Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

Doug spun the chair across the aisle backward and straddled it to sit opposite her. He looked like there was no power on Earth that could compel him to sit within striking distance.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that we lied to you, Miri.”

Miranda looked at Doug sidelong, unable to face him directly. She looked at her friend and felt like she did not know him anymore. She could also see that he meant what he said. The cheekbone she had inadvertently elbowed sported a puffy red splotch with a dark bruise forming at its center. His blue eyes brimmed with remorse.

“That’s generous of you.”

“I am sorry, Miranda. We all are. It was a terrible thing that we did to you.”

“And now that you’ve apologized, everything’s hunky-dory. Fuck you.”

“Of course it isn’t.” Doug took a deep breath. “When the fighting began after the Council reneged on the vaccine, there was no way we could defeat them. We didn’t have enough leverage, even with the farms and their failed harvest. They had the police, we didn’t. The only thing we had was influence on the people who were rioting. If the riots had continued, we might have lost everything. Some of the people fighting the police were planning to firebomb the lab that warehoused what little of the vaccine there was.”

She remembered of course. How could she forget?

“Mario thought if he approached the Council, he could make them see reason, but he couldn’t. So he and Walter came up with the idea to have Mario seem to betray us. If Mario could convince the Council he’d rather throw in with them, maybe we could end the fighting and get control of the vaccine that way.”

“Or maybe you could have tried something that didn’t involve screwing me over!”

Doug sighed. “If we had someone on the inside, at least there was a chance. And if Mario didn’t appear to join them, they would have tried to kill him. They already thought they had killed Henry. If he wasn’t on their side, getting Mario out of the way would have been the next logical step from their point of view. Think about it, Miri. You know it’s true.”

He’s right, she thought, her mouth twisting into a frown.

“Even after the deal was brokered, they didn’t trust him,” Doug continued. “They wanted his expertise, but if he stepped out of line at all, you can imagine what they’d have done.”

“They’d have gone after the kids,” Miranda whispered. If they had killed Mario and Emily’s children… She felt sick just thinking about it.

“They’d have gone after you, too. He was trying to protect you.”

The Council would have tried to kill her if they thought it would keep him in line. They had just tried it not an hour ago. The Jesuits were powerful now and she was one of their people. It was a stupid, dangerous play, but they made it anyway. But she was not ready to concede anything, no matter how right Doug might be. What they’d done to her was unconscionable.

“And all of you thought it would be better for me to not know? To think he betrayed us? Used me?” She couldn’t stop her voice from cracking. “What gave you the right?”

Doug received her anger without flinching. “We didn’t have the right. We just knew you could never pull it off.”

“You never gave me the chance!” Miranda jumped to her feet, unable to stay still.

“How long would it have been before you started meeting him in secret? Three months? Six months? A year?”

Miranda stared at him, openmouthed. “I don’t fucking believe you.”

“How long?”

“I would have done whatever it took!”

“I gave it six months.”

“Did you fucking place bets?” she shouted.

“We didn’t have to! You suck at lying.”

“Go fuck yourself, y—” Miranda started, but Doug cut her off.

“You can be sneaky and devious, absolutely. But lie? About something that important? You wear your heart on your sleeve, Miranda, and you follow it no matter what! You wouldn’t have been able to stay away. It might have taken a while, but eventually you’d have tried to see him. And if you had known the truth, he wouldn’t have been able to stay away either. The pair of you would have blown his cover and that would have been that.”

A grief so pure Miranda was sure she would die flooded through her, and then she was floating. We look so tiny from up here, she thought. She supposed she ought to wonder why she was looking down at herself, but she could not muster the will to care. Not caring was so much easier than what Miranda-on-the-floor was doing. That Miranda flung the reliquary at a confessional door so hard it got stuck in the lattice. That Miranda pounded the altar. She heard the smack of that fist against the marble but did not feel a thing where she hovered by the timbered ceiling. No bruising of tendons or snap of bones. Her hand should have hurt, but it didn’t. All the hurt was twined around her heart.

She watched Doug scramble to grab the other Miranda’s arms. “Miri, stop! You’re going to break your hand!”

“Leave me alone,” the other Miranda cried, and then she was back in her body, dizzy and sick. Doug was holding her wrist and her hand hurt like a motherfucker. She looked into Doug’s glacier-blue eyes and couldn’t take it anymore. Helpless, she began to cry.

“You are my best friend, Miranda. I would never hurt you if I had any other choice. You know that,” Doug said, pulling her to him. “You and Mario… You never could have lied about it. You’re not made that way. Why do you think everyone knew? And he couldn’t have done it, not if he knew you were waiting. We’d have lost our only chance and we could not let that happen.”

Miranda cried because it was true. When Mario confessed that he loved her, she dove in headlong. It had not mattered that he was married to her friend. It never occurred to her to do anything other than grab what happiness she could, for as long as she could, because she did not live in a world that gave second chances. Doug was right. She could never have done it.

“We never thought it would take so long.” Doug rifled through his pockets before holding up the hem of his t-shirt. Miranda took it and blew her nose. “Mario didn’t make contact for over a year. We started to worry maybe he had sold us out.”

Miranda crumpled to the floor. “This is why you told me not to rush into anything with Connor.” Too tired to accuse him, she merely stated a fact.

She heard Doug curse under his breath as he sat down next to her.

“No, Miri, it’s not. I didn’t know things were going to play out like this. You, Connor, and the others were supposed to get out with the vaccines. Mario was going to South America to oversee production there, but that was supposed to happen later, after you’d gone. It’s not like he can stay here. Too many people want him dead. You were just so unhappy yesterday.” Doug stopped, then added softly, “I know you still love him.”

“I don’t,” she said, the denial automatic.

Doug didn’t say anything, but his silence spoke volumes. She scrubbed her face with her functional hand, unable to remember the last time she felt this tired.

“Walter said the Council is after me.”

“You know we’re manufacturing post-bite in Santa Cruz?” Doug asked, pausing only for a second. “Some dumbasses stole a few crates to sell on the black market. There were no customs stamps on it because we weren’t ready to move it yet.”

“You have customs stamps?” Miranda said, surprised. Customs stamps were locked down as tight as the vaccine itself.

“We have very good forgeries,” Doug said with a sly smile. “The Navy intercepted their boat and your name came up because some of them worked at The Farm a few years ago.”

“But I don’t know anything about those people,” she protested.

“The Council doesn’t know that. Mario only found out because without Customs Stamps, the assumption was that it was stolen from the GeneSys facility. If his brother hadn’t called him, the Council would have you and Connor right now.”

“No wonder he was so pissed,” Miranda muttered, remembering how hard she had fought Mario on the Expressway.

“He wasn’t exaggerating,” Doug said. “You fractured two of his ribs.”

She did not even know how to respond to that. Instead she asked, “So what do we do now?”

“We have to figure out a way to get to Santa Cruz. We have to get Henry and Mario and all their research data far away from here.” Doug looked at her funny, like she would not like what he said next. “Mario’s gone to GeneSys to