Kalahari by Jessica Khoury
“My beautiful Sarah, so full of light. You are my life’s greatest adventure. When you feel the wind on your face, smile and think of me. My heart is with yours. Keep it safe.”
The recording ended with a short beep.
Keep it safe.
I turned over my wrist and stared at the plain black bee tattooed there, barely visible through the patchwork of silver that was slowly erasing it, the way it had erased Mom.
The bees are a fail.
Mom’s last words. The mysterious sentence she’d thought important enough to write on her arm. Not I love you or Remember me or even I’m sorry but The bees are a fail.
She had been infected with Metalcium, and intended to keep it secret, so that even in her death, she’d be bringing the criminals responsible to justice. But her skin hadn’t been silver, and the autopsy report had showed no signs of anything strange in her system. Instead, it had shown . . .
Keep it safe.
I saw her hands, her face, swollen with hundreds of stings.
The bees are a fail.
Abramo had known she set out to study killer bees. He knew we’d have no trouble believing the little creatures had killed her. After all, dozens of people died each year from these swarms. The scientists had been freezing hives in an attempt to quell the infestation of bees, so he had the murder weapon already on hand. All he had to do was leave Mom unconscious in the Jeep, throw in the angry, buzzing hive, and drive off, letting the bees finish the job. No wonder he’d gotten away so clean. It didn’t take many stings from an African honeybee to kill you.
The tent flap suddenly flew open. I jumped, dropping the recorder, as Avani poked her head inside.
“Sarah! We didn’t find any guns, but I got these.” She tossed something through the air, which I automatically caught: a set of keys. “Let’s go!” Her eyes dropped to the recorder, then to the box of batteries. “What are you—”
“Avani!” I jumped to my feet, waving the recorder. “I know what the cure is.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Here they are!” shouted a voice. Avani and I whirled around to see the Nigerien in the tent doorway, pointing his rifle at us. I dropped the recorder and the keys into my pocket and raised my hands.
“Get out here,” he said, waving the gun.
Avani and I exchanged dismayed looks and walked outside. Abramo and his men were clustered around the collapsed form of Androcles the silver lion, staring down at the beast and muttering to one another. A little distance apart, Kase, Miranda, Joey, and Sam stood with their hands on the backs of their heads, with two armed men watching them.
It was over. We’d missed our window of opportunity. I cursed myself for giving in to temptation and listening to the rest of Mom’s recording. If I hadn’t let myself be distracted, maybe we could have escaped.
“I got them, boss!” said the Nigerien.
Abramo made no reply. He was busy studying the lion. Avani and I were left with no choice but to walk grimly toward him. I averted my eyes from Androcles’s grisly carcass; it had taken only the first glance to see that he was riddled with bullet holes. The shots must have finally overwhelmed Metalcium’s healing ability, or else it was the metal parasite itself that had felled the poor lion, the very thing that had kept it alive ultimately killing it.
Instead, I locked my gaze on Abramo. My fear of him had been burned away by anger that swept through me hotter than a bushfire.
“You killed my mother.” I strode toward him, hands clenched at my sides, crossing between his mercenaries and the lion; even the silver corpse frightened them, and they stood several feet away from it and made signs to ward off evil. “Not even having the guts to kill her yourself, letting a bunch of insects do your work for you.”
I stopped only when Abramo raised his gun, the barrel planted on my collarbone, holding me at arm’s length. He finally looked up from the lion and gave me a cold glare. I had to tilt my head back to look into his eyes. Sam was repeating my name, pleading with me to back off, but I barely heard him. I was too focused, too intent the wild plan that had popped into my head at the sight of the lion.
Abramo gave me a bored look. “It was one of my more creative jobs.”
I slapped him hard enough to leave an angry red impression on his cheek. In return, he struck me with the back of his hand, knocking me off my feet so that I crashed into one of the mercenaries. My face stung and I tasted blood on my lips. I landed awkwardly in the sand, dazed but no less emboldened by my plan.
“And my dad?” I asked. “Did you kill him too, like you killed Theo? Where is he, you bastard?”
“Enough of this,” he said, glaring at me. He made a sweeping gesture at his men. “Take them all, dispose of them and burn them with this.” He kicked Androcles and turned away.
I was vaguely aware of Miranda sobbing, of Joey begging for his life, of Sam shouting angry threats that did little good.
“Abramo!” My voice was sharp and focused as an arrow aimed at his back. One of the mercenaries had grabbed me by my shirt and was pulling me to my feet.
“I’m infected!” I called out. At once, all of the men took a step back and began muttering in alarm, perhaps asking one another if they’d touched me.
And of course, one of them had.
Abramo froze, his back to me. All around us, activity ceased and my friends fell silent.
I stood, wiping blood from my chin with my sleeve, watching Abramo. His shoulders slumped slowly and then he turned around. His eyes looked more tired than I’d seen them yet. In fact, he looked ten years older than he had just seconds ago.
“Prove it,” he said in a tone that told me he already believed me, but that he couldn’t help asking.
Wordlessly, I slid my sleeve up and held my infected arm aloft. His eyes didn’t even flicker to it. Instead, they fastened on mine. For the first time, I had his full attention. His hand—the one he’d struck me with, skin to skin—closed into a fist. Other than that, he made no movement. He looked like a toy whose batteries had run out.
“And now you are too,” I said, unnecessarily perhaps, but I wanted him to understand the full impact of that touch. My cheek stung from his strike, but I’d be lying if I didn’t relish the justice that burned in that pain.
A part of me hated myself for holding this man, whatever his crimes, hostage against himself. I felt dirty and cruel having stooped to his level, drawing on manipulations I didn’t know I had. Of all the truths I’d had to face about myself in the last few days, this was the hardest—that I was capable of such ruthlessness.
Abramo said nothing. He watched me warily, as one leopard might eye another that had wandered into his territory, sizing me up to see if I was worth the fight.
“I know what the cure is,” I said.
“Let me guess,” said Abramo drily. “You won’t tell me what it is until your friends are safe?”
I nodded. “And not until the government has been alerted to the threat of Metalcium, and not until you tell me what happened to my dad. Not until we are assured that you and Corpus will have no reason to come after us.”
He was already shaking his head, and the motion made my heart sink. Bluffing or no, I at least had to get his cooperation on this. Even if the “cure” failed, my friends would be safe. So why did I get the feeling Abramo was about to refuse me?
“If you don’t do this,” I said, “you’ll die. Same as him.” I pointed at Androcles.
“I could shoot your friends, one by one, until you tell me,” he said musingly.
I tried to hide the panic that rocketed through me. “You’ll do that anyway.”
“I could torture them.”
“Go ahead!” called Sam. “You stick to your guns, Sarah! Don’t worry about— Mph!”
I spun to see one of the mercenaries clubbing Sam in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. Joey lunged
“Stop!” I yelled, not to the mercenary but to my friends. If they kept that up, they’d get shot for sure, whether Abramo willed it or not. Joey went still, at least, and so did the mercenary. Sam was doubled over, gasping, but he lifted his head just enough to shoot me an anguished smile.
My heart hammering, I turned back to Abramo. “I’ll tell you only if you meet my demands.” It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep my voice firm.
But still he was shaking his head, looking like a cartoon with a repeating glitch. “You’re just a kid poking a stick at a beast you don’t understand.”
I didn’t like the look of resignation on Abramo’s face. I’d expected him to fly into a panic, to reject my offer at first, but to ultimately come to some sort of arrangement with me. It wouldn’t make sense for him not to. He knew what Metalcium did, how fast it worked, how inevitable death was—he knew that better than anyone, perhaps. So why wasn’t he jumping at the one, slim chance of a cure? Even if he doubted it was real, he couldn’t afford to gamble.
“You will die,” I said, my tone taking a pleading edge. “I’m offering you a chance.”
“The world is not so simple,” he said. All the rancor was gone from his voice. Now he seemed only sad and wearier than ever. “I won’t bargain my life for yours or your companions’.”
My hopes popped like soap bubbles, leaving me bewildered. “But why? If there’s a chance—”
“I have a job to do,” he said, cutting me off. “And I will do it. I’m sorry. Really, I am. It’s nothing personal.” He lifted his gun, aimed it at my chest. A glimmer of movement over his shoulder drew my eye. Someone was in the bush, running toward us, camouflaged by khaki clothing. My breath caught in my throat.
“You see, Sarah,” Abramo calmly went on, “there’s only one thing I fear more than death—”
My eyes connected with Dad’s for a heartbeat, and I saw his mouth open in a desperate shout.
“—and that’s Corpus.”
“DADDY!” I screamed. Too late. Too late.
Abramo fired.
TWENTY-NINE
The world toppled. I fell backward and must have hit the ground, but I didn’t feel it. I felt nothing but colors, strangely. I don’t know how else to describe it. I felt red, and black, and then blinding white.
The bullet had struck me in my left shoulder, squarely over my heart. And yet as I lay there in the sand, my eyes wide and my limbs twitching, feeling nothing and everything all at once, I realized I wasn’t dead. Not yet. Not quite. Soon, I suspected.
Events unfolded dimly around me. I was set apart, as if watching a television screen with the sound muted. People ran past me, shots were fired, faces flickered in and out of view. All I could do was stare up at the sky like a broken doll.
I’ve been shot.
It seemed ridiculous. Almost like a joke. It couldn’t be real, could it? Not for me. I wasn’t supposed to get shot. Thoughts like these swam through my head, short bursts of brain activity that began in confusion and ended in bewilderment. I felt that strange detachment, as if my mind were a balloon drifting high above it all, attached to my body by only the thinnest of threads. At any minute, I was sure, that thread would snap and I would float away. The prospect was strangely calming. I wasn’t afraid, I discovered—only annoyed. Getting shot was the most irritating thing that had ever happened to me.
Time flowed sluggishly, like a glob of golden honey. When the sounds began to fade back and the pain started to really hit me, only seconds had passed, but it felt like hours, as if my mind had been temporarily lost in time, moving at a speed much faster than reality.
Slowly I came back to myself—and the pain followed with a vengeance. It began in my heart and spread through my whole body, raging like fire, my flesh and bone screaming out. It was like needles and knives and burning coals, hot and cold together. I realized I wasn’t breathing and hadn’t drawn a breath since Abramo had shot me. So I sucked in suddenly, but the air hit my lungs like a torrent of nails and I cried out.
Someone was there. Chaos streamed around me—people running, shouting, shooting, falling—but a hand took mine, a body pressed close to me, and a face faded in and out of focus.
Sam. Don’t.
I couldn’t speak. I was broken and shattered. Nothing worked anymore, and even my thoughts were fragments, the splintered pieces of my mind.
“I’m here,” he said, his voice watery in my ears. I fixed on his eyes like a ship casting its anchor, seeking some solid hold on the world. “Stay with me.”
Don’t touch.
He gripped me tighter and his other hand brushed over my face, pushing back the strands of hair that had fallen over my eyes and lips. He must have read the warning in my eyes, because he said, “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got gloves, see?” He held up a hand. “Found them in one of the tents. Better?”
I don’t know if I succeeded in nodding, but I at least tried.
I had to shut my eyes because the pain was only getting stronger. It clawed at me from the inside out, shot through me in waves. I spasmed and coughed, tasting blood.
Dying.
“You’re not dying,” he said, and I realized I must have said the word aloud. “I don’t know how, but you’re not.”
But that was absurd. Abramo had shot me in my chest—I had felt it.
“. . . happening?” I mumbled, then I coughed on the blood in my throat. Sam lifted me up to a sitting position so I could spit it out. As I did, I looked down at my chest.
There was blood, a lot of it. I wanted to push the cloth aside, to see what had happened—had the bullet only grazed me? But my arms wouldn’t move.
I looked around, my eyes reacting in delay, so that the world dragged dizzily around me. I saw mercenaries clustered behind one of the vehicles, their backs to me, firing at someone in the grass.
“Dad . . .”
“He’s here. He’s alive. Sarah, I’m going to move you. I’m sorry, but I have to do it.”
He carefully lifted me into his arms. I whimpered at the bolts of pain this sent racketing through me and curled my hands against my chest, keeping my skin from brushing his. He strode quickly away, into the shade of one of the tents, where we were hidden from the skirmish.
There he set me down very gently in the grass, and he used his sleeve to wipe the blood from my lips.
“Right before Abramo shot you, your dad came charging out of the bush like a crazy person,” he said. “He has a gun with him, and he starting shooting. Dropped two of the mercenaries before they got to cover. Joey and the others ran, and I’m not sure where they are. Your dad took to the bush.” Sam went away, disappearing from my sight for a moment, and I lacked the ability to turn my head to look for him. Panic fluttered in my gut. Don’t leave me! I wanted to call out, but my tongue was a hopeless lump in my mouth. Then Sam returned, hardly three seconds later. “He’s pinned behind a tree,” he said. “They’re getting shots off at each other but not good ones. Seems to be a standoff. I don’t see Abramo.”
Sam’s eyes traveled down to my heart. “Sarah. I need to look. Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice so faint I wasn’t sure he heard me. But he nodded and gingerly undid the top three buttons of my shirt.
“Wow,” he said, his face turning white.
I mumbled inquisitively. He propped me up so that I could see.
The bullet had struck just over my heart, and when Sam inspected my back, he told me it had passed clean through my shoulder. The skin over the wound was hard and silver, so smooth that Sam’s face reflected in it.
“The exit wound is sealed over too,” he said, his gloved fingers gently probing the tear in the back of my shirt. “It must have spread over the hole right away.”
I thought of Androcles,
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
I nodded. Every movement felt as if I were being shot again in the same spot. The pain lanced through my shoulder like a scalding rod.
“Want to see,” I said.
“See what?”
I couldn’t summon my voice to reply, so I looked to my left, toward the center of the camp where the mercenaries were still firing at Dad.
Sam shifted me closer, so that I could see what was going on. Movement across the clearing, from the opposite row of tents, caught my eye. It was Joey and Avani, crouched in the grass. Behind them were Kase and Miranda.
“Sam,” I whispered. “My pocket—there are keys.”
He pulled out the set of keys from my cargo pants. “For the trucks?”
I nodded, then winced at the pain that sent rippling down my spine. But even so, I could feel myself recovering, regaining some semblance of strength. This wouldn’t kill me. Metalcium might—but not this. “Get Joey’s attention.”
Sam waved wildly until Joey saw him.
“Throw him the keys,” I instructed.
Sam’s eyes widened in understanding. He showed Joey the keys, then tossed them through the air. They landed in front of Joey, who scooped them up. He caught on right away.
The Land Rovers were lined up between him and the mercenaries. Joey crept to the first one and tried the key, but it didn’t work. He moved on to the next, staying low.
With a painful effort, I leaned out more to see if I could glimpse Dad. I only had to see where the mercenaries were shooting to spot him. He was pinned behind a stand of Terminalia and was firing at random back at the mercenaries. His shots were all wide—either because he couldn’t see to aim or he was worried about hitting one of us—but not so wide that any of Abramo’s men were willing to charge him. Their backs were to us, their attention focused on Dad. But then one of them started to split apart from the others, apparently to check on us prisoners.