Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
THE CLINIC
They were back at the clinic before dawn.
The sky was still indigo when they pulled into the courtyard. Staff moved with renewed focus. It was the strange second wind that follows surviving something. Island patrol had cleared the harbor just after first light.
Inside the clinic, the night shift rotated as fresh masks and supplies were distributed. Eira stood at the central station reviewing patient charts. Her movements were precise but slower.
Ford watched from across the hall. “You should sit.”
“I am sitting,” she replied. She wasn’t. She handed the tablet to Karine. “Rotate oxygen cylinders through Ward 3. Adjust pediatric antiviral dosing by weight.”
Karine nodded and moved off.
Eira turned toward the pediatric hallway. Her motion stopped halfway, and she just stood there.
Ford noticed the pause immediately. “Eira?”
She waved him off. “Just dizzy.” She took one step forward, then another. Her hand reached for the counter but missed.
Ford caught her before she hit the floor. “Eira.”
“I’m fine.”
He pressed his hand to her forehead. “How long?”
“After our shower,” she admitted reluctantly. “A little fatigue.”
“Temperature,” Ford called.
Liana appeared with a scanner. The number flashed:103.6
Silence spread through the hallway.
“That’s not fatigue,” Liana said calmly.
Eira exhaled slowly. The memory of that cough in the exam room surfaced immediately. “Flu.”
“The man left at the buoy. You got splattered,” Ford said.
For half a second, no one moved, then Ford shifted his grip and lifted her. It was efficient, like a man who had carried injured people before. “Room 3.”
Liana was already moving. Karine cleared the hallway ahead of them.
Eira tried to protest. “I can walk.”
“No,” Ford said, not harshly, but it was final.
Her head rested briefly against his shoulder as he carried her down the corridor. The heat radiating from her skin was unmistakable. “You’re burning up,” he said under his breath.
“Occupational hazard.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I wasn’t joking.”
Inside Room 3, Liana had the bed ready before they arrived. Ford set Eira down carefully.
She pushed herself upright immediately. “I’m not staying.”
“You’re not negotiating,” Liana replied calmly.
The scanner passed across Eira’s forehead again. 103.9. Liana didn’t comment on the increase. Instead, she reached for a pulse oximeter and clipped it onto Eira’s finger.
Heart rate: 118, Oxygen: 96
“Respiratory?” she asked.
“Clear,” Eira said.
“You coughed this morning,” Ford advised.
“Once.”
Ford stood at the foot of the bed, arms folded. The relaxed calm he had carried since recovering from the heatstroke was gone. Now there was something sharper in his posture. Command.
Eira watched Liana move through the exam. “You’re overreacting.”
Liana swabbed Eira’s throat and nasal passage with precise, practiced movements. The sample went straight into the rapid analyzer. “Sit back.”
Eira stayed upright. “I have patients.”
“You are a patient.”
“That’s temporary.”
Ford finally spoke. “So is dying.”
The room went quiet. Eira looked at him. “That was unnecessary.”
“But accurate.”
When the analyzer beeped, Liana turned the screen toward them. “Positive. Influenza A.” She tapped again. Another marker appeared. “Influenza B.”
At first, no one spoke. Eira exhaled slowly. “Well…”
Outside the room, the clinic continued moving. Patients coughed behind masks. Nurses rotated oxygen tanks. Children whispered in the garden. The outbreak didn’t pause just because its lead physician became infected.
Inside Room 3, Eira looked at the screen again. “How many cases now?”
“Seventeen confirmed,” Liana said.
“Severe?”
“Four.”
Eira absorbed that. Her legs swung off the bed.
Ford stepped forward immediately. “Lie down.”
“No.” Her lips tightened.
“Eira.”
“We are not losing control of this clinic because I caught a virus.” Her voice wasn’t angry. It was controlled. “I can still direct triage.”
“You can do that from bed,” Ford said.
She shook her head. “I need eyes on the floor.”
“You need antivirals.”
Liana already had the medication ready and placed it on the tray. “Oseltamivir.”
Eira stared at it. “We’re in short supply.”
“You know the protocol,” Liana reminded her.
Eira nodded.
“Then take it.” She tapped the medicine cup.
The pill disappeared with a swallow of water as Ford watched like it was a contract. “Good.” She followed that with two paracetamol.
Eira wiped her mouth and looked at him. “You look like you’re planning something.”
“I am.”
“That worries me.”
“It shouldn’t.” His eyes crinkled above the mask.
Across the courtyard, a patrol Jeep rolled through the clinic gate. Two men stepped out carrying another patient between them. The man was coughing violently. Blood flecked the mask covering his mouth.
Karine swore under her breath. “Another severe case.”
The coughing man was rushed past the doorway. His oxygen saturation alarm chirped rapidly.
“Seventy-nine!” a nurse called.
“Get him into isolation!” Ford watched them disappear down the corridor. He turned back to Eira. “The infection rate just doubled in twelve hours.”
She sighed. “It has.”
“That’s not natural spread.”
“No, it’s not.”
“You still think Tevenne contained it?”
Eira closed her eyes briefly. “No.”