Violet's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Violet lined up three sample jars on the treatment ward counter. Black veins threaded through each piece of tissue. She had pulled them from three patients that morning, and all three were dying. She needed to find where they caught it. If she could trace the source, she could force the colony to seal off the sick sector. But no one would tell her where the patients had been. The intake logs were empty. Someone had wiped the movement records for all three. Violet ran her thumb over the last jar and stared at the blank screen. Without a trail, she had nothing. No source. No proof. No quarantine. "You keep those on the counter, people will scream," Gord said from the doorway. He was the ward's new block warden, and he clutched his lanyard of access cards like a man afraid to drop them. Violet had asked him for the logs twice. Both times he had looked at his shoes. She didn't trust him, but he held every locked door in this building. "Someone erased their records," she said. "Three patients. Gone. You have the master keys. Did you do it?" Gord's mouth went tight. "I walk these halls every night. I don't erase anything. I just count empty rooms." He pulled a card free and held it out. "Storage bay. Old paper intake forms. We logged everyone on paper before the system went in." Violet grabbed the card and ran. The storage bay smelled of dust and cold metal. She dug through boxes until she found the paper forms. Three names. Three arrival dates. And beside each, the same handwritten entry: last shift worked, Sector Nine. Violet's chest went cold. Sector Nine had been sealed for weeks. No one came back from there. No one except one girl. She found Tasha in a recovery cot near the ward doors. The teenager sat with her back to the wall, watching the entrance. One boot was gone. Claw marks ran down her left arm, red and swollen. She checked the door, looked away, then checked it again. "You were in Sector Nine," Violet said. "So were my three patients. What did you find there?" Tasha didn't answer. She pulled her sleeve down over her arm, too slow. Violet caught it first. Under the claw marks, thin black veins spread beneath the girl's skin. The same veins that filled her jars. Tasha wasn't a witness. She was infected. And she had walked back through the colony gates days ago, touching doors, sharing cots, breathing the air. "How long have you been hiding this?" Violet whispered. Tasha met her eyes. "Since I got back. Please don't lock the door on me." Violet had her source at last. It came from Sector Nine, and it was already inside the ward walls, carried by the one person everyone had welcomed home.