,” Xander said, running his hands through his hair like he did when he was really annoyed at himself. “I’m sorry.”

  Xander had planned to run into the city after her. He had been about to break almost every one of his rules for her. And for the first time, Xander was apologizing. Stella really didn’t know what to say.

  10

  As Xander strode to the conference room, he noticed Paul, a new recruit, steer straight out of his way and back up flat against the wall. Xander could easily see the whites of Paul’s wide eyes. With each step closer, Paul scrunched his limbs tighter against his body, as if he wanted nothing more than to press into the wall and disappear.

  Xander stopped, watching Paul’s slight frame tense up.

  Xander could have ignored Paul and kept walking. He had plenty of other things to do and a long day of paperwork waiting for him. Instead, he heard Stella’s words from last night echoing in his ears. That’s something an administrator would do. You’re better than that. Paul wasn’t the only new recruit to see him as an administrator. Some of the older gang members had the same reaction. Not that he was surprised. Xander had been halfway down the road to becoming one before he was forced out of the underground.

  “Paul,” Xander said, watching him flinch. “This isn’t the underground, and that isn’t necessary.”

  Paul’s only response was to cast his gaze down to the floor.

  “What was your section?” Xander asked him.

  “South, Sir,” Paul replied in a small voice. Paul certainly looked the part. The south housed all the menial task workers in food production and maintenance. Yet there had to be more to this skinny recruit if he had somehow managed to escape all the way from the south. More still, seeing as he had survived his initiation.

  “Look at me.” Xander waited until dark eyes reluctantly met his own. “I don’t know who you were in the city, and I don’t care. Here, you’re my soldier. You don’t ever back down, not even from me. You aren’t south section anymore.”