Mya

For a moment, nothing makes sense.

The room spins around me as I clutch Finn's still body up against me. His skin is ice under my hands, soft like snow. The lights seem to dim as my vision swims, blending my surroundings into mindless confusion.

Then, panic clicks into place.

I gasp for air, checking for a pulse in the spot he guided me to minutes ago.

"No. Please, no," I mumble, pressing uselessly into his skin. No matter how hard I press, nothing lives beneath the permafrost layer. I push away from him, laying his head back on the pile of pillows I fluffed.

"Wake up, Finny. Please, wake up," I plead, patting his cheeks. He stares up at the ceiling with empty, misted eyes. Snow flurries blow across the golden irises.

"This isn't funny," I say, anger growing in my chest. "Wake up!"

I realize then that I'm screaming, filling the dead space around us.

Yet, nothing's happening.

I clutch the front of his shirt, shaking him violently as tears stream down my cheeks, falling onto his face. I continue to scream his name, until my throat is raw and I collapse onto his thin frame. The bed shakes under us with every tremor that wracks my body.

When the door opens behind me, I don't move.

Mom enters the room like a cyclone. Hands grip at my back and shirt, tugging me away from my brother.

My dead brother.

Oh, God.

I start screaming again, digging my nails into the mattress and using my body as a cage around Finn.

She killed him.

She can't take him.

"Mya! Let go," Mom yells, wrapping her arms around my abdomen and yanking me away from him.

"You did this!" I scream, clawing at her arm with one hand and clutching Finn with the other. "This is your fault!"

"You don't understand, Mya. You can't understand."

I glance back at her and see the tears running down her cheeks like wildfires.

Seeing them only makes me more angry.

Mom gives one good tug, and my hands slip. We stumble backwards, and Mom tosses me to the ground. I hit the tile hard, sliding across the floor on my side until I crash into the legs of my bed.

Her hands fumble for his chest as I struggle to breathe. She presses rhythmically, whispering numbers under her breath. Every now and again, she will tilt his chin up and breathe a pointless breath into his lungs.

It won't work, I want to say, but I can't find the words.

He's gone.

You took him.

Mom checks for a pulse.

I already tried.

It won't work.

"He's dead," she says, but the words come out in a small squeak. "He's dead."

Don't say it again.

Maybe if you don't say it, it won't be true.

My press a hand to my mouth, fighting the scream I feel building by biting down on my palm. Copper tasting liquid floods my mouth, centering me.

Mom lifts Finn's body from the bed and carries him to the door.

I crawl after her like a baby, sobbing the entire way. I watch her turn right, disappearing out the front door. The truck engine starts a moment later, and she's gone.

No, they're gone.

I sit back against the door, staring at the ceiling overhead.

I just want to hold his hand and to press my forehead into his. I want to hear his laugh and see his blissful dimples.

I look at the open bathroom door, waiting on him to barge out wearing nothing but a towel, ruffling his hair up and smiling at me.

He'd ask me why I was sitting in the floor, and I'd come back with something witty like, "I'm looking for your brain. I thought you dropped it."

The fact that I'll never tease my brother again slams into my chest with all the force of an avalanche. I gasp for air, pulling my knees up and tucking my head between them.

With a miserable, dry groan, I crawl back across the room, pulling myself into his cold, empty bed. I wrap his blankets around me, caging myself inside the prison of cotton and sandalwood.

Maybe if I close my eyes, when I open them again, everything will have been a nightmare. Maybe if I lay here long enough, he'll appear beside me.

I keep telling myself that, until my tears run dry and my body falls into a fitful, half-sleep, still tangled in Finn's blankets.

I awake hours later and clutch a hand over my cramping stomach.

When was the last time I ate? Or used the bathroom? How long have I been laying here? It doesn't matter; I just want to lay here forever, until I return to the dust from which I came.

The clock on the wall blinks seven-fifteen. Almost twelve hours has passed since Mom left with Finn's body.

Maybe she's trying to resuscitate him. Maybe she went to seek medical help.

No, she's taking him to President Ashford as evidence that she completed her job. Now, my brother serves as nothing more than a trophy, a successful, tragic science experiment.

Even worse, Finn's death means Mom created the anti-vaccine that Sakir said she was making, and she's handing it over any minute now.

My stomach emits a sound that resembles a walrus bellowing, and I roll over onto my back.

Finn wouldn't want me to starve to death, but the desire to move evades me. The rocky mattress cradles my back with its ancient, knobby hands. The blanket snakes around my bare legs, and sweat drenches my back.

The moment I rise up out of the bed, facing the cold tile beneath my feet, the world shatters like glass around me. Tears build back up in my throat, but I swallow them down, dragging my feet as I walk out of our bedroom and into the kitchen.

The front door sits open a crack, revealing the second electrified door on the other side. The gentle hum purrs towards me, enticing but threatening.

I could leave, run through the woods, feel the crunching of leaves beneath my bare feet and the snapping of quick twigs against my legs. I could run all the way to the ocean, past the Statue of Liberty, and immerse myself in icy, saltwater.

Wrapping one arm around my body, I turn away from the door.

I won't find Finn out there. So, what's the point?

Finn's here, in the grooves of the carpet, between the geometry and history textbooks, in the goosebumps of basketballs, and in the coarse fabric of the shirt that clings to my body. If I leave the house, I'm leaving him behind.

I can't do that.

So, I pull a bowl out of the cabinet, pouring myself a bowl of cereal and taking my seat at the dining room table. Finn's chair sits askew where he didn't straighten if after dinner Sunday night. I scoop up a spoonful of cereal, lifting it to my mouth. My hands shake so much that the spoon's empty by the time it reaches me, and I end up swallow a mouthful of air.

Trying again has the same ending, and eventually, I grab the bowl with both hands, deciding to just drink it like a savage.

I leave the bowl on the table and walk to the library, sinking into the red leather chair. Finn's tablet sits on the arm, teetering. I type in his passcode, scrolling through the page he was reading.

Searches about the list.

A yellow dialogue box pops up as I reach the bottom of the page, and I click it, narrowing my eyes.

She's not making a vaccine, the note says, in neat typed letters. How did Finn see it before I did? What took me so long?

I flip to the next page, where another yellow box greets me.

She's making another virus, one to slow your heart rate down so low that it fails. Bradycardia. Even immunes won't be able to fight it.

Finn knew what he was walking into yesterday morning, especially after we messed with her calculations.

On the next page, there's another note.

Someone is going to die. It has to be me.

I bury my face in my arms, throwing the tablet across the room in one swift motion.

He knew, and he still followed her up the stairs in the first place. Was he that stupid? Or was he just that naive and hopeful? Did Finn know that yesterday was his last day?

I defended Mom to Sakir. He tried to warn me, but I didn't listen. I'm the fool, not Finn. My brother was brave and selfless.

I was too late.

I glance at the clock on the wall.

When will Mom come back?

When she does, will I become a target?

I can't answer that question, but one truth reigns supreme.

Sakir was brought here to be killed. When Mom returns, now that she has the third strand, she won't hesitate to kill him.

I promised to take care of him.

I stand up so fast that my head spins, running out of the library and to Sakir's room. The handle turns with ease, and the strong scent of Sakir assaults my senses.

"I believe you," I blurt with a voice drier than a desert baking under a midday sun. My eyes search Sakir's body for any sign of life. His chest rises and falls slowly, but his eyes lay closed. The virus drip hanging from the IV stand is empty once again, but blue liquid pools on the ground around him.

As I circle around his table, I notice the IV has been torn out of his elbow and now drips onto the floor, creating the ocean under him. I tiptoe through the puddle, cocking my head to one side at Sakir's peaceful sleeping face.

Exactly how long has he been off the virus?

"Sakir," I say, shaking his shoulder. "Wake up. We have to go."      

A/N: Things are about to get real serious. As if they weren't serious enough! What do you think will happen from here? I'm sorry about Finn. I know it's heartbreaking. Maybe he'll pull an Isaac? Who knows. Guess you'll just have to keep reading! ;)