Every step toward the river was hell. Shooting pain through every bone, bitter cold, burning skin.
When Winter heard River and Phoebe’s voices, she checked that both parts of the mask were secured correctly to her face and tugged on her gloves. God, that hurt.
“Winter, there you are!” River exclaimed with relief when he spotted her. He was sitting on top of the contraption, which didn’t look any different than it had when Winter first found it. Hopefully they’d managed to break the lock already. There was no telling how much time they had before someone confronted them.
“What’s happening?” Phoebe demanded. “We’ve heard that yelling in the distance for a while now, and it seems like it’s getting closer. And—what’s that smoke over there?”
Winter didn’t bother looking back. “Not important. Have you two made any progress?”
“We broke the lock,” River said. He lifted the hatch to prove his point. “Still no ideas on how to get out the poison and replace it.”
Phoebe frowned at a point in the distance, where smoke met the sky. The mob was getting louder. “Uh, Winter, what—?”
“We need to focus on this right now,” Winter snapped. “Hospital’s probably got buckets we can use. Maybe some tubing for siphoning.” She walked to the contraption and climbed the ladder to get a better look.
River regarded her with concern as she popped up next to him. “Uh, wouldn’t you be more comfortable taking the mask off now? It’s just us here…”
He must have found the mask’s distortion of her voice disconcerting, Winter realized. But she didn’t want to deal with removing it right now. “Again, not exactly a pressing issue. Besides, I have to go get supplies.” Winter assessed the amount of liquid inside. They’d have to be careful where they disposed of it when they were done. She climbed back down, fighting to hide how much pain she was in, how badly her hands were shaking.
“Even if we get it all out, the inside will still be contaminated!” River called as Winter walked away.
“I’ll get disinfectant!” she replied.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Winter paused. “No. You two need to stay here and guard this. I’ll be right back.” Getting to the hospital and back shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes, as long as she was able to find what they needed quickly.
Oh, how she wanted to send someone else. She should have thought of this before coming all the way out, but she could barely think more than a few moments ahead now. A disconcerting fog had overtaken her mind.
She approached the hospital from the back. The mob had to be just out front, judging by the volume of the chanting. Oh, God, what if they were inside? They could easily disrupt the careful routine of the doctors, the only thing keeping dozens of patients from death.
The inside of the building was quiet enough for Winter to relax. Maybe the mob wasn’t planning on coming in, or maybe the city guard was actually succeeding at keeping them out. She shoved the thought aside.
Winter stopped the first doctor she passed. “Is Marcus Blackburn here?”
The man nodded. “He came in looking pretty sick about ten minutes ago.”
“Did he say anything about me?” Winter asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“But you’re treating him?”
The doctor frowned. “Yes. That is our job.”
“And do you know anything about the mob outside?”
“The entire staff is focused on treating people right now. We have no idea what’s going on. I assume the city guard’s handling it.”
Winter nodded and kept going. She tracked down a supply room near her lab and tried a few shelves before she found what would hopefully be enough buckets, along with several jugs of disinfectant, plastic tubing, and some sponges and towels. She divided the buckets into two stacks, piled everything else in, and set out.
She’d almost made it back outside when Marcus yelled her name.
“Winter!”
Groaning, Winter stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be in a hospital bed somewhere?”
Marcus didn’t look much better than he had when she’d last seen him. Still, he ignored her question. “So, you’ve handed out the most valuable thing in this city. Not just the cure, but the instructions to make it. I spent months developing that! I own the cure!”
“Seriously,” Winter hissed. “Even if you got them to give you a dose, if you don’t rest, your body’s going to have a hard time fighting off—”
“I’m not stupid. Don’t recite my own research to me.”
Winter turned around and continued toward the door. She couldn’t let Marcus distract her, no matter how badly she wanted to make him shut up once and for all.
“You still won’t save everyone!” Marcus yelled behind her. “The hospital’s going to run out of supplies before long. And who on earth is going to pay for more? Who’s going to buy lives?”
Winter ignored him and kicked open the door.
“You’ll pay for this. You think you’ve ruined my plans? You’ve ruined your own life. You—”
The door slammed shut behind Winter. Was he going to come after her? Didn’t matter. If she made it back to River and Phoebe, they could handle him easily, weak as he was.
If. Winter had barely passed the tree line when she collapsed to her knees. The fever, the cold, the ache, the burns; it all came together in a hellish combination, a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.
Thankfully, Marcus had apparently decided not to follow. That was the only bit of good luck she had. She forced herself to take in a deep breath and look up.
The buckets and cleaning supplies lay on the ground a few feet in front of her. She reached out for them. Her other hand slipped, and she fell face first into the snow.
Come on, come on, come on. Tears stung Winter’s eyes. She couldn’t stop now. She lifted her head and watched the world blur and spin in front of her. A shadow crossed the ground, moving toward her. Something emerged from the trees ahead. Winter lifted her chin a few more inches.
An animal. A dog.
Daisy.
The Saint Bernard padded forward. A sob racked Winter’s body. She was dying. This was it, this was—
More shadows, more blurry figures. But these weren’t dogs, these were men. Adams, Gordon, Forrest. The men she’d killed.
River’s voice echoed in her head. I think I was unconscious during the worst bits. Or hallucinating.
“This isn’t real,” Winter choked. That seemed to stop the men’s approach, but Daisy didn’t stop until she was standing about a foot away, her eyes staring directly into Winter’s, as if she could see every memory, every failure, every mistake—
Winter pushed herself up a few inches, tears coming faster now. “I don’t regret it. They needed to die.”
Her old dog sat down, pawns inches from Winter. One moved to rest on Winter’s hand, but there was no accompanying sensation. No fur, no weight.
“I have to finish this. I have to save them.” Winter shook her head. A sob racked her chest, making her choke. “I’m sorry.” She squeezed her eyes shut and felt tears slide down her cheeks.
A heartbeat later, something cool was flooding her body. The cure? Was it finally doing its job? Or was she imagining the sensation racing through her blood? Maybe this was what death felt like.
Winter opened her eyes and lifted her gaze. The men she’d killed were gone. The world was spinning, and she was pretty sure the blood pooling on the ground around her wasn’t supposed to be there. She blinked, and it vanished, too.
Daisy was still there, though. Shaking, Winter pushed herself up to her knees. She had to fight this. Marcus could still decide to follow her, Phoebe and River were waiting, and Devil’s Pass wasn’t safe yet.
“Go,” Winter whispered. “I’m not done yet.”
Daisy’s form blurred with the rest of Winter’s vision. Her mental haze was clearing, but she still couldn’t force herself to walk away from the dog, hallucination or not. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
When she opened them again, Daisy was gone.
No, she was never here, Winter reminded herself. She looked down at her gloved hands. She felt a little better, but not by much. Even if she was on the verge of death, though, she couldn’t stop yet.
She gathered up the supplies she’d dropped and kept going. Minutes later, she returned to the contraption, showing no outward sign of what she’d just experienced. She and River and Phoebe got to work.
River sat on top of the contraction and siphoned poison into the buckets. He handed them to Phoebe on the ladder, who traded Winter—face still hidden under the Plague Saint mask—for an empty one. Winter carefully lined up the full buckets a short walk from the river.
“All right, that’s the last of it,” River said as Phoebe handed Winter a half-full bucket.
“Great.” Winter took the bucket. “Let’s scrub it with disinfectant and rinse it as best we can.”
She had one more empty bucket, which she filled with river water while Phoebe handed River the disinfectant and sponges. She brought bucket over to hand to Phoebe, but Phoebe didn’t notice when Winter held it out.
“Uh, Winter?” Phoebe was staring past her. “We’ve got company.”
Winter whirled around, still clutching the bucket’s handle. Coming through the trees, led by Marcus, were nearly twenty city guards.
“Hand this to River,” Winter hissed, shoving the bucket into Phoebe’s arms. As her gaze settled on Marcus, she realized two people walking beside him weren’t dressed in guard uniforms.
Her parents.