Page 43 (2/2)

"You see," Oker says, "I have to find a cure"

I do see It’s the only thing that can redeem hio, tellto find?"

Oker doesn’t answer He walks over to the door and glances over atthe only pilot for the cure "I’ll be back," he says "Lock the door behind one

Oker believes I’ll do what he toldcure? Would it set us too far back to try it out?

He’s right that we’re out of ti know the Plague was once called the Pilot? Hoe ever going to succeed against these odds?

The Rising was never going to work

I don’t know if I can do this, I think

What can’t you do, Xander, I ask

You’re not even still You have to keep going

I do the right thing I don’t give up I do it all with a sood person

What if I’m not?

There’s no time to think like that now I trusted Oker and when it coht call

I open the cabinet and pull out a tray of cures When I unseal the first one and pour it down the sink, I finddown so hard on the inside of my lip that I taste blood

CHAPTER 42

KY

It’s raining So I should re

So inside of me

Who do I re

I remember to breathe

I remember to breathe

I remember

I

CHAPTER 43

CASSIA

People stillabout the result of the vote, so I hurry around the back of the buildings at the edge of the village to try to get to Xander It’s dark and dank here, hemmed in by trees and mountain, and as I co twisted in the , so on the ground, his face caught in a griht over his old sharp bones

"No, no," I say, and I stop and bend down to touch himNo air comes out of his mouth and when I put h he is still warm "Oker," I whisper, and I look at his open eyes, and I see that one of his hands is muddy Why? I wonder, irrationally, and then I see that hethere in the mud, a shape that seems familiar

It looks like he pressed his knuckles into the earth three ti a sort of star

I sit back onI can do for him But if anyone can help Oker, it’s Xander

I stand up and stagger the last few steps to the research lab, pleading, Xander, Xander, please be here

The door is locked I pound and pound and call out his na up the path on the other side of the building Have they heard ain, and he opens the back door

"I need you," I say "Oker’s dead And Hunter disconnected all of the still" I’m about to say more, but then Leyna and the others co and stop short

"What has happened?" Leyna asks, looking down at Oker Her face doesn’t change at all and I understand why, because this is beyond comprehension Oker cannot be dead

"It looks like a heart attack," says one of the medics, his face ashen He kneels in thefor hiain

Nothing works Leyna sits back on her heels, wiping her face with her hand She’sfro is empty, except for a dirty shovel and traces of soil "What was he doing?" she asks Xander

"He wanted to go find so," Xander says "He didn’t tell me what it was He wouldn’t let me come with him"

For a moment, it is completely silent Everyone stares down at Oker "The still in the infirmary," I say "They’ve all been unhooked"

The medic looks up "Are any of them dead?" he asks me

"No," I say "But I don’t kno to start their lines again Please And you shouldn’t go alone The nals to several of the others, who then leave with theat Xander with the same flat expression she’s had since she first saw Oker

I want to run to be with Ky But I suddenly have a terrible feeling that Xander is the one in the er now, and I can’t leave hi isn’t lost," Leyna says "Oker left us the cure" This strikesshould in abetween Leyna’s plan and Oker’s, and now Leyna has coested His death changed her mind

I have to sort out what has happened with Xander, and I have to find out what can cure Ky, and why Hunter was letting patients go, and what Oker was trying to tell us with the star he ers have now trampled into oblivion and no one but me has seen