Chapter Nine
Something about the pure darkness around them comforted Norah, almost like a church confessional.
Jamie was her subordinate. It was beyond unprofessional for Jamie to ask questions about Norah’s personal life.
And even more unprofessional for Norah to answer.
But she wanted to. Jamie did have a point—maybe the world wasn’t going to end, but these were unprecedented times.
And Norah found herself starving for someone to talk to.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you that.” Jamie must have picked up on the vast amount of silence Norah had placed between them.
“No. It’s all right. I want to tell you. At least, I think I do.”
Norah shoved her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants and resumed walking, slowly this time. “I don’t even know where to start.” She exhaled loudly, the air rippling through her pursed lips.
“You two knew each other, before all this, I mean,” Jamie said.
“That’s putting it casually. Chase and I went to school together, at Brown. We…dated. For a few years.”
Jamie flashed a satisfied smile, and it was obvious that she felt she had won some kind of bet with herself.
“I thought so.”
“What else do you want to know?”
Jamie’s face fell clear to the ground, and Norah could see she was hoping for more. A lot more.
“You really don’t have to tell me anything else, ma’am. I don’t want to put you in an awkward position.”
“Will you stop calling me ma’am?” Norah laughed. “I like you, Jamie. You’re a good soldier. And I want us to be friends. But whatever we talk about tonight—”
“I know. It stays between us. Yes, ma’am.”
Norah rolled her eyes. “Norah.”
“Norah.”
“Just don’t let the others hear you call me that,” she whispered.
It took until near sunup for Norah to finish recounting the details of her past with Chase.
She and Jamie had been walking for the entirety of the conversation, lapping the perimeter at least fifty times.
Norah’s feet had begun to throb inside her boots, and her usually reliable legs were starting to soften.
But she was invigorated, more awake than she’d been all night.
The flight of emotions recounting her years with Chase had brought on left her feeling almost manic.
She wasn’t sure how many of these feelings were positive ones, but it didn’t matter.
Talking about Chase made Norah feel alive in a way that came second only to being in front of her again.
So much time had passed. But that spark that only Chase could ignite in her hadn’t burned out.
It was just an ember, waiting, while she went through the motions of what she thought was a perfectly suitable existence.
“Wow.” It was the first word Jamie had spoken in what must have been an hour. Norah felt briefly embarrassed that she’d droned on for so long like some kind of infatuated kid. But Jamie hadn’t seemed to mind in the least.
“That’s…that’s quite a story.”
Norah shrugged. “I know.”
“Have you two…”
Norah felt the heat prickling her cheeks, and she giggled nervously. “You mean, now? Like, here? In Louisiana?”
“Yeah! You can’t tell me nothing’s happened since you’ve been here. A month together with all this built-up tension and angst, and then the fact that it’s the damn apocalypse! This is the stuff romance novels are made of.”
“Not one I’d want to read,” Norah said, laughing again.
“You have to admit, there’s something kind of romantic about all of it. Being stuck out here, in the swamp, saving the world. Come on.”
Norah sneered at her, but Jamie was right.
It wasn’t the rose petals and candlelight society always associates with romance, but something about finding Chase again, in the most unpredictable of places, at the worst of times, was…
sexy. It was invigorating. There was that word again.
Norah had long since accepted herself as an adrenaline junkie.
Before the army, it was diving off dangerous cliffs and hang gliding into the jungle.
Then it was AK47s and IEDs and grabbing injured soldiers from the battlefield with their limbs hanging half off.
Now, apparently, it was reuniting with what had surely turned into her most toxic love affair, in the middle of Armageddon, where they were expected to be superheroes.
Wow. Norah knew she was an adrenaline junkie, but when she thought about it, she might be a little sick too.
“If I tell you—”
“It’s just between us,” Jamie said, reassuringly. “Once the sun comes up, this conversation never happened.”
It was almost poetic, the way the early morning sun was just now starting to poke through the tree line. Norah was sad their friendship had to disappear with the night. But boundaries felt more important than ever that day.
“We’ve kissed. Once. It was a horrible mistake.” Norah’s words came out in one jumbled heap.
“Was it though?” Jamie cocked her head, teasing her.
“Of course it was! We’re working together. We’re here to stop this virus, not make out in army jeeps.”
“Was it really a mistake though?” Jamie let her tongue linger on the word “really,” drawing it out as excruciatingly long as possible.
“Yes.” Norah refused to look at her. “Okay. No. I mean, it didn’t feel like a mistake. But I know it was.”
Jamie lifted an eyebrow doubtfully at her. “You mean your brain says it was a mistake. Because you’re coworkers. And you’re on the job.”
“And she hurt me. Were you listening to the part where I told you how she abandoned me when my brother died?”
“I was listening. But is it possible that, maybe, just maybe, that was a long time ago? And she really has spent the last fifteen years regretting that mistake?”
Norah wanted to believe that. She wanted to believe that more than anything. But the idea felt naive and dangerous. Danger was fine when it came to jumping off the edge of a ravaged cliff. But not when it came to her heart.
“Unlikely.”
“So your head told you kissing Chase was bad. But what about the rest of you?”
“What do you mean, the rest of me?” Norah asked innocently.
Jamie laughed slightly patronizingly.
“You know, there are other parts of you besides your brain, Norah. Like your heart? Or your body? What did those parts have to say about the kiss?”
Norah went silent. She hadn’t really considered that other things were in play besides just what her head was telling her. Not when she’d always relied so heavily on it to steer her right.
“My heart? Well, shit.” Norah didn’t swear often, but the moment felt pointed. “I try not to make a habit of listening to it too often. But I think it was, I don’t know, intrigued by the kiss.”
“Intrigued?”
“Yes. Intrigued. I’ll put it like this. It remembered. My heart remembered everything. All the good. All the bad. All of Chase. It remembered everything.”
Jamie nodded, seeming to like this answer. “And the rest of you?”
Norah tittered self-consciously. She wasn’t used to talking about sex. Especially not lately, with her only friends being the elderly Mrs. Brooks and a group of guys from the base who still used terms like “going to Pound Town.”
“You mean, what did my body have to say about the whole ordeal?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
She grinned coyly. “I’m not quite as good at keeping that part quiet. And it seemed to have a lot to say that night.”
Jamie stopped walking and clapped her hands a few times with giddy excitement. “Oh, this is so great!” she squealed.
Norah scrunched her face up tightly and gestured to the sunlight, which had now encompassed much of the fronts of the nearby tents they passed.
“I know, I know. The sun’s up. This conversation never happened,” Jamie said with clear disappointment in her voice.
“I will deny it and have you hanged for treason.”
Jamie’s pout evolved into a tiny laugh. “If I can just say one more thing…”
“Why did I feel like this was coming?” Norah said playfully.
“Just hear me out. You should try to listen to those other parts of you once in a while. You don’t have to be so perfect all the time, you know. Sometimes, it’s good to make mistakes.”
Good to make mistakes. The concept felt absurd to Norah. But maybe there was something there, some modicum of truth among the crazy. Isn’t that what Chase was now, anyway? A tiny bit of peace amongst the chaos. A desert mirage. A second chance.
Chase didn’t have a lot of time the next morning to recall the way Norah stood between her open legs, her mouth just begging to be kissed.
By the time the sun had come up, Chase was already tying her hiking boots and splashing cold water from a canteen onto her face, ready to find a reasonably fresh cup of coffee to jump-start the day.
Norah and John were standing outside Chase’s tent when she exited, speaking in hushed tones, their brows burrowed deep. Something was very wrong.
“What’s going on?”
The two looked up at Chase but did little more than soundlessly gesture for her to approach.
“Stevens is sick,” Norah said, her voice thick with worry.
The bags under her listless eyes made it clear to Chase she’d been up all night, just like Chase had seen the morning of so many med-school exams. There were so many parallels to those days, Chase thought.
But this was so much darker, like an alternate universe where you finally get everything you’ve ever wanted, five minutes before the entire world explodes.
“Wait. Who’s Stevens?” Chase was still staring at Norah’s lifeless face, her only concern how to fix whatever was breaking her that day.
“One of the privates. He spiked a fever last night, and this morning he’s coughing and not looking great,” John answered, his tone equally as heavy.
“What do you mean, sick?”