Infected: Die Like Supernovas (The Outlaw Book 2) Read Free Page B

metal. The quarters had all been fused into one solid piece.
    “That’s incredible,” I breathed.
    “I have the disease, I survived, and now I can do that,” he said quietly. “You might be able to survive too. There’s a trick to it. That’s the third thing you need to know.”
    “Okay,” I said, numb, staring into the ball of quarters. “Tell me the trick.”
    “Starting to believe me?” he grinned without humor, another cigarette now dead in his teeth.
    “I don’t know. Probably,” I said and rubbed my eyes. “Maybe.”
    “If you can get through the crucial late adolescence period, then your mind and body will be almost in-destructible. The changes hit me hard close to my nineteenth birthday. The pain came in waves for a few months, and then it stopped. Everyone says the same.”
    “The pain?”
    “Growing pains from hell,” he nodded.
    “Tell me how you did it.”
    “Like I said, there’s a trick. At lease we’re pretty sure. It’s hard to do, and even if you can manage it you still might die,” he shook his head as if re-experiencing the ordeal.
    “Tell me.”
    “Here it is, kid. Number three. The good news. The hope. During this whole thing, your brain will be vulnerable. Your brain is crucial. The only shot you got is relaxing. Calm down. Sleep. Find peace and rest and avoid all stress. Your brain and your psyche are very fragile and tender, and any stressors you put on either will snap them. Imagine your brain as a partially torn tendon. If you try to exert the tendon it’ll simply snap. The tendon must be fully healed before you put any significant weight on it,” he said, pointing at the patella tendon in my knee. “Just like your brain. You will snap it in half by exerting it before it’s healed.”
    “That sounds easy,” I chuckled in relief. “I just won’t put any weight on it. On my brain and psyche, I mean.”
    “Ain’t so simple, kid. Two problems. One, the pain you’ll be in will not allow you to relax. Two, your body will be pumping so much adrenaline through your veins that you won’t be able to sit still. Your systems will be super charged. You’ll explode if you try to sit still. In other words, to survive you must be relaxed and at peace, but the virus won’t allow that. It hurts and irresistibly demands action. You crave action. Thus, your Outlaw gig.”
    “My Outlaw gig?”
    “You think it’s mere coincidence that you started this nationally celebrated charade at the precise time the symptoms started? No way, kid. It’s no accident. The virus was driving you into the night, to the top of towers. We Infected die young like supernovas. We burn up fast and bright.”
    “That makes a lot of sense,” I admitted. It all fit. And at the same time, this was madness.
    “Also, stay away from alcohol or anything else that messes with your brain.”
    “So…this trick is good news. Which means there is more bad news,” I remembered.
    “Right. The fourth thing you need to know.”
    “Great,” I said dryly. “Can’t wait to hear how this gets worse.”
    He lazily but efficiently withdrew a revolver from the holster strapped to his thigh. He pointed it at my forehead and thumbed back the hammer, and the weapon made a heavy clicking sound. My breath caught.
    “I’m not going to kill you,” he said evenly. “But I came here tonight prepared to. My mission was to determine if you were insane yet. If you were…bang. I’d put one in your temple and be on my way.”
    “What makes you think I’d let you shoot me?” I asked with much more stability and bravado in my voice than I felt. I wanted to squirm away from the GIGANTIC barrel of his gun.
    “Kid,” he laughed around the extinguished stub in his mouth. “I know you’re fast. But you’re still getting used to your own body. Me? I’ve had mine a long time. But I can tell you’re not crazy. You are lucid and logical and rational. So I’m here to educate you. Take a good look at this gun. I want you