Chapter Fifteen
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MONICA COULD HEAR A creek somewhere in the distance as they chose an abandoned house to use for the night. Nazab checked the building to make sure it was safe before she entered it. “Are you going to clean the dust away again?” she asked with a small grin.
“Do you want to eat at a table that’s covered in filth?” the knight asked with one eyebrow cocked.
“I’m kind of used to it by now,” she said, turning a bit glum. “Governor Giamano’s goons only turned the power on in Manhattan. None of the other boroughs have electricity yet. I’ve been living in filth for close to a year.”
“It must be very difficult for the survivors to cope,” Nazab surmised as he began opening cupboards in the kitchen. “All of their former conveniences became useless and they’re forced to do everything for themselves again.”
“Pretty much,” Monica agreed. She went about closing the drapes, then switched on a camping lantern that had been shoved into one of her backpacks. She helped the knight clean the dust off the table, chairs and living room furniture. “I’m going to check the bedrooms,” she said next.
“You think the previous occupants were raptured?” Nazab asked.
“Their car is in the driveway,” she replied. “The doors were all locked before you broke in. There’s a good chance they vanished from their beds.”
Carrying the lantern, Monica climbed the stairs to the second floor. The first bedroom she came to was empty of furniture, but was crammed full of moving boxes. “They must have moved here just before the Rapture,” she figured.
“I can smell old decay,” Nazab warned her. “Wait here and I’ll take a look.”
The cambion saw the door across the hall was standing open a few inches.
Crossing to it when Nazab headed to the final bedroom to the right, she pushed the door open and entered.
A crib stood in the middle of the room. The walls had been painted light blue.
Stuffed animals sat on a pale blue dresser that she knew would be full of baby clothes.
Nazab joined her just as she crossed the floor to peer into the crib. “The parents weren’t raptured,” he said gravely.
“Their baby was raptured and they chose to end their own lives?” she guessed sadly. The missing infant’s clothes and nappy were still beneath the blanket. Staying in this sad home had lost all appeal.
“So it would seem,” her companion said. “Should we search for another house to stay in?”
“I’m used to sleeping on hard surfaces, so I’m okay to crash on the floor downstairs,” Monica said.
“You can sleep on the couch, female,” Nazab told her. “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“If you insist,” she said, dredging up a wan smile.
They filed back into the hallway and returned to the first floor. Monica had lost her appetite, but checked the supplies the townsfolk had given her. “It’s not a bad haul,” she said. “But I’ll need to grab the supplies we left at the other house.”
Nazab had decided not to return to their temporary base until morning, just in case the townsfolk tried to find them.
He didn’t want them to discover their lair.
He’d placed the ham radio on the coffee table and turned the volume down low.
They would both hear it if anyone spoke, since they would be sleeping in the living room.
Monica ate a small meal, then they both decided to crash.
She took her prosthesis off and left it propped up against the couch within easy reach.
Normally, she kept it on just in case she needed to flee during the middle of the night.
With her hulking protector lying on a blanket on the floor, she felt safe for the first time since the world had become so unstable.
They both slept restlessly and were up at dawn. “I’m going to take a bath in the creek,” Monica said after breakfast.
Nazab had been staring out the window next to the front door, keeping his eye out for trouble. His head snapped towards her. “The water could be contaminated,” he said.
“I don’t plan to drink it,” she said with a grin. She knew he was picturing her wet and naked by the way he kept his body angled away from her. “I need to wash my hair and the clothes the townsfolk gave me. I don’t want to wear something that I could catch cooties from.”
“I saw a basket in the laundry last night,” he said, now sounding a bit hoarse.
“Great,” Monica said cheerfully. “We’ll need detergent, towels and washcloths. I’ve already got shampoo, conditioner and soap.”
Nazab headed to the laundry room and Monica grabbed towels and washcloths from the linen cupboard upstairs.
She grabbed her backpack full of clothes and found the warrior waiting for her at the back door.
He was holding the laundry basket and detergent in front of his groin.
“I’m glad it’s not winter,” she said as they left the house.
“Bathing in an icy creek would be torture.”
“That isn’t pleasant, even for me,” Nazab agreed. “Ice ages were the worst eras we fought our wars in.”
She shook her head, once again reminded of how ancient he was. The ground was uneven once they left the property. Nazab held the basket out. “Put everything in here,” he suggested. “You carry the basket and I’ll carry you.”
“You really are a chivalrous knight,” she said in wonder, then piled the gear into the basket. He picked her up and she held onto the basket as he strode towards the creek.
Putting the cambion down, Nazab inspected the water. He knelt down and plunged his hand into it, then brought his cupped palm to his face. “It smells clean,” he reported. “I’ll stand guard while you bathe, female.”
“Thanks,” Monica said, then began stripping off. She cursed when she lost her balance while removing her prosthesis.
Nazab caught hold of her elbow to steady her. Dressed only in her underwear now, she was conscious of his gaze on her. Again, he didn’t flinch at the sight of her stump. “Put your hand on my shoulder,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even as he knelt beside her.
“I should have sat down to take my jeans off,” she said ruefully, grabbing hold of his rock-hard shoulder.
The warrior carefully extracted her from the jeans that were tangled around her prosthesis, then removed the contraption. “Do you have feeling in this area?” he asked, cupping her stump.
“Yeah,” she said huskily, unused to someone touching her leg. “The nerves regenerated after the doctors fixed what was left of my mangled leg,” she told him.
“You’ve adjusted very well, female,” he said, then rose to his feet. He helped her over to the water and lowered her into it.
“I’ve always been this way,” Monica said with a shrug. “I never had a chance to walk on two feet.”
Nazab carried the basket over to her and she removed the toiletries from the backpack. He turned his back as she began to wash herself. “With all of the technology humans have invented, I’m surprised they only gave you an inadequate prosthesis like that,” he mused.
“The technology exists,” she said as she rapidly unwound her braids and started washing her hair. “I was saving up for a procedure before the Rapture, but it was hideously expensive.”
“What sort of procedure did you intend to get?” he asked.
“Buying a bionic leg would have been one option, but I wanted something permanent that didn’t rely on technology that would need to be kept updated,” she said.
“Some people who wanted to be taller paid to have rods inserted into their legs, which involved having their bones severed first and a long recovery period afterwards. I’d been talking to a specialist about getting a rod inserted into my shinbone,” she explained, then dunked herself beneath the water to wash the suds out of her hair.
“The tibia?” he asked when she resurfaced.
“Yep,” she confirmed. “The rod would have been attached to my bone with screws. It would have had an attachment on the bottom so I could swap the foot over once it became too worn down. The recovery time for a normal human wouldn’t have been as long as a leg extension operation.”
“But you’re a cambion, so you would have healed much faster,” he said. “Wouldn’t the doctors have been suspicious when you healed so rapidly after the surgery?”
“I had a plan,” Monica said as she coated her hair with conditioner. She would leave it in for a few minutes while she washed her body.
“Do I even want to know what your plan was, female?” he asked wryly.
“It was a good plan,” the cambion said defensively. “I just needed to cut myself before each checkup, then let it heal enough to look like a normal recovery after surgery,” she said.
Nazab gave her an incredulous look over his shoulder before turning away again. “How would you have explained the missing stitches?”
“I was going to practice stitching things together so I’d be able to duplicate them,” she said, beginning to feel a bit sheepish.
“It doesn’t even matter now,” she reminded him.
“Even if there was still a surgeon alive who could perform that sort of procedure, none of the hospitals are operational. I’m stuck with that crappy prosthesis until it eventually falls apart.
Then I guess I’ll have to find some crutches. ”
Her tone had become glum again at that prospect. She consoled herself that the cheap prosthetic leg would probably last for a few more years. It had been made to suit her exact height, so finding another one wouldn’t be easy.