“Never.”
“But if I’m becoming a burden—”
“You’re not.” The kiss on her cheekbone felt featherlight. “You are very precious to me. I know how you feel. Fractured. I wish I could do more to help; you deserve a better life than this.”
She found his hand and held it over her chest, close to her heart. “You’ve done so much. You deserve someone stronger.”
“I have known many callous people in my life.” She could feel his smile against her cheek. “I like you better.”
She didn’t trust herself to talk without her voice cracking, but she still smiled. “Thanks, Dorran.”
“Try to rest, my dear Clare. I’ll always be here for you when you need me.”
Thunder rolled through the walls. Clare could feel the vibrations in her bones; the storm seemed to be growing stronger.
She closed her eyes, but her mind immediately moved to the generator. If it goes out during the night, will Peter know? How long will unlocked windows guard against the horde outside?
The warm weight of Dorran’s arm rested over Clare’s stomach. She focussed on it, paying attention to the way it shifted minutely every time he breathed. His presence, his quiet steadfastness, had always been calming.
The thanites are in him too.
Clare bit her lip until she tasted the sting of blood. The pain worked as a distraction for a minute, but her brain turned back to its spiral of stress like an addict seeking its fix. The tower and its fallible security system. The hordes outside. The question of when they would leave, and what they would do once they did. The USB and its promised cure… and its threat of malfunction. Ezra’s folly.
Clare’s eyes drifted towards the windowsill. Lightning flared, painting a silhouette around the old occupant’s mug.
Something isn’t right.
She tilted her head to see Dorran’s face. Eyelashes twitched as he dreamed, and a trace of tension hung around his brow.
Something’s very, very wrong.
She didn’t want to disturb him. He’d had less sleep than she had. And even as her heart galloped and metallic fear flooded her mouth, she knew she was overreacting. It was paranoia, symptoms of prolonged stress finally breaking through the dam. That knowledge wasn’t enough to make it stop.
Feverish sweat beaded over her skin. She was having trouble breathing. Suddenly, the arm curled over her was smothering more than comforting. Clare moved gingerly as she eased herself away from Dorran. He stirred as she left, the fingers spreading and hunting for her warmth. She pulled the blankets over his arm and stood back, waiting. He didn’t wake.
Cold water. She would go to the bathroom, wash her face, drink, take a moment to collect herself in private. The floor was chilled despite the heater, and Clare found a pair of Aspect-branded slippers under the bed and slipped her feet into them.
At the door, she gave Dorran a final glance. He remained still. The paranoia plagued her, warning her not to leave him, warning her that if she let him out of her sight, she might never see him again. She felt nauseated and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. Then she took the ID badge off the hook by the door and slung its strap around her neck as she let herself out.
The hallway was quiet. No light came under the door to Peter’s room. Clare shuffled along the hall towards the bathroom. As she reached for the door, she looked towards the exit sign that bathed her in its sickly glow.
Something’s wrong. Something’s very wrong.
She knew where she needed to go. Clare passed the bathroom and moved towards the stairs leading up, towards the lab on the thirteenth floor.
Chapter Fifty
Her footsteps echoed off the marble stairs. Clare bit her tongue and rested one hand on the wall. It was ice cold, but she didn’t pull away. With the light as low as it was and the stairs foreign, she clutched at any sense of stability she could find.
Gale-force winds assaulted the tower, and Clare imagined she felt the structure tilt. She closed her eyes and waited for the sensation to pass. The queasiness in her stomach took a while longer. When she resumed climbing the stairs, each step was more cautious.
It’s a tower of stone and metal. It was designed to withstand this.
Thunder cracked, loud enough to make her ears ache. She wished she’d woken Dorran. She looked over her shoulder, down the stairwell, and towards the hall saturated in hellish red light, then continued climbing. He needed rest. The stairs turned into a landing between the floors. She passed around it and began climbing the second flight.
The change in atmosphere was palpable. The air was colder. Clare felt cut off from the floor below—and from the only life in the tower.
No, that’s not true. There’s plenty of life here.
She could hear banging noises reverberating down the stairwell, coming from the floor above the lab. The other people—changed people—were locked in rooms across the building.
Her chest felt sickeningly tight. The thirteenth floor loomed ahead. Even before she reached the landing, she could see the massive steel doors blocking the pathway. A plaque had been fixed into the metal: Restricted Area, Authorised Personnel Only.
Clare clutched the badge around her neck. Whoever Michael Billings had been during life, she hoped he’d had access to the labs.
The banging noises were louder, blending in with guttural howls. The floor above held more than one hollow. She held the ID up to the black box beside the steel doors. It beeped faintly. The light flashed green. The doors drew back, wrapping her in a gust of freezing air.
Inside was pitch dark. She squinted, hoping her eyes would adjust. A heavy body slammed into the floor above, and she flinched. Clare took a slow breath and stepped into the blackness. As the door slid closed behind her, she reached out to find the light switch.
Her fingers grazed cold tiles. She felt forward, running her hand in cautious circles, holding her breath. A plastic ridge disturbed the icy ceramic. She found four switches and turned them all.
Lights came on across the space, starting above her head and flickering as they progressed along the room. They reflected off expanses of tile, glass, and stainless steel. The lab took up the entire floor. It seemed to never end. Clare’s eyes fought for some kind of frame of reference, first focussing on one glass partition, then the glass behind it, then the glass behind even that. Dizziness swelled, and she turned to face the door she’d just come through.
How do people work here?
As her breathing slowed, she turned back to the room. Near the stairwell were a series of washing stations: sinks armed with seemingly endless antibacterial soap, a steel chute in the wall for dirtied lab coats, and bins still half-stuffed with plastic gloves. Past that was a decontamination room. The glass rectangle looked airtight and held a myriad of hoses.
The lab contained multiple sealed work areas. Each space had either windows or half-glass walls. Some areas were as simple as tables holding petri dishes. Others looked like miniature workshops. Some held machines Clare didn’t even have names for. Endless charts and whiteboards littered the area. The labs had been well-used before the stillness.
Tiny bronze plaques had been fastened into the work-area doors. They bore names and had been designed for easy removal to compensate for Aspect’s high turnover.
She read the names as she passed them. Near the front of the room, she found Michael Billings, the donor of her own ID card. His workspace held something that looked like an X-ray machine and not much else. A little farther beyond that was Peter’s station. Eye diagrams were stuck above the desk, and the whiteboard was covered with complex calculations scrawled in messy handwriting. There was very little dust, but the desk still held a sense of abandonment.