The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

through the rubber, and she immediately felt safer. “How about that tour?”

Rollie made a sweeping gesture.

Lily surveyed the long, narrow room for a second time. There were no animal cages. So where had the bats gone?

“It’s not much,” Rollie said, “but it’s everything to our family, and will be to humankind. I pray to God that our breakthrough comes before the next pandemic.”

“You’re right,” Finn said. “It’s not much. If I decide to talk to Cora, I’ll be sure to bring her a stack of books. She’s got a long wait ahead of her.”

Rollie cleared his throat. “Without the resources that Ulrich had at Lab Two Fifty-Seven, our progress has, admittedly, been slower than we’d like.”

“Then why don’t you call the CDC? I hear they’re pretty good at this sort of thing.”

“They’d never believe that her immunities are influenced by a local factor. Those out-of-touch wonks would have her on a plane to Atlanta within an hour. She’d be dead before they landed.”

It was obvious to Lily that Rollie had constructed this scenario decades ago as justification for his family’s actions. Even though the CDC might respond precisely the way he’d outlined, it didn’t give him the right to decide Cora’s fate.

Finn snorted. “As opposed to your humane tactics?”

“I told you: that was Ulrich,” Rollie said, nonchalantly leaning against the desk, one side cluttered with loose sheets of graph paper, the other side—presumably Kristian’s—perfectly organized.

“So you’ve said.” Finn looked at Lily, and she sensed his confidence wavering.

To signal her support, she moved closer to his side.

“How could you not tell me that the cure you’re searching for is already inside a human being?”

Rollie’s face darkened, and he straightened to his full height. “Are you questioning my judgment?”

“To think, during all those days you missed with us, I’d been picturing you sifting through hospital remains. Those baggies of dirt and plant samples you’d bring home were just a ruse, weren’t they?”

“Not at all. There’s got to be a chemical compound there, that she’s ingested, that’s triggered her immune response.”

Unwilling to let his father reroute the conversation, Finn continued, “Throughout all those sermons about loyalty, you were lying to me. And when Mom asked you to stop—I found a note she wrote in 2001, demanding you leave Cora alone—instead of listening to her, you lied again.”

“For good reason. Your mother’s in constant, excruciating pain!”

“How does that explain the cages of bats I found in your shed? They’re infected with a coronavirus, aren’t they?”

“What are you talking about?” Rollie reached to remove his face shield but stopped himself. “I didn’t . . .” His eyes clouded over.

“You know something,” Finn said, shaking his head, “I can tell.”

Rollie raised his hands, palms out. “I’m as baffled as you. Wait—we do use a pest control service. The exterminator probably put a trap there.”

Lily sensed that his ignorance might be genuine. She turned to Finn.

“Then they must belong to Kristian,” he stated, folding his arms. “The label on the syringe you handed me by the morgue included the letters SCV—I’m guessing that’s short for SARS coronavirus. You had that case in your hand. You knew he was planning to infect her with more than Lyme.”

“Not until that moment,” Rollie said, shaking his head, “when it was too late.”

“It wasn’t too late,” Lily stated coldly. “It wasn’t in her veins yet.”

Rollie glared at her. “‘Too late’ will be an apt summary the next time a coronavirus emerges from a jungle in China. If I don’t allow Kristian to think bigger than Lyme. A global pandemic is not just science fiction fodder; it’s an inevitable outcome for our global society.”

A rush of claustrophobia pressed against Lily from all sides, and her shoulder began to spasm. Suddenly the inside of her mask smelled like a hot glue gun.

Darkness invaded her vision, and she reached to rip off her hood.

Finn stopped her by clasping her hands in his own. “You okay?” he asked, studying her face.

She nodded with too much vigor.

He turned to Rollie. “We need to get her out of here.”

“No, I’m fine.” She edged away from him.

Ever since her blackout on North Brother, Finn had been treating her like the last of an endangered species. Eventually, she would tell him to chill out, but that crazy morning, and the tense days of waiting that had followed, had scared her, too.

The pungent scent dissipated.

“I’m good.” She rotated, bringing more of the room into view, and the claustrophobia subsided.

“We should still go,” Finn said.

If they did, Rollie would be spared from Finn’s interrogation. To keep the pressure on, she said, “‘Too late’ will also be a fitting description if one of those bats, wherever they are, does manage to escape.”

Rollie aligned a microscope with its neighbor on the table, and Lily could tell he was attempting to hide his frustration.

“If those bats did belong to Kristian, you can rest assured that he’s been following all the proper containment protocols.” He looked up. “Frankly, I’m having trouble understanding why you would object to Kristian studying coronaviruses. Obviously, Sylvia’s health is my number one priority. But if another novel virus does leap from bats to cats to humans, and we have an effective technique for producing a safe therapy from Cora’s antibodies, it would cut years from the vaccine development process.” He looked straight at her. “With most viruses, the fatality rate is significantly higher for those with preexisting health conditions. A vaccine would protect you and my beautiful wife.”

Lily glanced at Finn, who blinked hard before meeting her gaze. Neither spoke.

“I truly care about Cora,” Rollie continued. “All we need is a few units of her blood—once she’s injected herself with Borrelia burgdorferi and developed an immunity to it. If our current theory works, we should be able to reproduce her unique antibodies in the lab. We can use it to develop vaccines, but also to cure her. And cancer,” he said, glancing at Lily, then back to Finn. “If you can convince Cora to cooperate, we can have her back