How long?
How long had I had to prepare for this moment? How many hours had I lie awake at night rehearsing this conversation in my head? Why was it that now that the moment was finally here –after months of doubt, months of hopelessness, months of thinking I'd never get to ask the questions that swarmed my mind- I had no idea where to start?
I worried that as soon as I opened my mouth, I'd lose it, that I'd become unhinged, that the words would come bubbling up like word vomit and nothing would make sense.
I had to stay cool and collected. I'd finally got George to fear me, and I couldn't do anything that might lose me my leverage.
I paced to the chair and lowered myself slowly, watching the way George sagged in his own seat, the way his face pinched in pain every time he moved.
Good.
"I have some questions, and you're going to answer them."
His gaze floated to mine, distant and fuzzy.
"Give me the vaccine," he said between grit teeth. "Please. Please."
My eyebrows rose slightly, surprised. I couldn't think of a single time I'd ever heard him say that word to me –or at all for that matter. And now here he was, completely at my mercy, asking me to be his savior.
A smile crept onto my face, slow and pleased, and I thought fleetingly that maybe I was in too dark of a place. It shouldn't feel this good to see the desperation in his eyes.
Maybe I had become exactly what I feared. Maybe I had become too much like him.
No. I couldn't believe that.
I had been an innocent child that he had taken his frustrations out on. He had manipulated me, abused me, tortured me, and tried to kill me. And most unacceptably, he'd tried to kill my baby.
But this was more than just a personal vendetta. He'd worked so hard to destroy everything while I was trying to rebuild it.
And not once did I ever ask for his mercy. Not once did I ever beg.
I'd always been stronger than him. It just took until now to realize it.
"I could just let you turn," I told him absently, turning the syringe around in my fingers. "It might even be... poetic."
"Fine," he spat, then winced as he straightened in his chair. "Ask you questions."
"I want honest answers. No more lies."
He nodded once.
Where to start?
We had time –hours at least- before the effects of the infection where too much to come back from. So what better place to start than the beginning?
"How did you meet my mom?"
What I really wanted to know was what had she seen in him. My mom had always been so soft spoken, so kind, and George was the complete opposite. How could she have ever loved a man like him?
He scoffed. "Really?"
I looked at him pointedly, tucking the syringe into my pocket.
"By happenstance," he answered. "I wasn't looking for someone to share my life with, but there was something about her. I was drawn to her immediately."
I grimaced, my stomach turning in disgust. George wasn't the kind of man to be drawn to someone's kind heart or gentle demeanor. So now the question was, what did he see in her? The fact that he saw something he liked had heart-sinking implications.
"You think she was perfect." He sounded almost sympathetic, and I glared at him. "It's okay. All children believe their parents to have no faults. Molly was smart... and cunning. In my eyes, she was flawless. But you and I see things very differently. You see me as evil, a villain. You were too young when she passed, but I'm sure if you'd been given the chance to know her as you are now, you would have thought her a villain as well."
My jaw clenched, dreading that he might be right. The fact that she even fell for him at all was evidence enough that I may not have known my mom as well as I thought I had.
I opened my mouth hesitantly to ask a follow up question, knowing it would either alleviate some of my fears about my mom or worsen them.
"Did she know? Did she know that you were planning all this?"
He studied me for a long moment, his eyes brightening with guile. "I told her the very day I met her. Right after I took her back to my hotel room and fucked her on top of that floral comforter."
He was trying to get under my skin, I knew he was. So I suppressed my aggravated sigh and rolled my shoulders, showing him that he wasn't going to get the better of me.
And yet, my heart dropped. It wasn't his salacious comment about my mom. It wasn't even that he had just revealed that my mom and cheated on my dad with him –I'd suspected that.
It was the fact that she knew.
She knew.
For a second, I skimmed through justification and justification in my head –surely he didn't make it sound as bad as it was, surely he painted a pretty picture of it in her mind instead of being completely honest- but I gave up quickly, because there was no justifying it.
She knew what he was planning and she went along with it. She married him, and carried his child all while knowing he plotted to kill billions.
Who knew what she would have done it she hadn't died. Would she have turned the other cheek, looked the other way while he broke down her first born daughter? Would she have left Oakley and I behind when the world went to shit because of him? Would she have stayed by his side throughout all of the chaos he'd inflicted?
"You should have seen the way her eyes lit up," he continued, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. "Poor thing had been so bored for so long. What that oaf of a husband and burden of a child. She wanted something new. She wanted to be a part of something bigger, craved it like it was the only thing that could sustain her. And I was the only one who could give it to her."
"Why?" I breathed. I didn't want to hear any more about my mom, didn't want to know more about how she wasn't the person I thought she was. "Why did you create the virus?"
All I knew was what Parker had paraphrased after we'd left the Zone. But I needed a better answer. And I needed to hear it from George.
"The world was a very dark place, filled with people who put their faith into all the wrong things. So many people. The earth was overflowing, bursting at the seams with people who served no purpose. Helpless, weak people. The world needed a cleanse. Like the Great Flood. It needed to be rid of all the weak and left with only the best of us."
"And you thought you were the man for the job."
"I knew I was the man for the job," he corrected, narrowing his eyes. "When I first told Molly my plan, I admit, it was little more than an outline. But when I lost her, I put all my time and effort into the project. I had to. For her."
I swallowed back my disgust. How dare he think that he was honoring her by bringing the world to ruin? But I couldn't dwell on this, so I moved past it.
"Apparently you didn't put enough time and effort into it, because it didn't work out exactly like you'd planned. Did it?"
He shrugged indifferently. "For a time I thought the cannibalistic creatures were a curse. I'd only made enough vaccines to inoculate my people, thinking I would only have to protect them from the airborne virus. I didn't have any extra, to save them if they were to be bit. But then I had the idea to bring in recruits –regular, ordinary, naturally immune survivors. It wasn't what I wanted, but they were expendable, and my people were able to stay safe inside the Zone while the recruits risked their lives in the field."
In the field. What a nice way of describing how he sent people out to annihilate anyone they came across.
He really was sick. Twisted.
He groaned suddenly, leaning his head back, exhausted. My eyes dropped to his shoulder, and I saw that the wound was turning dark, the first hints of black veins creeping out from beneath torn flesh.
Maybe we didn't have as long as I thought.
"Why did you leave Oakley with me?"
For it being one of my most important and pressing questions, I was surprised how difficult it was to voice it. I'd accepted her death, put her to rest in my mind, but being here with the man who doomed her for death made it all feel so fresh.
He didn't answer, his head still lolled back, so I kicked his bad leg with my toe. He inhaled sharply though his teeth, vexed and tired eyes meeting mine.
Then he sighed, his body going somewhat slack in the chair again. "There wasn't enough time."
"Bullshit," I spat. "You had things all planned out. You had time."
"Claire, don't pretend to have even the slightest inkling of the measures I had to take to make this work. You're clueless. Ignorant."
"Why did you leave her with me?" I repeated, my voice shaking softly. "If you wanted her back so badly, why did you make her my responsibility?"
Something crossed his face then, something I'd never seen on him before. He looked almost... guilty.
"Molly wanted another child," he said, keeping his eyes on the floor, on the puddle of black blood seeping from the dead Feral's body. "I'd never been particularly interested in bringing another life into this world. It seemed... counterproductive to my plans. But I wanted to make her happy. I should have told her no. If I did, she'd still be here." He paused, lifting his head and I watched a bead of sweat roll down his hairline and drip from his jaw. "Oakley was my flesh and blood. I wanted to raise her right so that she'd follow in my footsteps one day. I wanted her to eventually take over my position at the Zone, but I hadn't had the time to raise her. You did. And she picked up so much from you, spent so much time with you. It didn't take me long to see that she was going to be just like you."
Pride warmed my chest. I'd been so afraid that she was going to turn out like George, that his toxic traits would be passed down to her and that I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. But I'd been wrong.
I hadn't been a perfect guardian, but I'd done a good job.
"If she was so much like me, then why did you even want her back?" I asked, trying to understand his logic.
"Because I thought I could change it," he said, his hands flexing, the leather restraints creaking softly. "I thought there was enough time to change it, to mold her into the person I envisioned her to be."
"Then why didn't you take her with you in the first place?" I asked again, succinctly. He was beating around the bush, avoiding the question, and I'd had enough. "Answer the question."
He flinched, baring his teeth in a grimace. His symptoms must be worsening. He must really be hurting.
But he had no idea what hurt really was.
"The vaccine," he gasped. "Please. I need it."
"Not yet. Answer the question."
"It would be too much work," he said in a rush. "I was a busy man. I didn't have the time to raise her. Besides, I had other options for successors, easier options. So I left it up to God. I left her behind. If you succeeded and brought her to me, it would have been a sign that I was meant to raise her, that she could be what I wanted her to be. And if you failed, and she died... well, then I would have taken that as God lifting the burden from my shoulders."
I laughed. It was hollow and right on the edge of hysterical, and I pressed the heels of my palms against my closed eyes.
"That doesn't make any fucking sense," I said, and my voice caught on the last word, a sob close to escaping. I dropped my hands into my lap and looked at George with an aching heart. "Did you even love her at all?"
"Of course I did," he answered, sounding offended, but the indignant expression quickly turned to something else. "But it's her fault Molly's dead, and I could never quite forgive her for that."
"You never put the blame where it belongs," I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief. "It wasn't Oakley's fault that Mom died. It was yours for giving her a child in the first place. Just like it wasn't my fault Oakley died. It was yours for leaving her with me." I shifted forward, lowering my voice as I drew nearer to him. "You've put so much effort into making me feel like everything was my fault -that every bad thing that happened was because of me. What did I ever do to you? Why do you hate me so much?"
He sighed thoughtfully, eyes level with mine. "You look so much like your mother. Do you know that?"
I felt my brow furrow in confusion. What did that have to do with anything?
"Do you have any idea how infuriating that is? To look at you and see the woman I loved?"
"How could you treat me the way you did if I reminded you of her so much?"
"Because you're nothing like her. You're just God's cruel joke, a painful reminder." He shook his head. "Besides, the more strict I was with you, the less you looked like her. The less I was tempted to-"
"Enough."
I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face, bending forward as much as my belly allowed. I swallowed back the bile in my throat but it felt like it just kept coming up, again and again.
Being strict with me was a nice way of sugar coating it. He almost made it sound like the worst thing he'd done was give me an early curfew and a stern talking to instead of turning my skin purple. The urge to vomit rose again with the knowledge that those bruises, those ugly injuries were what saved me from something far worse.
"You wanted honest answers," George said quietly.
I inhaled deeply through my nose as I straightened, and let my hands fall palms down onto my thighs.
Yes. I'd wanted honest answers, but I'd had no idea they would only traumatize me more.
"All out of questions?" he pressed.
I shook my head. "Almost. How are your symptoms?"
"Worsening," he admitted. "Headache. Fever. Exhaustion. Eyesight is on its way out. Wait much longer and I'll lose things I can never get back."
I was tempted to let it happen, to watch as his skin turned pale and his eyes turned black, to see the way his consciousness deteriorated until he forgot everything.
Instead, I pulled the syringe from my pocket, readied it, and plunged it into the flesh of his shoulder. He gasped, and I observed in fascination as the webbing black veins slowly vanished.
"How's your vision?" I asked, looking for any sign of ink in his eyes. "Is it coming back?"
"Yes." He nodded, tilting his face skyward as he sighed in relief.
"Good." I stood from my chair, drawing Parker's knife in my sweaty palm and leaning in close to George. "Because I want my face to be the last thing you see."
His panicked eyes bounced from the blade to my face.
"Wait," he pleaded. "What are you doing? Wait! You said if I made the vaccines, you'd let me live."
"I lied."
I pressed the tip of the blade against his stomach and just held it there for a moment. My breath was coming faster now, my skin clammy and my stomach rolling. Was this really what I wanted to do? Should I have him locked up instead –let him live the rest of his life in a pitch black cell? But no, that would only be another mouth to feed. Besides, if I let him go now, showed him mercy and let him walk among the people I knew he wanted dead, I don't think I'd ever be able to sleep again.
His death was the only thing I could live with.
"Please don't do this," he whimpered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything I've done."
"You can't take it back."
When the tip of the blade nicked his skin, he cried out, begging for my mercy.
"It's over, George," I whispered to him as the blade sunk into his gut and the blood bloomed through his shirt. He was trashing, crying -tears streaming down his face and his mouth hung open in a wordless cry of agony. "Don't fight it. It's over."
I watched his eyes until they went dull and empty, and when his body went still, I pulled the blade from his stomach, and just stared at the dead man before me.
I should be ecstatic, overjoyed, proud.
And yet, all I felt was the crushing and overwhelming relief.
It wasn't exactly good, but it was enough.
Finally, I turned and looked into the camera. "Let me out, Parker."
The door opened moments later, and Parker stood before me. He searched my face, and I let him. There were no walls between us. Everything was laid out on the table.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly.
The answer was irrelevant. Because truth was, I'd learned things today that would take up unwanted space in my mind. It would take time to sift through and come to terms with it all. But that didn't matter right now.
So instead of answering, I crashed into his chest, felt his arms wrap around me, and began to weep with relief. We could finally relax and take a breath. We could finally move on and be excited for the future.
Because it was finally over.
And we won.