Desolation ✔️

Chapter 27: Revealed

"But," the man continues casually, walking around my chair, "upon Lucy Steinbeck's decline, you were admitted, putting you at number twelve in their tainted little program."

He moves behind me and stops. I can't turn my head and the back of my neck prickles with fear. Stay calm...think... just keep him talking...

"We are not part of the PSCC, if that's what you meant to ask." He moves around the chair again and stops a foot in front of me. Eyes me resentfully, the smile completely lost. Then he leans forward and puts his hands over my own, his face so close to mine I can smell the rot on him; see the stains of blood and zombie flesh plastered to his lab coat. "We destroyed everything affiliated with the PSCC. Stormed through their offices and shot all their workers. Located their equipment and found the devices they used to track you. And then we tracked you down ourselves." The grim smile returns.

My heart hammers. "Why would you do that?" More important question: the PSCC was tracking us? Why?

He steps away and laughs without humor. "Why? Why do you think? They got my daughter killed."

Daughter? This man...this cruel, twisted and corrupt man has a daughter?

He must read the confusion on my face because he scoffs and rolls his eyes. "No wonder you were an afterthought to joining the PSCC. Your brain is severely lacking. Is that, perhaps, why the zombies haven't eaten you yet? Maybe immunity has nothing to do with it."

I grind my teeth and tug at my restraints again. Pain tears at the bones in my wrists. If I can break the bones, I can slip through...but then my hands would be useless.

"Call me Dr. Steinbeck. Lucy's father."

Time ices over. This is Lucy's father? Mr. Big Wheel who always took her to "journey to the center of the earth"?

He turns to face the Hazmats with his arms out. "Oh yes, the surprise! This is the moment your jaw drops and the crowd gasps." He faces me again. "Why do you think she declined the offer to join the PSCC? She fell ill because they exposed her to the virus during my business trip. We visited the PSCC before they sent the acceptance letters. Do you even know what they did? Do you have any idea what you and the other eleven seniors—including your boy Carter—were getting yourselves into?"

I think back to when Carter and I first accepted the letters. We were told it was an internship to secure our futures with a guaranteed position in the medical field. But Lucy was sick a week before we even left for Cali, and then we were gone two weeks. When we returned, everything was in shambles. I knew the convention felt off—Carter even noticed when we were injected. And Ash said his dad was investigating the science conventions for illegal experimentation.

What did they do?

"You're paling." Dr. Steinbeck—Lucy's father—frowns. He sighs heavily and plops down on a rolling chair before scooting to a medicine-tray covered with vials and tubes and needles. While he pulls on latex gloves and prepares one, he continues calmly. "The virus broke out several months before on an island where it was contained. The PSCC is the cause of it; they were experimenting to find a cure to cancer and several other unnamed diseases. It was kept under wraps, and they soon realized they had to create an immunity initially for PSCC workers. They set up four locations with labs to test experimental drugs on students. One in Cali, the others in New York, Florida, and Washington. Do you follow?"

I don't answer him, but pieces start connecting with what Ash told me: the PSCC wasn't just stationed in Cali, there were ones in other states. Those are the ones he must be referring to.