Infection Runs Deep

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: TREATMENT PLAN

The soft dawn light made me anxious. Buttery golden clouds shadowed in baby pink lay cast upon a vivid purple expanse. Beautiful. A natural clock. One with the minutes counting down too quickly.

Warner had long since succumbed to sleep, savoring the scarce summer darkness while he could. Leo had slept soundly the entire night. I didn't know if he was unfazed or too scarred by the trauma to stay awake.

The pinks and purples morphed into a rich blue, the clouds dissipating under the morning heat. I pressed my hand against the smeared glass, letting the warmth of the sun seep through the pane into my body. I closed my eyes as I savored the sensation, holding back tears.

My emotions were a wreck. I felt like I was outside of my body, drawn outside of myself by some ethereal force to gain new perspective. Lost, drifting, searching for some endless unknown. An answer besieged in the depths of my unconscious, blockaded by my emotional walls.

I missed the normalcy. My mind kept asking, when was life going to be normal again? The hospital in Savannah, my friends there, my residency, it all felt so far away. I was beginning to realize that maybe life would never be the same. That it would never be normal again.

My faith was shaken. Who did I think that I was? I was so arrogant to think that I could actually make a change. No one else could but here is a second year resident with a little bit of knowledge and a smile on her face. She can do it with no problem. But she couldn't, I couldn't.

Developing a vaccine takes years. It's expensive, time consuming, and requires a group of experts. We had nothing. No money, no time, and no experts.

My family had no hope anymore. I didn't even know if they were alive. Everyone's body seemed to handle the disease differently. I never should have left them.

Quickly, I wiped my tears away. The others were starting to awaken, the sun becoming stifling.

A rasping whisper escaped my lips as I tried to speak. My hands flew to my throat, and I returned to the window, trying to use the glass as a makeshift mirror. I nearly stepped on Warner in the process.

"Jesus, El." He pulled his hand out of the path of my foot. "Good morning to you, too," he grumbled.

I bared my teeth in a sarcastic smile, letting my hands drop from my throat. Warner's eyes widened before he turned away quickly.

"It's that bad?" I managed, my voice coming out in chips. Each word burned my throat, but I wanted to talk. If I didn't, I would be trapped inside my mind, haunted by the thoughts that came in when I least expected them. If I didn't, I would fall to pieces.

Leo sat up with a yawn, his glasses askew on his face. Despite some slight rumples, his outfit was pristine. Compared to him, I was a disaster.

He pressed a hand to his eyes before straightening his glasses. "What time is it?"

"Time for you to get a watch," Warner fired back automatically. I rolled my eyes and started to check my own.

Leo's face was unamused. He unfastened the watch around his wrist and dangled it for Warner to see. "I have a watch. Your irresponsibility led to it getting shattered." His words were sharper than the shards peeking out from the face of the broken watch.

I winced. This was one of their first conversations. I was not a fan of the direction that it was going in.

I held up a placating hand. "It's 8:05." I coughed twice. "Can we at least try to be civil? It's too early to fight, especially without any coffee."

"You think Siles will give us coffee?" Warner asked dubiously.

"There was coffee some at the hospital," Leo said, looking out the window. "Good stuff, too."