Winter fell asleep waiting for a sandwich in a diner, and then again after she’d finished the thing. At ten p.m. the waitress gently shook her awake and informed her they were closing. Winter numbly made her way to the nearest trolley stop and rode home, drifting off a couple more times on the journey.
Her parents had been at the back of her mind throughout the day, but she hadn’t actually had a moment to think about what she was going to say to them. She blankly climbed the icy steps up to her apartment and wondered if they were even home. Or awake.
Unfortunately, the answer to both of those questions was yes.
“Winter! Where have you been all day?” Dad demanded as soon as she opened the door. “We didn’t see you once! No call! No mention of work—speaking of, I called the hospital, and the lady who answered the phone hadn’t heard of you! Care to explain?”
“A lot of people work there. I don’t know all of them and they definitely don’t all know me.” Winter adjusted her bag. “I left early this morning because I had a shift and—”
Dad interrupted her rambling explanation. “What’s in that bag?”
“It’s my work bag! You’ve seen it!” Winter’s defensive tone wasn’t doing much to help her case, but she didn’t have the capacity to force calm right now.
“What do you even put in there, anyway?” Dad pointed to the table. “Come on. Show us what’s inside, if you have nothing to hide.”
“I’ve had it for weeks,” Winter tried again.
Mom stepped in. “Winter, if you have nothing to hide, just open the bag. Please. We’re worried about you.” She shot Dad a concerned look that he didn’t notice.
All right. It might be a hard sell, but if it worked, Winter could kill two birds with one stone: show that she had nothing suspicious in her bag, and prove she was working at the hospital. She grabbed the zipper and pulled. “Okay, okay, it’s not a big deal. Most of the stuff in here right now isn’t mine, it’s the Plague Saint’s.” The beaked mask came out. Winter held it up to the light.
“He had an emergency today and asked me to hold onto a few things for him,” she continued. “Apparently, someone broke into his lab, and he’s been worried about security.”
“So, he asked some new hire to take his stuff?” Dad still sounded skeptical, but his tone had calmed considerably.
Winter shrugged. “I thought it was weird, too, but he’s a weird guy. I guess he figured no one would think to check my bag. And none of it is actually that important. Just a couple of extra masks and uniforms and an old notebook.” She held out the mask to her father, an unspoken offer to take a closer look.
He shook his head. “We didn’t hear from you once today. What the hell were you thinking?”
Winter set the mask back in the bag. “I’m—I’m so sorry. You’re right. I didn’t sleep well last night, and I was out of it all day.”
“This is still unacceptable,” Dad said.
Mom stepped forward and rested a hand on Winter’s shoulder. Winter grimaced.
“We were worried sick,” Mom said. “We were afraid you caught a plague or something, Winter. We kept waiting for the hospital to call us.”
Winter forced herself to meet her mother’s gaze. “I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again. I swear I’ll call next time.” She dared to look at her father. “I do have another shift tomorrow, and if you guys aren’t up before I leave, I’ll leave a note, or—”
“That would be fine!” Dad exclaimed. “You just can’t disappear for an entire day. Especially after lying to us for two weeks about your job and getting arrested!”
Winter nodded. What else could she say, anyway? “I’m going to go to bed,” she said softly.
“Good idea,” Dad replied.
“It’s been a rough few days. I’m sure you could use some rest,” Mom agreed.
Winter picked up her bag and went to her room. She was looking forward to getting some real sleep. Tomorrow would undoubtedly be another long day, and she still had no idea how to prevent Marcus from giving cure to the mayor and the council without having her identity revealed. Or getting River killed.
Once she was lying down, it didn’t take her long to drift into unconsciousness. But it wasn’t a full night’s sleep that waited for her. The next thing Winter knew, she was jolting awake in the dark, her senses having picked up…something.
What had triggered her mind to wake her up? Winter laid in the dark for a moment, listening. Nearly a minute passed before a distant thud echoed through the apartment, so faint that she thought she might have imagined it. She jumped to her feet anyway and crept to her bedroom door. The thud came again as she stepped into the hall. It was coming from the direction of the kitchen. She glanced the other way, at the door to her parents’ room. Silence.
Another thud drew her out to the kitchen in time to see a rock hit the window. Winter darted to the window and peered down at the street.
Standing under the streetlight was Phoebe.
Winter glanced at the clock. Nearly four a.m. The hell? She turned on a lamp on a table near the window and waved a hand to show Phoebe she’d seen her. Then, she ran to her room to get dressed.
After a moment’s hesitation, Winter decided to grab the bag, just in case. Thinking ahead for once, she also scribbled down a note on a piece of paper saying that she’d left for the hospital and that she’d call her parents when she had lunch.
She left the note on the table, crept out the front door as quietly as possible, and carefully made her way down the icy stairs.
“What are you doing here?” Winter asked as she approached Phoebe.
“Sorry.” Phoebe stood with her arms folded, her expression as cold as the night. “I couldn’t sleep.”
She did look tired. Exhausted, actually. Those bags under her eyes bordered on alarming.
“And what were you going to do if I didn’t wake up? Wait out here until morning?” Winter glanced around the empty street. “How did you even know I lived here? And which window was mine?”
“I went to the station this afternoon, after what you said about getting arrested. I know you didn’t actually do anything.” Phoebe’s eyes narrowed. Winter never thought she’d see intensity like this in her expression. “But they said that you quit the station weeks ago. So, I got your address there and figured out which window matched your apartment number.”
Surprising as it was, Winter couldn’t fault her for good investigative work.
“Why did you lie to me?” Phoebe pressed when Winter didn’t offer an explanation. “And why did the Plague Saint think you still worked there?”
“I can explain,” Winter said. “I will. But did you talk to your uncle?”
“I did.” Phoebe glanced at the ground. “He said that he moved to the boat because his other lab was compromised. He’s working for the mayor now.”
“Yes! I know!” Winter exclaimed. “But you saw the decoded notes. He made a white plague.”
“Oh, like the decoded notes in the journal you stole from our apartment?”
Marcus had figured that out. Great. Winter flung up her arms. “So what? That doesn’t change what he did!”
“What do you mean ‘so what?’” Phoebe demanded, her gaze shooting back up to meet Winter’s. Her voice was hoarse enough to make Winter grimace. “You broke into my family’s home!”
“Because I knew what Marcus was doing and I needed proof!”
“And how did you know what he was doing?” Phoebe’s expression softened abruptly. The anger dropped out of her voice, and the difference was startling. “Please. I’m scared. I don’t want to believe my uncle is hurting people. But he told me he knew you’d stolen the journals, and he didn’t seem surprised that you found the boat. It’s like you two are enemies, but he won’t tell me why!”
Winter swallowed. The streetlight above them flickered.
“How did you find out all this about my uncle, Winter?” Phoebe asked. “And if you haven’t been working at the station, what have you been doing the past few weeks?”
“Phoebe, Marcus was—Marcus was the Plague Saint,” Winter began, nearly choking on the words.
“Was?”
“And I—” Winter shrugged off her bag and held it out. “I’ve been the Plague Saint since just before you started working at the hospital.” Her left hand found the zipper, pulled it open, and drew out the mask.
Phoebe stared at it. “I’ve known you—this entire time. It’s been you.”
Winter nodded.
“Why did you take over for Marcus?” Phoebe frowned. “Wait, those weeks he was missing, that was right after—”
“He was going to kill my mom,” Winter blurted. “I didn’t know his name or who he was. But I overheard him talking to Adams about how they were deliberately letting certain people die. Saving their rich friends, killing the poor who wouldn’t be able to pay for the treatment. And their enemies.”
Phoebe’s gaze lifted to the apartment building behind Winter. “Your mother’s still alive.”
Winter nodded.
“What did you do?”
Winter couldn’t force out anything more than a whisper. “It was an accident.”
“What did you do?”
“I thought I killed him!” The bag slipped from Winter’s hand, and the mask fell on top of it. She squeezed her hands into fists. “I thought he was dead, so I threw him in the river. And he left all these notes and journals, and the uniform fit, and I thought I could take his place! At least long enough to do some good.”
Phoebe staggered backwards until her back was pressed to the streetlight post.
The heartbeat of silence that followed was too much. All Winter could do was continue rambling. “And then my brother was sick, and Adams wanted him dead, and I went to your house and your uncle was alive and he knew I tried to kill him and—”
“Wait. Go back,” Phoebe interrupted.
“What?”
“Go back. Adams. His death.” Phoebe trembled. “Did you…?”
Winter didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Phoebe pressed a shaking hand over her mouth.
“And then—then George Gordon died the same way—!”
“They were killing people, Phoebe!” Winter winced at her volume, praying she hadn’t woken anyone up. Quieter, but her tone just as harsh, she continued. “And they plan to let more die. Devil’s Pass is better off without them. Look, at first, I was just trying to save my mom and River. But then I realized I could save everyone. I have to save everyone!”
“By killing off the people running the city?” Phoebe wrapped her arms around herself. God, she looked like she was on the verge of collapse.
Winter didn’t dwell on her concern for long. She just had to make Phoebe understand. “Yes!” She took a few steps forward, ignoring the terror that widened Phoebe’s eyes. “If we kill them, we can replace them with better people. People who will do better or face the same fate.”
“Do you have any idea how much chaos that would cause? Devil’s Pass is struggling as it is. If our entire government collapsed at once—”
“I can’t let them keep killing people!” Winter paused, desperately searching for the right words. There had to be some way to make her understand. “It’s the trolley problem!”
“What?” Phoebe shook her head. “That wasn’t—you’re not supposed to take that seriously!”
“Why not?”
“It’s not that simple! It never is!” Phoebe sank to the ground. Even the support of the post wasn’t enough to keep her upright now. “What, are you going to kill the mayor next? He has children!”
“And he’s passing a law that will kill countless children that aren’t his!”
“There are better ways!”
“What ways? Voting in someone better? There’s no time,” Winter told her. “There are never good candidates, anyway.”
“You’re—you can’t be serious.”
“I am.” Winter took a step forward and was surprised to see fear flicker across Phoebe’s face. Phoebe couldn’t possibly think Winter would hurt her, could she? “Seriously. Jonathan Forrest owns the city council, the financial advisor only gives money to people on her side, and the mayor’s going to work the sick people to death instead of giving them a cure that we have!”
“You can’t just—” Phoebe burst into a fit of coughing.
Winter frowned. “Phoebe?” Another step forward. “Are you—?”
“Stay—!” More coughing. Drops of blood on the sidewalk. “Stay back!” Phoebe pulled her knees to her chest and buried her face in her hands.
“You’re sick.” Winter closed the rest of the gap between them and dropped to one knee. She was stupid not to see it sooner. Or just sleep-deprived as hell. “Really sick. Come with me, I can—”
“No!”
Winter grabbed the bag and dove in. She had cure left, but it would take time to start working and Phoebe needed help now. “How long have you been feeling sick?” she demanded.
“I don’t know. I thought I was just tired at first,” Phoebe admitted. “I guess it was a few hours after the boat…”
The boat. Could she have been exposed to something there? There was a chance of catching plague everywhere, Winter supposed. But generally, if you kept your distance from strangers on the street, you were fine. It was the workers stuck in confined spaces with others who were most at risk.
“The rat cages,” Winter remembered. “You were bleeding—did you put a hand through the bars? Did one of them bite you?” She looked up from her bag at Phoebe.
Phoebe looked up too, desperation in her eyes. “I didn’t think it was a big deal,” she whispered.
Oh God. She could have white plague. Actually, given the quick amount of time it took for symptoms to appear, she probably had some nasty combination. Winter found the bottle of cure as Phoebe dropped her head again.
Directly into the blood would be faster, but Winter had no way of doing that out here. Phoebe needed the hospital.
Half now, half later, Winter decided. She found an empty bottle in the bag that hadn’t been used for anything yet and poured half the remaining cure in. She held it out to Phoebe. “Drink. Now. Come on.”
“What is it,” Phoebe mumbled.
“Cure, you idiot.”
“You’re not going to kill me for knowing your secret?” She was getting worse, fast.
“If I wanted you dead, I’d leave you out here alone,” Winter said. “Come on. Please.”
Phoebe lifted her chin and held out a shaking hand. Winter handed her the bottle. “Try not to spill it.”
Thankfully, Phoebe managed to get all of the liquid down before the bottle slipped from her grasp. It clattered against the sidewalk and rolled into the empty street.
Winter pulled out the Plague Saint uniform.