Page 43 (1/2)

It’s clear that Oker’s won There are far h than in Leyna’s But Colin doesn’t announce that yet Instead, he stands back as so buckets of water Their arms are marked in blue Anna follows them

"The farmers vote with stones, too," Eli whispers to ers have added it as part of their voting ceremony now"

Anna stands in front of the crowd and speaks to us "Like the floods that cae the power of our choice, and we follow the water"

The farhs at the sa through Soh lets some out But it has the most stones; it holds the most water

"The votes have been cast," Colin says "We’ll try Oker’s cure first"

I slip through the crowd as fast as the water through the rocks, racing for the infirmary to protect Ky from the cure

When I push open the door to the building, I don’t understand what’s happening It’s raining, inside I hear a sound like water hitting the floorboards

The bags are all unhooked, and they drip onto the floor

All of theht to Ky He takes a shalloatery breath

The line has been pulled out and then looped neatly over the pole next to his bed It drips out onto the floor Drip Drip Drip

And it’s happening to everyone else For a moment, I don’t knohat to do Where are all the medics? Did they leave for the vote? I don’t kno to hook Ky’s line back up

I hear a movement at the other end of the room and I turn It’s Hunter, down near the patients who the Pilot first brought to the village Hunter stands there, a dark shadow at the back, and he doesn’ttoward him slowly, "what happened?"

I hear someone at the door behind me and I turn to see who it is

Anna

Her face is stricken She stops a few feet away from me and stares at Hunter He doesn’t look away, and his eyes are full of pain

Then I notice the crumpled bodies of the medics near him Are they dead?

"You tried to kill everyone," I say to Hunter, but as soon as the words are out ofIf he wanted to kill theone

"No," Hunter says "I wanted to make it fair"

I don’t understand what heHunter sits down and puts his head in his hands, and I hear the sounds of Anna crying and the bags dripping onto the floor

"Keep him away from Ky," I say to Anna, er than she is, but he looks broken now I don’t kno long that will last, though, and I need to find people to help the still I need Xander

He and Ky are the only people here that I can trust How could I forget?

CHAPTER 41

XANDER

Oker locks the doors behind us in the lab "I need you to do so he used e dug ca it over his shoulder

"Where are you going?" I ask

Oker peers out the"I have to leave now They’re all still distracted"

"Wait," I say "Won’t you needon his own Is that what he has in mind?

"I want you to stay here," Oker says He reaches into his pockets and takes out thewith the keys to the cabinets where he’s locked the camassia cure "Destroy all of the cures I’ll be back with so else we can use"

"But you won the vote," I say

"This cure won’t work," Oker says "But now I knoill"

"We don’t have to destroy everything," I say

"Yes, we do," Oker says "The people voted on this cure They’re not going to take a substitute Do it Dump it all down the sink Get rid of the cures Leyna had me make, too They’re all useless"

I don’t"You were so sure about the camassia We can still try it on some of them"

"It won’t work," Oker spits "We’ll waste ti Do what I tell you"

I don’t know if I can We worked so hard on the cure, and he was so sure

"You think I’ me "Do you want to knohat the real Pilot is?"

I’h at the Pilot stories back when I worked in the Society," Oker says "How could people think that so to come from the sky to save them? Or from the water? Stupid stories Crazy Only weak- like that" He drops the keys to the cabinet into my hand "I told you the Society named the viruses"

I nod

"When we found out that we’d be dropping it froht it would be funny to naue after the people’s stories So we called the Plague the ‘Pilot’"

The Plague is the Pilot

Oker didn’t only help engineer the cure First, he helped create the Plague The Plague that is noweveryone still