He told the two of them never to talk about it, even in private. He wonders if anyone has overheard. The campus is crowded and it would be hard to know if any conversation were truly private. One overheard word could create a firestorm that none of them would survive. Spending his remaining days in Leavenworth isn’t what he wants.

“’I know what I heard,” Clarke emphatically states.

Without saying a word, Brown rises and walks to the door. Opening it, he pokes his head out and checks up and down the hall. Satisfied, he turns around and closes it behind him.

“You two need to erase what happened from your minds,” Brown states, jabbing his finger with each word. “I told you that this was off limits—never to be uttered anywhere or anytime. And here you are, not only discussing it among yourselves where anyone is within earshot, but now in my office. Do you have any idea, any idea what could happen if someone were to get wind of where we actually were?”

The two cadets stare at him with remorseful and scared expressions.

“I didn’t think so. You two give me an ulcer. I can see that this is burning a hole in your miniscule brains, so I’m giving you five minutes to say what you have to. Five minutes, and then this thing vanishes…forever. Understood?”

Hayward and Clarke nod.

Brown sets the stopwatch portion of his watch.

“Your five minutes begins…now,” he says, pressing one of the buttons.

“Okay. When we handed Emily off, I heard her aunt ask what a certain mark on her shoulder was. Emily said that’s where her mom had bitten her, and then went off about not meaning to hurt her. Hayward, you heard the same thing and know you did,” Clarke begins.

“I heard something like that, but I’m not sure of the exact words that were said,” Hayward counters.

“I think you must have misheard her,” Brown says. “We all saw what happened when the uninfected were bitten. It only took a minute at most before they jumped up and joined the circus. Emily didn’t exhibit anything remotely close.”

“What if she just carried it, you know, like had it but didn’t have any symptoms? Aren’t there other viruses where people are only carriers without exhibiting signs?” Clarke questions.

Brown ponders that statement for a moment.

“Even if that’s true, the people stricken with this flu pandemic aren’t trying to bite others. They’re merely sick. Vomiting, fever, aches. You know, the usual with the flu. You can’t even compare what we saw to what’s currently happening.”

“Hear me out,” Clarke states. “What if the symptoms are changing from what we’re seeing now? Like, is this just the start of it? I mean, what if this is how someone infected by a carrier initially reacts?”

“And you’re saying that Emily caused this?” Brown asks, sweeping his arm to indicate the rest of the world. “That a ten-year-old girl was able to infect millions?”

“Well, no. But, what if there were others…more who were bitten, like her?” Clarke defends.

“How many do you think escaped that madness? As far as I know, we were the only ones who actually made it out. Even if a few others managed to do it, how could those few infect a world population? Even if what you say is true, and I don’t think it is, I can’t even fathom how many it would take to do something like that. More than a few, I’d say,” Brown counters. “And it’s been weeks since Pineville.”

“Exactly,” Clarke states.

“I’ll be honest.