Home > The Arrogant Genius (The Lost Planet Series Book 8)(6)

The Arrogant Genius (The Lost Planet Series Book 8)(6)
Author: K. Webster

“Breccan is going to go rekking mad over this,” Theron says, shaking his nog. “He’ll probably run his big self right over here just to kick your rump, Av.”

“We can’t tell him,” Hadrian barks out. “Least not yet. He wants us home, and eventually, we’ll make our way there. With the new mortlings and the Kevins coming, we can’t burden him with this.”

“So we lie?” Zoe asks, no longer trying to pull out of my grip.

“We leave it out,” I state. “Tell Breccan what he needs to hear. That we’re working on the cure, which we are. I’ll even put my gear on for when we meet over the comms so he doesn’t suspect anything.”

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Lyric asks me, her brows furling. “I need my two best people on this.”

“I don’t,” I admit, “but I will. Zoe is going to help me. She can observe any changes I don’t notice. Together, we’re going to find the cure.”

Zoe plucks her arm from my grip finally and pokes me in the chest. “You just became a patient. I’m in charge now. When you’re done making a plan to lie to your superiors, meet me in the office. We have our work cut out for us.”

She storms out of the room, taking her lovely scent with her.

The room goes quiet. It’s a somber moment. If it doesn’t work, I’ll get sick and perish. I’m not ready to give up my life, but if it gives us answers, it’s necessary.

“Av,” Hadrian says, coming to stand in front of me. “This has to work.”

“It will.” If I’m lying to Breccan, I may as well lie to Hadrian as well. “I promise.”

 

 

3

 

 

Zoe

 

 

Six Solars Until Kevins Arrive…

For someone so smart, Avrell can be so dumb.

“I can’t believe you did that,” I lecture as we head back down to the Medical Bay. “How could you be so short-sighted? There were plenty of ways to go about testing without putting yourself in danger.”

Already, a sheen of sweat paints his brow. His pure-white skin has turned gray with fatigue and the beginnings of the illness. A disquiet settles over me. What if he doesn’t make it? I can’t lose anyone else. I don’t think I can survive it.

He doesn’t need me to hold him up yet, but he will soon. Too soon. I thought I could cure everyone on my own, but what if I can’t? If he dies, what will happen to the rest of us?

To me?

I won’t think about that.

“That would take too much time. Normally, I’d agree with you, but we don’t have the luxury of protocols now. This is the fastest way for me to test my hypothesis.”

I smack the elevator button a little too hard. “And the dumbest. I thought you were supposed to be a genius?”

“I am,” he says plainly as we enter the elevator. “That’s why I know this will work.”

“What you are is an arrogant bastard! Did you ever think about what it will do to everyone else if your little stunt goes wrong?”

What it’ll do to me? But I don’t say that out loud.

Saying it will mean the real reason for my anger. I care about him. And that can’t be. I won’t let myself care for him. Feelings aren’t an option when we could all be dead in a few days.

“It won’t. I’m certain of it.”

“Of course you are.”

“Hmm…”

I grit my teeth. This whole ordeal puts a very bad taste in my mouth. He was supposed to be curing the disease, not getting infected by it. Now we’re lying to Breccan and the others about what’s happening and they’re all depending on us. If he’s wrong…I can’t even think about it.

If he’s wrong, I guess nothing will matter once all is said and done.

Because we’ll all be dead.

The elevator stops and a leaden weight takes up residence in my stomach. Avrell, however, doesn’t seem to have the same affliction. He strides into the Medical Bay, his broad shoulders squared and his gait confident, if not a little measured. At his desk, he takes a seat and begins to take measurements: his temperature, a vial of his blood for analysis, then he notates his symptoms and the time.

I leave him to it, for now, because helping him at this point would make the situation all too real and honestly, I could use a little ignorance is bliss for a moment. While he studies his blood under the magnascope, I check on our other patients. Two of them are sleeping soundly—I think they’re going to make it. The other two writhe with fever. I give them another dose of fever medication, even though I doubt it’ll do any good. These angry blisters on their skin are mottled against their complexion.

It won’t be long before Avrell is the same. Until fever steals his mind, his big, beautiful mind and boils and sores cover his skin.

The medicine miraculously quiets the two—for now, and I close their isolette doors behind me. I press my back against them and squeeze my eyes shut. It will be over soon, that’s what I have to keep telling myself.

It’s what I’ve told myself since I was sentenced to the prison.

It will be over soon.

I hadn’t expected to live this long. In truth, I thought death was the answer to my mantra. By “it” I mean my life. I was too much of a coward to take it, but I figured the alien planet would do what I didn’t have the courage to. Instead, I found a home I never thought possible. Disease and war may try to steal it from me, but we are strong.

We’ve overcome so much already. I know we can overcome this too.

We have to.

I have to have faith in Avrell.

Which I never thought I’d think, let alone do.

Lyric was right. I have to give him the benefit of the doubt, even if it makes me want to peel my skin off. The only way we’ll solve this is together, especially if I want to keep Avrell from dying, too.

As he observes and notates his thoughts on his symptoms, I care for the patients, treating them and tending to their needs. Hours later, I finally get everyone to sleep and collapse onto a cot I store down here for when I’m too tired to go back to my room. Soon, I find myself falling into a fitful sleep plagued by nightmares.

 

 

It’s dark.

Inky, black darkness. A complete void of light.

It consumes me.

I shove myself into a sitting position. Is this another nightmare? A memory from the first days at the prison? Or maybe the overthrow had been a dream. Maybe none if it happened at all and a guard will show up, ready to drag me to whatever horrors they have planned. In my world it isn’t the monsters you have to worry about…it’s the humans.

A siren blares. The same one that had gone off during the first breech. A red light begins to flash, momentarily illuminating the isolettes, the Medical Bay. This is real. It’s real.

Avrell.

I think back to our briefings on the disease. What if he’d progressed more quickly than anticipated? He could have gone mad while I’d been asleep and gone on a rampage.

I’m such an idiot. I should have insisted he isolate himself as well. I’d been so certain he wouldn’t be a threat to me, but I didn’t consider what would happen to everyone else if the fever drove him out of his mind. We should have chained him up as a precaution.

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