Bach must have blacked out, because the next thing he
remembered was someone dragging him out of the quarantine center. After that,
his next memory was waking up in a cell, handcuffed to a chair with no idea
where he was. Too weak to break free, he tried anyway—to no avail.
A man in a white coat and one of the island’s guards walked
into the room. Bach recognized the man in white from the school as Mr. Cheung,
the mathematics teacher. Cheung walked up to Bach and injected something into
his neck.
“What are you doing to me?” Back wanted to know.
“Just relax. This is going to keep you calm,” the teacher
claimed.
“Is he secured now?” the soldier asked.
“He’s not going anywhere.” Cheung nodded.
The cell’s doors opened and Coles strode in with two more
people dressed in white. One was Hailey’s father, Charles Davenport, and the
other Bach didn’t know.
“What do you want from me, Coles?” Bach’s speech was slurred
and he found it hard to think straight.
“This is the subject.” The unknown man walked up to him.
“He’s stage three infected.”
“He looks remarkable. How come he’s not going crazy?”
Hailey’s father asked.
“I have no clue,” Cheung replied. “Sir Charles, his blood
work is clean, but when I looked at his DNA we realized there was something
very wrong.”
“You saw his blood work, Tom?” Charles asked the unknown
man.
“I rechecked it after Silas.” The other man nodded.
“Dr. Hindle saw the same thing that I did. He’s a post-stage
three infected,” Cheung continued.
“What the hell is post-stage three infected?” Charles asked.
The teacher glanced at the island’s leader, and then at Dr.
Hindle as if to say, that Charles was an
idiot for asking the question.
“Stage one means he’s been exposed to the virus most likely
bitten or has been kissed by someone infected. A stage one infected has no
symptoms. Stage two, they get the fever and by stage three they’ve gone crazy
and are dangerous to others.” Coles turned to Cheung. “There’s no other stage.”
“Well it looks like there’s one now,” Tom Hindle replied.
“Like I said, I have no clue as to what’s going on inside
this boy, but it’s possible the mutation might make him immune to the disease,”
Cheung said.
“At least that’s the theory. I’m pretty certain, but we need
to do some more testing.” Tom nodded.
“You think we can get a cure out of this kid?” Coles
gestured in Bach’s direction.
“If we’re lucky, we might get a vaccine,” Tom answered. “But
he’ll give us something.”
“I cannot help you cure this disease which you gave to
yourselves,” Bach seethed.
“We’ve a long way to go before we can even begin to
understand what’s going on inside of him. Any talk of creating a vaccine is
premature.” Cheung ignored Bach’s response. “He might not even survive that
long.”
“You do know I can hear you?” Bach asked.
“I never trusted you, Bach.” Coles walked over to him.
“There was something wrong with you. Doctor Hindle is going to figure it out
and we’re going to unlock how you work.”
“Don’t provoke him, please, Major.” Charles signaled to
Coles. “We don’t want him to become agitated.”
Bach lifted up his head and looked at the man while the room
was spinning around him.
“You may be saving thousands of lives.” Cheung tried to
reassure him. “You’ll save everyone, everyone including Hailey.”
“Leave her out of this,” Sir Davenport remarked.
“You do not know what you are doing. You could never help
the people of this world even if you had all the scientists from before the
outbreak working on this and someone gave you half a clue!” Bach seethed.
“Greater men than you have tried to unlock the secrets in my Family and have
failed. So will you. Your world is supposed to die.”
“You sound like you know an awful lot about this disease,”
Charles Davenport remarked suspiciously.
“You know what I think?” Coles stated. “You’re scared and
you’re trying to scare us because you think we’re a bunch of thirteen-year-old
girls.”
“You’ve nothing to fear from me or these people. I give you
my word, you won’t be killed. You will have to stay here, but you’ll be
comfortable,” Cheung tried to assure him.
“So I am your prisoner?” Bach asked.
“You won’t be alone much longer, your friend Felip will soon
be joining you,” Coles continued.
“No, he’s gone.” Bach grinned defiantly.
“We know. Blair saw him scaling the outer wall. We’ve got
patrols looking for him. If we can find him, we’ll bring him back safely,” Sir
Davenport added.
“You will not find him,” Bach stated.
“Then you’re going to be down here alone. It makes no
difference to me,” Coles retorted and started to leave the room.
“Wait, Major Coles…Sir?” Bach pleaded.
The soldier paused to look back at him, still looking
irritated.
“Let me say goodbye to my friends. I do not want her to feel
I have abandoned her!”
“No, you leave my daughter out of this!” Sir Charles yelled.
“She’ll get over you, don’t worry,” Coles added.
“Wisteria, can I see her?” Bach ignored Sir Charles.
“Please, I am asking you for a favor.”
Coles’s jaw clenched and he turned to the other soldier in
the cell. “If he mentions her name again, I want you to cut out his tongue.”
No comments:
Post a Comment