Contagious (32 page)

“
Me, excel? Do I need to remind you that I flunked how many classes and that I didn’t graduate? I killed my cactus, got fired three times in one year, totally got caught when I was dating Marcus and Adam at the same time, and, oh, remember when I tried to be a vegetarian? That lasted, what, ten hours?”

“
And for six of them you were asleep,” she reminded me, laughing. “Ok, so maybe not everything, but you are good at a lot of things.”

“
I’m good at killing. Hunting. Being a glorified hillbilly raised by my paranoid, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder grandfather. I’m twenty-five years old and have nothing to show for it.”

“
Neither do I!” she countered.

“
Well, not anymore. But you did. You have—had—your business degree and you were getting your master’s degree too. Yeah, the economy more than sucked but you would have made it, I know you would have because you’re smart and you try and you have drive.”

“
Thanks, Rissy. It’s weird, isn’t it? How that piece of paper meant so much to me. Having two degrees isn’t going to help me now.”

“
A lot of things that used to be important seem really dumb now.”

“
Yeah, like Black Friday,” she said seriously.

“
Black Friday?”

“
You know, the after Thanksgiving sales? I used to love getting up at three AM to hit the stores. Now, I can see how much of a waste of time and money that was.”

I laughed and shook my head. “Yeah. That one is pretty stupid. People getting hurt or killed over material items. It puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“
Yeah. I feel bad for not appreciating the little things.” She smiled and sighed. “So what are you going to do about Padraic?”

“
You know I’m not one to put up with any sort of thing like that. I like him as a friend, really, I do. There’s just nothing more. And I don’t want to hurt his feelings though, so I plan to avoid him at all costs until he forgets about it and moves on.”

Easier said than done. I was sent to the hospital ward to have my cut checked. At least we weren’t alone. There were several injured people lying in beds. Padraic told me he had to fix two botched surgeries already. Apparently he didn’t get a week off to rest. He was also trying to put together a training class for the B3’s and a simpler one for anyone who was interested. He smiled when he told me he always wanted to teach.

I could read him easily. It was a lie. He was tired and stressed and busy and the only one with the know-how to actually heal these people. He assured me that one of the nurses used to work in the ER and was wonderful and she gladly spilt the main responsibilities. They all looked up to him, as they should, and trusted his professional opinion over anyone else.

He told me my arm looked good and that I was every doctor’s ideal patient because I healed so fast. Before I could hop off the exam table, he put his hands on my shoulders.

“
How are you, really, Orissa?”

“
Grand,” I stated.

“
Really?”

“
Well, given what we’ve been through, I’m as good as I can be. We are safe here.”

“
We are.”

“
You don’t sound too happy about it,” I said quietly, confused by his non-excitement to ameliorate our lives.

“
No, I am happy,” he said and removed his hands from me. He ran one though his dark hair, rumpling it. “I feel like I took life for granted before.” He exhaled heavily and sat next to me. “I need to thank you as well, for everything you did. I know you’re aware that none of us would be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“
True. You’re welcome,” I said as sincerely as I could to try to get off the hook.

“
You-you are an amazing young woman,” he began.
Here we go,
I thought and struggled not to squirm away. “You are so-so full of fire. I always thought I was alive before…” he trailed off. Horrified he would spout out some ‘I wasn’t alive until I met you’ crap, I concentrated on the floor. He shook his head and started over. “I used to be only concerned with other people. I took my duty as a doctor seriously. As long as I could help other people, I’d be fine. But I was wrong. I forgot about myself, I forgot that I, too, wanted and deserved to be happy.”

“
You do, Padraic. You are a good person, a really good person. If you don’t like it here, I-I don’t know. I’m sure I can think of something.”

“
No, no. It’s not that. I’m grateful for this place. And,” he elbowed me. “I think I can tell you ‘I told you so’. You said we’d never find a place like this.”

Even I had to smile. “That is true.” I jumped up. “We done here? I have to meet with Fuller and go over my A1…stuff,” I lied.

“
Yeah. You look great. Physically—I mean medically.” He smiled nervously.

“
Ok, great. Thanks.” I put my hand on the doorknob. “See ya later.” I hurried up to my room. Hayden was lying in bed watching a movie. He was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt with a blanket draped over his legs. I sat on my bed, eyes glued to the TV. I had seen that particular comedy many times. Since I hadn’t watched TV in months, it was the best movie ever at the time being.

“
Donating blood?” I asked Hayden, seeing the little ball of cotton bandaged on the inside of his elbow. He didn’t look away from the movie.

“
Yeah.”

“
Why?”

“
The doctors like to make sure we are healthy.”

“
Do they take everyone’s blood?”

“
If they want to,” he said quickly.

“
Uh-huh.” I knew he was lying. I’d ask Padraic about it later, I decided.

I spent my days healing getting to know the A1s, walking around being bored out of my mind with Raeya, exploring the fenced in parts of the shelter, which weren’t much, and playing with Argos. I ate breakfast and lunch with Hayden and the other soldiers and dinner with my old group.

Not all of the A1s were welcoming. The five guys who saw me in action were thankful to have another on their team. Others didn’t find it fair since I hadn’t gone through boot camp like they had. Brock said they weren’t convinced I was good enough but they’d get over it once they saw me in training.

Tomorrow was my first day of training. Hayden assured me that training was nothing more than working out, mock zombie situations, and learning new fighting techniques. And, since I was the only A1 who knew how to use a bow and arrow, Fuller wanted me to teach the others. I used to work out regularly. Then I couldn’t afford my gym membership so I cut my routine down to running, yoga, and doing minimal exercises in my room. I was actually looking forward to getting back on a treadmill as I followed Hayden down the basement stairs.

I hadn’t been through either of the side doors. We went into the one on the left, entering into a rather extensive workout room. I was to do a cardio workout and then go through a list of strength training exercises, being assessed—by Hayden—on what I needed to improve. After a short break we moved outside for target practice. Though the shelter had plenty of ammo, we didn’t want to be wasteful.

There was a handful of new, modern weapons that I hadn’t used before. It didn’t take long before I was hitting the bull’s-eye. When we were done with that, the group broke. Half retired inside while the others trained the A3s. Hayden took me around the quarantine barn to his truck. He retrieved the bow and arrows.

“
Can you show me how to use it? I want to know what I’m doing before you play teacher,” he said with a cheeky grin.

“
Yeah,” I told him, knowing full well that I would want to do the same. He looked around, set the arrows back down and pulled his keys from his pocket.

“
Want to go for a drive?” he asked.

“
We can just leave?”

“
Orissa, this isn’t prison.”

“
I know, it’s just…” I couldn’t think of how I wanted to say what I was thinking. “Do we have to be quarantined again?”

“
No. Not if we go to the fields. You haven’t been there yet, have you?” When I shook my head he smiled. “Perfect. It’s patrolled so it’s relatively safe.” We got into the pickup. Since I was less than conscious the last time I was in here, I hadn’t noticed how nice and detailed everything was. Someone had put a lot of money into this truck. Hayden pressed play on his IPod.

“
Spice Girls?” I asked, trying not to laugh when
Say You’ll be There
rang from the speakers.

“
Oh, I’m a
huge
fan,” he said with a flick of his hand. I laughed. “Not really. I, uh, started collecting IPods since I can’t download new music anymore. I got sick of what was on mine.” He went to change it to the next song but I stopped him.

“
I like this song.”

“
You do?” he asked with a smile.

“
Yes. Don’t tell me you don’t at least think it’s catchy?” I turned the volume up so I could sing along. “I went through a short dress and platform sneakers phase,” I told him.

“
You did?”

“
My stepdad hated it.”

“
Which made you want to do it more,” he correctly guessed.

“
Of course, now shut up and let me sing,” I said with a smile. When
Wannabe
came on next, Hayden sang the refrain along with me. We were both laughing when the song finished. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done that,” I admitted.

“
Done what?”

“
Sang. For fun, not to distract zombies.”

“
That was a genius idea, by the way.” He glanced at me with a wry smile.

“
Thanks. How far is the field?”

“
Not far,” he said. It was then I realized we were only going about twenty-five miles an hour. I sang a few more songs before we parked near a large barn. Hayden waved to the patrolling A2s and got out of the truck. I carried the bow and he carried the arrows. I walked ahead of him, curiously surveying my surroundings. I could see the herds of cows and could smell the chickens. At one time this must have been a real working farm. About two feet away from the wooden fence that corralled the cows was a single wire, electric fence.

“
This is supposed to keep the zombies out?” I asked, reaching for it. Hayden dropped the arrows and pulled me back. My foot caught on the uneven ground, causing me to stumble. He caught me with ease. Still holding onto me he said,

“
Not the zombies. But the S1s. It has enough juice to stop a human heart.”

“
Oh,” I said, straightening. “Thanks for, uh, saving me then.”

“
No problem.” He looked behind him. “Let’s go over here. I don’t want to accidentally kill something.”

We rigged up targets using hay bales and empty feed bags that I turned inside out and drew circles on.

“
It’d be nice to have an arm guard,” I mumbled.

“
Why is that?”

“
It’s helpful. Sometimes the string hits your arm when you release it. And it keeps loose clothes out of the way.”

“
Oh,” he said and held up the bow. I laughed.

“
Sorry.” I covered my mouth.

“
What?”

“
You’re doing it all wrong. Watch. Pay attention to how my body moves.”

“
I think I can do that,” Hayden joked. I rolled my eyes. I pulled an arrow, aimed and released. “You’re good,” he told me. “And you make it look easy.”

“
I’ve been doing this for a while,” I said honestly. “I sucked at first.” We spent the next hour going over parts of the bow, what they did and finally how to shoot. Hayden paid attention to everything I said and caught on quickly.

The next day we had one-on-one combat training. Ivan was my partner. I hadn’t mentioned my years of martial arts lessons.

I kicked his ass.

Hayden didn’t go to training the following day. He seemed to have disappeared. We woke up at the same time, ate breakfast with the other soldiers, and walked down the hall together. But when I got into the workout room, he simply wasn’t there. I gave my compound bow shooting demonstration that day; I didn’t think Hayden would want to miss it.

I sat on my bed brushing my wet hair, having just showered after today’s training. When Hayden looked alarmed to see me, I knew something was up. He pressed his left arm to his side and tried to weasel in unnoticed.

“
Are you sneaking off to see a vampire?” I asked.

“
Huh?”

“
You’ve been donating a lot of blood,” I said seriously. This was the fourth time I noticed the cotton ball and Band-Aid on his arm.

“
Oh, uh, no.”

I got up and closed the door. “Hayden, I know you’re lying.”

He sighed, ran his hand over his head and sat on his bed. “I am.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”

“
Tell anyone what? And where were you today?” I knelt on the bed next to him. I grabbed his left hand and extended his arm. “And what is this all about? Are you sick?” Suddenly, I was scared. I didn’t want anything to be wrong with Hayden.

“
No, I’m not sick.”

I raised my eyebrows, wanting an explanation. “Ok…”

He twisted his arm so his hand was resting in mine. “You can’t tell anyone, ok?”

“
Promise.”

“
Remember how I told you that I got bitten?”

“
Yeah?”

“
That crazy doctor I also told you about is trying to make a vaccine.”