Free Web NovelChapter 180: Chapter 180 - Secrets
Iyisha looked down at the memo Marybeth had shoved into her hand before rushing out again.
She did not read the first page.
Her fingers flipped through the papers quickly until the last pages appeared.
Names.
Rows of them.
Last names listed one after another.
Her eyes moved down the column.
C.
C.
C.
Her finger stopped.
Clarke.
Iyisha froze.
"Clarke..." she muttered under her breath.
The sound of metal clicking continued behind her.
She lifted her head.
Malcolm stood by the wall, loading ammunition into a magazine.
When their eyes met, he looked away almost immediately.
Something tightened in her chest.
She looked back down at the page.
"My last name is in this memo," she said slowly.
Malcolm said nothing.
Another quiet click as he pressed a round into the magazine.
Iyisha stared at the name again.
Clarke.
Her mind began to race.
"Can... can this be the reason Cena disappeared?"
The thought made her stomach turn.
If the government had been looking for them before Cena went missing...
Her heart began pounding harder.
Was that why Johnson forced her out of Redridge?
Had he known?
Had he been trying to protect her?
Iyisha slowly lifted her head again.
Malcolm was still working on the magazine.
"Malcolm."
He glanced at her briefly.
Then back to the weapon.
Her chest dropped.
He looked guilty.
"Did you know I was being hunted?" she asked.
Malcolm’s hands stopped.
For a moment he did not move at all.
Then he looked at her.
"No," he said.
But the answer came too slow.
Iyisha stood.
The paper crumpled slightly in her hand as she walked toward him.
"Did you know I was hunted?" she asked again, her voice firmer now.
Malcolm lowered the magazine onto the bed.
He did not reach for another round.
He just sat there for a moment, looking at the floor before finally raising his eyes to her.
"I found out at the Heart community," he said.
Iyisha frowned.
"How?"
For a moment she tried to remember if she had ever told him her last name.
She couldn’t.
Last names had never mattered much out here. People stopped asking them a long time ago. She had never had a reason to bring it up with Malcolm.
The only reason she knew his was because Cyborg called him Briggs sometimes.
Malcolm leaned forward slightly, resting his hands on his knees.
"It was in your intake papers."
Iyisha stared at him.
For a moment her thoughts scattered.
The Heart community.
The night she almost froze to death.
She remembered waking up there, wrapped in blankets, barely conscious while Mary filled out the intake forms. Maybe Mary had written her full name then.
Iyisha slowly lifted her eyes to Malcolm.
A memory surfaced.
The way he had started keeping his distance after that. The way he barely stayed in the same room with her once she recovered.
At the time she had thought it was something else.
"Was that why you distanced yourself from me?" she asked quietly.
Malcolm looked away.
He did not answer.
Iyisha felt her chest tighten.
"If you knew back then," she said, "why didn’t you say anything?"
Malcolm finally looked back at her.
"I already spoke to Mary," he said. "We erased our tracks there. I didn’t think it mattered anymore."
Iyisha stared at him.
"Did you know I had the DNA to fight the virus?"
Malcolm shook his head.
"No."
He rubbed his hands together once before resting them on his knees.
"We were retrieving important assets for the ERF," he said.
Iyisha watched him carefully.
"We didn’t know what the assets were," Malcolm added. "Just locations. Orders."
Iyisha sat down slowly on the bed. The foam sank under her weight.
Her mind replayed the last months.
"So all those times we used fake names," she said slowly, "all those times we avoided roads with checkpoints..."
She looked at him.
"That was because of this?"
Malcolm nodded once.
"And you thought that wasn’t important?"
Her voice rose.
Malcolm’s expression hardened.
"I kept you safe, didn’t I?"
Iyisha let out a breath of disbelief.
"Wow."
She shook her head.
"You’re not even a little guilty, you bastard?"
"What good would that do?" Malcolm said. "As long as you followed what I told you, you were safe."
Iyisha shot to her feet.
"Am I, a what? A puppy?" she shouted. "You want me to just follow everything you say?"
"Stop," Malcolm said, his jaw tightening. "You’re the one who said you’d follow what I told you so you’d live."
Iyisha went still.
Her eyes locked on him.
She had said that.
She had handed the decisions to him.
Her chest rose and fell once.
"Don’t you trust me?" she asked.
Malcolm looked at her.
"No," he said flatly.
Iyisha blinked.
For a moment she thought she had heard him wrong.
"No?" she repeated.
"I don’t," Malcolm said.
The words sat heavy between them.
Iyisha stared at him, her hands slowly curling at her sides.
"After everything we’ve been through?"
Malcolm held her gaze.
"I trust your instincts," he said. "I trust that you’ll fight when you need to."
He paused.
"But trusting someone and relying on them are two different things."
Iyisha felt heat rise to her face.
"So what am I then?" she asked. "Cargo?"
Malcolm shook his head once.
"No."
He stood from the bed. The mattress slowly lifted back into shape behind him.
"You’re unpredictable," he said.
Iyisha let out a short laugh with no humor in it.
"Unbelievable."
She turned away from him, pacing toward the window.
Behind her Malcolm picked up the magazine again, sliding another round into place.
The metal clicked sharply in the quiet room.
The sound made her turn back.
"So you kept it from me," she said.
"I handled it."
"That’s not the same thing."
Malcolm finished loading the magazine and set it beside the others.
Then he looked at her.
"You’re alive."
Iyisha held his gaze.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then she shook her head slowly.
"You really believe that justifies everything."
Malcolm’s jaw flexed.
The silence stretched.
Iyisha rubbed her forehead, exhaustion creeping into her voice.
"God... I don’t even know what’s real anymore."
Across the room Malcolm reached for another weapon, checking the chamber with practiced movements.
Like nothing had changed.
Iyisha watched him for a long moment.
"If I had told you," he said quietly, his tone serious, "there was nothing you could have done."
She looked at him, exhausted. Feeling more useless than ever. Feeling more alone even with him standing right there.
If she had known.
What would she have changed?
Would she have acted differently?
She wouldn’t know, would she?
Because she never had the chance to know.
Malcolm sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and sighed.
"I’m sorry," he muttered.
Iyisha looked at him.
"You were right," she said after a moment. "You kept me alive. That’s all that matters."
She stood and walked back to the memo in her hand.
Nothing else was said.
Iyisha forced herself to look away from Malcolm.
She had her sister to worry about.
She looked down at the pages again.
The memo explained it clearly.
Anyone suspected of carrying the mutation had to be reported immediately so ERF agents could conduct DNA testing.
Only then could they confirm if someone carried the gene.
The lines beneath it were bold.
For the future of humanity.
For the cure.
Iyisha stared at the words.
They weren’t even sure.
They were hunting people first and testing them later.
She let out a slow breath.
The last time she spoke to her sister, the line had suddenly gone dead.
The people in Redridge had told her the entire safe zone had lost communications. She believed it for weeks.
But now another thought crept in.
Was Cena taken there to be tested?
Iyisha’s chest tightened.
God.
She didn’t know where her sister was.
And right now, that was the only thing that mattered.
She still had Cena to find.
