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Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. Part 1
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Part 2: Three Months Later
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. Chapter Fourteen
  21. Chapter Fifteen
  22. Chapter Sixteen
  23. Chapter Seventeen
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. Chapter Nineteen
  26. Chapter Twenty
  27. Chapter Twenty-One
  28. Chapter Twenty-Two
  29. Chapter Twenty-Three
  30. Chapter Twenty-Four
  31. Chapter Twenty-Five
  32. Chapter Twenty-Six
  33. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  34. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  35. Part 3: Four Hours Later
  36. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  37. Chapter Thirty
  38. Chapter Thirty-One
  39. Chapter Thirty-Two
  40. Chapter Thirty-Three
  41. Chapter Thirty-Four
  42. Chapter Thirty-Five
  43. Chapter Thirty-Six
  44. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  45. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  46. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  47. Acknowledgments
  48. About the Author
  49. Credits
  50. Copyright
  51. About the Publisher

“I don’t have any data for you,” she said. “I don’t have any facts, my studies were all lost when the lab exploded, and the cure itself has never been tested. I don’t have anything that can prove to you that what I’m doing is right. But Madison,” she said, looking her adopted sister straight in the eye, “if there is one thing you know about me, one thing at all, it’s that I always try to do the right thing. And no matter how painful this has been, no matter how much hell we’ve been through and how many of us have died, this is the right thing to do.”

“Shut up!” screamed Haru, shoving the pistol forward. Kira ignored him, keeping her eyes on Madison’s.

“Madison,” she said again, “do you trust me?”

Slowly, tearfully, Madison nodded. Kira held up the cure, still wrapped on the belt, and Madison stepped forward.

“Madison, stay back,” growled Haru. “I am not letting you give our baby to that traitor.”

“Then shoot me,” said Madison fiercely. She planted herself squarely between Haru and the incubator; his hand quivered, faltered, and dropped to his side.

Kira collapsed to the floor, and Marcus ran to the cupboards on the wall to find a needle for the syringe. The soldiers in the doorway didn’t move, watching the whole thing with their guns pointed at the floor. Xochi helped Kira to her feet and took her to the incubator; Kira could feel the heat from the tiny body’s fever like a pit of dying coals. Marcus handed her a needle and swabbed the child’s arm with disinfectant.

Kira prepped the injection, hesitating over the red, screaming body. Right now the Blob virus was roaring through her like a pack of wild dogs, ripping and tearing, eating her from the inside. This syringe, this pheromone, would save her.

Kira leaned forward. “Hold her still.”

Madison held the baby close, Marcus and Xochi stopped moving, even Haru fell silent in the background. The entire world seemed focused on this single moment. Arwen’s thin, hoarse crying filled the room like smoke, the final, desperate sparking of an engine about to fail. Kira breathed, steadied her arm, and gave the baby the shot.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

“We have discovered a cure for RM.”