Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 11

I got my hopes up as I drove down 9th Avenue and neared the exit ramp in Hell's Kitchen. The Lincoln Tunnel was to our right, but the street was at a gridlock. Too many cars were going the same way. Vehicles and angry drivers packed the exit ramp toward the tunnel. It hadn't moved for the past ten minutes. Some might have been stuck there long before I arrived at the tail end.

My police car was useless against the traffic. I turned off the sirens long ago. I had to turn on the air conditioner due to the rising heat inside the car with too many cramped people. I was paranoid some of the drivers might call real cops on us, thinking that we stole a police cruiser (which was true), but none of them came.

"Hey, you okay?" Logan asked out of nowhere.

I flinched from his voice. I turned to him, and he looked at me warily.

"You're shaking," he said. His eyes flicked to my hands.

I stared at my knuckles. My hands were trembling, and I gripped hard on the steering wheel to stop them from doing. Logan didn't say anything after that. For all I know, he probably hated being stuck inside a car with me. Lord only knew how many times he wanted to let everyone know in school how he honestly felt about me. It was either through being punched, vandalizing my locker, or mocking me at the school cafeteria. Online, it was through poorly-done Photoshop pictures of me riding a, well, what else? A unicorn, of course, and everyone on campus shared it.

And then, there was that sex tape.

I wasn't proud of it. Sure, the video was grainy, and it may look like I was blowing a guy, but I was only making out with another boy from the bleachers.

My first kiss.

It circulated like a wildfire. I became an outcast by my supposed friends, but my parents didn't think of me differently.

Peter had it worse.

Thinking about him hurt too much. Like a cord got pulled tightly around your heart. He was the son of a superintendent of the northern precinct in Portland. Very devout Catholics, and having a son who was gay, well, it didn't turn out well for Peter with his family compared to mine. He was shipped off the next week to a military boarding school in Virginia, leaving me alone to deal with our bullies.

That was a year ago.

And now I'm stuck here.

I didn't expect Logan to check up on me. I guessed when it came to life-or-death crises; people tried to be decent. Then again, he was probably checking on me because I was behind the wheel.

The radio didn't mention any new developments of the riots, especially the crazy people killing, or about the quarantine. They only reminded the listeners that there was a riot going on and should stay indoors, but nothing else. I wondered if it was Ebola, but I didn't know it would make you go crazy. It must be something else. The unknown was the scariest thing you could ever face. So, do I have Ebola or not? Maybe a new aggressive strain? Is it a terror-borne plot by terrorists?

These questions swarmed my mind like locusts, and my head throbbed.

What could turn a perfectly healthy, forty-year-old man like Mr. Ramirez, who was sweet and kind and turn him into an unrelenting murderer?

Was it blood?

Saliva?

Was it airborne?

Are we infected, too?

Chills ran down my spine from the latter. I looked at the occupants in the car.

Natalie fell asleep on Logan's lap, tired from sobbing, her long blonde hair almost covering her face, and her head propped up at the nook of Logan's neck and shoulder. Logan stared out the window. Carson stopped sobbing finally and had also fallen asleep. Aria kept trying her phone. Luke and Yousef held only a grim expression, and when Luke caught me watching them from the rear-view mirror, he gave me a curt nod.

We hadn't moved for fifty minutes.

Helicopters flew above New York. I counted at least a dozen flying above the city. Maybe they were the same thing, but the point was, their noise almost drowned out the city.

"They're getting close," Yousef observed. "Do you think it's them?"

What he meant snapped us out of our trance on the road. We looked at each other with worry.

"I don't know," I said.

I checked the radio. There were no new updates about the riots reaching Hell's Kitchen. If it did, they should've warned people by now. I wondered if they were intentionally holding information in case they caused a panic.

Having enough, I turned off the car.

"Why'd you stop the car?" Natalie asked, annoyed.

"It's been close to an hour now. We barely moved a hundred feet when we got here. I don't want to waste the gas." I eyed the other drivers outside who began to climb out of their vehicles and gawked at the ramps, angry and upset.

I unbuckled my seatbelt. I noticed that my clothes were still bloodied, and I picked up the midnight blue police jacket resting under Logan's feet. I wore them and zipped up any spots where others might see blood.

I climbed out of the car.

"Where are you going?" Luke asked worriedly.

"I'm going to ask around what's going on."