Chapter 8 #2
No one said anything, and Blake nearly screamed in frustration.
Instead, he shimmied his arm between Alvarez’s seat and the door, fingertips just barely scraping the door latch.
By some miracle, he hadn’t locked the door, and Blake got the handle to click open.
Ignoring Alvarez’s shout of protest, he shoved the door the rest of the way so he could get his door open.
He heard boots hitting the concrete behind him, but he didn’t stop to look back. He crunched over the broken glass, ducking through what was left of the glass doors.
It was gloomy inside. The watery afternoon light barely penetrated through the broken glass doors.
Blake blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust. As he did, a gloved hand grabbed his elbow and yanked him back.
Alvarez and Tyler stepped past him, crouched over their weapons as they walked further into the clinic.
The urgent care was one large space with a nurse’s station in the center, and several curtained-off zones that acted as treatment areas lining the walls.
Some of the curtains had been torn down, draped over beds and furniture.
Out of the corner of his eye, they looked like grotesque shapes, and, in the gloom, he could almost swear they were moving.
Shifting in the deep shadows, breathing faintly enough for dust motes to be expelled into the air.
It seemed smaller than he remembered. It looked wrong.
He could still picture the last time he’d been to this Urgent Care for a call.
It was out of their area, but there had been a big accident, and they had been shifted over to a wider area for coverage.
They came for a heart attack. The woman had come in for persistent, sharp back pain.
She was sitting up, chatting, laughing even.
It was only when a suspicious doctor decided to run an EKG that he noticed the tombstones dancing across squiggly lines and called for transport.
He could still remember the laugh lines on the nurse’s face when she told him to stop slouching, and the little pink pigs on her scrubs.
Because they make me smile, she’d replied to Tommy’s teasing.
Back then, the place had been alive with monitors and lights. Staff moving around. Keyboards clicking, the quiet murmur of a TV from the waiting room. Blake had just eaten a meatball sub and had hoped his breath didn’t smell like garlic.
Minty breath had seemed so important at the time.
They were gone now. He wondered if that nurse still smiled at those little pigs.
Shaking off those thoughts, he tried to focus.
Alvarez and Tyler cleared the room quickly and quietly.
They tested a door that led to the waiting room but found it locked.
Zoe came into the room, gun in hand. She didn’t even make a noise over the glass as she walked.
She began checking cabinets, rummaging around for anything useful.
Beaumont stayed beside Blake, his shoulders stiff with tension.
Throat too dry to speak, Blake pushed past the trepidation and stepped further into the room. He never thought he’d miss that sterile, antiseptic smell of a clinic, but now its loss made the hair on the back of his head stand on end.
Behind the nurse’s station was the med room. The door had a passkey, but Blake knew from experience that staff usually just swiped their name badges.
Blake stepped around the counter, forcing himself to breathe evenly, only to find the door wasn’t locked.
It wasn’t even there.
Between the smashed computers, strewn paperwork, and the eyewatering smell of burnt everything was a gaping black hole where the door should have been.
Its hinges were still clinging to the door frame, brassy in the low light.
Beyond the door, he could see shattered medicine cabinets and wrecked refrigerators.
No, no, no, he pushed himself into darkness and squinted, desperate to make out something whole.
Something not crunching under his boots.
But the room was trashed. Someone had already ripped it apart, taking everything.
The shelves were covered in a thick layer of dust, and his eyes watered from the lingering smell of smoke.
Blake’s knees went weak, and he caught himself on a counter to keep from falling to the floor.
This had been his one chance. His one idea.
And now he was staring at empty refrigerators, trying to hold off the despair, wishing it was anger.
Anger would be easy. Righteous, even. He could blame the looters, scream, and curse their names.
But how could he? When they were just trying to survive. Was it even wrong? In a world where the rules that held society together had gone up in smoke, and no one had any backups, could stealing potentially lifesaving medical supplies be raged against?
Hell, even if they just took them to get high, Blake couldn’t blame them for that either.
“Looks like Semtex,” Beaumont said as he peered closer to the mangled hinges. “Probably from a construction site.”
“Familiar with it?” Blake asked, voice strained.
“A little,” Beaumont admitted. “Good stuff—stable, easy to use, stores well.”
Blake bit his tongue to keep from lashing out at Beaumont, wishing he were Judd instead.
Judd wouldn’t have been so matter-of-fact.
He would have been angry. Phin, too, though he would have shown it differently.
It would be in his eyes and the way he would have ripped the clinic apart.
Even Victoria would have had the decency to be silent in his defeat.
And Gabriel…
Gabriel would have taken in the situation calmly.
Any emotion he felt wouldn’t have been written on his face—at least not for anyone else to see.
But Blake would see it. He would see the way he pushed his lips together.
The calculations he would be doing in his mind.
Orders would fall from his lips—telling Judd to pull out the map and look for any other clinics, hospitals, or even pharmacies in the area.
He would tell Phin and Victoria to clear the place for anything useful, especially blankets and maybe even food.
He’d tell them to break into a vending machine if no one else had.
Then he’d look at Blake. His face would soften, and for a brief moment, he would cease to be Commander Lennox and would just be Gabriel. He’d tell Blake he did good. That this wasn’t his fault. Then he’d kiss him quick and tell him not to give up.
Or at least, he would have. If he’d let Blake come with them anymore.
Clenching his fists, he felt the grit of dust collect in the creases of his palm. Gabriel was going to be so angry when he got back. And he wouldn’t even have anything to show for it.
God, he wished that little strip mall on the corner was open.
It had a liquor store that gave discounts to first responders.
It was only a few miles from here. He used to go on the way home from visiting his parents, before they moved to Florida.
He remembered stopping to give a homeless guy some money once because he had a dog, and Blake had wanted to go into the vet clinic next door to buy the dog some food and—
Blake pushed away from the counter so hard he nearly knocked himself in the other direction. Beaumont reached out to steady him, but he knocked his hand away, shouldering through the busted door and into the clinic.
Alvarez was standing in the middle of the room, a sour look on his face.
“The vet clinic,” Blake said, almost breathless with excitement.
“What?”
“There’s a vet clinic a few miles from here.” Blake was already walking toward the door.
“Great, you got a cat you’re not telling us about, or are we just going to get Lennox a muzzle?”
Spinning on his heel, Blake stomped over to Alvarez. “No. The clinic will have medical supplies.”
Tyler appeared out of one of the rooms, dusting his hands on the back of his pants. “You got fleas?”
Blake snapped. “Most veterinary medicines are interchangeable, if not the same, as human medications.”
Tyler made a face. “I’m not taking some dog pills.”
“Half the time it’s the exact same brand. The only difference is dosage. Except for you, I’d give you a Chihuahua dose to match the size of your goddamn brain.”
If he pissed off the older man, he didn’t show it. He simply gazed down at Blake with that infuriating smugness he seemed to ooze. Blake could tell him two plus two equaled four, and he’d disagree just to be a dick.
“It might be worth a try,” Beaumont said from over by the nurse’s station.
Alvarez glanced over at Beaumont, quiet for a moment as he considered it.
“No way. We’re not going any further into the city.
It’s too hot. And we’ve already wasted enough time on this.
” His words were firm, chest puffing out a little as if giving the command made him cockier.
“Irving gave us a mission, and we need to get back to it.”
Blake couldn’t believe it. They would rather search sites they’d already gone to than try what could be a sure thing?
Most people probably thought the same as Tyler and wouldn’t have thought to look at a vet clinic.
There could be tons of unspoiled medication ripe for the picking, and they were just going to ignore it?
Not Blake. No. He made a promise to Emily, and he was going to keep it. He was going to open his bag and show everyone, show Gabriel, that he could still save a life. That he could do more than fail.
He took two steps across the room and wrenched Beaumont’s rifle out of his lax grasp. “Fine, I’ll go myself.”
Anyone else would have shot him on sight, but as much as Beaumont pretended, he wasn’t a soldier. His gun had slipped through his fingers. If Blake had tried that with anyone else on the team, he’d have been full of holes.
“What the fuck!?” Blake couldn’t tell if Alvarez was yelling at him or Beaumont.
Holding the gun close to his chest, he stomped across the glass. The light stung his eyes, but he was committed to his dramatic exit and didn’t want to stop to shield them. The doors to the truck were still open, so he reached in and grabbed the first bag he saw, slinging it over his shoulders.
“Stop! I’m giving you a direct order to—”
“If I don’t listen to orders from the guy who gives me orgasms, I’m sure as shit not going to take any from you!” Blake snapped back, settling the backpack on his shoulder.
Alvarez stared at him from the doorway, jaw slack. Behind him, Blake could see Tyler snickering, and Beaumont looked like a deer in the headlights. Zoe just looked annoyed.
Blake settled the gun back in his hands and turned toward the city.
He glanced down at the gun and tried to remember what Gabriel had told him about rifles.
They didn’t have the ammo to practice with, so he’d just talked him through it.
But he’d also been shirtless at the time, nipples hard, and his collarbones defined.
Blake hadn’t really retained anything he’d said.
Alvarez muttered something angry in Spanish before jogging behind Blake and grabbing him by the backpack. “Fine. Fine! You have five minutes exactly, or I’ll make you ride back in the bed.” He dragged Blake back, grunting about how he thought Blake was the ‘least annoying one’.
Beaumont snatched his gun back when they got back to the truck. He glared at Blake and then at Alvarez. “Thought he didn’t get special treatment.”
Their commander threw his hands up. “I wanted to piss Lennox off, not sign my death warrant. Get in the fucking truck.”