4
The sheets were clinging to me when I woke, plastered to my skin by a layer of sweat, and it felt like someone had dumped a bucket of water on the bed. The knot of panic in my stomach told me something bad was happening. I couldn’t remember what it was, but that didn’t stop my heart from pounding harder. My brain, still foggy with sleep, couldn’t seem to focus. Was Andrew here? Did he still have us? Had the rescue been a dream?
The room I now found myself in was dark except for the slivers of light that had forced their way through the cracks in the curtains. It was unfamiliar, but at the same time I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been here before. Or at least somewhere like it.
That was when it hit me.
A hotel. I was in a hotel, which was why it felt so familiar. Because they were all basically the same, and this one hadn’t changed much since the virus hit.
Just like that, everything came rushing back in a wave of memories. Getting away from Andrew, being rescued by Logan and his people, Kellan’s fever…
I twisted to face him, my heart thudding violently. He was lying on his back, his eyes closed and his mouth open. The raspy breaths he let out felt like they were trying to cut me half. I hated the idea of waking him, but I couldn’t stop from feeling his forehead. It had become an obsession, one I wouldn’t be able to break until I was sure he was going to be okay.
Holding my breath, I touched the back of my hand to his forehead then moved it down to his cheek. His skin wasn’t any cooler than it had been the night before, but I was able to relax a little after I’d unwound the bandage from his arm. The bite looked a little better. It was less swollen, and some of the redness had faded. That was something, at least. I just had to pray the home remedies Caroline had used would keep him going until we could get our hands on the antibiotic.
“How does it look?” Kellan asked, making me jump.
I hadn’t realized he was awake.
“It’s fine.” I replaced the bandage even though I knew we’d have to change it soon and rearranged my expression before looking up to meet his gaze. “I think you’re cooler, too.”
It was a lie, and his expression said he knew it.
“I don’t feel any better.”
“That’s okay,” I said, my voice firm, “because we’re going to get the antibiotic today.”
Kellan’s eyebrows lifted, and he forced out a smile, giving me what could only be described as a parody of the lighthearted look he typically reserved for only me. “Since when did you become Miss Optimism?”
Since I realized I couldn’t live without you, I thought, but said, “I’ve always been Miss Optimism.”
“Oh, yeah.” He paused to clear his throat, and his voice was still raspy when he said, “I’ve never heard you bitch and moan for days. That was Emma I was thinking of.”
The exchange was so stiff and forced it made me want to cry. We were both trying to pretend everything was okay but failing miserably. Nothing was okay. Kellan was at death’s door, Andrew was still after us, we were hundreds of miles from home, and it was entirely possible that even if we did somehow manage to get back, it would only be to find our friends either dead or missing.
We lapsed into silence, staring at one another as we both contemplated the same things. What we’d been through and what we still might face, and what we could possibly do to stop the worst from happening. After a moment, I found it all too overwhelming to think about and rolled away from him so I could get to my feet.
“We should clean the wound since you’re awake.”
It wasn’t until I was moving across the room that I realized the other bed was empty, as was the bathroom when I reached it. Logan and Beth had fallen asleep long before I managed to get my brain to shut off, but they were gone now. I could only hope they were off trying to find some medicine for Kellan.
In the safety of the bathroom, I turned on the light and stood in front of the mirror, staring at my reflection. I looked ragged, as bad if not worse than Kellan. I’d cleaned my hands and arms yesterday, but that was all, and I hadn’t showered before falling asleep last night. Two days on the road as Andrew’s prisoner had taken its toll. Dark circles ringed my eyes, and my long, brown hair was greasy and stringy-looking and plastered to my head by dirt. That wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst part was the expression in my brown eyes. The fear and defeat.
I was in desperate need of a shower and change of clothes, but first I had to get Kellan situated. Once his wound was clean and he had everything he needed, I could focus on myself.
A stack of white towels was neatly folded on a shelf above the toilet—just like they would have been before the apocalypse. I pulled a fresh washcloth off the top of the stack and turned the water on.
Kellan’s eyes were closed when I went back into the bedroom, but they opened at the sound of my approach. Despite my half-assed attempt to clean him up the night before, he was still filthy from the events of the last few days, but I wasn’t under any delusion that he’d have the energy to shower. A bath he might be able to pull off.
“We should get all of you clean,” I said, sitting beside him on the bed.
“Are you offering to give me a sponge bath?” he asked, forcing out a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “At least I’ll die happy.”
My throat threatened to close.
“Don’t say that,” I said in a low voice, having to force the words out. “Don’t even joke about it.”
Kellan’s smile faded. “I want you to be prepared for what might happen, Regan.”
“By making jokes?” I refused to meet his gaze, instead focusing on unwinding the bandages Caroline had put on the night before. “I don’t see how that’s going to do any good.”
He didn’t respond, which I was fine with, and we were both silent as I discarded the old bandages and began cleaning the wound.
Caroline had left some supplies—fresh bandages and alcohol—and in no time, the injury was clean and once again patched up. But I was still too shaken to look Kellan in the eye, let alone talk to him, so I got to my feet.
“I’m going to find Logan and Beth. See if I can get us some fresh clothes so we can get cleaned up.” I didn’t glance his way before heading to the door.
“Regan,” he said before I’d made it all the way across the room.
I stopped but had to force myself to look back at him.
“I’m sorry.” His expression was sincere. Repentant. “I shouldn’t have said it.”
“No,” I replied. “You shouldn’t have.”
He didn’t say anything else before I left.
Every light in the other room was on when I stepped out. Logan, Beth, Juliet, and Ash sat around the small table in the kitchenette while Hickory lounged on the pullout bed. Beside him, Alex sat in a chair, cleaning a disassembled gun.
“You’re awake,” Logan said when he saw me.
“I cleaned Kellan’s wound again, and it made me realize we could use some cleaning up as well.” I waved to my filthy clothes.
“I can help with that.” Beth stood, the legs of her chair scraping the floor when she pushed it back. “There’s a little market set up downstairs. Nothing big, but it will get us what we need.”
Logan got to his feet as well, groaning the same way he had when he’d dragged himself off the bench in the truck. “I’ll join you.”
The hall wasn’t empty the way it had been the night before, and it wasn’t quiet either. Talking, laughing, and even some music filled the air, and we passed open doors that revealed rooms brimming with life. Previously stiff and informal hotel rooms had been transformed into apartments, complete with personal items like brightly colored chairs that must have been dragged in from other places, posters of long dead celebrities hanging on walls, potted plants and flowers, and even pictures. I peeked through one open door to find toy blocks littering the floor with more visible on the other side of the room, while next to the couch—which had been covered in a Winnie the Pooh blanket
—sat a playpen. A sleeping child was curled up inside, nothing but a mass of black curls visible from beneath a pink blanket.
“Looks like a nice place to live,” I said as we walked.
“It is.” Beth nodded, her focus on me. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I asked, not totally sure what she was asking.
“We didn’t even get a chance to ask where you were from last night. Do you live in a settlement like this, or is it just you and Kellan?”
“No,” I said, “it’s not just us. We live with other people in a settlement of sorts, just not a big one like this. In Oklahoma.”
Logan’s eyebrows lifted, and he shook his head. “Wow. No wonder we lost track of Andrew. Oklahoma?”
“Sounds hot,” Beth piped in.
An involuntary laugh broke out of me. “It is. Believe me.”
“But it’s where you’re from, right?” Beth nodded. “I get it. If Logan wasn’t immune, I don’t think we would have left home either.”
“Where was home for you two?” I asked as we walked.
Only half of my attention was on her as I strained to get a glimpse into the other rooms we passed. People saw me looking from time to time and waved, not the least bit upset by my nosiness. They were probably used to it.
“Northern Indiana,” Beth replied, and Logan added, “Warsaw, to be exact.”
Mentally, I tried to conjure up an image of what the United States had looked like before the virus, trying to place Indiana. It wasn’t easy. I was only twelve back then, and while we’d studied geography, remembering where the other states were located hadn’t really been on my list of priorities after all hell broke loose. I was pretty sure it was north of where we were now, though.
“I’ve never been to Indiana,” I said instead of pointing out my ignorance.
Beth gave an unconcerned shrug. “I doubt we’ll ever go back.”
Logan said nothing.
We reached the end of the hall and headed down, our footsteps echoing through the stairwell the same way they had the night before, and just like upstairs, the lobby was no longer empty and quiet, but instead bursting with activity when we reached it. People sat around tables talking or playing games, or lounged on couches reading, making me feel even more like I’d been pulled into the past.
Beth and Logan didn’t comment on anything as they led me deeper into the building, and when we reached a conference room, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to discover it had been converted into a trading post. It was smaller than the one at Quartz Mountain, but just one glance around the room told me all the basics were available.
“There’s a settlement in an old hotel back home that has a similar trading post,” I said as I followed Logan through the crowd.
“It’s pretty common, actually,” Beth said from behind me. “A lot of people settled in hotels so they could stay close together. It’s easier to fortify and defend, and it already has beds.”
“True,” I replied, nodding.
“It’s also a lot easier building a wall around a hotel than it is part of a city,” Logan added.
He had a point. Unless you found a place like downtown Altus, which was set up in a square, fortifying a few city blocks was going to be a lot more difficult. Plus, you could fit a lot of people in a hotel without having to worry about converting buildings into living spaces.
We stopped in front of a table full of neatly stacked clothes where men’s, women’s, and even kids’ clothing were folded and organized by size, but it wasn’t until I picked up a t-shirt bearing the logo of some long forgotten business that I realized I had no way to pay for anything.
I put the shirt back. Why hadn’t it occurred to me before? “I have nothing to trade.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Logan said with a wave of his hand. “We’ll take care of payment.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.” I turned to face him and Beth. “You’ve already risked your lives for us, and you’re paying for the room. This is too much.”
And the medicine, I realized, but said nothing about it. I could refuse clean clothes, but the antibiotic was something I wouldn’t turn down.
“It’s not a big deal.”
Logan set his bag on the table and pulled it open, revealing a menagerie of items, from batteries—still in the package and sealed—to candles and matches and flashlights. I even spotted a couple chocolate bars in there, which blew my mind. I hadn’t seen chocolate in more than seven years.
“We do this all the time,” Beth said when I still didn’t respond. “We know the people we save are going to have nothing, but we do it anyway. Do you think Ash could contribute anything when we rescued him?”
Logan let out a snort. “He still can’t.”
“Be nice,” Beth said, jamming her elbow into his side. “He looks up to you so much.”
Logan rolled his eyes but grinned.
I exhaled, feeling more than a little guilty even as I reached for the shirt once again, holding it up so I could decide if it would fit Kellan. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Good,” Beth said.
Logan passed her the bag, saying, “I’m going to settle up for the room since we’re down here. Meet you in the lobby.”
“It’s a date.” Beth lifted herself on her toes so she could kiss his cheek as I turned back to the table.
It didn’t take long to find things that would work for Kellan and me. Pants and shirts and socks, and even some boxers for him. I’d have to wash my underwear in the sink, it looked like, but at least they’d be clean—or cleaner. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, and right now Kellan and I were as close to being beggars as we’d been since the day Jasper and Cade rescued us.
Beth didn’t even bother to haggle with the woman at the booth when she demanded two flashlights for the haul, and once we’d made the trade, the two of us headed back through the room. I eyed the booths we passed, curious what these people had. It was interesting to find a few electronic devices mixed in. E-readers, cell phones, and iPads, which seemed pretty useless to me.
Then again, these people did have electricity. They wouldn’t be able to download anything new since Wi-Fi was a thing of the past, but any games, books, movies, or music on the devices would still be useable.
I stopped at a booth and picked up a rose gold iPad, flicking my finger across the screen so it opened. The face of a young girl—probably no older than five—smiled up at me. She had her pointer fingers jammed in her mouth, pulling it wide to reveal the hole where her two front teeth should have been. Seeing her made me freeze, all thoughts about music and movies forgotten. Instead, I touched the little icon that I knew would pull up any pictures loaded onto the device and flipped through them. Most were of the girl, but there were others as well. A blonde woman whose blue eyes were a carbon copy of the child’s, and a man with dimples in his cheeks and freckles on his nose. No matter where the pictures had been taken—in the living room of their house, at the lake, at a playground—the family was smiling, their happiness forever frozen and now held prisoner within this device.
“Sad, isn’t it?” Beth said, watching me scroll through the pictures.
“Nine years, and it doesn’t get easier.” I turned the iPad off and set it back on the table. “Probably because losing people is still a constant threat. I mean, if it isn’t zombies, it’s something else. Assholes or illness. Hell, there’s even starvation.”
I turned my back to the table and started walking, Beth at my side.
“You guys do okay where you are?” she asked. “I don’t know a lot about Oklahoma, but isn’t it kind of sandy?”
“Yeah, it can be, but there’s farmland, too. Of course, the main crop used to be cotton.” I snorted. “Not exactly edible.”
“Nope, but one of these days we might need it again. You know, once all the old clothes get too worn out to repurpose.”
“True,” I murmured, wondering if there was anyone left alive who even knew how to turn those
little tufts of white into fabric.
“What do you guys do for food mostly?” she asked when I said nothing else.
I’d purposely avoided the question before, not wanting to go into too much detail about where we lived. Kellan and I might have owed these people our lives, but that didn’t mean I was ready to risk everyone and everything I had by trusting them completely. The shelter had to stay a secret.
“We hunt and fish mostly, but we have a garden, too,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “What we can’t do for ourselves, we trade for in the nearby settlements.”
“They sound big.”
“They are.” I looked around. “Bigger than this, that’s for sure.”
“But you don’t live there?” Beth asked.
“We’re comfortable where we are. It’s more secluded.”
She was watching me, frowning like she was trying to figure something out, and the hair on my scalp prickled under her scrutiny. Hopefully it was just curiosity and she wasn’t digging for information, because not only did I want to trust these people, I needed them, too.
We stopped when we reached the lobby, standing side by side in silence as we searched for Logan. It only took a couple seconds to spot him on the other side of room where he was deep in conversation, talking to a man in a dark jacket who had a shotgun slung over his shoulder.
“He looks upset,” I said when Logan’s mouth scrunched up.
“Something’s wrong.” Beth headed his way.
I rushed after her.
“Let me know if anything else happens, will you?” he was saying when we walked up.
“I will,” the other man replied.
“Thanks.” Logan looked away from him at our approach, still not smiling. “You get what you need?”
I patted the clothes in my arms. “All set.”
“Good.” His eyes darted around like he was worried. “Let’s get back to the room.”
He was walking fast when he grabbed Beth’s hand, and I had to hurry to keep up.
“What was that about?” Beth asked as he pulled her toward the stairs.
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 61