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

Alternatively, Cora could have stolen the ties from Kristian’s bag at some point over the years, adding them to her hoard of “resources.”

Aside from the rickety table beneath him and the rubble and dormant vines on the floor, the chamber contained only a metal cart against the far wall.

Squinting, Finn tried to discern the objects on its top shelf, which appeared sideways in his vision. The glinting of silver suggested medical instruments. Beside them rested a newspaper—quite possibly the New York Times that he’d just given her.

“Shit.”

With a disturbing premonition of what else she’d left there, he scrutinized the cart again. Beside the newspaper rested a test tube with a strip of orange near its stopper.

The ticks!

“Shit.”

Visualizing a dozen tiny arachnids crawling on him, sinking their mouth hooks into his flesh, he twisted his neck to inspect what he could see of his body—only his chest and shoulders, none of the warm, dark places ticks prefer.

Infecting him with the antibiotic-resistant strain of Borrelia burgdorferi would be fitting retribution for the sins of his family.

Pinned down, he was helpless and exposed—exactly the way she must have felt each time a member of his family had given her one of those scars.

Ten Minutes Later

esperate to escape, Finn yelled.

To combat the pounding in his injured temple he regained his composure by slowing his breathing. He listened for his aggressor.

A thwack sounded in the hallway and ricocheted. Finn snapped his attention to the interior door, his muscles tensing.

Cora wouldn’t have been so careless. Unless she didn’t care if he’d heard her.

The rusted, flaking door opened with an ear-splitting squeal, and a figure in a black biosafety suit rushed toward him.

Finn recognized his brother through the visor.

“Are you okay?” Kristian asked.

“How’d you know?” Finn responded, relieved that his brother hadn’t been the one who’d tied him down.

“I heard your scream.” With a gloved hand, Kristian pulled back Finn’s hair and peered closer. “That’s a nasty contusion on your parietal bone. You may be concussed.”

“Have you seen Cora? I think she’s planning to release those ticks on me.” He nodded his chin toward the cart. “If she hasn’t already,” he said and tried to look down at his body.

“I wouldn’t put it past her.” Kristian inspected Finn’s wrists, then his ankles. “Those lacerations will need to be treated.”

With one of her scalpels readied for an overhand throw, she could be aiming for his brother’s spine this very moment. Strapping Finn to this table might have been a stratagem to lure Kristian here for an easy kill. He craned his neck to see the doorway beyond Kristian’s bulky figure.

The space was empty, but she could be waiting on the far side of the wall.

“We need to get you to Dad’s clinic,” Kristian said.

“Where’s your kayak?”

“It’s with Lily’s in the mulberry grove.” “She’s here, too?” Finn asked, his stomach hardening.

Kristian folded his arms. “I’m sure she’ll have the same reaction to you being here.”

“She swore to me that she’d given up the idea.”

“You know her better than that.”

“Why would you help her?” Finn asked, suddenly aware of the goose bumps that had spread across his frigid, bare skin.

“She presented a very compelling case.” He shrugged. “I knew from the get-go that I would stay close to her.”

“Where’s she now?” Finn couldn’t let her see him like this.

“Safe in the tunnel.”

Finn winced. Rollie had refused to show it to him, yet Kristian had allowed his girlfriend access.

“It’s not what you think,” Kristian said, raising a hand. “Her suit ripped during our landing. She’s hunkered down, holding the gap closed, and probably freaking out that I’m not back yet with new gear.”

“Let’s get going then,” Finn said, rattling the cords for emphasis.

“Not quite yet,” Kristian said, ducking his head apologetically. “I’ll complete my work as quickly as possible; I don’t like her stuck down there any more than you do.”

Work? It was as if Finn had been sucker-punched. Kristian did this. Cora must be in danger, he thought. Lily, too.

“You tore her suit, didn’t you?”

Kristian drew in his breath. “I love her like a sister, even if she’ll never become one.”

Finn glared at him. “Get these cords off me.”

“She’s fine. There are no mosquitos down there, and we used bug spray.”

“What if she has a seizure?”

“The quicker I’m done with Cora, the less chance of that.”

Cora’s sudden silence, moments before the metal had met Finn’s head, likely meant that Kristian had tranquilized her, Finn reasoned through the throbbing in his temple. “Where is she?”

“Nearby, and prepped.”

Alarmed, Finn eyed the medical cart. “What’s under that newspaper?”

“You think I’m hiding something from you?” Kristian asked in an injured tone. “Why would I do that? I simply took her paper because the mutt doesn’t need to know what’s going on in the world. It’ll only increase her feelings of isolation, and the temptation to break her quarantine.”

“When did you become such an asshole?” Finn asked as he noticed the flask with red tape, signifying chloroform, beyond the one containing the ticks. Cora must have had the vials with her.

Kristian looked up, pretending to be lost in thought. “The day I read that it took three months for the Chinese government to disclose SARS to the public.” He clasped his gloved hands. “Or maybe it was the day we concluded that the IV antibiotics weren’t working for Mom.”

“So, you’re planning to infect me with Lyme,” Finn stated. A million imagined pinpricks of pain, like those his mother experienced daily, overwhelmed his nervous system, and he thrashed to shake them off. “Because you think that’ll make Cora cooperate.”

Moving the tube out of view, Kristian cleared his throat. “They’re not meant for you. A slow infusion through the natural feeding process of the ticks should reduce the probability that her lymphocytes will wipe out the Borrelia burgdorferi the way they did with Ulrich’s original strain.” He sniffed. “A secondary delivery method in case this,” he said as he held up a syringe, “doesn’t work.”

“Then why did you remove my hazmat suit?”

“You’ll see in