“Hi,” I answer when she spots me. I hold out the medicine that I found. “I don’t know what’s wrong with your sister, but you can’t go wrong with antibiotics and pain pills.”
“Thank you so much!” She rushes forward and quickly takes the medicine out of my outstretched hands. “We have no idea what's wrong with her. She complained about being tired, but we’re always tired. Then the other day she collapsed! She has a fever that keeps going up. You can feel it pouring from her in waves.”
Ravi entered the room while she was talking. He’s a tall man of Indian descent, a slender build similar to Ashton’s. His appearance isn't any better than Sarah’s. He has a scowl on his face as he takes in my appearance.
“How do we know you aren’t a Bandit? You look clean and well-fed. Nothing like us,” Ravi states.
Sarah shoots Ravi a look and opens her mouth with a retort when I raise my hand, letting her know I don’t mind answering his questions. He’s right to be suspicious of me. Because I’m suspicious of them. “I’m not a Bandit. My friends and I are traveling to the launch pad, trying to get off of this God forsaken planet. We find places to sleep, anywhere we can get, really. Lately we’ve been lucky with finding apartments or homes to stay in, and most of them have canned food and water filters.”
“You have food?” Sarah asks eagerly. I grimace as I look at her petite frame, knowing that she hasn’t had any food in a while. She and Ravi look like they’d blow away in the wind if it was strong enough. I can’t offer her the food that we have, since there are so many of us, but I can’t turn my back on them either.
“Yes, but we have to ration it between six of us,” I respond, watching as her face becomes dejected.
“In other words, none for us,” Ravi sneers.
“Listen, we don’t owe you shit,” I spat. “We fought for everything we have, nothing was given to us. So sorry if I don’t want to take food out of my family’s mouth to appease a fucking stranger.”
“He’s sorry,” Sarah jumps in. “He’s hungry and tired and we have to get back to my sister. She’s left alone, and anything could be happening to her. Thank you so much for all of your help.” She tugs at Ravi’s hands, leading him back towards the front.
The smart thing to do would be to let them go. We can’t afford to have any more people tagging along. Especially with Ravi’s attitude. But looking at Sarah’s form, I know that they won’t last much longer.
“Where are you guys staying?” I ask before I can talk myself out of it.
“Why?” Ravi quips.
“We’re staying a few blocks down the street. Behind a dumpster,” Sarah answers.
“Why didn’t you guys try to get an apartment or go inside a store like this?” I ask.
“Because those are unnecessary risks. We’re much safer if we keep our heads down and keep pushing forward,” Ravi answers, his tone taking on a superior lilt.
“Safer huh? Is that why you’re falling out from exhaustion and look like you haven’t eaten in weeks?”
“Listen, bit-”
“You’re right. We’re playing it scared and it’s costing us,” Sarah says.
I sigh, knowing that I’m going to regret this, but in no way can I leave Sarah and her sister to suffer simply because Ravi is a raging dick.
“Would you guys like to stay the night with me and my friends?” I ask, heart pounding because if they say yes then that means that I have to push my plans to find Derrick until tomorrow.
I can see that Ravi was beginning to object when Sarah shot forward and enveloped me in a hug. I instantly stiffen, ready to choke her out if she made any wrong moves, when I feel her sob against my neck. “Thank you,” she whispers. I awkwardly pat her on the back before stepping out of her embrace.
I clear my throat before asking them to show me where they stashed her sister. I advise that we leave out of the back door instead of the front and we set off. The walk to their little hideout was quiet and tense. Partially because we could get ambushed at any moment, but mainly because Ravi’s attitude really pisses me off.
After walking for ten minutes, thankfully back in the same direction as our apartment, we finally come along the dumpster. I’m looking around for her sister when I notice that there are a pair of worn out sneakers peeking from underneath a pile of cardboard boxes. Sarah gently walks over to the pile and move them to reveal a really beautiful girl. She and Sarah share the same skin tone and haircut, but that’s where the similarities end. Her tall, lean build lends itself to a more athletic frame. She could probably give me a run for my money in a basketball game.
“She’s still breathing, but it’s faint,” Sarah whispers, voice catching on the word ‘faint’.
“Ravi and I can carry her if you can carry all of the medicine.”
She nods her head while wiping tears from her face. I really fucking hope we can save her sister. I’m tired of good people dying.
The walk back to the apartment is slow and torturous. Her sister’s dead weight is actually a lot more than I would have pegged. We struggle a little bit as we were carrying her up the steps. “Hold on,” I say to Ravi. He gives me a curious look, wondering what I’m doing. I turn back to the door and knock on it four times really fast, pause, three more times, and then six times before I opened it. Brian and I decided on this code if we had to come back in before our shift was up.
Brian was just sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He’s only been asleep for about three hours, and that’s after staying up for most of the day. I saw the moment he noticed that I didn’t come alone. He hops up from the couch in a defensive stance. “Kiani, you mind explaining who these people are?” he asks as we walk inside.
Ravi and I gently lay Sarah’s sister down on the couch. I go back to the door to make sure that it’s locked up before turning to my confused friend. “Well, I actually have no idea. Sarah, care to share?”
17
Kiani
Sarah looks down at the carpet before taking a deep breath and looking Brian and I in our eyes.
“My name is Sarah, that’s Ravi and that’s my little sister, Aida. Ravi and I have been together since we were in high school. We were planning on getting married when the world began to end. Aida’s and my parents died in a car accident and Ravi, well, that’s his story to tell if he feels like it’s needed. We’ve been slowly making our way towards the launch point as well. And when I say slowly, I mean barely moving. We only travel at night and we haven’t really been eating. I can’t tell you how long we’ve been walking, but it feels like it’s been years since we were able to sit and talk like this without being terrified.”
Sarah finishes her story and slowly sink down into one of the chairs. Brian looks at me, wondering what any of that have to do with why I brought these strangers into our sanctuary, potentially putting everyone at risk.
“Aida, her sister, is really sick. I ran into them while I was out looking for medicine for Ash. They told me how they’ve been surviving, and it would be criminal of me to leave them out there with Aida so sick.”
“Wait, you were out doing what?! By yourself?!” Brian exclaims.
Oops. “I remembered a drug that I saw on TV that helps with concussions. I was already deep into my watch when I remembered, and I didn’t want to wake you up.” Shit, the note. “Brian, can you go and get Christine so she can look at Aida? I'll grab them some water.”
Brian gives me a look that promises an argument later as he stomps off to retrieve Christine. I rush to the kitchen and grab the note from the table, stuffing it in my jean pocket. I grab two cups and fill them up with the purified water. I hesitate before grabbing the leftover food and heating it up as well. Now is not the time to be stingy, no matter how much I want to keep Christine’s food all to ourselves.
I walk into the living room to see a sleepy Christine standing over Aida. “This is not how I envisioned the night going,” she deadpans.
“Sorry girl. I grabbed a shit ton of medicine for
Ashlynn, so you can rifle through them after you finish checking on Aida,” I respond. She looks at me from the corner of her eyes but doesn’t say anything. I walk over to Ravi and Sarah and extend the lone plate of food and the two cups. They try not to chug and devour the food and water, but their cups are empty within thirty seconds and the food didn’t stand much chance either. I grab their cups and refill them before handing them off and plunking myself down on the floor.
The silence falls onto us like a wet quilt, heavy and imposing. We’re all quiet as Christine goes through the bags, looking closely at every bottle, putting them in different piles. She stares at a bottle before quirking her eyebrow and looking at me with a funny look on her face. “What?” I ask.
“So, you have any issues I need to know about?” she slyly asks.
“Huh? What are you talking about?!”
“You grabbed about five bottles that help with constipation or irritable bowel syndrome. Something going on in your stomach that we should know about?”
I felt my face grow warm, but thankfully they wouldn’t see that I’m blushing. “I grabbed whatever I could get my hands on, didn’t know what I put in those bags. Who knows, maybe one of us are struggling to shit out the little bit of food we’ve managed to get,” I joke back, trying to hide my discomfort. To be honest, I have been having problems shitting. I’ll have to get my hands on those pills without anyone knowing.
“Mhmmm,” she replies before turning to face Sarah. “Has your sister woken up at all since she passed out?”
“She comes too, but not for long. The longest she stayed awake was for maybe ten minutes, but that was nearly a full day ago.”
“Shit. Ki go in the kitchen and search for some soup or something soup-like. We have to get something on her stomach before we can give her any kind of medicine. If we give her this medicine on an empty stomach, it’ll just make her even more sick.”
I hop off of the floor and head into the kitchen, with an angry Brian trailing behind me. He’s quiet as I sift through the cabinets. The silence lingers as I find some chicken noodle soup. I begin to look for a can opener when he hands me one. I nod my head in thanks and start opening the can before I look for a pot or bowl I can make it in. “Here,” Brian says. “Use this bowl and the microwave, I’m sure she wouldn’t care if it was cold, never mind whether you used the stove or not.”
I grab the bowl without looking him in the eyes. I’m not a coward or anything, I just honestly don’t feel like arguing. I don’t know when it changed, but I can feel something growing between Brian and I and I don’t know exactly what it is, but I don’t have the energy to explore it. Shit, I have no desire to explore it. Right?
I put the soup in the microwave for four minutes and I just stare at it as if it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever seen in my life. “Dammit, Ki!” Brian turns me around and box me against the counter within his arms. We’re so close, I can see the flecks of gold within his eyes. “What were you doing out there by yourself? Anything could have happened to you. Why didn’t you wake me up, be honest?”
I swallow the mouthful of spit I’ve accumulated during his speech and proceeded to tell him the truth; well, most of it. “When Christine gave us the verdict on Ashlynn’s health, and I was thinking in the chair, I remembered reading or seeing something about a treatment that helps speed up the healing process for concussions. I decided that I’d go look for a pharmacy or stores that could possibly have the medicine. I’ve already put everyone in danger on my quest to get Derrick back, I didn’t feel as though it was necessary to get anyone else involved.”
“Is that all? You weren’t out trying to go and find Derrick on your own?” My heart begins to hammer as his eyes stare hard into mine, as if he’s trying to will the answers out of me. Too bad for him, I’m not that easily intimidated.
“That’s all. I’m not going to leave you guys vulnerable when Ashlynn is in such a critical position.”
“And after you know she’ll pull through, then what? What will you do then?”
The microwave timer went off at that moment, saving me from having to flat out tell him what I’m going to do. I know he cares, but this doesn’t have anything to do with him. I turn around and grab the bowl. I shove Brian out of my way, making sure to fill up a cup of water and retrieve a spoon before exiting to the kitchen.
I walk into the living room to see Christine propping up a still unconscious Aida. Sarah is standing beside her with a damp rag hanging from her hands. “Any luck waking her up?” I ask.
“None. We started wiping her face with the rag, hoping it’ll stir her to the surface, but no such luck,” Christine answers.
Now, I don’t know if my next action could be blamed on the fact that I’m stressed out, but hell, I’m tired of sitting around and waiting for shit to happen. I place the soup on the coffee table and turn towards Christine and Aida. I put my hand on Christine’s shoulder, promptly moving her to the side while I use my other hand to dash the water onto Aida’s face. Aida gasps for breath as Ravi grabs me and put me in a headlock. He’s lucky I knew he was going to do something like that, or he’d have a broken appendage right now.
“Are you insane?!” screeched Sarah. Great, I’m sure she woke up the entire neighborhood with that banshee scream. Brian and Christine look completely unphased by my actions. I don’t know if that should attest to their poker faces, or if they’re not surprised by me practically cup-drowning an unconscious stranger. I’m hoping it’s the first option.
“We don’t have time to sit around and hope your sister wakes up before whatever she has kills her. Unless you were willing to take that risk?” I retort. Sarah crouches down so that she’s leveled with her sister’s head while deciding not to answer my rhetorical question. “Thought so,” I mumble. “Ravi, as much as I enjoy being held in your embrace, you can let me go now.” He tightens his hold on me for a second before releasing me, as if in warning. Jokes on his dumbass, I get choked by men twice as strong and twice as crazy as him on almost a daily basis.
I walk over to Aida and examine her face. She’s still out of it with her fever, but at least her eyes are open; albeit unfocused, but they’re open. She has the same brown eyes as her sister, though her left eye seems to have a splash of green in the top right corner. That’s odd. Her and Christine can both freak me out now.
“Aida are you aware of where you are?” I ask, trying to pinpoint how lucid she is. Her head lolls to the left, but I can’t really say if that was an answer or not. “Can you swallow if we feed you some soup? Blink if ‘yes’, continue to stare vacantly into space like you’re doing now if ‘no’.” Someone whacks me in the back of my head, but I didn’t miss the two slow blinks that Aida granted us.
I stand, making room for Sarah as she positions herself on the edge of the sofa. She starts to slowly feed her sister the soup, making sure that she doesn’t choke on each spoonful. She’s halfway through with the bowl when Isaiah and Ashton walk into the room. I kind of hoped they were going to be able to sleep through Sarah’s wail, seeing as we’re all running off of little to no sleep, but some wishes are just too big it seems.
I motion for Brian to take them into the kitchen and explain what’s going on, no need to rehash it so many times when I have other people to retell the story on how I came upon this sad group. Christine begins to dry Aida with a towel, she must have slipped out when I was questioning Aida. Speaking of, Aida drops her head back against the armrest after Sarah finishes feeding her. Her breathing is labored, and I could see her clothes sticking to her frame.
“Quickly, someone give her the medicine before she passes back out!” I order. Christine responds instantly, turning around and popping lids off of bottles and pouring pills in her hands.
“We need water,” she says in a leveled voice.
“Shit, yeah, my bad,” I turn around to go fetch some more water, but Isaiah was already standing in front of me with a glass full. “Thank you,” I say as I ruffle his silky curls.
I hand the water off to Christine and watch as she coaxes Aida to swallow the pills and the water. That last action must have sucked the remainder of her strength out of her, because she immediately passed out into a deep sleep.
“Ashton, can you make your sister some soup and get her to take these pills as well? One is for pain, one is for her concussion and the other is for potential infections,” I say.
He nods before reaching out towards me. I thought he was going to take the bottles from me, but instead he pulled me into a tight hug. “Thank you,” he says into my hair. “I know how much you dislike my sister, and I don’t care for the reason behind you getting this for her, but thank you.” He kisses my forehead before turning around and walking back into the kitchen with the pills in his hand.
My throat tightens up with emotion, trying to remember the last time someone was that vulnerable with me. I clear my throat before finding a spot on the floor to sit again. My body feels like it’s being weighed down by every problem that ever existed in this world. I wish I could crawl under a nice blanket and just sleep for months, but I can’t. Things must be decided; mainly, what are we going to do with our new arrivals.
“Where were you guys heading once you got through this city?” I ask, looking at Sarah since I already know I don’t like talking to Ravi.
“We were going to go through to the top of Kansas and continue to head North until we can’t anymore,” fucking Ravi answered.
“And then what?” I ask Sarah. “Swim to Russia?”
“We haven’t gotten that far yet,” she sheepishly answers me.
Kiani’s Journey- Mayhem Page 12
