Unknown (Unknown Series Book 1) (19 page)

“That’s awesome!” A tiny bloom of hope sprang to life. Would Len be one of the twelve percent who could pull through this?

I stood up, wanting to get home.

As we passed the office, three DRI personnel were rushing in with boxes. The woman who’d given us the insensitive breakdown of Red Virus earlier looked at me.

“We have vaccinations. Get yours before you leave, please.”

I shared a bright look with Rylen and we followed them in. This was good.

We went into what was once the nurse’s office, and I was directed to sit on the hospital bed, while Rylen took a chair that looked way too small for him.

“Just a few questions first,” said the woman. “Amber Tate, correct?”

“Yes.” She took my address, social security number, and some other basic medical information.

“Is this your husband?” she asked.

My face flushed with heat. “Uh, no. He’s a friend.”

She looked at him. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside —”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t have any secrets from him. He’s like family.” Ry crossed his arms and relaxed back into his chair, giving me a tired grin.

“Have it your way.” She peered down at her clipboard. “Now, what is the breakdown of your race?”

I told her and she scribbled something and cocked her head, smiling. “I’m curious, Amber. Being of mixed-race, do you find yourself mostly attracted to Hispanic men, white men, or men of a different race?”

“Um.” I almost laughed. She said it like it was friendly conversation, but it felt so . . . stiff and clinical. What a weirdly inappropriate question to ask. “I don’t know.” My gaze darted to Rylen, who was staring at the blank wall in front of him, but by the quirk of his lips he was definitely listening. I should have let him be kicked out of the room. “Why do you need to know that?”

She saw me looking at him and turned to peer at him a moment too. He nodded politely at her, but seemed to stiffen under her gaze. She turned back to me.

“Answer the question, please.”

I squirmed. “Is this an official question that I have to answer to get a vaccine? Because, not to be rude, but it’s really none of anyone’s business who I’m attracted to.”

The woman’s face tensed with seeming anger.

“It is the government’s business.”

I felt my anger rising up against hers. “No, actually, it’s not.”

She stared hard, and this time when she spoke, her voice took on a lyrically sharp quality that made my tension turn to mush.

“
Answer the question
.”

She held my eyes and a fuzzy feeling overcame me, making me forget why I’d been upset as all of my tension shed away. I had no idea why the question had bothered me. It was no big deal. This lady was super friendly, just making casual conversation.

“I’ve been attracted to Hispanic, African-American, and Asian-American boys in the past, but it’s mostly a Caucasian boy—
man
—who I’ve liked the longest.”

At her tight smile, my ease morphed back into unease. I felt weird, dizzy for a second, but it passed. And then my words came crashing down on me. What the hell? I could not believe I’d just said that in front of Rylen! A wave of heat slammed me, the flame of embarrassment. Because seriously,
why
had I told her that? My eyes flicked to him again, and though he still stared at the wall ahead of him, I could definitely read the amused disbelief in the set of his eyes and lips.

The woman jotted more notes and then opened a sterilized needle package. She chose a tiny vile and tipped it up, sucking the vaccine into the syringe. Still shaken and confused, I pulled the sleeve of my shirt up to reveal my upper arm and shoulder.

“Side effects are nausea and cramping.” She injected the vaccine, and I pressed my lips together at the sting. My arm heated. I lay a hand over the spot as the woman threw out the needle.

“You’re all finished,” she said to me, then looked at Ry. “Ready?”

“Wait,” I said. “Can I get a few of these to take to my family?”

“No, these have to be administered by DRI. All local clinics will have vaccines by tomorrow.”

“His father is infected,” I said. “I don’t think he can make it to the clinic. I could administer it—”

“If he is infected, the vaccine will do no good.” She looked at Rylen again, and I took that as my cue to wait outside of the door. I slid down and stepped out, but left the door open.

I listened as she asked him all of the usual medical questions. Then she got to, “Are you married or single?”

“Uh . . . engaged, technically.”

Engaged.
Wow, that sounded so much better than married. I frowned at my thoughts.

“Congratulations,” the woman said flatly. “And what is your fiancé’s ethnicity?”

What the actual hell. Why did she keep asking race questions?

“Yeah, see, I agree with Amber on this,” Rylen said. “I don’t see what it has to do with getting a vaccine.” His voice was hard. Again, the woman used a casual, lyrical tone that seemed to calm my heart.

“
Answer the question, sir
.”

He paused for a long time. I waited, expecting him to tell her off where I had failed, but instead he said, “She’s Guatemalan.”

My eyes flew wide.

“Ah, how nice.” I heard her unwrapping a needle and the tinkling of her grabbing a vial. “And do the two of you plan to have children together?”

If possible, my eyes widened even further. And then it was as if a bomb dropped directly on top of my head . . .

“She’s pregnant now.” He said it quietly, and I knew it wasn’t meant for my ears.

I leaned heavily against the wall, my knees becoming almost too weak to hold me. A prickle shot up my body, from my heels up to the top of my head. I had to close my eyes.

“Lovely,” murmured the woman. “Be sure she tells the Disaster Relief Initiative administrator when she goes to get her vaccine.”

Pregnant. Livia was going to have a baby. Rylen’s baby. Ry was going to be a dad. I felt like my body was breaking down into a pile of dried particles on the floor.

Half a minute later, he was walking out, that deep crease between his eyes again. We walked to his truck in silence. I was in a daze.

“I don’t like her,” he said.

“Me either.” I wanted to ask him why he’d given in, but I felt so ashamed and weirded out about what I’d blurted that I didn’t want to bring it up. We climbed in.

“Hungry?” Rylen started the truck and held out an apple.

I took it. He watched as I managed a small bite. The burst of fresh fruit on my tongue cleared my mind. It was so perfect that I took another bite, much bigger this time.

“So . . . who’s this white guy?”

I sucked apple juice down into my lungs when I gasped, and then bent over to cough like I was dying. Rylen patted my back hard, chuckling.

“I’m just messing with you,” he said. “That was weird as hell. I thought you were going to kick her ass.”

I finally stopped coughing, but my face was still hot.

“I should’ve,” I admitted. “I think I was too tired to fight it or something. I don’t know.”

“Yeah,” he said.

I took another bite. I usually couldn’t eat when I was upset, but my body overrode its usual starvation-sadness protocol. Once I polished off the entire thing, only leaving a thin strip of core, I said, “Thank you for coming to get me.”

“No problem,” said the soon-to-be-father. I wondered when he planned to tell us. This news felt so much bigger than him getting married. I hated myself for not being able to be happy for him. He deserved my support, and I wanted to give it, but damn it. It hurt so bad.

I rolled down the window and chucked the core as hard as I could into the dirt field. I left the window down and stared up at the bright stars as the air whipped my hair and the loud
woosh
drowned out all thoughts.

I’
m not sure what time it was when the cramps began, but my room was still pitch-black. It was like the worst period cramps I’d ever experienced. I curled into a ball until the pain was unbearable, and then I grabbed my wastebasket, spitting up acidic apple before collapsing onto my bedroom floor.

So heavy. My face pressed into the carpet, body convulsing, arms wrapped around my middle. Curled up in a ball was the only position I could handle. At some point Mom and Dad were there, hovering over me, asking questions. I think I saw Abuela’s silhouette in my doorway. I wanted to ease their minds, but the pain . . . the pain was everything.

Oh, God, did I have the Red Virus? None of the victims I’d seen had reacted like this. Then I remembered the vaccine, and how she said I could have some cramping. If that’s what this was, she had vastly minimalized that side effect.

“Cramps,” I managed to whimper before I vomited again, this time only dry heaving.

I lay on the ground, curled up and moaning for hours. They put a hot compress to my belly, gave me ibuprofen, but none of it helped. I wondered if this was what labor felt like. Stabbing, twisting, sweating, stomach muscles shaking from the exertion of contracting. I felt like I’d run a marathon with a knife in my gut.

When the rising sun cast a hazy hue over my room, the pain finally began to ebb. Spent, I passed out in Mom’s lap. I felt her shift out from under me, putting a pillow under my head and covering me with my blanket. Voices murmured out in the hall, and my door opened. A heavy, large hand cupped my face, sliding my hair back.

“She’s not feverish, at least,” Rylen said softly.

“Yes, I took her temperature every twenty minutes,” Mom said. “It never got above ninety-nine, but she was in such pain.”

I forced my eyes to open and focus on their faces leaning over me.

“The shot,” I whispered.

Rylen slowly shook his head. “That could be it, but I haven’t had any of these side effects. I was gonna take Liv to get it this morning, but not if this might happen.”

“Let’s wait and see,” Mom said. She placed a hand on my hip. “You’re taking the day off, princesa. Like it or not.”

They left me, and my eyes drifted closed again.

When I woke the room was bright. A lingering thrum of discomfort resided in my lower abdomen and I was still nauseous, but I forced myself to stand. I clutched my stomach, slightly hunching, as I went out into the living room. Abuela held open her arms at the end of the couch and I went to her side, letting her hold me. The radio voice murmured on low as Grandpa looked me over from his recliner. Mom set a bowl of canned raviolis in my lap.

“Can you stomach these?”

“Sure,” I said. I took a tentative bite and ate slowly. I hadn’t had canned pasta since I was a kid. They tasted much better to the younger me, but I wasn’t about to be picky. I slowed when my stomach cramped, stopping to give it time to pass, then continued and finished the bowl.

Dad came in the front door, shaking his head.

“What happened?” Mom asked.

He sat heavily in the recliner. “Well, I stopped by the power company to try and get an update. You’ll never believe what I found.”

“What?” Mom asked.

“Nothing. Nobody. There wasn’t a single employee.”

My forehead tightened. “That makes no sense. Maybe they’re all out working on the power lines or something.”

He shook his head. “No idea. You’d think if they were working to get power up and running for the town there’d be someone there.”

“What about Tater?” Mom asked. “Were you able to contact his base?”

Dad’s forehead scrunched. “Nobody is answering the telegraphs or the Morse code we sent through the lines. I tried contacts at several bases and got nothing. It could be that they’re all away from the base, working in nearby cities, but it’s unlikely they’d leave the comm lines unmanned. I’ll try again tomorrow.”

We all sat back, silent. I hoped everything was okay.

“How you feeling?” Dad asked me.

“Better.” I didn’t want to worry them about the residual pain. “I don’t know if it was some random bug or the shot they gave me, but it’s wearing off. I still think you guys should all get the vaccine. The Red Virus is . . .” I thought about all the bodies piled up behind the school by last night. “It’s worth a few hours of cramping.”

“Okay,” Mom said after a moment of hesitation. “We’ll go today.” She looked worried, probably anticipating an afternoon of pain.

“I’ll take care of you,” I promised. Mom came over and kissed the top of my head.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better. You scared us.”

I pushed to my feet and went to go rinse my bowl out. The sink had been filled with boiled water. Still, I put on a pair of kitchen gloves that went up to my elbows and used a huge squirt of antibacterial dish soap. A bowl had never been so clean.

And speaking of clean, I really needed to bathe, but that wasn’t going to happen, vaccine or not. A pot of boiled water had been placed in the bathroom for washing up. I dunked a wash cloth and cleaned my body and face, rinsing the cloth by dipping a cup into the pot and pouring it over top of the cloth in the sink. What a huge pain this was. I couldn’t wait to get things back to normal. But when would that be? Especially considering nobody was at the electric offices? It made no sense.