She does, and I hear the unmistakable sound of me screaming. There’s a clanging of chains against thick steel bars, and the bizarre, inhuman groan that falls out of me and everyone else newly infected with the virus.
I don’t look at her while she’s watching it. I can’t.
I hear her gasp when Dr. Yates uses a cattle prod to shock me through the cage, and a strangled whimper when the footage changes to me in a medical chair, my arms and legs strapped down. This was months after the cage clip, when I regained my ability to speak.
“What did you do?” Dr. Yates asks.
“I don’t know,” I say through ragged sobs.
“Yes, you do. Tell me.”
She pokes me with the cattle prod and I shout, “I killed people!”
“How many people?”
Another shock.
“Ah!” I howl in pain, bucking against my restraints. “Three! My br-brother.”
Another shock.
“Who else?”
“The two cops who found us.”
“How did you kill them?”
Another shock.
“Ah, please! Not again. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“How?”
“I-I ripped their heads off!”
“Then what?” Dr. Yates’s tone is cold and firm.
“I ate them,” I mutter, voice lowering a few octaves without the additional shock. “I ate their brains. Th-then I left their bodies to rot.”
The video stops.
I still can’t open my eyes. I don’t want to see the look of disgust and horror twisting Lindsay’s beautiful features. It’ll crush me.
“You can go if you want,” I say, barely louder than a whisper. “I’ll understand if you want to go.”
I hear my phone being put down on the table, then I feel her forehead pressed against mine, her breath hot and sweet as it fans my lips. “Hey. Look at me.”
I open my eyes to find hers filled with longing. It’s not at all what I expected.
“I’m not afraid of you, Dominic. Do you hear me?” She pulls back to hold my gaze. “Is that what you were worried about? Me seeing that and, what, running away?”
Does she really have to ask? “Well, yeah.”
She shakes her head. “That video isn’t scary. It’s fucking devastating. What you went through…” she trails off, trying to hold the tears back. “I’m just so sorry you had to survive that. That you have to carry this guilt around for something you don’t remember doing. For something you did when you weren’t even you.”
“That’s an excuse,” I explain. “You can’t excuse this, Lindsay. I killed people. Didn’t you hear me? Two cops. My brother. I killed my brother.”
“No,” she insists. “You chased a violent need to stay alive while a virus ravaged your body and robbed you of coherentthought. Don’t compare what you did to a drunk driver or whatever. It’s not the same.”
