Read Lives We Lost,The for Free Online Page B

He had hopped into the SUV. The growl of the helicopter’s engine was getting louder.
“What do you think’s going on?” I said as I scrambled into the passenger seat.
Gav hit the gas. “I don’t know. Let’s hope he’s just a lunatic.”
I hugged myself as we followed Tessa’s tire tracks through the thick layer of snow on the road. Her car vanished around a turn up ahead. We were just rounding a corner, halfway to the hospital, when the shadow of the helicopter slid by overhead.
A second later, the block of houses next to us exploded.
I shrieked, clutching at the door as the ground rocked beneath the tires, the blast ringing in my ears. Beside us, roofs were crumpling, flames spurting through shattered windows. A sharp chemical smell filled the air. Gav drove on, faster, his jaw clenched but his arms trembling.
“Not a lunatic,” I said shakily. “What the hell are they doing?”
Another explosion thundered somewhere to our right. I cringed. Gav leaned forward to peer through the windshield.
“I think it’s a military helicopter,” he said. “They’re bombing us. After all the other ways the army’s screwed us over, they’re fucking bombing us!”
Tears I hadn’t felt forming were leaking down my cheeks. I wiped at my eyes and tried to breathe steadily. Then a single panicked thought shot through my mind like an electric shock.
“The vaccine,” I said. “Gav, what if they hit the research center?”
“Maybe they won’t,” Gav said. “We should go to the harbor, get out of here, like that guy said. I’m pretty sure no one in town needs to be warned that something bad’s happening now. We’ll come back when the chopper’s gone.”
“No!” I said. “We can’t leave behind those samples. If we lose them...”
If we lost them, we were maybe losing our only chance to beat the virus, to get back the world we used to have.
“Kae—” Gav started.
“Please,” I said. “We have to get them. If you won’t drive there, I’ll jump out of the car and run for it.”
I was serious. He must have been able to tell. He swore under his breath, but at the next intersection he turned toward the research center instead of the harbor. We’d already missed the hospital. As the SUV careened down the lane, the ground shuddered with a third explosion. I clutched the keys in my coat pocket.
The research center was still standing when we reached it. The car skidded to a stop, and I leapt out. Gav left the engine running as I scrambled over a snowdrift to the door.
I fumbled with the keys and shoved the door open. My boots slid on the smooth floor inside. The cold-storage box and the supplies I’d set aside were all where I’d left them. I stuffed the sample vials and the packs from the freezer into the cold box, and dropped everything else in on top to make sure I didn’t lose anything.
Smoke was billowing up over the trees as I dashed back outside, so thick the whole town could have been burning. Not the hospital, I pleaded silently. I hauled myself back into the car.
The whole way to the harbor, I clutched the cold box on my lap, my eyes squeezed shut. The acrid smell of burning filled my nose. The helicopter rumbled by overhead, and I winced, bracing myself. I couldn’t tell which of the tremors I felt were more bombs and which were buildings collapsing or something else I couldn’t even imagine. Gav’s breath started to rasp as he yanked the steering wheel one way and then the other.
Tessa’s car was parked by the harbor. We pulled up beside it, and I tumbled out, dragging the cold box with me. The speedboat was bobbing by the far end of one of the docks, Meredith and the others sitting in it. Gav and I ran together, his hand on my back. Tessa took the box from me and helped us in.
“He wanted to leave without you,” Meredith said, a sob in her voice, looking accusingly at the driver. “We said we’d throw him off the boat if he tried.”
The driver—our savior—was too busy staring at the sky