Page 2 of Land of Shadow

“He just wants to snoop and make sure I’m doing the Lord’s work, as he puts it.” I open my laptop and plug it in.

“He’s told me the same. He’s hopeful.” He shrugs, and I know he’s smirking under his mask. I miss his expressions. “I think he’s the only hopeful person left, to be honest.”

“I’m hopeful.” I open the data file from the most recent protein trials.

“You? Hopeful?” He shakes his head, then swipes his hair back in a way that I’m sure used to drive the undergraduates wild. “Determined, I’d say. Yes. But hopeful? You’re not what I’d call an optimist.”

“Maybe you don’t know me very well.” I parse through the data, looking for something new, something to indicate the plague isn’t bulletproof. In three years of work, I’ve found nothing. And not just me, every researcher on the planet. This virus isn’t something that has a single answer. It’s not polio. It’s not even the flu with myriad strains that are impossible to pinpoint with accuracy for future vaccines. Its newness, itsuniqueness—that’s what makes it so deadly.

“Anything?” Sledge seems to read my mind as I go through lines and lines of measurements and readings.

“No.” I sit back and sigh. “The envelope proteins won’t budge. Not even with my modified nattokinase.”

“How many modified versions have you tried?” He asks it almost gently.

“That doesn’t matter.”One thousand five hundred and eleven. “The key is the protein barrier on Sierravirus Alpha. If I can break through that outer wall, the actual?—”

The power drops, my heater sputtering into silence as the lights go out.

He sighs. “If the generator finally gives out, maybe it’s a sign we should call it.”

“Call it?” I flip through a few more pages of numbers and charts.

“Leave.” He leans forward, elbows on his thighs. “Claire and I are thinking of getting out of the city.”

“What?” I stare at him in the gloom.

“Her parents have a house on a lake out in the boonies. We’re thinking of holing up there. Things are only getting worse.” He glances at my bike. “It’s not safe here. Every day we risk it to get to the university is another roll of the dice. It’s too dangerous, and we aren’t getting anywhere. The CDC or pharma is where the breakthrough will come from, not?—”

“You don’t know that. Besides, I can’t leave, not when I have triage shifts at the emergency department. People are desperate for help. We can’t turn our backs on them.”

He points at the darkened overhead light. “We don’t have what we need here. I’m not eveninbiomed, and I can’t keep my lab running in these conditions. There’s no way you can keep going.”

“I’m not giving up.” I meet his gaze. In it, I see worry and care. Two things I used to pine for when we were both new professors. I was the youngest doctor ever admitted to teaching at the University of Texas. Young enough to be starstruck by the handsome, brilliant Dr. Sledge Whitlow.

“Listen, I talked to Claire, and she’s okay with you coming with us,” he says sheepishly. “We can take enough supplies to live out there for years, maybe even forever. They own acres and acres. Worse comes to worst, we can farm and hunt. You could learn how to be patient and fish.” He’s smirking again. I’m glad I can’t see it. “Playing at being a farmer on a homestead doesnothingto solve this crisis. I’m not abandoning my research. Besides, Juno would shit a brick if I left.”

He shakes his head, a familiar wrinkle forming between his brows. “Juno would want yousafe.” His tone carries a vehemence that almost startles me.

“I can still work here.” I roll my eyes. “And unless you have an electron microscope on the farm, I don’t think it’s going to be a good fit for me.”

“Look, if you stay, it’s only a matter of time before you’re infected or attacked. It’s a miracle no one’s come for you yet just based on your last name. If those people out on the street knew about Juno, you’d have been taken or killed by now. You know that, Georgia. You have to. You’re the smartest person in every room you’ve ever been in since you were a kid. This is a chance for you to live. You’re only what, twenty-five now, twenty-six?”

He knows exactly how old I am. I’m certain of it. Just as I’m certain that I’ve felt his gaze on me in one way or another for the past few years. The same way I used to look for him when I would enter a room at university functions. “You could have a whole life,” he continues. “Don’t throw it away. You can’t solve this thing. Not on your own. I mean—” He shakes his head. “Has the CDC even once responded to the data you keep sending them?”

I cross my arms. “They’re busy. They can’t respond to every scientist who sends in data. Doesn’t mean they don’t analyze it or use it. I get new data from them each week. You should, too. You may not be in epidemiology, but you could dosomethingto help. You’re a scientist. We have to keep working.”

“That’s just a dream. You know I’m right. Come with us.”

“It’s not a dream, Sledge.” What I would’ve given to hear him ask me to go somewhere, anywhere with him four years ago. Back when I was smitten. When I thought it was love.Ugh, I could punch myself.

“Well, not a dream, I guess,” he amends. “But it’s not real, all the same. You’re just one person in a crumbling university.”

I stare him down. “It’s plenty real. It’s knowing that in here—” I tap my temple. “In this tangled mess, there’s a chance that the right neurons will fire in the correct order and create something that can save lives. This is why I went to med school, why I studied and worked and churned and did nothing else. Before the plague, before we had any idea such a thing was truly possible, I knew I could help the world in some inexplicable way. I knew there had to be a reason why I was given this gift.”A curse, my mind whispers. “Icansolve this. I have the ingredients, but I haven’t figured out the recipe, and if I run away from this, I’ll never find that recipe. I’ll have burned years of my life, my youth, for nothing.”

“It’s not your cross to bear!” He clutches his hands together, his knuckles going white before he loosens his grip and lets out a wry chuckle. “I would honestly say you were delusional if I didn’t know what you’re capable of, the way your mind works. But you’re punishing yourself. That’s what this feels like.” He gestures around at my cramped, dark office. “Because you think you were given a gift?”

“It’s not punishment. It’s purpose.” I force myself to breathe, to back down, to stop rising to his bait. “I don’t know why we’re having this conversation,” I say as calmly as I can. “I’m not your responsibility. My work is none of your concern. Thank you for the offer, and please give Claire my thanks as well, but I’m not interested.”

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