Page 28 of Spread Me
Nkrumah’s eyes flash. She rarely loses her temper with Mads, but she looks to be on the verge of it now. “No. But Weatherman’s in there.”
“We can’t read it without Domino,” Kinsey offers.
“We could learn,” Nkrumah snaps. “We could reread the fucking manual. Without it, we have no way of knowing what’s coming for us.”
Jacques shrugs. “Okay. So we go in and get Saskia and we toss her in the exam room with Domino. Problem solved.”
Mads shakes their head. “Hang on. No way. We can’t let her—it, we can’t letitout of there. It’s too dangerous.”
“We can handle it.” Jacques moves toward the bookshelf barricade. “I’m with Nkrumah. I want access to Weatherman.”
“Since when do you agree with me that fast?” Nkrumah’s eyes narrow. “Actually… since when do you agree with meever?”
Jacques is already trying to budge one of the heavy bookshelves. “I agree with you all the time. And you’re right. We need to be able to see what’s coming for us. So let’s—”
Nkrumah cuts him off. “Hang on a second. Jacques, hold out your arms.”
“What?” Jacques looks down at himself, then turns and looks over his shoulder, his eyes wide. “I don’t see anything.”
“Where is it?” Nkrumah asks. “Show us.”
Kinsey is on her feet, the blanket falling away. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Jacques says, looking down at himself. “I don’t know, I don’t see anything—”
“Bullshit.” Nkrumah slowly shakes her head. Her fingers curl and flex at her sides. “You’re one of them. You think you’re slick, but I see you.”
Jacques holds his hands up, palms out. “I didn’t do anything. I was just helping move the shelf so we can get Saskia and—”
Nkrumah lifts one hand to point a rigid finger at him. “I see you. I see you, whatever the fuck you are,” she says, the pitch of her voice starting to rise. Her every word echoesin the corridor now that there are no bookshelves to soften the sound and no wind to smother it.
Mads steps toward her. “You’re tired. We’re all tired. Let’s not panic and start accusing each other of—”
“I’m not panicked,” Nkrumah says. Her index finger aims at Mads and they freeze in place. “Don’t come near me. Don’t take another step.”
Kinsey rises and moves between them, holds a hand out in either direction. “Both of you stop. Nkrumah, go stand with Mads.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“Now,” Kinsey snaps. Without waiting to see if Nkrumah is still refusing to go, she turns to Jacques. He has two arms as far as she can tell. Ten fingers, one crooked from a bad break. “Smile,” Kinsey orders, and he does, revealing slightly crooked teeth, one chipped canine, a bouquet of crinkles around each eye. “Turn,” she says, and he turns, his arms out by his sides, his feet moving in a slow shuffle.
“He looks normal,” Mads says.
“So did Saskia,” Nkrumah replies. Kinsey glances over her shoulder to find that Mads has moved closer to Nkrumah, so they’re standing together even though Nkrumah hasn’t budged. “He’s not acting normal. I’m telling you, he’s one of those things. We have to—” She stops abruptly midsentence.
Jacques’s eyes widen in alarm. “Have to what? Kill me?”
“Of course not,” Mads says.
“Probably,” Nkrumah says at the same time.
“Wait,” Jacques says. “You wouldn’t do that. You didn’t even kill Domino, and we know for sure that they’re infected.”
Nkrumah covers her mouth with one hand, seems to chew on a thought for a few seconds. When she drops herhand, her jaw is taut, her eyes glassy. “Not infected,” she says. “Dead. You’re the one who said I have to accept that it isn’t Domino in there anymore, remember? It’s something else, it’s a—alichen. It’s not our friend. All it wants to do is consume us.” Her voice wobbles on the last few words and she stops speaking altogether.
“Well, I don’t wanna consume anyone, so maybe we can all just calm down. Okay? Okay. Okay?” Jacques is starting to sound genuinely scared. Kinsey doesn’t blame him. She’s never seen Nkrumah cry. She doesn’t want to know what thought is so unbearable that it’s brought her colleague to the edge of tears.
She bites her tongue. She can think of something the lichen seems to want, something that Nkrumah doesn’t know about. She can’t tell her team—can’t imagine how she’d even start. But it gives her an idea.
