The Fever Code (Page 11)

“What…,” Thomas said, too quietly. He spoke louder. “What’s going on?”

“They’re putting things in our heads!” Minho called out to him, eyes still wild, boring into Thomas. “They said it wouldn’t hurt, but it does. It does! They’re a bunch of lying…”

That last word died in the boy’s mouth as one of the nurses injected something into his neck that made him go slack, his body slumping to the floor. Within seconds they were dragging him down the hallway toward the room he’d exited, his feet trailing along behind him.

Thomas turned to Leavitt. “What did they do to him?”

The doctor, his demeanor wrapped in a surprising calmness, simply said, “Don’t worry, he’s just having a reaction to the anesthesia. Nothing to worry about.”

He seemed to like that phrase.

—

Thomas thought about running. He thought about it the whole time he watched Leavitt open the door, as he followed him inside the room, as he heard the door close behind him.

I’m a coward, he thought. I’ve got nothing on that Minho kid.

It definitely looked like a hospital room. There were two beds, both with privacy curtains. The one to the left was open, revealing a newly made bed. The one to the right had the curtains drawn, hiding whoever lay there—Thomas could see the shadowy figure of a body through the thin material. Medical equipment filled the room, as state-of-the-art as any of the equipment he’d seen in the labs during his tests. Leavitt already stood at one of the displays, perusing a screen of charts and entering information.

Thomas returned his attention to the closed curtain, the bed behind it. Leavitt was a good six or seven feet away from him, consumed by what he was reading on the charts.

I have to see who’s behind that curtain, Thomas thought. He couldn’t remember the last time an urge had struck him so powerfully.

To his left, Leavitt leaned closer to the screen, reading something in small print. Thomas went for it. He crept toward the closed curtain to the right and pulled it to the side, stepped around it, rushed to the bed. Another boy lay there, blond hair cropped short, eyes closed, covers pulled up to his chin. Leavitt was across the room in a second, fumbling with the curtain. He grabbed Thomas by the arm, yanking him away from the bed. Thomas had seen the boy, though. And he’d gotten a good look at two things.

First, just like the boy named Minho, this kid had a bandage above his ears, a bright red spot of blood seeping through on one side.

And second, he saw the name on the monitors.

Newt.

Three now.

He knew three names.

224.9.2 | 8:42 a.m.

“What were you thinking?” Leavitt asked. He guided Thomas across the room to the empty bed. “We need to follow medical protocols, honor our safety zones, take the utmost care. Aren’t you aware of these things?”

Thomas almost laughed at the question. “Uh, no,” he replied, not trying to be sarcastic. He wasn’t even ten years old—of course he didn’t know those things!

“That boy has been through a surgery. He’s fragile. There are germs. Surely you know about germs?” Leavitt spoke with an eerie calm. “Viruses like the Flare?”

“I’m immune,” Thomas said. “Aren’t we all immune?”

“Most of you—” Leavitt broke off, sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Never mind. Just…please don’t go through that curtain again. Is that understood?”

Thomas nodded.

“Now. I need to start prepping you.” Leavitt held his hands out and looked around the room as if getting his bearings. “The surgeon will be here in half an hour.”

A bubble of panic had been growing for some time in the pit of Thomas’s stomach. “So that kid…Minho…he was telling the truth? You’re going to do something crazy to my head?”

“Not something crazy,” Leavitt said, the strain of forced patience clear in his voice. He opened a drawer and pulled out a linen gown. “Something vital. And again, Minho was just having a reaction to the medicine we gave him—it happens only rarely. We’ll take care with your dosage, I promise.” He paused, turned toward Thomas. “Listen, you know the stakes. You know that you’re immune to the Flare. You also know that the human race is in serious trouble. Am I right? Do you know all this?”

Thomas had only one answer for that. “Yeah.”

“Then you understand why it’s so important that you cooperate.” Leavitt tossed him the hospital gown. “We’re studying the killzones of the immune so we can find a cure. You are immune. And all we’re doing today is placing a small instrument in your head that will help us understand what makes you different. I promise you’ll recover quickly, and you’ll be glad that we can monitor your vitals more efficiently. You won’t have to get your arm pricked quite so much!” He made this last statement with forced cheerfulness. “Now, that’s not all so bad, is it?”

Thomas kind of shrugged and nodded at the same time. The man made it sound so reasonable to cut open a kid’s brain. He looked down, turning the gown in his hands.

“There’s a bathroom right over there.” Leavitt pointed to a door in the corner. “Why don’t you get dressed, then get in bed. I give you my word that everything will be just fine. You’ll be knocked out, won’t feel a thing. Maybe a headache for a couple of days. And we have pills for that. Okay?”

“Okay.” Thomas took a step toward the bathroom, when he heard a girl scream out in the hallway. He looked at Leavitt, who met his eyes. For a long moment they stood like that, waiting to see who’d act first. Thomas did.