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“I’m not infected! I’m not—you have to believe me, I’m not—”
“You have a bite but it’s not from the infected?” Trace asks incredulously. “That’s what you want us to believe?”
“That’s what it is!”
“Bullshit! You’re just saying that because you don’t want to die—”
“I think he’s telling the truth,” Rhys says.
But I’m the only one who hears him say it and I don’t have the courage to ask him to repeat himself. I look at Baxter’s arm, the bite, and I don’t understand how Baxter could be telling the truth. He’s infected and he needs to die.
“Who has the gun?” Cary asks. “Who has it?”
“Sloane,” Grace says.
Me. I have it. The gun. I stare at it. It’s heavy in my hands, hot. I raise it, feeling equal parts absurd and terrified out of my mind. I point it at Baxter. This is what they want me to do, isn’t it? This is what has to be done. Baxter starts to shout, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. It has the lilt of a prayer, though. I close my eyes.
“No!” Rhys shouts. “Jesus, Sloane, no—”
I imagine the gun going off. A hole between Baxter’s eyes. It’s so real to me, I start to shake. Hands around my hands. Rhys gently takes the gun from me and I feel like I’m turning into nothing and I don’t know if it’s because he is taking the gun out of my hands or because the gun was in them.
“I didn’t know what you wanted me to do,” I say faintly.
“Shoot him!” Trace. “Just fucking do it—”
“I want to put it to a vote,” Rhys says. “We have to make this fair—”
“You’re going to be outnumbered,” Cary tells him. “No matter what.”
“We don’t have to kill him—”
“What else are we going to do?”
“If I leave,” Baxter says over us, “you’ll never know how I got in.”
And then he starts to cry.
We’re not murderers.
We are still good people and this was the choice we were forced to make. Baxter has to leave or he has to die. The evidence is damning. He’s bitten. He’s unstable. He’s lied to us.
That’s more than enough, especially now.
We’re in the library. The flashlights are set on the table, aimed at us like a crude spotlight. Baxter is in front of the door, the way out, preparing himself for whatever is next. I think of Rhys and me, standing in that exact spot just days before and how much has changed in that time. Harrison and Grace hover by some shelves. Trace and Cary clear the barricades away and then they’re gone. Two things have to happen next: someone has to open the door and Baxter has to step through it. But what happens after that? He lives until the infection overtakes him? We go on, like nothing happened? Because nothing happened if no one used the gun, right? Still, Baxter’s outcome is inevitable. He is going to die.
But we’re not murderers.
Even though Rhys has the gun aimed directly at Baxter’s head.
It will only be used if Baxter is uncooperative and insists on jeopardizing us.
“If you try to get in again, however you got in before,” Cary says, “we’ll have to kill you.”
“You, Mr. Chen? You’ll do it?”
“I’ll do it,” Trace mutters.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Baxter,” Rhys says, and he sounds like he means it and it makes me feel like maybe there’s a chance we’re doing something really wrong here. “You have to realize—”
“You’ll never find it,” Baxter interrupts. “How I got in.”
“We will.”
Baxter looks at his hands. “I’m not infected, though. I was not bitten by an infected.”
He’s been saying this since we came to our decision. It’s like if he sounds plaintive enough, we’ll let him stay. If that was all we needed from him, I know we’d let him stay. I know we’re not bad people, not deep down inside.
“No one knows what I’ve been through,” he whispers.
He turns to us and I take a step back. I don’t want to look at him, don’t want his empty eyes and his hollowed-out face etched in my memory. Baxter turns to Cary.
“You were never a very good student. I couldn’t make you do anything,” he says, and Cary doesn’t argue this, just nods. Baxter sighs and closes his eyes. “Maybe, though, you’d be the one to open the door.”
“Okay,” Cary says.
He crosses in front of Baxter to do it.
Baxter charges at Cary faster than any of us can blink. I immediately see how we’ve done everything wrong. We thought we were stronger, smarter than a man who spent weeks out there on his own and lived this long. Cary doesn’t even have time to make a sound. They fall and his head collides with the door, leaving him dazed and limp enough for Baxter to grab Cary’s arm and I know what’s going to happen before it happens and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Baxter sinks his teeth into Cary’s arm.
Cary comes back to himself then, screams like I’ve never heard anyone scream before. I glimpse red and a thousand more things happen at once. Trace rips the gun out of Rhys’s hands and shouts for him to open the fucking door! Get him out of here! Rhys springs into action, heaving Baxter up by the shoulders and the whole time he does it, Baxter is still trying to make a case for himself. His teeth are stained with Cary’s blood.
“I’m not infected! You’ll see—I’m not infected!”
“Someone help me!” Rhys fights Baxter to the door. “Help me—”
I do it. I push the door open and the cold air calls to me. I want to step ahead of them both, but there’s a flurry of movement and Baxter’s flailing arm hits me in the chest, forcing me back. Rhys shoves him once. Hard.
Baxter is gone.
The door closes. It’s quiet just for a second and then his fists sound desperately against it.
Let me in.
Let me in.
Let me in.
And then it stops.
“Get the barricade back up,” Rhys says. “Now—”
“Wait,” Trace says.
“What?”
“Wait.” Trace trains the gun on Cary, who is staring at his bloody, bitten arm. “Cary’s been bitten. Doesn’t he have to go outside too?”
Cary looks up. “No—I didn’t—it’s not—”
“We all saw it, Chen. You’re bitten.”
“Trace,” Rhys says.
Trace ignores him. His eyes stay fixed on Cary.
“Trace,” I say. “Think about what you’re saying—”
“But why? That’s what we just did to Baxter. Baxter’s infected. Baxter bit Cary. Cary is infected. It’s simple. Anything that risks me or Grace is not allowed to stay in this fucking building. Chen, tell me which way you want to leave.”
Cary’s face loses all color. He holds his arm out and blood trails down it, drips onto his shirt. He silently begs Trace for his life. Trace winces, but the gun stays aimed at Cary’s face. It is so ugly.
“I brought us here,” Cary whispers.
“Doesn’t matter. Baxter bit you and now you’re infected.”
“Give me the gun, Trace,” Rhys says.
“Back the fuck off, Moreno.”
“Come on. We can quarantine him until he turns. The nurse’s office.”
“We didn’t do that for Baxter. Why should we do that for Chen? After what he did to my parents? Give me one good reason why.”
“Because Rhys is right.”
Her voice shocks us, makes us quiet. Trace’s grip on the gun nearly falters. We all turn to her. Grace stands there, nervous but determined. She moves to Trace and puts her hand on his arm. He swallows hard and I think maybe he’s as scared at the idea of killing Cary as we are. But that doesn’t really mean anything as long as he still has the gun.
“Don’t even,” he tells her.
“They’re dead. It’s not going to change. Hey, look at me,” she says. Trace refuses to. He leaves her no option but to stand directly between him and Cary. The way she moves is almost holy; Cary stares at her like she’s a saint. And Trace—as soon as she’s in front of him, he lowers the gun and I can tell that even the millisecond he had it pointed at her has hurt him, scarred him. “They wouldn’t want you to do this.”