The Deathless Trilogy

2.20. Exploding Tiger Lily

The past five days have flown by, thankfully without any more deaths and with limited nightmares. Now, I only get bits and pieces of the same dream. A gun here, a Prowler there, but Dad and Nate are always present in some way. I miss my dad like crazy, but Nate? It's amazing how conflicted that boy has always made me feel about him.

Our plans for escape sprung into motion quickly after Ava and Eleanor got out. Joe and the girls finished the medicine, the Comforters are training, and Celia's box of armor overflows with spikes and leather and chains. Not only that, but while Celia's been spying on Mitchell's work, she painted me a new painting for the bedroom: an exploding tiger lily. Her first painting is still there, I told her to leave it up, and now it hangs beside the new one. As a reminder of how far she's come, she pointed out.

O'Neil agreed to help and met us in the drain a few times. When he first saw it, he nearly collapsed in laughter. "This has been down here the whole time? What a bunch of bloody idiots we are upstairs," he cackled.

Since then, he's actually been able to steal more equipment for us: free weights for training, and Kevlar vests so Celia can reinforce our armor. He even offered to install solar powered heating units in the Caregivers' cells since it's getting colder, and hide the medicine in the power cells so that he can deliver new pills each day. I asked him why he was helping us so much, and he told me it was because he hates Cooper, but I see how he looks at Nina. They treat each other like friends, but his eyes linger on her face a little longer than a friend's would. He cares about her. Maybe he's trying to impress her or prove he's a good guy, but I think that he truly just wants her to be safe and happy, and he knows this is how to do it.

The Caregivers are already getting better. The color has returned to their skin and they're able to do much more between breaks, Jane especially. Their hope is back, and that's half the battle. I just hope that Eleanor and Ava made it to the camp. If they did, everything should be on track, and in five days, we'll tear this place down with the Deathless. But Ian and the other soldiers sent out to find them haven't returned yet, and that worries me. If anything were to happen to Eleanor, Ava, or even Ian, I wouldn't be able to push it out of my mind like I have with bits of my nightmares.

Daniel and I are the last ones in the physics lab tonight. After an afternoon of working on our amplifier, which we disguised as a device for his detectors, we are almost finished constructing it. Tomorrow, it will be complete.

I can't lie to myself: Despite overhearing Daniel with Winston last week, working with him on the amplifier has helped to put me back together. Little by little, the scientist in me is coming back to life. I feel my mom in me, except that if she were here, this amplifier would have been completed by now. And expertly.

"This is nice, right? Working together?" I ask.

He peers at me in confusion as he wraps up the amplifier for the night. "Yes?"

"Science can be fun, right?"

He ties the sheet over the amplifier, his brows furrowed, and then the veil of confusion lifts. "Ah," he says, "you spoke with Winston?"

My forced smile fades. "I was in the drain."

"Spying on me?"

"I was with Celia, but then yeah, I guess," I say. "Look, you probably don't like science anymore, because you're here. I think you'll like it again once we are back with the Deathless, and then we can work together all the time. As scientists. You won't have to fight."

"But I want to fight. I don't want to be a scientist. I don't want to create anything that can be manipulated into something terrible."

"That's not the fault of science. Once you come to the camp and meet Declan, you'll see."