Chapter 7

He waited for a chance to talk to Ms. Cowan alone, but day turned into night. He had to wake her up while everyone else slept. "Psst . . ." He gently shook her shoulder while avoiding the rash near her neck. "Ms. Cowan. We—"

"What? I'm fine." She slowly opened her eyes and tried to smile but the corners of her mouth drooped. So did the corners of her eyes. She was more than just tired. This lady was sick.

"You're not fine, and I talked to—"

"I'm not coughing anymore. And my throat felt tight before, but it's not now." She sat up, groggily rubbing her eyes. "It must have been those plants where we. . . . Somewhere, or the bugs when we slept. . . . Somewhere. An ant bite, maybe." She lifted her hands in the air as if it were all a bad dream. "I was allergic and now—"

"Your neck," Isaac whispered. He didn't want to mention the change in her speech patterns. She used to talk in such a refined manner and now her thoughts were all over the place.

"My neck's fine. It's not itchy anymore."

"Itchy? You said it wasn't!" He took a deep breath and looked around to make sure he hadn't awakened anyone else. Being responsible for Cowan weighed heavily on him. He had to get her to the Villa. What if something happened to her before they got there? What if she infected him? He focused on whispering as quietly as he could while still making his words clear. "We're going to the Villa. You and me." He made it sound like a fun vacation.

Ms. Cowan didn't respond but her eyes and her open mouth made it look like she wanted to protest.

"It's not an option, it's an order. From Minho." Isaac paused and waited for the backlash, for her to be disappointed in Isaac for blabbing, telling Minho, the guy with a gun of all people. But she just took the news. Did she even understand what he just said?

"Okay. Thank you," Cowan replied.

"You understand what's going to happen? We're going to have to split from the others"

"We've got to get to the Villa." Cowan said it like a government decree, as if she had already been thinking it before he brought it up. And suddenly the heaviness in Ms. Cowan's eyes made sense to Isaac; she wasn't afraid of being sick—the sadness and weight in her eyes were all about knowing she had to split up from Sadina. Isaac felt the same heaviness wash over him in that exact moment. The likelihood that once they did separate, they may never see each other again. The world was hard enough to navigate together, and there were too many things that could pull them apart, but he'd voted for the Villa and he needed to keep his promise. If Isaac could have saved his own parents he would have in an instant. He owed it to Sadina to try whatever it took to get Cowan the help she needed.

"Ms. Cowan . . . we might never see them again."

"That isn't an option. We will see them again." She said it firmly, but it didn't erase the doubt in Isaac's mind. Going to the Villa felt like it would take him further from anything that reminded him of home again. Like Sadina. "I appreciate your help. If I can admit it. I'm a little . . ." Her eyes traveled slowly from the stars above back to Isaac.

"Scared." He answered for her.

"I'd say you don't have to come with me, that I could find the Villa myself, but I don't know if that's true." A tear dripped out of her left eye.

Isaac felt the silly urge to wipe it from her face. Thank the gods, he relented. "You and I voted the same: to go to the Villa. I gave Minho my word that I'm going with you. We'll figure out what this is."

Ms. Cowan took a deep breath and reached for Isaac's hand; it held all the comfort of a mother's love. He decided he'd look after this lady, not just for Sadina, but also to make his own mom proud. "Kletter wasn't entirely truthful about everything with you kids."

Isaac pulled back a bit from her touch. "What do you mean?"

"Sadina's blood is important, yes. But . . ." She paused.

"But—what?"

"Well, didn't you wonder why I let eight other teenagers trot along on this adventure if it was just about Sadina's bloodline? We all come from immune blood. Every single person born on the island comes from a bloodline of immunes." Isaac hadn't thought about it before, but she was right. "It was never about just one of us. It was all of us." Cowan coughed. "Well, except for you." Her words stung Isaac like he imagined a Griever might sting. Hard and fast. "You'll remember you weren't originally on the roster to come . . ."

Isaac did remember, all too well. Sadina had to beg her mom to let him on board. "You wanted to spare me. Because of everything I'd been through." The grief and the trauma from losing his family. Everyone always meant it without actually saying the words. He wasn't sure which was worse, them not saying the words or if they had said them: You can't come because your family is dead. It coated almost everything in Isaac's life with a stain, ever since the accident. If someone was nice to him, he had to wonder if the interaction was sincere or if it was under the blanket of because your family is dead. Even Sadina went out of her way to include him at times, like inviting him onto the Maze Cutter at the last minute.

Not that he minded—he really didn't. It helped. But what was Cowan getting at?

"You're right," she said. "I wanted to spare you because you'd been through so much awfulness. But also, without a single living family member left back on the island—you don't have any control subjects to your bloodline." Cowan let the smallest laugh escape before she covered her mouth. "I'm sorry. I just find it so ironic. That you weren't supposed to be here with us, but it's you who I need the most—I trust the most—to help me now."

"Control subjects?" Chills went up Isaac's spine. "You . . . you lied to everyone." The chills inverted and then went down his whole body. What was Cowan saying? That everyone who boarded the Maze Cutter was a test subject? Dominic, Miyoko, Jackie, Trish, and poor dead Lacey and Carson too? A test for what?

"Scientists use controls in an experiment. The control group stays unchanged, and in this case it's the family members who stayed back on the island. The Villa can compare those who receive treatment with the control group to find out if—"

Isaac held a hand up. "What treatment? I thought this was about taking Sadina's blood. Creating a cure from Sonya and Newt's bloodline?" He no longer whispered and he didn't care who heard him within camp. It was time everyone else woke up to Kletter's lies, too.

Ms. Cowan motioned with her hands for Isaac to lower his voice. "Part of what Kletter wanted to see was how immunes might react in the evolved environment of the world today." Somehow, she managed a smile. "The environment isn't so great for me."

Isaac didn't understand how she could be so damn happy sometimes. "You lied to everyone here."

"Half of the truth isn't a lie. Everything we came out here for is still true."

"What about Alaska? We need to tell the others everything now and they can come with us to the Villa and—"

"No. The Godhead will explain everything. There's too much that I don't know, but the Godhead will answer. Kletter was trustworthy but she was no God." Isaac was sure about only one of those things: Kletter was definitely no God. "Sadina needs to go to Alaska and work toward the Cure. They'll come to the Villa in due time. Plus," Cowan coughed again, "if it comes from us, from me, they'll be as angry as you are. They'll refuse. Sadina will never forgive me if she found this out now but if it comes from the Godhead, it will all make sense." She fixed the fabric around her neck to further cover the rash.

Isaac thought about what had been said. She was right about predicting Sadina's reaction, and that's exactly why Isaac couldn't go along with all the lies. He could only cover up so much for Ms. Cowan and the rash wasn't one of those things. He had to put his foot down.

"We have to tell them the truth about this, about your symptoms," Isaac said, pointing at Ms. Cowan. "There's no way around it and there's no half truth to it. We're telling Sadina . . . so if anything happens . . ."

His heart contracted in pain and he walked away. He knew the horror of losing a parent all too well and he didn't want that to happen to his best friend without warning. Sadina deserved to know. She deserved to know that when she said goodbye to her mom, it might be the last time they ever hugged.