Inhuman Read Free

hold on my arm tightened like a blood pressure cuff. “That can’t be right.”
    The squeeze should have jerked me into the moment but somehow I’d floated up to the ceiling. At least, that’s how it felt — like I had an overhead view of everyone’s reaction, could see them all backing away from me.
    The jumpsuit pivoted to Anna. “Are you Delaney McEvoy?”
    “No. Annapolis Brown.”
    “But you know her.”
    The threat of having to be identified snapped me back into my body. “Me.” It came out as a croak. Swallowing, I tried again. “I’m Delaney.” The jumpsuit slid his focus on to me, assessing. Was I going to be a problem? “Get your things.” He ordered me forward with a curl of his gloved hand.
    “Wait!” Anna cried. “You can’t just haul her off without a reason.”
    Sensing trouble, the other agents closed in. “We have a reason,” the main jumpsuit replied in a voice devoid of feeling. “Potential exposure.”
    I gasped. “To what?”
    Why had I bothered to ask? Only one disease brought the jumpsuits out of their dungeon. Now I watched the man’s mask move as his lips shaped the answer that I didn’t really need.
    “The Ferae Naturae virus.”
    Ferae Naturae: “of a wild nature.” Supposedly it was a fitting name for the virus that had killed 40 percent of America’s population, though some people said that it also described how Ferae affected the uninfected. Their natures turned quite wild when confronted with the virus’s existence. Like now, I realized, seeing the growing anger in my classmates’ expressions. I had just ruined their senior year of high school. Even if my blood test came back clean, there would be no more in-person get-togethers where a laugh could spray microscopic dots of saliva into someone else’s eyes. The only contact they’d be allowed to have would be through their computer screens. We weren’t alive nineteen years ago when the epidemic decimated the eastern half of the country, but we’d all grown up with the gruesome photos and footage — images that had to be flooding their minds now.
    Backing off, Orlando swiped his arm across his mouth. “Crap, I kissed you!”
    Yeah, suddenly they all seemed of a wild nature. So I didn’t resist when the jumpsuit ushered me toward the door. I would much rather be poked and prodded in a quarantine center than ripped into bloody chunks by my classmates.
    Anna took up my free hand, which surprised me. For all she knew, I could be contagious. “What are you doing?”
    “Coming with you,” she announced, her expression defiant.
    The jumpsuit stopped short. “You’re not. She’s wanted for questioning and you’re staying here.” He faced the room. “You are all under house quarantine. No one comes or goes, except medical personnel.”
    Anna’s grip on my hand tightened. I stared at our entwined fingers and swallowed against the rising ache in my throat.
    Orlando shoved through the crowd. “How long are you going to keep us here?”
    “Until you’ve all been tested and the results are in,” the jumpsuit said in a flat tone. “Only a clear negative gets you out of here.”
    Swearing under his breath, Orlando snatched a bottle of vodka from his parents’ liquor cabinet and took a gulp, but didn’t swallow. Instead, he threw back his head and gargled the alcohol.
    “Let go of her,” the jumpsuit told Anna. “Now.”
    Reluctantly she released my hand.
    Maybe Anna couldn’t come with me, but she’d tried to. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and cry and thank her for being such a loyal friend. Actually, she’d gone beyond friendship — I should know.
    Orlando angled closer, glaring at me. He gave the vodka in his mouth a last loud swish and then spat it on the floor, within an inch of my foot.

    When we exited the elevator into the marble and glass lobby, the jumpsuit clamped a gloved hand onto my arm, as if I was going to try to make a break for it. The doorman practically dove out of the way as