Breathless City Page 2

  Should she risk gunfire this close to sundown?

  Yellow, frenzied eyes locked on her. The creature crouched low on all fours, tongue lolling out, viscous saliva dripping from its lips.

  Screw it.

  Stella raised her nine-millimeter Glock, aiming for the head. The shot rang out, echoing far in the quiet. With only a few hours until sundown when the horde awakened.

  Any hungry ones would wake now—and the infected always seemed to be hungry.

  The creature slumped to the ground. Stella darted forward, pulling her knife free.

  Gavin observed the creature with cold, scientific curiosity, just like the stoic nurses with their clipboards scurrying about underground. “What happened to him?”

  “The same thing that’s about to happen to us. We’ve got to go.” Stella took his hand and ran. The weight of his body jolted her back. Stella held on, dragging him forward until he matched her pace.

  Her pill pumped oxygen faster as she demanded more and more from it. Stella’s legs burned. She knew from the pressure building in her chest that she had to slow down. Her pill couldn’t handle the strain—could even fail on her. Too much pressure and the oxygen pill could burst. The gas released in an explosion that ripped people open from the inside.

  If she wasn’t fast enough, they would simply be eaten.

  She settled for a jog that would have to do. They ran past creatures awakened by the noise. One emerged out of the shadows, stretching and groggy. Stella clenched Gavin’s hand, mentally cataloging through places they could hide. Which would mean bunkering down, barricading themselves in through the night.

  They jogged a full mile. Far enough away from the gunshot, especially with fresh meat to distract them. It didn’t matter to the infected if they ate one of their own. Stella collapsed to her knees, exhaling puffs of carbon dioxide.

  Gavin kneeled by her side, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder as her pill stabilized.

  “What did you mean?” she asked as soon as she felt normal again. “When you asked what happened to him?” There was no way he didn’t know about the airborne toxins. How the infection spread through the bite of those things. Unless he lost his memory somehow?

  “Why did he have factory issued pants? Was he newly turned?” Gavin shook his head, like he couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

  “Oh. Yeah, that was a new one. Probably ran out of oxygen pills. At that point, once dialysis fails them, they’re herded out here with the rest of them.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. We get the census reports and ship out more than enough for everybody.”

  Stella’s mouth fell open.

  His jumpsuit had dried in the sun and lost most of the sand covering it in the run. It was a jumpsuit that she’d never seen before, covered in pockets that didn’t just swish back and forth as he ran, but also clinked with metals and glass vials. What exactly was she getting herself into?

  It clicked. Stella had never seen anyone like him because he didn’t belong out here.

  She turned to him, swallowing down the shock. “You’re from the oxygen factory.”

  2

  Gavin drummed his fingers against the copper pipes as he sighed. Within minutes of arriving at Stella’s base, he’d been taken away at gunpoint and locked in a damp holding room with deep scratches crisscrossing the walls.

  He had nothing against this quarantine policy. He’d been left unconscious out in the open air. He’d even had close contact with an infected. Transmission of the infection spread through heavy exposure—with a bite. But there was still a slim chance that he still could have gotten contaminated. Respiratory droplets from the creature might have hit his eyes. Gotten inside his mouth.

  But they’d held him here for hours.

  Symptoms of the infection appeared within an hour, and Gavin showed none of them. His vision was clear, his vitals were stable. Besides, he had no bite marks on him, and he was on a high-capacity oxygen pill.

  After the third hour, all this monitoring seemed pointless. He was stuck here with nothing to do.

  Across from Gavin, a guard pointed a rifle his way.

  Gavin heard the power to the heat pump click on, but the system wasn’t running—that would mean the whole facility would only get cold water. He got close enough to the unit to see that the wiring had gotten loose. Not surprising as this room was used to house the infected. It would take him five minutes to set the wires back in order. The click of a rifle stopped him. Gavin opened his mouth to explain himself and stopped at the guard’s cold expression. Gavin sat back against the wall and sighed. He hardly noticed the door unlocking, or the soft tread of someone stepping in.

  The guard turned his head. Long dreads, tied straight down his back, flapped against his cracked leather jacket. “Don’t know why you’re bothering with this one. Look at him—he’s no fighter, Stella.”

  At the sound of her name, Gavin looked up and there she was, looking down at him like his own personal guardian angel. His mood brightened, though her arms were crossed. She watched him with a hint of a frown as her eyes lingered on his hunched position.

  “Not all of us need to be fighters,” she replied.

  “Don’t mess with him. Xander’s already angry,” the guard retorted.

  “Business as usual, then. Xander’s always pissed at me. Here, let me take the next shift.” Stella lowered her voice to a murmur, adding, “The antibiotic isn’t doing anything. She’s asking for you.”

  A crease formed between the guard’s eyebrows. The guard handed off his rifle to Stella, shutting the door behind him. She scooted closer to Gavin, peering into his face. Her eyes were bright violet, framed by snowy lashes.

  “Here.” Stella pulled a loaf of bread out from under her shirt. “Eat this quick, before someone sees.”

  Gavin took a bite. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so hungry. Or so happy to eat old bread. Stale. But warmed by Stella’s body heat… He quickly took another bite before those violet eyes noticed his cheeks flush.

  “How are you doing?”

  “Better now,” Gavin said.

  Stella nodded. “I don’t think that I can get you home without help. That means getting you into the gang first. Xander’s insisting on initiation, and he doesn’t like you already.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I brought you in. Or maybe, even if I hadn’t, he would have found another reason not to like you.”

  “What did I ever do to him?” Gavin asked.

  “That’s just the way he is.” Stella shrugged. “Initiations have been getting worse. Our gang is too large. It’s tough enough to get food as it is. Xander wants to keep our numbers down.”

  “What do I have to do to get in?” Gavin asked.

  “Kill somebody, kill an infected, bring back food,” Stella said.

  Gavin buried his face in his palm. Kill somebody? The happy moment he felt at seeing Stella again was long gone. What had he gotten himself into? How was he going to be able to survive?

  She rested her hand on his shoulder. The warmth of it in this damp room was… nice. Gavin leaned in closer to her, hoping that she wouldn’t take her hand away. She didn’t.

  “Can you tell me something?” Stella asked.

  “About what?” Gavin wished for the right words to say. He wasn’t a smooth talker like his brother.

  “Tell me about your home. Tell me about where you’re from.”

  “It’s kind of big. Noisy.” Gavin guessed that this answer wasn’t completely the wrong thing to say, as it got a smile out of Stella.

  The smile softened her features; all that tense awareness slipped away. It revealed a glimmer of who she could be without the strain of surviving. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard.

  “Right,” Stella said, “but what’s so big and noisy about it?”

  “Everything in the factory is alive. Even the harvesters are bionic. All those living things have their own noises to them—growing noises, moving sounds, mating calls, ch
irps, howls. It’s the first thing I noticed here. It’s so quiet.” Gavin leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling tiles. “The factory keeps growing, too. It expands every year.”

  “I believe that you’re from the factory but the others won’t.”

  Gavin ran his fingers through his hair. He had never had to prove who he was to anyone. Everyone knew the quiet son of Arthur Owings back at the factory.

  “I doubt anything you could say would convince them. You’ll have to find another way,” she said.

  “Why do I need to convince anyone?”

  “It will get them on your side, so someone else out there will try to keep you alive,” Stella said. “Do you have pills, by the way?”

  Gavin nodded, unzipping a side pocket and pulling out a handful of oxygen pills. Her eyes narrowed when she read the numbers imprinted against the vibrant green. “Last thing I remember, I was clocked in for work in the seaweed fields. I took a double dose.” Gavin had actually harvested these pills himself. They were each imprinted with 720—a number for every hour they would work. Unlike other technicians, Gavin preferred the long-term oxygen supply so that he could work without getting distracted by time.

  Stella laid her hand over his, brushing his fingers down, closing the pills off from view. “Don’t show these to anyone,” she warned him, gently holding his hand shut.

  The door to Gavin’s isolation room opened two hours later, and three men walked in. Gavin’s eyes turned to the first man. Not just because Stella and the others automatically looked to him, but because Gavin recognized power in his presence—it was the same way that people reacted to his own father.

  From the man’s square jaw, marred by scars, to the blonde hair and pale eyes, to his broad solid shoulders, there was an unspoken authority that hung about him. Gavin didn’t need to see the gun holstered at his side, underneath his militaristic jacket, to know he was dangerous.

  So this must be Xander.

  Xander strode into the room, stopping when he saw Stella still sitting unarmed next to Gavin. “What are you doing here?” he said to her.

  “Guarding him,” Stella said.

  Xander scowled. “Get out.”

  She strode up to Xander and placed a hand lightly on his forearm. Gavin couldn’t help but notice the hint of a smile on the man’s face at Stella’s touch.

  “I brought this one in for a reason,” she said. “He’s my responsibility.”

  Xander paused, looking carefully at the contours of Stella’s face, before he pointed to the back of the room where the other two men stood. Stella joined them without another word.

  “How did you get so big?” Xander asked, sizing Gavin up.

  “From working. I specialize in mechanical engineering,” Gavin replied.

  “Yes, but what did you eat? How did you get the meat?” Xander circled near with all the confidence and aggression of an alpha wolf.

  “I’m a vegetarian,” Gavin said. Before he could react, Xander’s fist latched on to the front of his uniform to slam him back against the wall. Pain convulsed through him as the tender bruise at the back of his head crashed against concrete.

  “Answer the damn question,” Xander snapped. More than the pain, Gavin felt a numb surprise.

  “Vegetarian means I don’t eat meat. Just food made from plants.” Gavin watched the man without seeming to, wary and focused on his movements without looking directly at him. It was a trick that worked when he needed to tranquilize the bulls.

  “Don’t mess with me,” Xander warned.

  Gavin shrugged in reply. As Xander released his grip, Gavin saw a wariness in Xander that mirrored his own. Something about the way he was reacting was not what Xander expected from him. Gavin thought back to his conversation with Stella, trying to pinpoint what sort of answer Xander wanted to hear.

  “My father’s in charge where I work, so it isn’t as if I’ve ever been without food,” Gavin said.

  “Then how did you end up here?” came Xander’s next question, the same question Gavin had been asking himself, trying to think back. He couldn’t remember anything out of the ordinary before waking up out on the sand.

  “I don’t know.”

  Xander’s clenched fist struck toward him again, and this time Gavin reacted, catching it easily in his own calloused hand.

  Behind Xander, the other two men aimed pistols at him. Stella tensed, with her hands clenched into fists.

  “If you don’t want me here, I’ll go,” Gavin said.

  Xander strained against him, testing his strength. He stopped all at once, smirking. “So you do have some fight in you. Maybe we can find a way to use you after all.”

  Gavin let go of his hold and crossed his arms over his chest uneasily, not trusting Xander’s sudden change.

  “If you want in the gang, and the security that goes with it, I’ll run you through a test first.” There was something off about Xander’s casual tone. “Go into New York and bring back a food shipment.”

  “That’s at least a two-man job,” Stella called out.

  “Are you volunteering?” The challenge in Xander’s tone was unmistakable, as he turned his back on Gavin to stare her down.

  Stella paused for so long that Gavin thought that she wasn’t going to answer. In a soft voice she said, “Yes.”

  Xander approached Stella, glaring down at her petite frame. “Why?”

  “I want him alive,” she said.

  “If you want him alive so bad, you just go on right ahead.” Xander stepped around her and strode out of the room. The other men lowered their weapons and followed.

  As soon as Stella spoke up, it was clear that Xander’s problem wasn’t really about Gavin at all. Xander and Stella’s interactions didn’t follow the behaviors of the others in the gang. Stella wasn’t expected to blindly follow his orders. As if she was outside of the power dynamic of the group. Not in charge. But free to do what she wanted, in a way the others were not.

  Gavin felt pressure at the crook of his elbow and looked down to see a slender hand tugging his arm. He looked up to see Stella’s brilliant violet eyes fixed on him.

  “Come on, Gavin. Let’s get you ready.”

  Gavin allowed himself to be led, the small hands continuing to rest on his arm.

  “We don’t have much time to practice.” She was loading bullets into the magazine one by one, methodically. The humor that Gavin had seen traces of since they had met was gone. She had lined up a can on top of the concrete ledge that made up part of the hotel barricades.

  “Did I get you in trouble?” Gavin asked.

  “Everyone knows that New York is a suicide mission—it’s completely infested,” Stella explained. “Xander was just letting me know that if I choose to help you, he’s not going to stop me. He’s telling me that I’m making the choice to die.”

  “I'm not asking you to…” Gavin began, but Stella cut him off.

  “And I’m not planning on dying. I’ll think of something.” She slipped the magazine into her handgun, cocking it. She held the nine-millimeter Glock centered in the web of her hand, between her thumb and fingers, with the ease of long familiarity. “I’ve known Xander for seven years, and he’s never been this angry with me,” she admitted, lowering the gun. She shook her head.

  Exactly how close was Stella with Xander?

  She handed the weapon back to Gavin, gesturing at the targets. Gavin mimicked her hold on the gun, bracing himself for the overwhelming power of it. Tension rippled through him, and Gavin had to force himself back into calm. It was a tool and nothing more. Target and fire. His fingers clenched down on the trigger, and Gavin ignored the jolt of it, firing. His bullets hit their mark. Gavin shattered the can that Stella had set up for target practice. Despite all his protests that he was nonviolent, Gavin had taken to the gun like he was a machine.

  “Good. Let’s see how you do at loading it on empty. You press the magazine release.” Stella demonstrated, dropping the spent magazine to the ground. “Don’t
point the gun away; keep it on the target. Slide in the new one.” Stella pulled a fresh magazine out of her pocket and locked it in place. “Cock it, and fire before you get eaten alive.” She handed the loaded gun back to him.

  Gun in hand, he paused, sorting through the steps in his mind until he got it right. He aimed at a stop sign in the distance, concentrating on the space in the middle of the O. Then he focused, blocking out everything. Nothing was left except the target, the task, and the familiar feel of metal. Gavin fired to his last bullet, smoothly loading a new magazine just as Stella had shown him.

  He didn’t stop until he fired the last bullet in the clip. With the job done, Gavin became aware of the dull throb in his hand, the ringing in his ear, and the fact that he had acquired an audience.

  “Looks like you haven’t lost it after all.” Gavin turned to see the man with the dreads once again, speaking to Stella. “You still know how to pick them, Stella.”

  “Found you, didn’t I?” Stella replied with an amused half-grin. When he didn’t answer, the smile dropped from her face. Her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “How is she doing, Sam?”

  “Same.” Sam stared at the hole that Gavin had blasted away into the stop sign.

  “I’ll stop in after training,” Stella said.

  Sam nodded and headed back into the gang’s base—a boarded-down, fortified hotel that remained somewhat untouched by the typical damage brought on by the scavenging infected.

  “We’re done?” Gavin asked. He had only shot three clips. Surely he needed more practice before going out to face what was out there.

  “If we practice for much longer, it’ll wake the infected. Shooting is always a risk, even this early in the day. The sound travels for miles. Besides, there’s more I need to show you.”

  Stella led him back inside, through a staircase down to the basement. They walked past the boiler room where he’d been quarantined, with the flat clicking of the malfunctioning heat pump. Down the hallway, to a grimy room half filled with rotted furniture.

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.