Chapter 5
5
GAGE
I don’t like feeling helpless.
But I’d had few options.
Fighting the newcomers had been out of the picture, and I’d figured that their larger group might have been more helpful anyway. I’d been thinking in terms of opening the sealed-off room, but Thandie and I received so much more.
Formula.
Medicine.
Somewhere I could take Ari.
There was always the risk that the doctor wasn’t who she said she was, but to save Ari’s life, I was willing to take that risk. If push came to shove, I had zero qualms about annihilating their entire camp if they tried to hurt Ari and Thandie. With the world torn to shreds, it took with it an economic structure and legal system. This seemed to make people believe they were above the law and could do whatever they pleased, but they tended to fail to grasp that the same applied to me.
I fed Thandie and ate a can of tuna.
Then, I made a quick stop at the river to wipe her down with cool water. The baby wrap helped keep her safe, but being up against me caused her tiny rolls to collect sweat.
Renewed vigor and a darkening sky had us on pace to make it back to the camper in half the time it had taken to reach the clinic. With these, Ari had a chance. The last thing I needed was to get to her too late.
Thandie fell asleep as my mind continued to replay the doctor’s words:
“We have a camp. It’s north of here, at the Welcher Private College. It’s secure. I’m a doctor. I can help the baby, and I can help you, too, if you’re hurt. Ask for Tayler or Dr. D. Please...please come.”
Strangely, I found myself smiling, yet I doubted it had anything to do with the face I’d seen when I’d stepped farther into the light. It was simply because it had been a long time since we’d encountered kindness. Then, although the doctor had come wielding provisions, along with a face I could see as plainly as if she were standing in front of me, I had a hard time trusting it.
Ari had learned to use a gun, and we stayed armed like we were walking through a war zone every day—which we were, at times. With resources scarce, survival of the fittest was in full force. However, many people thought a man with a baby strapped to him wouldn’t put a blade through their throat or a bullet between their eyes.
Thandie made me more dangerous.
I didn’t have “nothing” to lose.
I had everything to lose.
With it being me, Ari, and Thandie, we were always mistaken for husband, wife, and child. Considering how cutthroat things had become, I saw no need to correct it. The state of the world had devolved. Ari’s safety was directly linked to the strength of her connection to me, and without Julien around, “sister” wasn’t nearly adequate enough to protect her.
I never had an issue with it.
I’d slept in the same bed, on an adjacent sleeping bag, or on the floor if there was only room for her and Thandie. At the moment, sex was low on my hierarchy of needs. I’d had no reason to shuck the “doting husband” pretense to get close to someone, but the doctor’s face was still prominent in my mind.
Sweat had dotted her brown skin, and full, slightly unruly brows outlined her eyes, reminding me of the sky right before a thunderstorm. She wore her hair in slim locs that fell past her shoulders, and in the second it had taken for her to look back when her crew called out, I’d scanned her from head to toe. Sex might have been low on the hierarchy, but that could change on a full stomach and with a roof over my head.
“Looks like it’s gonna storm, T,” I said, glancing up at the sky. “We set out on a good day. After some medicine and rest, Mum will be on the mend. I promise. Remember what I told you?”
Thandie’s dark, delicate eyelashes barely twitched. One day, when she was older, if I was around, I would tell her the story of how she slept her way through an apocalypse.
Hopefully, her father was still alive.
I’d been referring to Julien as “the kid” since the day we met, although he was only six years my junior. We’d served together in a Special Forces ghost unit so clandestine, Bigfoot would be found on Atlantis before our true identities were uncovered. It felt like a lifetime ago, although it had only been a couple of years since our contracts ended, and we made an attempt at returning to civilian life.
I’d served as the unit’s captain. Julien’s primary role had been the unit’s tech whiz. Dez Harding used to be my second in command, and Michael Huang, resident daredevil, was our aeronautics expert. Giorgio Pozza, we’d referred to as the “weapon” of our team, primarily since we’d all agreed that he was a high-functioning sociopath.
Perhaps psychopath.
Or some combination of both.
After our contracts ended, I went into commercial real estate. Julien created cybersecurity software he sold to the federal government for a price I was sure they’d had to tap into the Treasury to afford. The last time I talked to Dez, he’d gone into private security, his most recent client a federal prosecutor. Mike had gone into aerospace engineering, and the last I checked, Giorgio had, by now, no doubt negated the legal immunity we were granted upon the completion of our contracts.
A group like that was hard to kill.
Regardless of the size of the threat currently facing human civilization, either they were still walking around the planet or taking them out had been a hell of an undertaking.
When the camper came into view, hard raindrops pelleted us from the sky. I ran the rest of the way, shielding Thandie as best I could, and we burst inside just as the downpour began.
“Ari?” I called, unfolding the wrap and shifting Thandie to one arm. “Arihi?”
I entered the camper’s bedroom area to find it empty. There was no sign of a struggle to say that one of the Infected had made its way in, not that Ari would have had the strength to put up much of a fight. But the things were essentially brain-dead. Using tools, opening doors, and climbing stairs, as far as I knew, they couldn’t do.
I searched every inch of the camper, twice, like Ari would manifest out of thin air. By the time I finally accepted she wasn’t there, outside had turned into a blanket of darkness, squeezing out broad sheets of rain. Even if I’d wanted to go out and search for her, there was no way I could do so with a baby in tow until the rain let up.
I sat on the floor, my back pressed against a flimsy wall, and secured Thandie in the crook of my arm. “Think she got some energy and left to find us, baby girl?”
There was no way.
Ari could barely raise her arm.
“Honestly, sweetheart, had it not been for you and your mum, I don’t think I would have held on this long. I don’t like feeling helpless, and yet I’m forced to sit here, waiting, when your mum could be out there somewhere on the verge of death.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and switched Thandie to my shoulder. She wasn’t wailing or showing any visible signs of distress, yet I rocked her and gently patted her back.
“She’s all right, sweetheart.” I kissed the side of her head. “I promise you, she’s all right. Because I don’t know what I’d do with myself if she’s not.”