Chapter Fifty-One
The coat made a horrible tacky sound as it peeled away from the flesh it had fused to. Clare buckled over, nearly losing the war against her nausea, and had to face away from the body as she waited for the ringing in her ears to fade.
Do it. Get it over with quickly. See him, then leave.
She picked up the coat’s collar a second time and tried to ignore the way the stiff fabric cracked as she pulled it back. She didn’t stop until the body below was completely uncovered, then she stepped back, eyes leaking and rough sobs escaping between clenched teeth.
The room had been airtight. There were no maggots to devour the flesh, but it hadn’t been immune to bacteria. The skin had swollen and burst in places. A dark, pus-like ooze seeped out from the form. His face was sunken and distorted, a small hole in his temple marking the spot the bullet had entered.
Despite all of that, the freezing temperatures had preserved him better than Clare would have expected. And he didn’t look the way she’d imagined.
Ezra was large—probably over six feet—and stocky. That was clear even after the decay. His cheeks had lost their tautness, but she thought his face would have been round in life. Black hair lay in a limp side-part across his olive forehead. Full lips hung open, giving her a glimpse of the still-white teeth inside. He couldn’t have been older than twenty-five.
When she’d pictured Ezra, she’d imagined a wiry, tense man. Someone ruthlessly efficient. Someone who fit her idea of an obsessed, delusional scientist. But Ezra’s clothes, stained by decay, were casual. An oversized sweater hung over a T-shirt and jeans.
Why, Ezra? Clare tilted her head back, being careful to breathe through her mouth. You knew the thanites better than anyone. You could have helped reverse this. Is the situation really so impossible that you believed the only way out was death?
The hollow’s fist landed on the glass. Each slap sent reverberations through the room, jangling Clare’s nerves and making her skin prickle. She couldn’t stop staring at the dead scientist. The man had killed her aunt, her sister, and nearly everything good.
Peter had said he was trying to save the world. She didn’t know if she should pity him or hate him. Part of her wished he’d stayed to salvage what they could of the ruins. Another part of her knew, if he had been alive, she would want to see him dead.
His ID tag peeked out from under his sweater. It lay face-down, half buried by the folds of decaying skin and fabric. She braced herself and reached down. The corner of the badge was clean. She dragged it out and flipped it over.
The plastic shimmered in the harsh white lights. Clare took a step back and stared down at the picture on the placard. Like she’d guessed, he’d been plump in life. He was smiling. The picture had most likely been taken on his first day at Aspect, and she could feel the nerves and excitement radiating out of it. He looked like he’d probably been a cheerful soul in life.
Beside the photo was a name. Peter Wiesner.
Clare closed her eyes. That can’t be possible. Her heart thundered. The sick, squirming uneasiness that had kept her from sleeping redoubled until she felt like insects were crawling underneath her skin.
Oh no, no, no…
The man she’d known as Peter carried an ID tag that didn’t belong to him. He’d borrowed it from one of his neighbour’s desks. She’d been so wrapped up in the stress and hope of reaching the tower, it hadn’t occurred to her to question why Peter hadn’t been using his own badge. Her subconscious had picked up on it, though. It had picked up on a lot of things.
Peter had given her Ezra’s room. A coffee mug sat on the sill. If it had been there since the stillness, the coffee would have long evaporated. But it was still half full. Because it had been sipped from just that morning.
Peter’s desk held a binder of notes on the bionic eye—not because he was lamenting his lost project, but because he needed to learn about it to make his backstory credible.
Stupid. Stupid. There were so many clues. So many slips. How could you have overlooked them all?
She opened her eyes. Her vision had blurred. She looked down at Peter, the real Peter, the one who had befriended Ezra and had been present to witness the disastrous results of his companion’s trial.
In those earliest hours of the stillness, as Ezra listened to humanity dismantle itself on the back of his mistake, he would have faced a choice. He hadn’t wanted to die. But to live would make him the most hated man in the world. No survivor would have welcomed him into their home. Most would have wanted to see him dead.
He could have fled the city, adopted a new name, and buried his secret. Only one person knew he was responsible for the thanites. That person was in the same room as him, and Ezra had access to a gun. Perhaps that was the moment he’d killed Peter, likely in a desperate bid to hide his crimes.
But leaving the tower would mean abandoning his research and living in a world overrun with hollows, scrambling to find food and shelter just like every other survivor.
Ezra was smart. Through the panic, a solution would have presented itself. With Peter gone and the city fallen, everyone who had known his real identity was dead. He would stay in the tower and continue working—because he thought he knew how to fix his mistake. He wouldn’t be known as the man who destroyed humanity. He would be the one who saved it.
Peter afforded an easy identity to adopt. They were friends; he knew a little about Peter’s research and Peter’s
