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

“It’s beautiful.”

“I know.”

He chuckled and set down his pack. “No modesty, I see.”

“Why would there be? I’ve worked hard.”

“I can tell.”

“What I don’t eat fresh, I store in root cellars.”

“So that’s how you survive winter.”

“It’s how I survive. Period. God, the earth, and my plants; they’re my only solace.”

She sounded like Lily, Finn realized. That’s what Cora needed: a girlfriend, and Lily would be perfect.

“I’m sorry you’ve had it so rough.”

Cora stroked a corn stalk leaf. “The original seeds came from Ulrich. Want to guess how he gave them to me?”

Finn didn’t but felt obligated to hear it. “How?”

“By that point I was too wrecked to walk, so one night he came to my isolation cell in his Nazi hazmat suit—the same one you saw me wearing—and hauled me out behind this building. He dropped me and shoved my face into the mud with his boot. ‘You’ve got two weeks to get well,’ he said, tossing a bag of seed packets out of my reach. With no covering to shield my germs, and thus nowhere I could go, I spent the rest of that night in the muck, wearing only a shift.”

If Ulrich were still alive, Finn would kill him himself.

The fact that she’d tolerated Finn this long was nothing short of a miracle. “Why did you bring me here? Aren’t you worried I’ll tell Rollie or Kristian?”

“You won’t.”

Because I harmed my own brother so that you could escape. Rollie had been right: Finn’s act of defiance had put him closer to Cora than any Gettler had been since Otto had first become her doctor. “How do you know?” he asked to test the theory. She strolled over to a strawberry patch and bent to pick a few. “A, you’re not yet obsessed with this project. B, your dad didn’t bring you through the tunnel, which means he doesn’t trust you. That’s a positive in my book. And C,” she raised her eyebrows as she bit into a berry, “this place is booby-trapped.”

Finn froze, ramrod straight.

She wiped the juice from her lips with the back of her hand. “Don’t worry: as long as you step only where I do, you’ll be fine.”

“Sounds simple enough,” he said, trying not to imagine a volley of arrows spraying his chest. Or what it would be like to kiss those lips. “Do you want help?” “Why else would I bring you here?” She tossed him a cracked bucket and put on a straw hat and gardening gloves.

“It’s noon,” Cora said, studying the ground. “Time to eat. Then rest.”

The heat within Finn’s suit was insufferable, and he was thirsty and hungry, yet he didn’t want to look weak. “Since I can’t take this gear off, I’ll keep working while you eat.”

“We should rest in one of the classrooms for an hour so you don’t faint,” she said, arching her eyebrows.

Given that might happen if they kept working, Finn had no comeback. He grabbed his pack and followed her to an empty second-floor room, where she rolled out a shabby quilt.

From the doorway, he eyed the rubbish scattered across the tiled floor. The safest way for him to rest would be with his feet jutting into the hall so she couldn’t lock him in if he did drift off. To avoid puncturing his suit, he would need to sweep a space clear.

Crouched beside her blanket, Cora smoothed out a wrinkle. “This is an awkward question,” she looked away, “but would you mind lying next to me?”

He took a step back, knocking his elbow on the door frame, and an electric jolt surged up his arm. Grimacing, he clutched his funny bone to avoid answering.

“It was a dumb idea.” She examined her glove. “Forget it.”

“No, I . . . it surprised me, that’s all,” Finn said, searching her expression for any indication that this was a ploy to get him fully into the room.

“I didn’t mean it inappropriately. It’s just that a person needs other humans to feel fully human herself.” She stood up and moved to the window.

“I’m a cold monster, too selfish to save your mom, and humankind,” she said, staring out the broken window, the caramel streaks in her hair glowing with sunlight.

“No. You’re a good person, who’d been put through hell. That’s not your fault.”

“Yeah. Right.” She touched the inner corners of her eyes, and Finn noticed a small scar on the outer edge of each eyelid, mirrored by another below each eyebrow. He couldn’t imagine what heinous act had left those marks.

“You get why I can’t help, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

Her finger traced Manhattan’s skyline. “I know I’ve told you this is my island, but it’s not true.” She jabbed her hand through the opening. “That is my island. I want to go home, once I’ve fulfilled my purpose here. But every disease you Gettlers add to my blood is another shackle.”

Even if she offered to inject the bacteria, Finn couldn’t let her do it. Sylvia would feel the same way. But an assisted death? That couldn’t be the alternative. If she hung on until Lily had agreed to marry him, then what?

“I get it.” Finn pulled the syringe from his bag, snapped the needle against an exposed pipe, and returned the pieces to the case. “Let’s be human together.” He straightened the quilt.

She smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes, and dropped down beside him.

With a narrow divide between them, Finn settled onto his back. Self-conscious of his hands at his sides, he folded them over his stomach, which also felt clumsy. He reached over and clasped her hand.

She squeaked in surprise, and he realized how novel this must feel to her.

“You sure this is okay?” she whispered.

No, he thought, this is far from okay. “More than sure. Now shhh. Go to sleep.” He knew she wouldn’t. But neither would he.

To stay awake, he began rattling off in his head the names of the US presidents.

He was feeling woozy, like he’d just popped a pain