“All right,” I say as I hold my hands out. “Just stop. Mia, you’ll either have to roll with it or postpone your wedding. It looks as if we all might be under a mandated quarantine soon if this keeps up. And if that’s the case, you won’t have any guests.”
Mia’s face goes white with rage. “Who do I need to kill to stop this?”
Logan and I exchange a glance. It turns out, Gage Oliver isn’t exactly susceptible to death anymore.
Too bad.
Right about now, I’d like to kill him myself.
Mom and Tad haul in another cache of canned goods, Drake isn’t far behind with boxes upon boxes of cereal, and Ethan has just about every kind of milk you can think of in his arms.
“Come on, Logan.” Ethan nods for him to follow him out. “We’ve got tons of frozen food, lots of chips, cookies, and some of that healthy shit Em likes. We need to get it all inside before one of the neighbors sees it and swipes it for themselves.
“The neighbors aren’t stealing anything,” I say.
“Not yet,” Drake corrects as he shuffles on by. “But we’ve got to prepare for the worst. Ethan, you got ammo?”
Ethan lets out an egregious belch. “You bet.”
“Good.” Drake slaps him on the back. “We’ll have to take turns doing sniper security on the roof. Between you, me, Dad, and Oliver here, we should have the day covered.”
Logan shakes his head. “I’m not sitting on the roof hoping to mow someone down.”
Ethan nods. “I get it. You’ll probably ditch us for that castle you’ve got across from the bowling alley.” He shoots me a look. “What did I tell you? There was no reason to choose between those two stooges. You should have kept the other one on the hook, too. Now we’re down two men.” He shoves a finger in my face before stalking off down the hall.
“You never said that to me,” I call after him.
“Well, I’m saying it to you now!” he barks back.
I give an impish grin to Logan.
“You’re no stooge.” I pull him in as the newscaster belts out a familiar name, and both Logan and I gravitate closer to the screen as he turns up the volume.
“That’s right, Jane.” A middle-aged man bares a pained smile. “Government officials promised to waive extensive FDA testing so long as the vaccine that was discovered proved effective during its six-week trial. Well, today that promise is being delivered. A research lab on the West Coast has had a one hundred percent success rate in not only preventing the highly contagious Kingdom Virus, but in reversing the effect and stopping it altogether in even the sickest of patients. Of the five hundred trial participants, over one hundred and fifty were listed in critical condition to begin with, and at least twelve of those were about to take their final breath. All five hundred trial participants were given just one dose of this promised vaccine, and as reported this afternoon, all five hundred of them have been cured.”
Em and Bree belt out a cheer.
Mia gasps. “Does this mean my wedding is back on?”
Melissa grunts, “This means school, work, the economy, and life is back on. It’s not all about you, Mia, but I’d much rather dance at your wedding than smell Drake and Ethan’s feet in the family room for another day.” She holds out a hand and Mia slaps her five.
The newscaster nods into the camera as he responds to something his co-worker just rattled off.
“That’s right, Jane,” he says as the wind blows his hair into his eyes. “As you can see, I’m here in Seattle, Washington.” He points back toward a brown building and the camera pans out. “I’m here at the home of the biotech lab that is about to save our country. Heck, they’re about to save the world. And it’s all thanks to good old-fashioned American ingenuity, brought to you, of course, by the fine people of Althorpe Corporation.”
“Ha!” Tad thunders. “Hear that, kids? Good old Althorpe is coming to the rescue. Hey? I bet I can get my old job back.”
“Logan.” I close my eyes a moment as he pulls me in and Jaxson lands his tiny hand against my cheek. I turn my head and kiss his precious fingers. “Althorpe.” I nod as I look up into Logan Oliver’s amber eyes. “Gage infected the world, and now he’s going to use a bastardized version of Wesley’s serum to fix it? You and I know it’s more than that. It has to be.”
His eyes search the floor a moment. “He’s going to make a play for the Factions.”
“But how? They’ve sworn their allegiance to Celestra. Screw this,” I hiss. “I want a bulletin sent out to all Faction leaders right now. Tell them we’ll cover their markers forever. We’ll pull the permanent serum out of the vault. I need them to know they’re safe with us.”
“We can’t keep that promise. What they need now is the vaccine for this deadly virus or there won’t be any Factions. There won’t be humanity.”
“Logan, I know that, but we don’t have the damn vaccine. Ezrina isn’t even close.” A thought comes to me as I turn my head back to the screen in a daze. “Oh my God.” My eyes meet up with his once again. “I know what he’s doing. The vaccine might be a cure for this virus, but it’s going to spell out certain death to Celestra. Wes said his serumexposedthe markers. What’s Gage up to?”
Logan closes his eyes a moment. “I’d better go talk to him.”
