“No, wait!” A blinking red light caught my eye. My dial went black — out of power. Ignoring it, I scrambled down from the canopy to the carousel. When I hit the grass, I searched for some sign of him, but he’d vanished. I whirled to head for the entrance only to be brought up short by a firm grip on my arm.
“Why do girls always chase after the wild ones?” Mahari tsked.
The other lionesses slipped from the bushes as silent as shadows. “Same as us,” Neve said, blood edging her smile. “She likes the hunt.”
I struggled against Mahari’s hold. Rafe’s eyes had so distracted me — no, terrified me — I hadn’t been following his words, couldn’t piece together his meaning. “Let me go,” I snarled at her. When she didn’t, I slammed my heel down on her bare foot and she released me with a yowl.
The other lionesses closed in around me, their golden eyes gleaming. My breath caught at their ferocious beauty. With a slight shake of her head, Mahari stopped them in their tracks and their expressions relaxed.
“Told you she’d make a nice addition,” Deepnita said, and licked a claw clean.
“Yes,” Mahari agreed, eyeing me. “She’s no rabbit.”
“Get out of my way.” I tried to push through their ranks.
“Don’t waste your time looking for him,” Charmaine said with a languid smirk. “He’s long gone and you don’t have any cat in you. You’ll never catch him.”
I slumped, realizing she was right.
“And why would you want to?” Deepnita asked in her rumbling purr of a voice. “Tigers are solitary creatures.”
“But we’re not,” Neve said with a smile that might have come off as kittenish if it weren’t for the accompanying growl.
Suddenly we were bathed in light. The whipping air stirred up the dust as the hovercopter slowed until it was above us. A hum filled the air and a rope ladder spilled out of the ’copter’s open side. I looked up to see Everson leaning out, a gun in his hand, his expression determined. “No!” I shouted and waved to let him know that I was in no danger.
“You don’t have to go,” Mahari said, smoothing her tattered gown. She eyed me. “You could join us.”
I stared at her, not quite sure what she was offering.
“You’re a lioness. You know you are.” She smiled, revealing her ivory fangs.
“You mean, let you infect me?”
“Let me uncage you,” she corrected.
The temptation was there, all night. To be so strong … so fast … so terrifying. What would it feel like to move through the world so powerfully and with such confidence? “I want to be a lioness,” I breathed. “I do. But I’m going to try doing it without the virus.”
“Well, if you ever decide you want the trimmings” — Mahari extended her claws — “give me a roar.” She waved the other lionesses onward. “Let’s go, girls, we’ve got a castle to burn.” And away they raced, roaring with fierce joy.
As the hovercopter glided over Chicago, I leaned out to see the ferals running through the abandoned streets, baying and howling, and I shivered. Chorda was dead, but now there were so many more ferals on the loose. Ferals who’d been abused by handlers and had good reason to hate humans. My eyes throbbed with the tears I held back. I wrapped my arms around myself. The ferals were free because of me and I didn’t feel good about it.
“Did you get Rafe out?” Everson asked, sounding strained.
I felt a hundred fault lines spreading through me, invisible cracks that the slightest jostle would turn into fissures. “He’s free. But he’s infected.”
Everson sucked in a sharp breath.
I turned back to the open door as the hovercopter swooped low over Chorda’s castle. On the roof, manimal servants were throwing their collars and harnesses into the air while shouting in triumph. That much at least, I did feel good about. But where was Rafe in all of this chaos? I scanned the streets and shadows for him. His fever would be amping up now, and the thought of him suffering through it alone made me feel feverish.
“Chorda bit him?” Everson’s hands were fisted in his lap.
I nodded, though I didn’t believe it despite what Rafe had said. He’d gotten infected because of me. Yes, if I hadn’t cut off Chorda’s hand, he would have slashed Rafe’s throat. And if I hadn’t driven the machete into him, Chorda would have murdered us both. As Dr. Solis said, reason had its advantages. And yet knowing that I’d had no choice didn’t comfort me in the slightest and it did even less for Rafe.
“Lane …” Everson faltered. “I’m sorry, I’m —”
“You don’t have to apologize.” I forced the words past the sob trapped in my throat. “You did the right thing, choosing that.” I nodded to the box on his lap. “It wasn’t my choice. I’d still pick Rafe. But I’m glad you put the samples first. And I’m sorry for the things I said, about you following orders. You weren’t. You were following your conscience. I get that now. I do.” Tears were streaming down my face now; I couldn’t hold them in any longer.
“It’s not about that. It’s —” He took a breath and then began again. “When I got in the ’copter, Dr. Solis was on the radio.”
I stiffened. He was using that consoling tone people took when they were about to break bad news.
“You remember the little girl at the gate, Jia, who brought in the mauled man?”
“The man who saved her from her own mother …”
“Yes. Dr. Solis says that he might not make it. He’s lost too much blood.”
Everson’s voice seemed to be coming to me from far away. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because it’s Mack.”
31
The moment we touched down on Arsenal, Everson took me to the infirmary, running interference on anyone who tried to question me. Two guards were stationed outside my father’s room. Everson didn’t follow me in.
I found Dr. Solis sitting by my dad’s bed. My father was pale and sleeping, with his chest and leg encased in bandages. Dr. Solis rose and gestured for me to take his seat. “He’s badly cut up, but he doesn’t have Ferae.”
“And he’ll be okay?” I asked, touching my father’s hand. He was so warm. Fevered?
Dr. Solis hesitated. “We’re going to have to amputate his leg, Lane,” he said gently. “I can’t promise that he’ll survive the operation.”
“Amputate?” I echoed hollowly. “That’s the only choice?”
Dr. Solis looked grim. “It’s the only choice here, on Arsenal. In Iowa City the patrol has a surgery unit that might be able to repair the nerve damage….”
“He’s under arrest. They’re not going to fly him over the wall.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” said a female voice from the doorway. I twisted to see a tall woman enter. At least I thought she was a woman. It was hard to tell through the transparent surgical mask that covered half of her face. It fit so snugly that it flattened her features like a stocking-faced thief’s.
“Lane, this is Ms. Ilsa Prejean,” Dr. Solis said.
Everson’s mother!
Her hair was shaved as short as a line guard’s and she wore latex gloves past her elbows. Guess the rumors about her germ phobia were true.
“Hello, Lane,” she said.
I nodded in return, noticing she didn’t offer me her hand. Didn’t matter. It was her other offer that interested me. “You can get my dad back into the West?”
“Yes, I’ll have you both flown to Iowa City in my private hovercopter.”
I eyed her, trying to spot the catch. “Why would you do that?”
She waved a gloved hand at my father as if it were obvious. “Mack allowed us to test the inhibitor. The infected people in Moline wouldn’t have touched it if a line guard had marched in and offered it to them. But they trust Mack. Not only did they take the inhibitor, they told him in detail how the medication was affecting them. The information he brought back is invaluable. The least Titan can do is fix up his leg. And you, Lane?” Her mouth widened under the stretchy surgical mask. A smile maybe, though smooshed. “Because of you, Everson brought in twenty-nine of the missing strains.”