I cleaned and bandaged many injuries that came in throughout the day, people still streaming up from Vegas. At some point I looked over and saw Julian working at my side. I don’t know when he arrived; we were both so busy. Around three o’clock he handed me one of those sawdust Ebola bars. I gave him a rueful grin before I forced it down with a bottle of water. My stomach churned like it had that morning, as if water were the enemy. I noticed Julian grimace as he drank his too.
He cracked his neck and made a free shot at the waste basket.
“Score,” said a familiar, sweet voice behind me.
My head swung fast enough to give me whiplash and I leaped to my feet.
“Remy!” I had one second to notice how rough she looked before I flew into her arms. We rocked back and forth, both laughing with exhilaration.
“I was hoping I’d find you here.” She sounded exhausted. “I had a breakdown when I saw the hospital, until I caught sight of all the people over here.”
I pulled back and looked her over. She’d definitely been crying. “Are you okay? Any injuries?” Other than the greasy ponytail and bags under her mascara-less eyes, she looked whole.
“Just tired.”
“Please . . .” My heart banged hard. “Please tell me you haven’t been drinking any tap water.”
“No, I haven’t. I promise. I had an entire new case of water in my dorm room and that was the first thing I threw in my car when I was able to get the hell out of there.”
Julian sidled up next to me. Remy ran a hand over her ponytail and gave him the once-over.
“Julian, right? I outdrank you at that party.”
“Ha, yeah, you wish. I remember your ridiculous fake ID.”
She made duck lips. “I remember you threatened to turn me in.”
He laughed. “I thought you were gonna cry. I didn’t think you’d believe me!”
I nearly rolled my eyes at his dimple-cheeked grin and their flirty manner. Not the time or place. But then again, it was kind of nice to see something happy amidst the shit storm.
“So much has happened,” I said. “Have you talked to your parents yet?”
“No, I was stopping at the hospital to see you since it was on my way home. I’m going there next.”
As much as I selfishly wanted to keep her there with me, I knew I needed to urge her to go home, to put her parents’ minds at ease and tell them about the Red Virus.
“All right, I’ll go now,” she said once she’d seen a gurney go by with a red-whelped arm dangling down from beneath the sheet. “But just in case I don’t see you for a while. Tell me real quick, is your family okay?”
“Yes. They’re all okay. My dad got through to Tater’s command a couple days ago and he’s okay too.”
“Tell her about Rylen,” Julian said.
I flashed him a deadly look as my stomach swooped. I didn’t want to talk about Ry. “That’s a story for another time.”
“No way,” she said. “Tell me. He’s not . . . dead, is he?” Her face paled.
“No!” My stomach soured. “I’ll come by your house in the morning.”
“Don’t you dare make me wait. I have to go. Tell me!”
“He married some Guatemalan chick,” Julian blurted.
“Julian!” I rounded on him and punched his arm.
“What?!” Remy shouted. “He’s married?”
A woman with a tear-streaked face jumped and glared at us as she passed. I grabbed Remy’s arm and pulled her further into the room.
“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice flat and face emotionless. “It’s . . . whatever. He eloped.”
Remy stared at me, mouth gaping, searching my face, before her eyes drooped. “I’m so sorry, Amb.”
“It’s really nothing in comparison with all of this.” I waved an arm, thought it still didn’t feel like nothing.
“I know, but still. I’m sorry.” She hugged me, and I hugged her back.
“I really will try to visit in the morning, okay?” I said. “We’ll talk more then.”
“Okay.” Her voice sounded sad, like she’d been the one to lose the man of her dreams. I guess that’s how friendship was. You couldn’t help but hurt for each other.
I felt slightly lighter after she left, just knowing she was okay and out of Vegas. Hunger hit me, so I went to the vending machine, which someone had busted open, and got the last bag of chips. I felt like crap, physically. My body craved fruits and vegetables, things I’d taken for granted before.
Just as I finished my unhealthy snack, a freaking bus full of old people from Vegas came stumbling in, looking like they’d climbed through rubble to get here. Julian and I raced over to help them in.
The day went by in a blur, just as the day before had. I lost track of time until it was pitch dark out and the wave of injured people waned. Julian left and I sat against the wall in our main room, staring at the felt wall calendar with apples on the pocket of each day. It had been a first grade room. The tiny desks were now shoved into a corner, piled high. I closed my eyes.
“Hey, Pepper.”
My heavy eyes peeled open. Rylen was crouched a couple feet from me.
I sat up. “How is your dad?”
“Actually, he took a little bit of a turn this afternoon. Opened his eyes, said a few words, drank some tea and broth. He’s a strong bastard.”
“That’s awesome!” A tiny bloom of hope sprang to life. Would Len be one of the twelve percent who could pull through this?
I stood up, wanting to get home.
As we passed the office, three DRI personnel were rushing in with boxes. The woman who’d given us the insensitive breakdown of Red Virus earlier looked at me.
“We have vaccinations. Get yours before you leave, please.”
I shared a bright look with Rylen and we followed them in. This was good.
We went into what was once the nurse’s office, and I was directed to sit on the hospital bed, while Rylen took a chair that looked way too small for him.
“Just a few questions first,” said the woman. “Amber Tate, correct?”
“Yes.” She took my address, social security number, and some other basic medical information.
“Is this your husband?” she asked.
My face flushed with heat. “Uh, no. He’s a friend.”
She looked at him. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside —”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t have any secrets from him. He’s like family.” Ry crossed his arms and relaxed back into his chair, giving me a tired grin.
“Have it your way.” She peered down at her clipboard. “Now, what is the breakdown of your race?”
I told her and she scribbled something and cocked her head, smiling. “I’m curious, Amber. Being of mixed-race, do you find yourself mostly attracted to Hispanic men, white men, or men of a different race?”
“Um.” I almost laughed. She said it like it was friendly conversation, but it felt so . . . stiff and clinical. What a weirdly inappropriate question to ask. “I don’t know.” My gaze darted to Rylen, who was staring at the blank wall in front of him, but by the quirk of his lips he was definitely listening. I should have let him be kicked out of the room. “Why do you need to know that?”
She saw me looking at him and turned to peer at him a moment too. He nodded politely at her, but seemed to stiffen under her gaze. She turned back to me.
“Answer the question, please.”
I squirmed. “Is this an official question that I have to answer to get a vaccine? Because, not to be rude, but it’s really none of anyone’s business who I’m attracted to.”
The woman’s face tensed with seeming anger.
“It is the government’s business.”
I felt my anger rising up against hers. “No, actually, it’s not.”
She stared hard, and this time when she spoke, her voice took on a lyrically sharp quality that made my tension turn to mush.
“A
nswer the question.”
She held my eyes and a fuzzy feeling overcame me, making me forget why I’d been upset as all of my tension shed away. I had no idea why the question had bothered me. It was no big deal. This lady was super friendly, just making casual conversation.
“I’ve been attracted to Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American boys in the past, but it’s mostly a Caucasian boy—man—who I’ve liked the longest.”
At her tight smile, my ease morphed back into unease. I felt weird, dizzy for a second, but it passed. And then my words came crashing down on me. What the hell? I could not believe I’d just said that in front of Rylen! A wave of heat slammed me, the flame of embarrassment. Because seriously, why had I told her that? My eyes flicked to him again, and though he still stared at the wall ahead of him, I could definitely read the amused disbelief in the set of his eyes and lips.
The woman jotted more notes and then opened a sterilized needle package. She chose a tiny vile and tipped it up, sucking the vaccine into the syringe. Still shaken and confused, I pulled the sleeve of my shirt up to reveal my upper arm and shoulder.
“Side effects are nausea and cramping.” She injected the vaccine, and I pressed my lips together at the sting. My arm heated. I lay a hand over the spot as the woman threw out the needle.
“You’re all finished,” she said to me, then looked at Ry. “Ready?”
“Wait,” I said. “Can I get a few of these to take to my family?”
“No, these have to be administered by DRI. All local clinics will have vaccines by tomorrow.”
“His father is infected,” I said. “I don’t think he can make it to the clinic. I could administer it—”
“If he is infected, the vaccine will do no good.” She looked at Rylen again, and I took that as my cue to wait outside of the door. I slid down and stepped out, but left the door open.
I listened as she asked him all of the usual medical questions. Then she got to, “Are you married or single?”
“Uh . . . engaged, technically.”
Engaged. Wow, that sounded so much better than married. I frowned at my thoughts.
“Congratulations,” the woman said flatly. “And what is your fiancé’s ethnicity?”
What the actual hell. Why did she keep asking race questions?
“Yeah, see, I agree with Amber on this,” Rylen said. “I don’t see what it has to do with getting a vaccine.” His voice was hard. Again, the woman used a casual, lyrical tone that seemed to calm my heart.
“Answer the question, sir.”
He paused for a long time. I waited, expecting him to tell her off where I had failed, but instead he said, “She’s Guatemalan.”
My eyes flew wide.
“Ah, how nice.” I heard her unwrapping a needle and the tinkling of her grabbing a vial. “And do the two of you plan to have children together?”
If possible, my eyes widened even further. And then it was as if a bomb dropped directly on top of my head . . .
“She’s pregnant now.” He said it quietly, and I knew it wasn’t meant for my ears.
I leaned heavily against the wall, my knees becoming almost too weak to hold me. A prickle shot up my body, from my heels up to the top of my head. I had to close my eyes.
“Lovely,” murmured the woman. “Be sure she tells the Disaster Relief Initiative administrator when she goes to get her vaccine.”
Pregnant. Livia was going to have a baby. Rylen’s baby. Ry was going to be a dad. I felt like my body was breaking down into a pile of dried particles on the floor.
Half a minute later, he was walking out, that deep crease between his eyes again. We walked to his truck in silence. I was in a daze.
“I don’t like her,” he said.
“Me either.” I wanted to ask him why he’d given in, but I felt so ashamed and weirded out about what I’d blurted that I didn’t want to bring it up. We climbed in.
“Hungry?” Rylen started the truck and held out an apple.
I took it. He watched as I managed a small bite. The burst of fresh fruit on my tongue cleared my mind. It was so perfect that I took another bite, much bigger this time.
“So . . . who’s this white guy?”
I sucked apple juice down into my lungs when I gasped, and then bent over to cough like I was dying. Rylen patted my back hard, chuckling.
“I’m just messing with you,” he said. “That was weird as hell. I thought you were going to kick her ass.”
I finally stopped coughing, but my face was still hot.
“I should’ve,” I admitted. “I think I was too tired to fight it or something. I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” he said.
I took another bite. I usually couldn’t eat when I was upset, but my body overrode its usual starvation-sadness protocol. Once I polished off the entire thing, only leaving a thin strip of core, I said, “Thank you for coming to get me.”
“No problem,” said the soon-to-be-father. I wondered when he planned to tell us. This news felt so much bigger than him getting married. I hated myself for not being able to be happy for him. He deserved my support, and I wanted to give it, but damn it. It hurt so bad.
I rolled down the window and chucked the core as hard as I could into the dirt field. I left the window down and stared up at the bright stars as the air whipped my hair and the loud woosh drowned out all thoughts.
I’m not sure what time it was when the cramps began, but my room was still pitch-black. It was like the worst period cramps I’d ever experienced. I curled into a ball until the pain was unbearable, and then I grabbed my wastebasket, spitting up acidic apple before collapsing onto my bedroom floor.
So heavy. My face pressed into the carpet, body convulsing, arms wrapped around my middle. Curled up in a ball was the only position I could handle. At some point Mom and Dad were there, hovering over me, asking questions. I think I saw Abuela’s silhouette in my doorway. I wanted to ease their minds, but the pain . . . the pain was everything.
Oh, God, did I have the Red Virus? None of the victims I’d seen had reacted like this. Then I remembered the vaccine, and how she said I could have some cramping. If that’s what this was, she had vastly minimalized that side effect.
“Cramps,” I managed to whimper before I vomited again, this time only dry heaving.
I lay on the ground, curled up and moaning for hours. They put a hot compress to my belly, gave me ibuprofen, but none of it helped. I wondered if this was what labor felt like. Stabbing, twisting, sweating, stomach muscles shaking from the exertion of contracting. I felt like I’d run a marathon with a knife in my gut.
When the rising sun cast a hazy hue over my room, the pain finally began to ebb. Spent, I passed out in Mom’s lap. I felt her shift out from under me, putting a pillow under my head and covering me with my blanket. Voices murmured out in the hall, and my door opened. A heavy, large hand cupped my face, sliding my hair back.
“She’s not feverish, at least,” Rylen said softly.
“Yes, I took her temperature every twenty minutes,” Mom said. “It never got above ninety-nine, but she was in such pain.”
I forced my eyes to open and focus on their faces leaning over me.
“The shot,” I whispered.
Rylen slowly shook his head. “That could be it, but I haven’t had any of these side effects. I was gonna take Liv to get it this morning, but not if this might happen.”
“Let’s wait and see,” Mom said. She placed a hand on my hip. “You’re taking the day off, princesa. Like it or not.”
They left me, and my eyes drifted closed again.
When I woke the room was bright. A lingering thrum of discomfort resided in my lower abdomen and I was still nauseous, but I forced myself to stand. I clutched my stomach, slightly hunching, as I went out into the living room. Abuela held open her arms at the end of the couch and I went to her side, letting her hold me. The radio voice murmured on low as Grandpa looked me over from his recliner. Mom set a bowl of
canned raviolis in my lap.
“Can you stomach these?”
“Sure,” I said. I took a tentative bite and ate slowly. I hadn’t had canned pasta since I was a kid. They tasted much better to the younger me, but I wasn’t about to be picky. I slowed when my stomach cramped, stopping to give it time to pass, then continued and finished the bowl.
Dad came in the front door, shaking his head.
“What happened?” Mom asked.
He sat heavily in the recliner. “Well, I stopped by the power company to try and get an update. You’ll never believe what I found.”
“What?” Mom asked.
“Nothing. Nobody. There wasn’t a single employee.”
My forehead tightened. “That makes no sense. Maybe they’re all out working on the power lines or something.”
He shook his head. “No idea. You’d think if they were working to get power up and running for the town there’d be someone there.”
“What about Tater?” Mom asked. “Were you able to contact his base?”
Dad’s forehead scrunched. “Nobody is answering the telegraphs or the Morse code we sent through the lines. I tried contacts at several bases and got nothing. It could be that they’re all away from the base, working in nearby cities, but it’s unlikely they’d leave the comm lines unmanned. I’ll try again tomorrow.”
We all sat back, silent. I hoped everything was okay.
“How you feeling?” Dad asked me.
“Better.” I didn’t want to worry them about the residual pain. “I don’t know if it was some random bug or the shot they gave me, but it’s wearing off. I still think you guys should all get the vaccine. The Red Virus is . . .” I thought about all the bodies piled up behind the school by last night. “It’s worth a few hours of cramping.”
“Okay,” Mom said after a moment of hesitation. “We’ll go today.” She looked worried, probably anticipating an afternoon of pain.
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