Free Web NovelChapter 282: Chapter 281 - The All Cure Drug
Marybeth walked to the rail because sitting still made her chest feel worse.
The sea stretched around them in every direction. The yacht moved under sail now, slow and steady, with the engine quiet beneath the deck. Arnulf had killed it before sunrise and told everyone they were saving oil. No one argued. They had joined his route to the island because no one knew where else to go.
Lance stood beside her with one hand on the rail.
His shirt was still stained dark, but the wound had closed. He looked tired, bruised, and pale around the mouth, but he was standing. For someone who had been shot twice in two days, he looked almost unfairly alive.
"How is she?" Lance asked.
Marybeth looked toward the cabin door.
"Malcolm’s with her," she said. "She’s still out. Been two days now."
Lance looked back at the water. His jaw tightened once, then eased. Neither of them said Cena’s name for a while.
Marybeth turned and looked across the deck.
TAL kept to one side with Arnulf, Cedric, Phillip, and the families they had pulled from the lab. Some people sat under tarps with their knees pulled to their chests. Some watched fishing lines hanging over the side. Others sat with their children and stared at nothing. A few slept where they had dropped.
A laugh broke near the cabin stairs.
Arnulf had his daughter under one arm and turned once with her, careful but unable to stop himself. The little girl squealed and clung to his neck.
Marybeth’s eyes stung.
"She saved us all," she muttered.
Lance nodded. "Yeah."
Archie came toward them and lowered himself to the floor with a heavy groan.
"How’s Harry?" Lance asked.
"Irritating," Archie said. "Still himself. Still calling everyone stupid."
Marybeth glanced at the captain’s cabin. "And Lina?"
"Same," Archie said. "No fever. No black veins. No shaking."
Lance exhaled through his nose. "That’s good."
"It’s good until it changes," Archie said.
Marybeth looked at Dr. Stevens as he knelt beside a wounded boy and checked his pulse.
"What are we going to do with him?" Marybeth asked.
Archie followed her gaze. "Malcolm says he lives while he’s useful."
"And after?"
Archie looked toward Iyisha’s cabin. "After depends on her."
As if Stevens felt them watching, he rose and came closer. Marybeth’s shoulders tightened. She had heard he helped Iyisha live. She had seen him treat Lance and the others. None of that erased the lab coat in her head or the rooms under Fort Schuyler.
"How’s your wound?" Stevens asked Lance.
Lance lifted his shirt.
The skin was closed.
Stevens stepped closer, then stopped when Marybeth shifted in front of Lance.
"I need to see."
"You can see from there," Marybeth said.
Stevens looked anyway. His face changed. He leaned in a little, eyes narrowing behind cracked glasses.
"Are you evolved?"
Lance gave a tired laugh. "I wish."
"This is not normal healing."
"I think it’s the drug I got from your lab."
Stevens looked up at him. "A drug?"
Lance let his shirt fall. "B-S-9-01."
Stevens went still.
His eyes cut toward the water behind them, toward the direction of the fort they had left.
Marybeth stepped closer. "What?"
Lance straightened. "We were looking for the 1359 drug. The all-cure one you people made."
Stevens stared at him.
Then his mouth tightened. "B-S-9-01," he said. "You read the label wrong."
Marybeth looked at Lance.
Lance looked back at her.
By some stupid miracle, he had found the drug they were looking for after all.
Stevens cleared his throat. "You took the first version."
Marybeth’s hand tightened on the rail. "Is it going to hurt him?"
Stevens hesitated.
That was enough to make Lance’s eyes darken.
"Answer her," Lance said.
"The version you took was unstable," Stevens said carefully. "It was never meant for field use."
Marybeth stepped closer. "What was it made from?"
Stevens swallowed.
Marybeth grabbed him by the collar before he could decide how much to hide.
"What was it made from?"
Stevens looked at her hands, then at her face. "Subject B."
Marybeth’s grip tightened.
Stevens forced the next words out.
"Cenabelle Clarke."
The deck seemed to drop under her.
Lance’s hand went to his stomach, right over the closed wound.
Marybeth stared at Stevens. "What the fuck do you mean?"
"Exactly what I said." Stevens’ voice shook now. "B-S-9-01 was synthesized from her regenerative evolution."
Marybeth shoved him back a step, then looked at Lance’s healed wound.
Cena.
The fast healing.
The closed skin.
The body rebuilding itself after bullets and knives and worse.
Her stomach turned.
Lance was alive because of Cena.
Marybeth turned back to Stevens. "What did you do to her?"
Stevens lifted both hands. "We found her evolved already. She had regenerated multiple times before she was recovered."
"Recovered?" Marybeth snapped.
"Found," he corrected fast. "When the team found her, the mutation had already stabilized around regeneration. We did not create that part."
"You harvested it."
Stevens went quiet.
Marybeth moved toward him again, and Archie shifted like he was ready to catch her if she lunged.
Stevens spoke faster. "Blood. Tissue. DNA. We used what her body produced to synthesize B-S-9-01. Dr. Stein believed it could close traumatic wounds and reverse tissue collapse."
Marybeth’s jaw locked.
"But it did not cure infection," Stevens continued. "That was the problem. It healed damage without solving the virus. If used on the wrong host, it could preserve the infected body longer. Make it harder to kill. Maybe worse."
Lance’s face hardened.
Stevens looked toward the people on the deck, then back at the sea. "Cenabelle Clarke was valuable if her cognition returned. Without that, she was uncontrollable. They moved her to Long Island because they could not keep her secured under the fort."
Marybeth sat down hard on the deck.
For a second, she had to put both hands over her face because if she kept looking at him, she was going to break his jaw open.
Lance’s voice came low. "Shut your trap."
Stevens stopped.
Marybeth lowered her hands.
"She saved us all," Lance said.
Stevens looked at the wounded, the children, the survivors huddled under tarps, then toward Iyisha’s cabin.
"And in the process," he said quietly, "she may have put a death sentence on humanity."
Marybeth stood.
Stevens saw it too late.
"Fuck you."
Her fist hit his jaw hard enough to knock his glasses sideways. Stevens stumbled back and dropped to one knee on the deck, one hand pressed to his mouth.
No one moved to help him.
Stevens hit the deck on one knee and held his jaw.
Marybeth stood over him, her fist still clenched.
He spat blood to the side, then pushed himself up slowly. Phillip’s pistol lifted at once. Archie shifted beside Lance. Aljun stayed low by the bandage, but his eyes went hard.
Stevens raised one hand. "It’s not that I believe in everything the lab did."
Marybeth gave a sharp laugh. "That’s your defense?"
"No." He wiped blood from his mouth. "There is no defense."
"Good."
Stevens looked across the deck, toward the children sitting under the tarp, toward Arnulf’s daughter near the cabin stairs, toward Phillip’s son pressed close to his father. His face tightened.
"I know we did things even the devil would not do," he said. "I know that."
Marybeth stepped toward him again. "Then shut up."
"But we did it because there had to be a future."
"We don’t fucking care," Marybeth snapped. "You abducted people. You locked them in glass rooms. You cut them open. You killed them."
Stevens looked toward the survivors huddled on the deck. "You should care."
Marybeth’s hand twitched.
Lance caught her wrist before she hit him again. His grip was weak, but it stopped her.
Stevens saw it and kept his voice lower. "You’re not like them."
Marybeth followed his gaze.
The lab survivors sat in clusters, pale and half-starved, some holding children, some wrapped in blankets, some staring at nothing. They looked like victims because they were. But Stevens looked at them like he saw something else under the bruises and hospital gowns.
Marybeth’s stomach tightened.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
Stevens swallowed. "Compatibility."
Archie looked up. "Speak English."
"The virus does not destroy them the same way," Stevens said. "Some bodies collapse into walkers. Some with compatibility become twitchers. But some evolve." He looked at the survivors again. "Those people were kept because their bodies gave data the lab could use."
Marybeth’s mouth went dry.
"So when the helicopter said biological assets..."
"They meant them," Stevens said. "Iyisha. Cena. The survivors. Anyone who showed compatibility."
Marybeth looked toward Iyisha’s cabin.
"I understand the reason you did what you did. But understand too." Stevens looked at them. "What you did at the fort may have pushed the drug development back years."
Marybeth pulled free from Lance’s hand. "Good."
Stevens looked up. ƒгeewёbnovel.com
"Good," she said again. "I hope it burns all the way down."
His face hardened for the first time. "And if your friend gets bitten? If that child gets infected? If Iyisha’s baby needs what we were trying to build?"
Marybeth froze.
Lance’s eyes sharpened.
Archie stood.
Stevens seemed to regret the words, but he did not take them back. "That is the part no one wants to hear. The work was monstrous. The need was real."
Marybeth moved fast.
Archie caught her this time, arms locking around her from behind. "Don’t."
"Let me go."
"No."
Stevens backed one step, breathing hard. "Chill. I’m good. I was planning to escape myself. You attacking the lab was heaven sent in a way."
Marybeth stopped fighting for half a second.
He looked toward the water. "Some of us were prisoners too. Different rooms. Different locks. Same armed men. Dr. Stein did not let people leave with what they knew."
"Poor you," Aljun said, voice flat.
Stevens flinched at the tone.
Lance stared at him. "You still helped."
"Yes."
The answer came too fast and too quiet.
Stevens looked at them one by one. "I helped. I took samples. I processed tissue. I labeled vials. I told myself if the data survived, something good could come out of it."
Marybeth’s throat burned.
"And Cena?" she asked. "What good came out of that?"
Stevens had no answer.
Marybeth pulled once against Archie’s hold, then stopped. Her anger stayed in her body with nowhere to go.
Lance looked down at his closed wound.
"She did," he said.
Everyone turned to him.
Lance touched the place where the bullet had gone in. "Cena did. I’m standing because of her."
Marybeth’s eyes stung again.
Stevens lowered his gaze.
Aljun suddenly showed up. "She’s awake."
