Infected by Sophie Littlefield

cursing and shots fired. Something whizzed by her ear.
    “Tanner, watch out!” she screamed, but he was one step ahead of her, grabbing her hand and pulling her abruptly toward the cars parked along the edge of the street. She couldn’t believe the security men were shooting—were they really trying to
kill
them? Hadn’t Sheila said that she wanted to
protect
Carina?
    She looked over her shoulder, despite knowing it would slow her down. There—there was Baxter, running in front of Meacham, pushing him out of the way. It might have been accidental—but from where Carina stood, it sure didn’t look like it.
    Was Baxter trying to protect her?
    “Stay low!” Tanner called as they raced for the cover of the cars.
    Something struck her upper arm. “Ow!” She slammed her hand over her biceps and touched a barbed piece of plastic. A
dart
? “Tanner, I’ve been—”
    “Two blocks to the BART station,” Tanner yelled. “Inbound train’s coming!”
    Carina looked where he was pointing. Rising over the street, the elevated tracks ran through downtown Martindale, carrying commuters the thirty miles across the mountains and the bay, and into San Francisco. And there, in the distance, was the train, its headlights winking as it approached.
    If she really had been shot, Carina was just going to have to deal with it after she got on that train.
    As she plowed forward, her vision began to swim in front of her. A strange, buckling sensation rippled through her muscles, and she stumbled. But Tanner didn’t let go. The borrowed shoes hurt her feet, the leather rubbing against her toes and the backs of her heels. She ignored the pain and focused all her effort on not falling.
    Forward … just keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other
. Again. Again. It was like when she used to run the 800-meter in middle school. Carina wasn’t cut out for the event, but she’d given it her all, even as the other girls surged past her. She never placed in a single race, and more often than not she came in last, but she didn’t stop trying. Each time, she hoped that her mother would come to the meet, that she would leave work early like she was always promising to do and stand in the bleachers with the other parents, watching her run, cheering her on.
    That possibility kept her going through an entire losing season, before the coach finally decided to let her compete in the field events. It was just a matter of narrowing your attention until all that was left was the next step, and the next, until you hit the finish line and could collapse. Pain meant nothing; the raw scrape of air in your lungs meant nothing—that was what Carina had trained herself to believe as she surged toward the finish that would never be good enough.
    The turnstile was in sight. Tanner dug into his wallet for his transit card and slid it through. “Go!” he shouted, waiting for her to pass. She let her momentum carry her, themetal bars sliding out of the way. But her legs felt wrong. Her foot flopped down at a strange angle, and this time, without Tanner to catch her, she couldn’t recover. She fell hard on her hip, feeling the cold concrete scrape her skin as a startled woman jumped out of the way.
    Tanner was through the turnstile now, and he took her hand and pulled her up. “Son, is she okay?” an old man asked, but they were already on the move. The train had arrived, and they raced for the escalator, Tanner practically carrying her.
    “Too many people,” Tanner panted as a crowd raced to make the train. “We’ll never make it on the escalator. We have to use the stairs.”
    “I … can’t,” Carina gasped. Her vision had worsened; now she was seeing black spots, and the edge of the handrail seemed to waver in front of her.
    And then she was airborne. Tanner had picked her up and thrown her over his shoulder, grunting as he took the stairs two at a time. Carina felt the blood rush to her face, watching the stairs pass below, her body