Free Salvation: Secret Apocalypse Book 5 (A Secret Apocalypse Story) by James Harden Page A

holding cells, if I released the infected.”
    “And you
believed him?” I ask.
    “I had no
choice!”
    “Keep your
voices down,” Kim whispers.
    “Sorry,” I say.
    “Do you know who
he’s talking about?” Kim asks me.
    I nod. “Yeah.
The man in the gas mask did the same thing to me. He injected me with a
sedative first and then injected me with a time release nano-virus.”
    I showed her the
watch. Showed her the countdown.
    Fifty-one hours.
Less than three days.
    George rolls up
his sleeve. He has the same watch. “I’ve only got a few minutes left.”
    And I think to
myself, this is why he is frantic. This is why he is panicking. This is why he
is doing the stupid things that he is doing.
    And now it all
makes sense.
    The warden has
the same watch as me, and he’s been injected with a time release nano-virus
that is programmed to eat anything and everything, including human flesh, and
his countdown is nearly at zero.
    He has minutes.
Less than ten minutes.
    This is why he
is freaking out.
    I wonder if this
will be me in three days’ time. I wonder if I will freak out and lose my cool and
lose myself. I wonder if I will betray myself and my friends and the people
closest to me.
    God, I hope not.
    Kim shakes her
head. She does not fully understand. “What the hell is going on? I dragged my
brother into this mess. He wouldn’t be here… if... if...”
    Kim is starting
to blame herself for everything that has gone wrong. This is not the time to
play the blame game.
    “You need to
keep it together,” I say to Kim. “You know this place. So do you,” I say,
pointing at George. “And since you just made getting out of here damn near
impossible, you’re going to help us get out. And you’re going to do whatever it
takes.”
    “I had no
choice,” George says. “He blackmailed me with my life. What was I supposed to
do?”
    “How are you
going to get the cure if you're dead?” Kim says.
    George looks at
his watch. “He’s coming back for me. I know he is.”
    “How?” Kim asks.
“How the hell do you know that?”
    “He knows this
place,” George says. “He knows it better than anyone. He outsmarted General
Spears for crying out loud. He is a genius. And he will get me out of here. And
then he will put a stop to all this madness.”
    The warden is
delusional. I guess when confronted with your own death people act this way. I
know I was. I was still clinging to hope.I
was still trying to live, fight, survive.
    I had not given
up.
    See? Delusional.
    “Wait,” Kim
says. “That man out there knows this place? ”
    George nods his
head. “Better than anyone. He moves through the service tunnels, the
maintenance shafts, the air ducts, the shadows.” George holds up the
blueprints. “You see this? All of this. He has memorized it all. Not just for
the prison. The entire facility. The entire Fortress. He is smart. He is
unbelievably smart. And he will come
back for me.”
    I point to the
blue prints. “Are they his ?”
    “No. Like I
said, he’s memorized the entire layout of the Fortress. He doesn’t need them
anymore. I got these blueprints because I was trying to figure it out. It's
genius. And the way he talked about the virus. And the nano-swarms. He
understands all of it. He can fix it. That's why he injected us. Don't you
see?”
    “See what?”
    “He injected us
for collateral. You can't trust anyone in this new world. Not anymore. You have
to earn trust. Really earn it. He didn't have time. That's why he injected us
with a time release virus. He was buying our trust.”
    “No, he's a
psychopath,” I repeat for the millionth time. “He’s insane. He’s evil. I don’t
care how smart he is. You can't believe a word he says. You're right about
trust. Trust is a hard thing. A dangerous and deadly thing .” Again, I think back to Father Damon. We
trusted him. It nearly cost us everything. “And you can't trust this guy. He
has left us for dead. We don't survive this. Do you get