“You can’t go out until I say it’s safe. Do you understand? You can’t act without considering the whole group. None of us can. That’s how we’ve made it this far, and I’m not going to let everything my father built crumble to hell.” A hardness enters his voice. “If one of us is captured, or a group that goes out is taken, this entire cell is threatened. That won’t happen. I won’t let it.”

Staring into his earnest face, I know he’s for real. This place is his priority. As kind as he’s being to me, ultimately it’s the group he’s looking out for.

A whisper of respect weaves through me for this guy who would take on so much, who would fight for a cause . . . for an entire population of people he doesn’t even know.

I shove down the surge of emotion. I’d prefer not to feel this way . . . not to feel anything for him at all. If there’s respect, then before I know it, I’ll be liking him. I’ll care. My stomach twists.

“You don’t know me.” As much a reminder for me as him.

“Just because we’re carriers doesn’t mean we have to live without a conscience. The minute we forget that, the minute it’s every man for himself . . . then all is lost. We’ve become the monsters they say we are.”

There’s a chord of something in his voice—a plea? I roll over onto my side, away from him, almost hating him in that moment for reminding me of the person I used to be—the person I assumed I would always be before everything was taken away from me. My eyes burn, and I blink them hard once. He makes me remember and yearn for that girl again. He makes me think that maybe . . . just maybe, I can be her a little bit.

His sigh gusts above my head. I don’t acknowledge him there even as I can visualize him looking down at me. I wait for him to go. He does, his steps a soft tread on the tile. It’s not until the door to the infirmary opens and shuts that I finally let go of the breath I’ve been holding.

* * *

SAN DIEGO TIMES

April 17, 2018

* * *

A killer is still at large in the greater San Diego area. The latest victim is student Shannon Gomez. She is the third young woman to fall prey to a murderer police are no closer to apprehending. A source close to the case claims they are seeking Hoyt Mackenzie, a registered carrier and Ms. Gomez’s neighbor, for questioning and are unable to locate him. . . .

TEN

DARK EYES SHOWS UP AGAIN. I’VE DECIDED TO refer to him in this way until I can come up with an actual name for him that doesn’t seem snarky or disrespectful. Ghost just seems somehow belittling and brings to mind old Scooby-Doo cartoons. And Guy-I-Killed doesn’t fully capture my guilt. It’s a hard thing.

He sits across the room on one of the stools beside Phelps’s lab table. He watches me with those eyes that glitter like flaming coal, hands braced on his knees, his posture as quiet as he is, his mouth a deep slash of lips, unspeaking. Brown eyes. Bullet hole. Black-red blood.

I wish he would speak. If he just broke out in speech like a normal person, not a dead-come-back-to-haunt-me person, then I could talk to him. Reason with him. Explain why I had to do what I did. Then maybe he would be at peace. And so would I.

“You’re back,” I say, and then realize just because I don’t remember him being around in the last couple of days doesn’t mean he hasn’t been with me all this time. That’s a sobering thought. Maybe he’s been here every time I close my eyes. I was just too sedated to notice.

He’ll never really leave me. I know that.

I glance around the room. There’s a small glow of light coming off some equipment in the corner. Dr. Phelps sleeps behind a curtained-off area. His gentle breathing scratches the air.

When my gaze swings forward again, Dark Eyes moves from his seat. In a fraction of a second, he’s before me, bending at the waist in an eerie, unnatural way, crouching in front of me so I can see the shine of his eyes.

Gasping, I lurch back, but his hoarse voice fills my ears. A single word. It travels through me like a deep vibration, settling in my head and spreading outward through the rest of me.

It’s urgent and desperate, the syllables stretching long, sinking deep and biting into me. “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaake.”

Wake. Because I’m asleep.

The sound reverberates in my ears as though someone had truly just shouted for me to wake up, and my eyes fly wide open.

Relief rushes over me. I was dreaming. I drag in a lungful of air. My chest swells, holding the breath in before expelling it in a silent rush.

I can practically feel my pupils dilate to take in more light. It’s in this eerie little moment, flashes of something . . . innate hit a chord, a buried memory of when humans were more animal than man, both prey and predator, and I feel my instincts take over.

The same faint blue glow suffuses the room as in my dream. Peering into the shadows, I see that Phelps is gone, however. The curtain to his sleeping area is pulled back, revealing his unmade bed. Maybe someone got sick and he had to go to them. Whatever the case, it’s just me in the infirmary. That’s my thought as I roll onto my side, hoping to get back to sleep and that this time no visitors wait for me in the dark of my mind. Especially ones sporting a bullet hole to the head and who appear to be growing more vocal. Wake? Why would he have wanted me to wake up?

I rub at the center of my forehead and release a shuddering sigh. Closing my eyes, I settle back onto the mattress. With a small snort, I remember that he was just a fabrication of my subconscious. He didn’t command me to wake up. I did.