“It’s me, Dad,” I called, the words quieter, thanks to the sobs trying to break out of me, but obviously loud enough, because his response came only a few seconds later.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I yelled back.
“I’m going to—”
His words cut off abruptly, and my heart skipped a beat as I imagined him being restrained. Maybe beaten. Possibly gagged. I had no idea what they were doing to him, and it made me want to scream.
“Dad!” I called, then paused. Nothing. “Dad!”
Still no response.
I allowed the sobs to break free as I sank to the ground outside my room, my back against the doorframe, my gaze on the hall stretching out before me. On and on it seemed to go. Nothing but doors and windows. No people and no more shouting. At that moment, I felt more alone than ever before—like I was possibly the last person on the face of the Earth—and it made me feel as if I were on the verge of breaking to pieces.
Wrapping my arms around my torso, I hugged myself, trying to hold it together. It wasn’t easy, because it was all my fault. Even worse, Heath’s words were echoing through my head.
You’re too impulsive. It’s going to get you killed.
Admitting he was right, even to myself, stung. I’d always been led by my emotions, but it had never really mattered because my life had been cushy. Easy. Not dangerous at all. Now, though, every decision I made could be my last if I didn’t learn to think things through. Devon had begged me not to overreact. He’d told me he would try his best to figure out a way to help my dad, but that hadn’t been good enough because I’d wanted him to promise to rush off with me and storm the hospital even if it was just the two of us. I’d wanted him to be something he wasn’t. Impulsive and reckless.
Even Doug promising he’d talk to Gabe hadn’t helped, because I’d wanted action. But action without thought was stupid and dangerous, something I was now painfully aware of. It was a hard lesson to learn, especially like this, but it was one I was determined to absorb. If I got out of this, I would be more careful from now on. I would think things through and not react based on my feelings. I would be smarter. I had to be.
My tears subsided, and I eventually dragged myself to my feet. The hall was once again silent, but it had to be nearing dinnertime, and I knew someone would be bringing me food soon. I didn’t want to be a snotty, blubbering mess when they did.
In the bathroom, I washed my face, doing my best to pat my red, puffy eyes dry so as not to irritate them further, then I headed back to the bed where I once again stretched out. Part of me wanted to just curl up and go back to sleep—it would help the time pass faster—but my brain was too awake now. My mind too full of thoughts of my dad, of wondering what they were doing to him and what they would do to me. Of wondering if I would ever be allowed to see him.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been lying there when the quiet sound of someone whistling floated down the hall to my room, but it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes. The thud of footsteps followed, and I sat up, waiting. Would it be Heath? He’d indicated that someone else would come, but after what had happened with my dad, he might have changed his mind. He might have even allowed it to happen, hoping it would entice me to give up the location of our settlement. It seemed like something the sadistic asshole would do.
The footsteps grew closer, and I became increasingly agitated. Unable to sit still, I stood and crossed my arms, not wanting whoever appeared to see how much I was trembling. My palms were moist with sweat, and it felt like a million grasshoppers were jumping around in my stomach. For just a moment, right before the person appeared in the doorway, I even thought I might throw up.
A man came into view, and the whistling stopped. He paused, looking me over, before stepping inside. “Hi, Rowan.”
It was Ryan.
I swallowed. “Hi.”
He had a metal tray in his hand, which he lifted, acting like he thought I wouldn’t see it otherwise.
“I brought you something to eat.” Hesitantly, as if he thought I might be armed and preparing to attack, he took a step into the room. “How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.”
I eyed him, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, my body stiff as I decided what to say next. He’d acted concerned when he saw me in Heath’s office, had even asked if I was here voluntarily. That had to say something about him. Had he volunteered to bring me food because he wanted to check on me? Could I trust him? Would he help me?
Ryan took one step closer, nodding to the table beside the bed. “I’m going to set this down, okay?”
The way he moved, his gaze darting from me to his objective, made it seem like he was nervous. Did he think I was dangerous? It was ridiculous. I wasn’t a big person, and even though he wasn’t as beefy as Heath or Gabe or Devon, Ryan had to outweigh me by a good sixty pounds. Even if I’d had a weapon, I doubted I was any match for him.
The tray clinked against the table when Ryan set it down, and he turned to face me. “I can get you something to read if you want.”
“I’m not much of a reader.”
“Anything else I can do to make the time go faster for you? I mean, hopefully you won’t be here long, but I’m sure it’s boring. Most people are only on probation for two days, three max. Heath likes things to move swiftly around here.”
I eyed him again. “It will probably be longer than that for me.”
“Why?” Ryan tilted his head. “Just tell Heath what he wants to know, and he’ll check it out. He just wants you to prove you’re trustworthy.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I waved to him. “A friendly face to convince me to give in to an asshole’s demands.”
At that, Ryan startled. “An asshole?”
“Heath.” I rolled my eyes like an irritated teenager and waved to my neck. “The asshole who put a shock collar on me.”
“It’s just a precaution,” Ryan said. “We have to be careful these days. You never know who you can trust.”
“I know I can’t trust Heath. He’s the one holding me here. The one who refused to let me see my dad. He’s holding my father against his will, Ryan. Why would I trust someone like that?”
Ryan opened his mouth but closed it a second later, hesitating. Finally, he said, “He’s not holding your dad against his will, Rowan.”
“I don’t believe you,” I shot back. “There’s no way my dad wouldn’t have gone home to check on my mom. She died alone because of Heath, and I showed up to an empty house after traveling across the country!”
My words rang through the air and were followed by a stifled sob of frustration and anger. God, I hated not being able to control myself.
Ryan ran his fingers through his brown hair, mussing it, then nodded toward the few chairs in the room. “Why don’t we sit, so we can talk. Okay?”
“I don’t want to talk.”
I was fully aware that I sounded like an obstinate child, but at that moment, I couldn’t care. I was pissed and upset, and part of me was terrified that if I did discuss the situation with Ryan, I might learn something horrible. Like that my father had voluntarily stayed here, leaving Mom to die alone.
“Well, I’m going to sit if that’s okay.” Ryan gave me a smile I could tell was meant to be a peace offering, but it faded when I didn’t return it.
He crossed the room, moving to the couch that when pulled out would create an uncomfortable bed for family members, and sat down. His eyes were on me the whole time, green and serious as they studied me, and I shifted, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.
Instead of looking at him, I chose to focus on the tray of food he’d brought. A mountain of fake mashed potatoes covered in brown gravy, what looked like a Salisbury steak that was similar to something I would have been served in my high school cafeteria as a teen, and a roll. My stomach growled at the sight even though none of it looked very appetizing. I was just hungry. Not that I was going to give Ryan the satisfaction of eating in
front of him.
“I’ve asked you a few times if you’re here against your will,” Ryan began, making me jump and turn my attention to him. “You said you weren’t, but I want to ask again.”
“Why? Because Heath brings people here against their will all the time?”
“No.” He shook his head but shrugged at the same time. “He never has. Not that I know of, anyway. It’s just that you seemed distressed, and I don’t know Heath all that well. It’s hard to know who to trust in this world. You know what I mean?”
I thought about Hank and nodded, some of my walls coming down despite how much I wanted to keep them up.
“Anyway,” Ryan continued, “Heath has been good for us. He’s organized and has good ideas, and even though some of his methods seem a little intense,” he gave me an apologetic smile as he indicated the collar around my neck with a dip of his head, “they’ve worked, and most people don’t even care. They’re just happy to have a roof over their heads and electricity.”
“My dad included?”
“Your dad is different,” Ryan began, sounding almost hesitant.
When he didn’t continue right away, I asked, “How? Tell me what’s going on.”
“He volunteered to stay here, Rowan,” Ryan said with a sigh. “I’m sorry if that upsets you, but it’s true.”
“I don’t believe you.” My bottom lip was trembling as my tears fought to break free, but I blinked them back. I would not cry. Not until I was alone.
“It’s true. I know, because I worked with him here at the hospital, and we decided to stay together.”
I stared at him in silence, shocked and hurt and confused and unsure what to say. He couldn’t be right. I didn’t believe it.
“You’re a doctor?” I finally managed to get out.
Ryan’s head dipped once. “A general surgeon.”
“So, you were here before Heath?”
“I was.” Again, Ryan sighed and waved to one of the nearby chairs. “Why don’t you sit? This might take a while.”
This time, I didn’t hesitate. I crossed the room and lowered myself onto one of the stiff looking chairs, my gaze on Ryan the whole time. My heart pounding. My emotions raging as I fought to maintain control.
“Tell me what happened.” The words were barely above a whisper.
Ryan gave me a sympathetic smile then started talking. “We were swamped when the end came. Patient after patient coming in, all of them in agony. We did the best we could to keep them comfortable until the end even though we knew there was nothing we could do to save them. The mortality rate for this thing was unlike anything I’d ever seen. I knew that from day one, despite what the CDC said. I also knew there was no way to contain it. Knew it would rip its way across the country and there was nothing we could do to stop it. But we worked anyway, your father and I. Everyone else. It’s what we do.
“All the remaining nurses and doctors were taking care of infected patients at that point, and pretty much every bed was taken, but it wasn’t enough. People were dying in the hallways, in the waiting room. We tried to move the bodies and make room for more patients, but we couldn’t keep up, and eventually we stopped trying.
“I don’t want you to think your dad forgot about you and your mom. He didn’t. He thought about you every day, but he’s a doctor and he took an oath. He also told himself you two were safe. Your mom was home, and you were at school, and as long as you stayed where you were, you would be okay. He planned to go check on your mom after the crisis passed, but as you know, it didn’t.” Ryan paused, his expression thoughtful. “Had he known what would happen next, maybe he would have made a different decision. I don’t know. I just know none of us saw this coming. How could we? There was no way to predict that the virus was only the beginning.
“Most of our patients had died by the time we realized what was really going on,” he continued. “Our generators were running, but power was limited, and even though we were able to keep our phones charged, the cell towers were spotty and down most of the time. We couldn’t get calls in or out, which meant that when the bodies started coming back, we found ourselves trapped with no way to call for help. Assuming there would have been someone to call, which we both know was a long shot at best.”
A gasp broke out of me, and I covered my mouth, imagining being stuck here with hundreds of bodies as they began to reanimate. It was worse than any horror movie I’d ever seen, even worse than what we went through in Amarillo or at the Western Motel. And my dad had been here.
“What did you do?” I asked, whispering like I was afraid my words would bring the dead down on us.
“We gathered everyone we could and barricaded ourselves in a room.” Ryan looked down as if he couldn’t bring himself to meet my gaze. “I’m afraid we weren’t able to save everyone. We tried. God, how we tried. It was too much, though. There were too many of them. One minute they were all rotting corpses, and the next they were…”
He trailed off as if unable to finish.
“Monsters,” I said.
He lifted his head, his shimmering eyes meeting mine. “Exactly.”
I turned his words over in my head, trying to imagine the desperation of the situation, of being trapped in a small room with no hope of getting out. They’d been unarmed and unprepared, and the hospital had been crawling with the dead. It was unheard of. Terrifying.
But did it explain why my dad never went back to the house?
No. Or at least not completely, anyway, because somehow, he’d gotten out. Two weeks had gone by since my mom told me she hadn’t been able to get in touch with him, and looking at the hospital, at how much they’d accomplished, it seemed pretty clear that he’d been a free man for a while now.
“Why didn’t he come back to my house?” I asked Ryan.
His mouth turned down. “Your dad?”
“Yes,” I snapped. “My dad. Why didn’t he come back?”
“He did, Rowan.”
I blinked, confused. It was like I no longer understood English. “What? No. He couldn’t have.”
“We were only stuck in that room for two days, but it seemed like longer. The dead pounded on the door the whole time, and we didn’t have any food. The power was still going, but we knew it wouldn’t last. There were ten of us crammed in the small space, and I’ll be honest, I don’t think any of us had a lot of hope of getting out of there alive.” A small smile pulled up Ryan’s lips, but there was an expression of awe in his eyes. Like he still couldn’t believe it had taken place. “Then something miraculous happened. We heard gunshots, and the dead started moving away from the door. More gunfire followed, and the moans from the hallway lessened. Then there were footsteps and voices, and we knew we were saved.”
“Heath,” I said.
“And a shit ton of other people,” Ryan told me. “I mean, I don’t know how he gathered so many people so fast, but he did. It was like an army coming to save us. They’d worked from morning to night the day before, cleaning out the halls and blocking doors. Dragging out the dead. By the time they saved us, the hospital was almost clear. They were that efficient.”
“They’d have to be to get as much done as they have,” I said, thinking about the barrier I’d seen outside the hospital.
“They are, and everyone chips in.”
It was a nice story, and it explained a lot, but it didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, so I asked, “When did my dad go to my house?”
“Sorry.” Ryan shook his head like he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten that part. “It was about a week ago, the day after we were rescued. He and a couple other guys drove out there, but the house was empty.”
“A week ago?”
I retraced the days in my mind, going over everything that had happened. We’d only been back in Ohio for a week, which meant my dad had probably gone to the house the same day I got back. Probably only a few hours before I made it home.
“We just missed each other.” Tears filled my eyes, and I blinked
them away, focusing on Ryan. “What about now? Why hasn’t he come here to see me? I know he knows I’m here, Heath told me that much, but I also heard him yelling for me. Is he not allowed?”
Ryan sighed. “Like I told you, I’m not a fan of everything Heath does, but he’s not making all the decisions on his own. Plus, it isn’t like anyone else is stepping up to be in charge. No one wants the job, to be honest. Not when making the wrong decision can get everyone you know killed.”
“Why hasn’t he come?” I prompted.
“Heath won’t let him. Not until you’re off probation.”
“You mean not until I tell him where my friends are staying.”
Ryan tilted his head, his eyes narrowing on my face. “Is that what he wants from you?”
“He has some kind of beef with a couple of the people in my group. Gabe. And his ex-wife, Lane.”
“Gabe.” Ryan let out a snort of disapproval. “The asshole who kicked him out of his group.”
“So he says,” I replied, waving my hand in the air. “I don’t know anything about it, to be honest. What I do know is that Heath plans to kill him, and I won’t be a party to murder.”
“Kill him?” The doctor’s back stiffened, but he shook his head like he didn’t believe me. “He told you that?”
“He did.”
He sat back, frowning, but said nothing.
“So, you get why I won’t tell him.”
Ryan’s head bobbed once, then he shook it. Confusion swam in his eyes, but there was something else there as well. Uncertainty. “I just can’t imagine Heath doing something like that.”
“You said yourself that you don’t know him well and that his methods can be intense,” I pointed out.
“But murder?” Ryan’s expression remained stoic despite the glimmer of doubt in his eyes. “He’s done so much. Brought so many people together.”
“I’m only telling you what I know.”
“I’m going to talk to Heath. See if I can get to the bottom of this.” He blew out a long, tired breath and got to his feet, the movement looking forced and difficult, like an old, arthritic man dragging himself from bed in the morning, and waved to the tray of food. “You should eat before it gets cold, anyway.”
Far Series | Book 3 | Far From Lost Page 11