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“Nothing,” he said, accompanying the announcement with an excited little hop more befitting a toddler. “It was beautiful. Two separate entities existing in the same space but unable to mix. Not that the virus didn’t try. It was everywhere, looking for a weakness. I almost felt sorry for it, but try as it might, it just couldn’t get in. And then along came your T cells and your antibodies and boom! They ate that virus all up until there was nothing left of it.” He came to a sudden stop, smiling as he placed his hands on his hips. “You’re going to cure my father.”

I doubted it. Immunes might be rare, but they existed. Scientists had been working on a cure for years with no success. The likelihood of one scrawny red-headed boy, who relied on kidnap to get his test subjects, achieving what they couldn’t didn’t seem likely.

“We’ll get started right away,” Oz said, his eyes gleaming. “I have so much to do, so many things to prepare.”

I wanted to ask what they were, while simultaneously fearing the answer. Perhaps it was best not to know. Ignorance is bliss, and all that jazz.

If I were that valuable, I assumed he’d want to keep me alive. But maybe that was worse. None of my dreams for the future had ever involved being locked up for twenty-four hours a day like some sort of lab rat.

Oz bounced out as quickly as he’d arrived to leave silence. There was no relief in that silence. Only unanswered questions that grew more spiky the longer it went on. To avoid having to look at Keaton, I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall.

One minute. Two.

Maybe Keaton simply wouldn’t talk to me ever again. Which shouldn’t matter. We were, after all, nothing to each other. He was just another mark. One who’d gone out of his way to offer himself up as a victim by first breaking into my room, and then demanding more of me. But somewhere along the way, between spending the night trussed up like a turkey because he’d gotten the better of me, crashing the motorbike, weathering the red rainstorm and all the problems that had brought with it, and then sharing some truths in this room, Keaton had become more.

“You’re not even going to explain yourself.”

Sometimes in winter, the temperature dropped so low that the red rain dripping from the roofs of houses turned into icicles. Pink icicles. Like a deadly, virus-ridden reminder of how even Mother Nature had turned against people. She’d had a lot of help from some reckless scientists who’d clearly not done their due diligence with safety procedures. But still…

That’s what Keaton’s voice reminded me of. Pink icicles. Cold and deadly.

“What do you want me to say?” I opened my eyes, his expression as hostile as I’d expected.

“Something… Anything.”

“What do you want me to explain?” I sounded tired. I was tired. And not just because sleep had been extremely scarce since the start of this journey.

“How about you start with how you can be immune when I saw you step out into the rain. I saw how it affected you. And I saw how the suppressant stopped those effects.”

“You saw what you wanted to see. Everyone did.”

“You were acting?” Beneath the anger was a note of disbelief, like Keaton still expected me to claim that Oz had been mistaken.

“I’m a conman,” I said. “It’s what I do.” If I ever said those words, I normally brandished them like armor. They didn’t feel like armor today. They felt like an apology.

“And the suppressants?”

“There’s no such thing. They were ancient injectors I stumbled across and filled with water.”

Keaton’s nostrils flared. “You really are the king of lies, aren’t you?”

The title stung. But only because it was true. “I’m sorry.”

“Were you going to tell me? Or were you just going to hand them over, and if I turned, I turned?”

“I have a stash of them,” I admitted. “But they’re north. We’re not even going the right way. You wanted to go south, so we went south. I planned to steal your ring and ditch you after that first night, but you already know that part of it.”

“You’re a piece of shit.”

“I am. I lie. I steal. I do bad things.”

“All those people,” Keaton said, with a shake of his head. “The ones you sold to. How many of them are going to think they can go out in the rain? What if just one of them turns when they do, and they take down other people? Their deaths will be on you.”

I searched for guilt, just as I’d done so many times before, and this time I found it. Keaton pointing it out made it different from all the other times. It felt like something cold and slimy slithering around in my gut. Not a pleasant feeling at all. “I…” There was nothing I could say, though.

Keaton lifted the chain and jangled it. “If I weren’t attached to this damn thing, I’d come over there and punch you in the face.”

“Lucky for me then that you are.” As an attempt at humor, it fell flat. I tried for sincerity instead, which wasn’t something that came naturally to me. “You can get to Dover without suppressants. I have safe houses dotted all over up to a certain point. There’s a map on the bike that shows the location. Find the bike, and you’ll find the map. Oz said he brought it here.”