Free Falling Apart (Barely Alive #2) by Bonnie R. Paulson Page A

beneath us. James didn’t lose the position he’d jostled into and maintained a fairly close distance from the black car’s back bumper. Even when the driver brake-checked us, James didn’t slip up. He held steady.
    Glancing at my brother, I realized I needed him.
    In the car ahead of us a girl trusted me to save her. She needed me. And she’d been in this mad race with me from the beginning. I needed her, too.
    The phone rang in my hand, startling me from my thoughts. “Yeah.”
    “We have it.” Connie’s excitement split through my quandary.
    I sat forward, bracing my elbow on my upper thigh. “Have what?” Please say vaccine. Please say —
    “The vaccine. Travis and I even tested it. It’s successful.” She laughed, the giddiness in her voice took years off her age. Stoicism gone, she sounded almost normal – not so brainy.
    They’d tested it. On who? “And who did you test it on?” I gritted my teeth, unsure I wanted to know the answer.
    “Your mom and Grandma Jean. They both volunteered, and I couldn’t decide who to test. Travis had pegged this so well, I knew it was safe.” She trailed off, reacting to my silence before I realized I’d failed to respond. Well, what the hell? She’d tested the damn vaccine on my mother! Okay, so it had to happen, but to Mom?
    Facts and fiction. When had I slipped into some damn horrifying science-fiction novel? I couldn’t tell reality from make-believe anymore. “I understand. What happened?”
    Relief rushed her through her explanation. “I offered the two vials to the ladies. They each gave themselves the shots and then we waited. I had to wait a full thirty minutes before testing the results. It takes about that long for the blood stream to reach every part of the body.” Someone coughed in the background. Connie cleared her throat. “Sorry. Okay, so after thirty minutes, we used more of your saliva and injected both of them, close to the spot where the vaccine was introduced into their systems. And there you have it. No reaction, no death, nothing. Well, except for a minor red area, but it’s nothing.”
    No reaction. But they could still be infected. “Connie, how long did you wait for the virus after you injected it?”
    “Almost fifteen minutes. The odds that they would be in the latent phase longer than that are very low.” She rustled some paper, muffled the mouthpiece and muttered to someone. She returned to our conversation. “Even better news? I can recreate the vaccine much faster than normal vaccines. We don’t have the capabilities to kill the virus, so we’re using altered bodies to vaccinate. I can’t believe how simple it is.”
    The right turn signal blinked on the car in front of us. I sat up and pounded the arm rest. “Connie, that’s awesome about the vaccine. I have to go. We’re still chasing Heather.” I hung up. Connie understood the situation. I didn’t have to apologize.
    We’d reached Moscow, a small college town on the highway south to Lewiston. Gas in the center of town, smack dab amongst civilians. Hell.
    “What do I do?” James followed the other car into the right turn lane, his head swiveling right to left.
    “Follow them.” I hunched low in my seat, watching through the mirrors and side windows as the car pulled alongside a pump and… holy hell, Brian climbed out. “That bastard is supposed to be dead.” Way too much blood for him to be otherwise… unless the blood was partly Heather’s.
    “Why? Did Dominic say he was?” James pulled in behind them. “He looks like he might wish he were. Do you see his hand?”
    What hand? Where Brian’s left hand should be, a tight wrap covered what looked like a stump. A previously white bandage, bright red in the gas station’s fluorescent lighting, poked from beneath the ace bandage. He met James’s eyes but ran a card and prepared the gas tank at the rear of the car.
    James climbed out, ran Travis’s card, and pumped into the tank of the SUV. They eyed