The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die (14 page)

“Oh, Cady!” Her arms are skinny and strong. “You've changed your hair!”

Encircled by her arms, I stiffen before our bodies make contact. I can't help it. I've finally found somebody who knows me, but I don't know her. Pulling back, she takes my cheeks in her hands and looks from one eye to the other, her face puzzled.

She has pale skin, shoulder-length black hair, and bright blue eyes set off by mascara and eyeliner. “Cady?” she says. “What's the matter?” She lets her hands fall away.

I don't say anything. I just stare at her face.

“It's like I told you on the phone,” Ty says. “Cady doesn't remember anything that happened before late yesterday afternoon. We're pretty sure it's something called a fugue state. It happens when you've had a terrible shock. It takes your memories and locks them away so you can't access them, even though they're still there.”

“And you don't remember anything? Anything at all?”

“I remember some stuff,” I say. I feel oddly embarrassed, like I've been caught wearing nothing but a towel. “I remember the names of things, and how to walk and eat and drive. It's just that if it's something about me, then I can't remember it.”

“So you don't even remember me?” She presses her lips together, looking hurt.

The longer I look at her, though, the more she
does
seem familiar. It's the shape of her cheekbones, the color of her eyes. “I'm pretty sure I remember your face,” I say. “But nothing more than that. Sorry, Aunt Elizabeth.”

She frowns. “Now I know you really don't remember me. You always called me Liz. So you don't remember your parents? Your brother?”

“I've got a picture of us, but I really don't remember them.” My left temple is starting to throb.

She turns to Ty. “And, Ty, forgive me for asking, but how long have you known Cady?”

“I just met her last night. I could see she was in trouble, and I wanted to help her.” He looks down at his shoes and then back up at Liz. In this room, with its formal, dark red wallpaper, he looks young and uncertain.

“Well, you've brought her to the right place.” She rests her hand on my shoulder as if to show we're a team. “She's in good hands now.”

I realize she's hinting that Ty should go. And maybe he should. But I don't want him to leave me with this woman I'm only starting to remember. Right now, Ty feels like my one friend in the world.

“Thanks, Liz.” He says the words easily, but I can tell he's not going to budge. “I think I'll come along for the ride.”

“I'm not sure that's such a good idea.” She shakes her head, setting her earrings in motion. “This is dangerous. Very dangerous. You don't want to get mixed up in it.”

“I'm not going anywhere,” Ty says. “Not until Cady is okay.”

“What's dangerous?” I ask, massaging my temple. “What's going on? All I know is my family's missing and everyone but you seems to think I had something to do with it. But you said on the radio you were sure I didn't. How do you know?”

“Because your mom called me yesterday morning. She said she was on the run with your dad and Max, and asked me to help you. That's why I came to Portland. Holding the press conference was the only way I could think to reach out to you.”

“So you talked to my mom?” I raise my head. Tears spark my eyes. “She's alive?”

“Janie and Patrick and Max are all okay.” Liz bites her lip. “Or at least they were yesterday when Janie left me that message. She told me they were ditching their cell phones, so now I don't have any way to contact them. That's where I could use your help.”

“My help? I can't even remember them.”

“I think if we all put our pieces of the puzzle together, we can figure this thing out. Here, sit down and I'll try to explain.” Liz sits on the edge of the bed, which is covered with a white duvet and tons of white pillows. Ty takes the chair that's in front of a small desk, turns it around, and straddles it. I sit in a maroon-striped wingback chair.

“First,” Liz says, “tell me what you do know. Don't leave out anything, no matter how unimportant it seems.”

So I tell her what we know and what we've been able to find out and what we've guessed. But there are a few parts I find myself glossing over. I don't tell her about the gun in my backpack or about how Michael Brenner died after I knocked him unconscious. If my aunt knew, would her opinion of me change? Would she still be so certain that I was in the right?

“Let me start by filling in the blanks,” she says when I'm finished. “Maybe it will help you remember. Your parents work for a company called Z-Biotech. Does that sound familiar?”

It does! I straighten up, convinced that my memory is finally returning. And then—“I heard it on the news when we were driving here.”

“And do you know what your parents do?”

“The radio said something about them being microbiologists.”

“Your parents are actually virologists. That means they work with viruses. To be honest, I don't completely understand exactly what they do. Hardly anyone does. But they're brilliant researchers.” She sighs theatrically. “I took some science courses in college, but obviously my sister's the one who got the real brains in the family. Anyway, two years ago, in some remote part of Eastern Oregon, a girl who lived on a farm died. She was only nineteen. And then on the way to her funeral, her boyfriend got sick. Very sick. He ended up dying on the side of the road before the ambulance even showed up.”

She takes a deep breath. “The autopsy report said he basically drowned in his own blood.”

 

CHAPTER 30

DAY 2, 5:22 P.M.

 

My aunt watches my face intently. “Do you remember any of this so far?”

A disease that causes people to drown in their own blood?
I shake my head. I don't. At least, I don't think I do. It's too hard to describe what I'm beginning to feel. Like trying to recall a dream a week after you have it. You've completely forgotten about it, and then the flash of a bird's wing or walking down a metal staircase conjures up part of your dream, bringing it into the real world. But only a few seconds feel sharp. The rest is still gone, and the more you try to remember, the less you succeed.

“Your parents were the ones who figured out it was a new strain of hantavirus that's being spread by field mice.” She looks at me closely. “Does that sound familiar? Hantavirus?”

Slowly, I shake my head. Familiar isn't the word for what I'm feeling. It's more like dread.

“So the mice were biting people?” Ty asks.

“No,” Liz says. “According to Janie, basically all a field mouse does is eat, poop, and have babies. And give hantavirus to each other when they mate or fight. Two years ago it rained a lot, which led to a huge wheat crop, which eventually led to an explosion in the field mice population. When it got hot, their droppings dried up. And then in barns and farms around Eastern Oregon, those powdery droppings got kicked up and inhaled. Eight people had the bad luck to breathe in those tiny particles, which carried hantavirus. Those people died.”

“All of them?” Ty asks.

Liz sighs. “All of them. It's the most deadly strain of hantavirus ever discovered. It doesn't kill its hosts—the field mice—but it does kill humans.” She turns to me. “It was your parents who figured it out. One person dying in one county, another in the next—it got misdiagnosed as pneumonia or the flu. But your parents had a hunch and began testing rodents in Eastern Oregon—the voles, the ground squirrels, the field mice—and figured out it was really a new strain of hantavirus.”

“So?” Ty leans forward. “What does a disease carried by field mice have to do with men wanting to kill Cady?”

“Because her parents have also figured out the other half.” Holding her hands facing each other, Liz links her fingers together, then looks at me over her interlaced fingers. “For the past year, your parents have been working on a vaccine for the new strain.”

“But a vaccine's a good thing, isn't it?” I say. Then why do I feel so bad?

“Some vaccines do more than just keep you from catching a disease. Some also stop the virus in people who have already been exposed, but haven't gotten sick yet.”

“That's how it works with rabies,” Ty says. “And tetanus. If you give the shots to people soon enough after they've been bitten by a rabid animal or stepped on a rusty nail, they don't get sick.”

“Right,” Liz says, but her blue eyes never leave mine. “Last year, Z-Biotech was sold. The new owners weren't scientists, but Janie said they were fascinated with the idea that a vaccine could work even after exposure. They ordered your parents not to talk about the vaccine results, although it was working perfectly in animals. They said they didn't want to lose their market advantage.” Her mouth twists. “Janie and Patrick are smart, but they live in their own little world. They didn't see that having both things—a devastating disease and the cure to that disease—could mean the makings of a weapon.”

“A weapon?” Things are taking a turn I never imagined. “You mean like in war?” When Liz nods, I say, “But aren't those kinds of weapons illegal?” Her words are setting off echoes. Something about this conversation feels so familiar.

“Biological warfare was outlawed forty years ago,” she says. “But it's not illegal to research how to defend against it.”

Ty straightens up. “Aren't those things really two sides of the same coin?” he asks. “If you're researching how to defend yourself, couldn't that same research be used to figure out how to attack someone else?”

“Exactly. And the coin can get very thin at times.” Liz beams at him and then turns to me. “This boy of yours is bright.”

We both flush, for different reasons. He's not a boy and he's not mine.

“But what about the government?” I ask. “Don't they know what's going on?”

Liz shakes her head. “No one in the federal government keeps track of how many labs there are in the U.S., let alone what research they're doing. They do monitor a few pathogens, like anthrax. But hantavirus isn't one of them.”

I think of Pandora's box. “But how could hantavirus be used as a weapon anyway? Wouldn't it just kill everyone once you started spreading it around? Hantavirus doesn't care who it kills.”

“But it isn't spread from person to person,” Liz says. “And with the vaccine, you could choose who didn't get sick after breathing in the virus.”

I nod, but I'm not quite following.

Liz leans closer. “Okay, imagine a bomb, one that's filled with the droppings of infected field mice that have been dried out and pulverized. Which means trillions of infected particles have been weaponized. Say the bomb is set off in Country A's capital. In about four days, everyone who breathed in the particles—the president, the judges, the statesmen, and of course the citizens—starts to get sick. Muscle aches, fever, weakness. At first people think it's the flu. Only, ninety-five percent of them will die within a few days of exhibiting symptoms.” She waits a minute for this to sink in.

“So during a war,” I say, “a country could drop the bomb, kill everyone, and then send in vaccinated soldiers to clean up.”

She nods. “There's another possibility, one that's less drastic. What if they set off the bomb and then offered people the vaccine in the first three days of exposure, before the symptoms start? That way no one would get sick, or if they did it would be mild.”

“But what would be the point of that?” Ty asks.

“Before they got the vaccine, the government of Country A might have to meet certain demands. Maybe the government would have to step down. Or maybe they would have to give up their nuclear weapons.”

“So our government wants this hantavirus and the vaccine?” Ty asks.

“A lot of people might want it,” she says. “It could also be used on a smaller scale, say, putting the virus in the air vents of a shopping mall or a casino or a school. Or contaminating letters with powdered virus and sending them to the media or politicians or CEOs. Or renting a cropduster and spraying the virus over a football stadium or a parade route. And if the people who inhale the virus want to live, they have to pay.”

Ty puts his finger on something that had nagged me. “But if I didn't feel sick and you told me that in four days I was going to die from a disease I'd never heard of, why would I believe you?”

“Another good question,” Liz says. “For it to work, a small number of people might need to be infected earlier. As an example of what could happen.”

“As an example?” I echo. “But they would die! Who would do something that terrible? Terrorists?” I imagine men calling out to God as they press a lever.

“Or just people who want to make a lot of money.” Liz looks from Ty to me. “How much would you pay for a cure if you knew you were going to die?”

 

CHAPTER 31

DAY 2, 5:52 P.M.

 

Ty and I don't say anything. We just look at each other. It's clear what the answer is. If you knew you were going to die, you would pay anything, do anything.

I feel dizzy. I don't know if it's from everything that's happened in the last two days, the headache, or what Liz just told us. Probably all three.

“Has Z-Biotech done anything with it yet?” Ty asks.

“Most of the first batch of vaccine went to animal testing and then, when that worked, on a few human volunteers at the lab. Now they're making a new vaccine, but it takes weeks. First you have to inject live virus into fertilized eggs and incubate them while the virus replicates. And then to make the vaccine, you have to mix embalming fluid with the liquid inside the eggs.”