He was thin now, shockingly thin. He sat shirtless in bed, the blankets bunched at his waist, some of his ribs visible under his skin. His collarbones jutted out in sharp angles, and his blond hair hung limply across his forehead. He looked clean—she and Derek took pains to make sure he was well taken care of—but horribly unhealthy. They’d struggled to put weight on him, and though he ate every bite put in front of him like a starving man, it never seemed to be enough; he never put on any weight.
He gave her another smile, his eyes bright and attentive, and eased back against his pillows. Folding a corner of the book’s page down to mark his place—something that made Kimberly cringe—he set the book on the bedside table and motioned to her. “I was wondering when you were going to show up. You’re late.”
Kimberly raised an eyebrow, glanced at the watch on her wrist, and sighed. “Only by ten minutes,” she said. She moved further into the room, dropping her medical bag onto the chair beside Ethan’s bed and easing down onto the edge of the mattress. “Ten minutes barely even counts as late.”
“When I was a cop, ten minutes could have conceivably cost me my job,” Ethan said.
Kimberly rolled her eyes and unzipped her bag. “Yeah, well, when I was a vet, my patients didn’t bitch so much,” she retorted, grinning.
“Well, fortunately, I’m not a dog.”
“You say that like it’s a brownie point in your favor. A dog would behave better,” she joked. She pulled the thermometer from her bag and waved it in his face. “Open up, would you?” she said. When he obeyed, she stuck the thermometer underneath his tongue and added, “Hold that there.” Then she dug Ethan’s chart from the bag and uncapped her pen with her teeth.
“I don’t see why you have to check all this so much,” Ethan said around the thermometer. “I’ve never actually seen any of it change, and I know you haven’t.”
“Stop talking or I’ll take your temperature the uncomfortable way,” she threatened. She checked her watch again and then flipped through the chart until she reached the end of the list of vitals that had been taken over the past five months. She scribbled down the date and time on a fresh line and then set the folder against her knee. “We don’t know how this whole thing works, so we have to monitor you to make sure you aren’t going to relapse.”
Ethan looked like he was dying to ask her something, but he held the question in until she removed the thermometer from his mouth and jotted down the temperature—98.6 degrees, yet again. “Is there a chance of that happening?” he asked.
Kimberly wrapped her blood pressure cuff around Ethan’s bicep and plugged her stethoscope into her ears, buying herself some time before answering. She wrote the numbers onto his chart before shoving her tools back into her bag. “Eth, look at this,” she said, setting his chart on his lap. “I honestly don’t know if there’s a chance you’ll relapse. Just look at your vitals over the past five months and that should show you why.”
His eyes skimmed down the page, and he flipped back a few pages before looking up at her in confusion.
“I don’t get it,” he admitted.
“Your vitals are baseline perfect,” Kimberly said. “They’re textbook. Temperature, 98.6 degrees; blood pressure, 120 over 80; heart rate, 80; respirations, 14; O2 sats at 99. Your resting vitals never change. They’ve been like this since the day we cured you. And honestly? We don’t understand it. There should at least be some variant there, a point or three here or there in either direction.”
“Is that why you can’t tell me whether you think I’ll relapse or not?”
“Exactly. Because we don’t totally understand Michaluk and the way it behaves,” she said. “There’s every chance this thing could mutate further and turn you into one of the…well, the walking dead. Or it could turn you into something even worse, something we’ve never seen before. Or it could simply do nothing. It’s too hard to tell right now, so we’re just being cautious.”
“So am I infectious?” Ethan prompted. “Is whatever is in me contagious like them or is it more like Brandt?”
Kimberly smiled for the first time during their conversation. “Well, at this point, as far as we can tell, you’re like Brandt,” she answered. “Infected, but not contagious.” She dug into the medical bag for the small black case that she kept her blood sample supplies in. She began to prep to take a sample of Ethan’s blood, as she did every day. He groaned when he saw the thin glass vial in her hand.
“Aw hell, do you have to do that today?” he asked. “I’m beginning to wonder if you guys are turning into vampires.”
“Hey, these are Derek’s rules, not mine,” Kimberly protested. She grabbed his right wrist and tugged it until he extended his arm with a heavy sigh. There was a saline lock near the crook of his elbow, and she began the same procedures she always used when drawing a sample of blood from his arm, almost mindlessly moving through the steps. “Bitch at him if you don’t like it.”
Ethan waited until she was done taking the blood and packing the vial into its padded case before he asked, “How is Remy doing?”
Kimberly hesitated, folding the cover of the chart closed and smoothing a hand over it before tucking it into her bag. She wasn’t sure how much to tell him. She wasn’t sure how much she should tell him. The last thing he needed was stress pushing his blood pressure up or altering his heart rate. Her curiosity was tweaked at the idea, though. Stress could be a good way to test whether Ethan’s vitals would change under pressure. She and Derek had been debating the idea of stress tests, taking Ethan out jogging as soon as he seemed strong enough to handle the exercise and checking his vitals afterward to see how his body responded to the exertion. But she didn’t want to move forward with the idea until she’d cleared it with Derek. The last thing she needed was to mess up whatever the doctor’s plans were—the entirety of which she hadn’t been made privy to. “She’s been doing okay,” she finally replied, trying to hedge around giving him any details.
Ethan rolled his eyes and let out a heavy sigh. “Come on, Kimmy, you’re dodging the question,” he said.
“Don’t call me Kimmy.”
“Then answer my damned question,” he said.
“She’s not doing good at all,” Kimberly said, shaking her head. She focused on zipping her medical bag closed, keeping her eyes away from his. “We’re a little worried about her mental health. And there’s the question of whether or not the medications are going to hold out.”
“Is she already starting to be resistant to them?” Ethan asked, with alarm in his voice.
“No, more like we’re starting to run out,” Kimberly admitted. “We’ve been sending out a list with the supply team to look for medicine. They’ve been breaking into every pharmacy, doctor’s office, clinic, and vet office that they can safely get into, and they’re coming back empty-handed.”
“The drugs are all gone?”
“Looks like people have beat us to most of those places,” she admitted. She met his eyes again and said, “It’s not looking good for her, Eth.”
“When are you guys going to give her whatever you gave me?” he asked. “When are you going to cure her?”
“I don’t know,” Kimberly admitted, averting her gaze as a surge of nervous energy welled up in her stomach. “Derek has his plans, and he doesn’t tell me all of them. Mostly, he has me focusing on you. He’s handling Remy and her care personally.”
Ethan stared at her for a moment, as if he were trying to gauge whether or not she was telling him everything. Judging by his expression, he wasn’t satisfied with her answer. He grasped his blankets and flipped them off of himself, revealing that he was wearing only boxers. He levered himself around to swing his legs over the side of the bed. “If she is that bad off, then why the fuck hasn’t he done what he needs to do to help her?” he demanded. The moment he stood from the bed, his weakened legs wobbled, and he nearly tumbled to the floor. Kimberly lunged forward and caught him, her arms looping around his thin waist. The shock of his b
ody pressed against hers gave her a little shiver, and she tried to shake it off.
“Take it easy, Ethan,” she said sternly. She backed him up a step and made him sit on the bed. “You’re going to kill yourself if you push this too quickly.”
“I’m not fucking fragile, Kim,” he said bitterly. Despite that, he had just allowed her to assist him back to the bed. His expression was a cross between grateful and angry—grateful to be sitting again, but angry that he couldn’t charge downstairs and utilize authority, the kind of authority he’d once exercised in his own group of survivors. The authority that would allow him to bend Derek to his will and maybe give him a well-deserved smack to the head. “I’m just pissed off.”
“So pissed that you’re ready to charge after Derek in nothing but your underwear,” Kimberly pointed out. She sat on the bed beside him, grasping his hand and squeezing it gently, trying to will him to serenity. “Being angry like this isn’t good for you. I know you can’t help it, but you need to fight through it as best as you can, okay?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so wired,” he said. “I’m ready to get out of this room. I spent ages trapped in the Westin, and then when I got out, I ended up trapped here. I understand the reasoning, but I’m just sick of looking at this room.”
Kimberly studied him thoughtfully as he stared blankly across the room. Then she sighed and slapped both hands against her thighs. He startled at the sharp snap and looked at her, wide eyed.
“Fine, fine,” she said. “At the very least, let me help you put some clothes on before you rustle up the cavalry and try to kick some ass. Though I don’t think you could manage to knock a fly over right now in your condition.”
“My condition?” Ethan repeated with a raised eyebrow.
Kimberly smiled, stood, and went to the closet. She retrieved a duffel bag she’d stashed there the week before while he’d been asleep. “Luckily, I come prepared,” she said, carrying the bag to him and setting it on the mattress. She unzipped it and let him look inside as she explained. “Cade was so kind as to help me dig up some clothes in as close to your sizes as we could approximate. Some new boots too. We figured you were going to need them, since you lost pretty much everything you owned in Atlanta.”
A melancholy expression flickered across Ethan’s face, but he smothered it and pulled free a pair of jeans, shaking them out before looking them over. They were a good pair of jeans, reasonably intact with only a few worn spots near the knees and pockets. He nodded in satisfaction and gave her a grateful smile that warmed her insides. “Thanks.”
“You work on getting those on while I find you a razor and some scissors,” Kimberly offered, heading for the dresser where they kept some basic hygiene supplies. “You look like a mountain man or something.”
Ethan rubbed a hand over his thick beard. “More like a lumberjack, I think,” he commented with a chuckle. He scooped up a shirt from the bag and slowly tugged it over his head, working his arms into the sleeves and pulling it down over his torso. Then he went to work on the jeans, sliding them over his legs. When he was forced to stand and tug them over his hips, Kimberly rushed over to give him a supportive arm. He gave her another grateful smile as he leaned against her and pulled the pants up the rest of the way.
“I feel like an old man,” he admitted as he sank to the bed again, looking like he’d been slapped on the back of the head by a two-by-four labeled “exhaustion.”
“Are you sure you can even make it down the stairs?” Kimberly asked, sitting down beside him again. “Downstairs is a pretty long way off, considering. And you haven’t done much in the way of exerting yourself in the past several months.”
“I’m a lot tougher than I look,” he said. “Trust me, a lot tougher. If I wasn’t, I don’t think I’d have survived the attack in Atlanta or being fully infected for four months.”
“I know,” Kimberly agreed. “You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met. Honestly. I don’t know anyone who could have handled what you’ve dealt with and come out still sane in the end.”
A slow smirk crossed Ethan’s lips. “Who said anything about me still being sane?”
Kimberly laughed and shook her head. She stood and offered him her arm. “Well, Mr. Possibly Insane, come on. Let’s get you looking a little less hobo and then get you downstairs so you can yell at Derek. Then we can sit on the porch while you get a look at some of what everyone in Woodside has been working on.”
Chapter 4
When Dominic stepped outside the main house, he finally felt his shoulders loosen and his back muscles relax. He fought the urge to slump against the door that had just clicked closed behind him. Instead, he focused on the street ahead. He didn’t look forward to the walk to his own house, located in the most remote corner of the gated community, far from everyone else’s. The walk would take him past too many of the other survivors’ homes and the inevitable dirty looks he knew he’d receive as he passed. He wasn’t an idiot. He held no delusions about his status in Woodside. Save for the two little girls that Ethan and Remy had saved, he was the only survivor of the Westin and of Alicia Day’s regime—a regime that had victimized the very people who now lived in Woodside, even if only through deprivation of supplies.
Dominic had never appreciated the implications of “guilt by association” until he came to live in Woodside. Here, guilt was a permanent state of existence.
He had the idea to head for Philadelphia three months after they’d secured Woodside. He’d wanted to leave on the premise of searching for his family, but in truth, he’d wanted to get away from the lobbied hate. And he hadn’t wanted to go alone, which was why he’d accepted Remy’s offer to go with him.
Except Dr. Rivers hadn’t given her the cure when he said he would, and now they were stuck, waiting in stasis, until something was done about the infection swimming in the young woman’s veins. He knew she was getting just as impatient as he was to leave, even though he still hadn’t figured out exactly why she’d want to go with him, considering she didn’t appear to like him. He supposed he was a means to an end for her; it wasn’t likes she had to deal with what he went through every day.
Dominic made it halfway down the block before someone yelled out behind him.
“Hey, wait!” the voice called.
Dominic’s shoulders stiffened again, tensing as if he expected a blow, and he didn’t turn around. Maybe if he pretended like he hadn’t heard the shout, whoever had done the yelling would go away. “Hey, Dominic, wait!”
Dominic let out a heavy breath and turned on his heel, expecting to see one of the other Atlanta survivors coming at him with something sharp or otherwise deadly—there were weapons everywhere in Woodside, simply as a matter of practicality, and it wouldn’t be the first time it had happened—but he was surprised to see Remy Angellette instead. As hard as he’d been thinking, his mind hadn’t registered whose voice it was. She was on the roof of the medical house’s porch, waving at him as she tried to find her way down. Dominic rolled his eyes and moved back toward the house so he could call up to her.
“What the hell are you doing up there?” he asked. He watched as she moved to the edge and shimmied to the right, climbing down the rose trellis on the side of the porch like one would a chain link fence. “And, for that matter, how’d you even get up there?” he asked as she dropped to the grass. She staggered, and he caught her elbow to right her as she regained her footing.
“Climbed out the window,” she explained, pointing to the open second story window before turning her focus back onto him. “Where are you going?”
“Home,” he said. “To try to get some sleep before I have to get up and take watch on the wall tonight. It’s my shift.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“On what, watch or sleep?”
Remy snorted and shrugged. “I don’t know. Either. Whatever.” She glanced back at the medical house, and a sheepish expression came over her face. “I’m just tired of looking at them,” she ad
mitted. “I need some company other than theirs.”
Dominic frowned and turned on his heel, starting back in the direction of his own house, and she scrambled to catch up with him. “I thought you didn’t like me,” he said as she matched his brisk pace with her own. Reflexively, he slowed down; the fact that she was infected niggled at the back of his brain and reminded him that she wasn’t supposed to over-exert herself. “I mean, you acted pretty pissed off at me earlier.”
“And I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I was in a bad mood. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I just need some company. Somebody different.” She grinned suddenly. “Besides, I haven’t been out to your house yet.”
“Nobody has,” Dominic replied. “I don’t let anybody in there. Don’t think I’m going to change my stance on that just for you.”
“Hiding something?”
“No, I’m just a very private person,” he corrected. He could just see his house in the distance, the windows shuttered, the entire house locked down against the possibility of invasion, both from the infected and the uninfected. It was his fortress, his sanctuary from the ridicule of Woodside, perched as far away as he could get from the rest of their miniature civilization. He wasn’t sure he was willing to violate his space with the presence of another, no matter how much he liked the fire in her brown eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be on bed rest or something?”
Remy looked suddenly uncomfortable and more than a little annoyed. “Fuck bed rest, and fuck Dr. Rivers and his fucking rules,” she muttered. “If he isn’t going to help me, then I’m not going to make life easy on him.”
Dominic couldn’t help but chuckle. “Have you ever made life easy for anyone?” he asked. He didn’t wait for her answer; he merely beckoned her to continue walking with him. “Come on. Maybe I’ll cave and let you sit on the porch or something.”
The Becoming (Book 4): Under Siege Page 3