UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,37
than a week, and my parents couldn’t afford a replacement.”
Anissa tenses, not knowing what’s coming next, but knowing that it’s bad.
“They couldn’t afford it—but they had an alternative,” Heath continues. “My brother Bryan was a stork, unexpected and unwanted, but raised with the same love they had for me. Or so I thought.” Heath takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself for the next part of the story. “They sold him to black market unwinders, in exchange for a new liver and the operation to implant it. They said it was the only way to save my life. I said if that was the only way, I’d rather not be saved. I begged them not to sacrifice Bryan, but I couldn’t stop them.” He chokes up at this next part. “They refused to tell me whether or not my new liver was actually his. Anyway, as soon as I had healed, I ran away from home. I knew I had to help the AWOLs, but I was never one of them.”
He stops talking. Anissa hesitates, unsure how to respond. She doesn’t doubt that his story’s authentic, and it explains his consuming obsession with unwinds. But it doesn’t change anything.
“I understand now,” she says, not without sympathy. “But I’ll never agree to your poisoned-organ plan.”
“Here’s what I know: The people getting those organs don’t deserve them. They’re parasites, living off the flesh of others. If they get diseased organs, they brought it on themselves.”
“You think it’s that simple?” she snaps. “A few people die and this all goes away? That’s not how it works. They’ll figure it out, find better ways of testing the organ supply, and they’ll trace the contamination right back here. You’ll change nothing, except to get a lot of people caught—people who trusted you, people they’ll unwind because of you.”
Then suddenly she’s grabbed from behind. She turns to find two big bruisers, ex-military boeufs, two of the dumbest but most obedient of Heath’s AWOLs. She struggles, but their grip is unbreakable.
“I brought them along,” Heath says, “in case there was a problem.”
He nods, and she’s taken away to a utility room in the firehouse, dank and smelling of old boots, where she’s locked away while the plan proceeds. She’s gone from being Heath’s friend to Heath’s prisoner.
And her hand is getting worse.
• • •
Days pass. She’s allowed meals but no visitors. Heath’s keeping her in isolation, probably because he doesn’t want his precious plan revealed until it’s been set in motion and can’t be stopped. That won’t be long now, she reasons, because the level of activity in the firehouse has markedly increased, judging from the background noise and shouted orders and muffled conversations.
“This can’t work, you know,” she tells Sebastian when he cracks open the door to slide in a plate of not-very-warm macaroni. “He’s going to get you all killed.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Sebastian, though plainly he does.
“Tell Heath I’m hurt. I need medical supplies. I cut my hand.”
“My heart’s breaking.”
The door slams shut. Anissa’s hand really is getting worse, the wound purpling, with reddish veins radiating from the point of incision—a scary, dangerous infection. She’s sure it must have been contaminated with something from the petri dishes in Heath’s laboratory. Like I don’t have enough to worry about, she thinks, painfully flexing her fingers. She has to reach Heath, talk to him before it’s too late.
But it already is.
8 • Sebastian
Sebastian is waiting when the empty bus pulls up outside the firehouse, and he signals a line of AWOLs, all dressed in white, to climb inside. Jobe is at the head of the line.
“Break a leg,” Sebastian says.
All the teens boarding the bus are terminal patients, too far along in their particular diseases to be saved by healthy organs. Some have been given incentives to cooperate—money for their families, perhaps, or promises of a more personal nature. Others have volunteered, choosing a meaningful death rather than merely a miserable one. They’ve been inoculated with Heath’s chemical camouflage, and they’re being sent to various harvest camps for unwinding.
The pretext is that they’re tithes, volunteering themselves for the good of society or whatever, and Sebastian has created a data trail that seems to confirm that: birth records, family histories, personal details. But it’s all a fabrication. The truth is that they’re about to unleash a biological nightmare on anyone who receives their organs.
“Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen,” Sebastian says, nodding, consulting his checklist. “All present and accounted for.” The door closes, and he thumps