Hold Me
Authors: LJ Baker
Hold Me
Life After the Outbreak, Book 3
L J Baker
© LJ Baker
All right reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
http://www.lj-baker.com/
Cover by Red Pen Kisses
www.redpenkisses.com
ISBN-13: 978-1497526242
ISBN-10: 1497526248
Be a Unicorn.
Find the magic in the world and follow your dreams. Don't ever let anyone make you
feel like you can't be magical.
Books by LJ Baker
Save Me (Life After the Outbreak, book 1)
Find Me (Life After the Outbreak, book 2)
Hold Me (Life After the Outbreak, book 3)
Remember Me (A Life After the Outbreak Extra) Coming Soon!
CHAPTER ONE
Dan and I looked at each other, both at a total loss. Will's eyes were frozen to the cut on his arm. It was a few inches long and not deep enough to need any real medical attention, the kind of thing we'd normally just shrug off. If it wasn't for Will's reaction, I might not have even paid attention to it at all.
Panic registered on Will's face and his hands trembled at his sides.
"Maybe... uh... he could have..." My brain cycled through the possibilities of what else could have happened— anything but what we were all thinking. My thoughts raced faster than I could keep up with and I stuttered over my words.
Dan put his hand on my shoulder to calm me. "Let's just take this one step at a time. No sense spinning into a panic before we know for sure what happened."
"How are we supposed to know what happened?" My voice cracked as I tried to keep from losing it completely.
"Will, do you know how you got cut?" Dan asked.
Will stood silent, still staring at his arm, panic etched on his face.
If Will was afraid, there was no way I was going to be able to pull it together. My heart was pounding so hard against my chest that I couldn't breathe. Except that I
was
breathing, way too fast in fact. I could feel my lungs moving in and out, but it felt like I wasn't taking in any oxygen. The world spun around me. I could hear Dan talking, but he was suddenly so far away.
Everything started going fuzzy. I blinked a few times and then I was in Dan's arms on the ground and he was calling my name. "Andi? Hey... are you okay?"
I looked around, confused for a moment, until I saw Will. He was on his knees on the ground next to me with tears welled up in his eyes. At first, I thought something happened to me. He looked at me with the same broken expression he wore the day he found me after I was kidnapped. But as the fuzziness faded, I remembered what was going on.
"I'm so sorry, Andi." He leaned down and rested his head against my stomach.
I put my hand on his head and closed my eyes.
This can't be happening. It has to be a nightmare
.
"I really think we need to get inside before the rest of that horde makes its way in this direction." Dan patted Will on the shoulder and once Will lifted his head from my stomach, he pulled me to my feet. Or foot, because I still couldn't put pressure on my sprained ankle.
Will snapped back to reality and led the way into the basement while Dan carried me down the stairs. As soon as we were safely inside, Dan deposited me onto the couch and propped my swollen foot up on some pillows.
The whole scene was surreal, as if I was sitting outside myself watching the scene play out before me. The color drained from Dan's face as he leaned against the side of the sofa with his hands held up over his mouth and nose in prayer position. No one was speaking, yet inside my head jumbled thoughts screamed out.
Will sat on the coffee table next to my foot and gently peeled off my sock. It was excruciating, but it had to be done. It seemed almost comical that he was focusing on my injury when his life was hanging in the balance.
He frowned at the sight of my swollen ankle. "Oh hell, that looks awful. I really wish we had some ice."
"We probably do. Mom had some of those ice packs that get cold from some chemical reaction or something like that."
Will started to stand to go get one but I pulled him back down. "Let Dan get it. Are we really going to focus on my sprained ankle right now?"
"Andi, it looks bad."
"Screw the ankle, Will. What about your arm?" I yelled, on the verge of complete hysteria.
His eyes dropped and he took a deep breath.
Dan left and returned with the ice pack in a flash, then draped it over the swollen mess at the end of my leg.
"Will!" I grabbed his chin and pulled his face to look at me.
"I'm sorry. I know. I got scratched. I felt him rip the jacket, but I didn't think it went through." His voice lowered to almost a whisper. "I was wrong."
My heart beat frantically against my chest and my hands trembled. "You're
sure
? It was from the flesh eater and not something else? You're one hundred percent
positive
?"
"I'm positive," Will said, and looked away, but didn't pull his chin from my tight grip.
I looked around the room in panic. There had to be something to fix it. Something we could do. I wasn't willing to just accept his words and everything they meant.
"We could…" Jack's words sprang into my head and I remembered my one-legged old friend at the military base. "We could cut it off. Like Jack said about his—"
"Andi, it's been too long. Jack said it had to be right away. It won't work." Will rubbed his hand over his arm and inched back as if he was protecting the arm from being hacked off.
Dan slumped into the chair next to the couch and scrubbed his hands over his face. "That was what… twenty…thirty minutes ago? How are you feeling? Any fever yet?"
I leaned forward and felt his forehead. "Holy hell, you're burning up. Dammit, get him some ibuprofen."
Dan jumped up to get the pills and returned with a handful of caplets and a bottle of water.
Before he had a chance to take the pills from Dan, Will clamped his hand over his mouth and dashed to the bathroom. Dan and I both looked at each other.
"That usual?"
My heart sank and I shook my head. "Not that I've seen. From the fever, maybe?"
"Don't know."
"What the hell are we going to do?" I drew in a deep breath and tried to reign back my panic. I managed to push it down right below the surface, but it threatened to emerge at any second.
"We could take him to the military base. I know they didn't fix Rose, but that doesn't mean they can't do anything." Dan stood and paced across the small space.
"No." I had no idea what to do, but I knew that wasn't it. "They... I just... can't."
Dan nodded. "Yeah, I get that. I just don't have any other ideas." He sat down on the coffee table and took my hand. "You know we don't have many options here, right?"
I bit the inside of my cheek until I drew blood to keep from crying and nodded my head. He was right. There weren't a lot of options. Will was infected. He was going to die. It was only a matter of what happened in between. I choked back bile that came up with that thought and winced as it burned its way down my throat.
Will emerged from the bathroom pale and a little wobbly, then sat down on the couch without saying a word.
"You okay?" Dan asked with genuine concern, all previous anger gone.
"Yeah," he answered, then turned to me. "Andi, can I talk to Dan alone for a minute?"
I wasn't expecting that, but I nodded. Will was probably about to give Dan some speech about taking care of me after he was dead or some crap like that. Not that Dan needed any lecture. He wasn't going to just leave me.
Despite my protests, Dan carried me down the hall, deposited me into an old office chair with wheels and pushed me into the storage-medical room in the back. It was down a long hall from the living room, past the bedrooms, so it was the farthest I could be to give them some privacy.
Dan dug through the medical supply cabinet, pulled out an ace bandage and tossed it to me.
"This should help the sprain. You okay?"
I nodded and he disappeared to talk to Will.
Okay
.
I wasn't even sure what that word meant anymore.
I wrapped the bandage around my swollen foot and ankle. The compression helped and I downed a few ibuprofen for added measure. There were a couple pairs of old crutches in the corner from various injuries over the years. I rolled the chair over to them and picked out one that had my height on it. After making the proper adjustments, I was upright again. It took a few minutes to adjust to walking on one leg, but it was a hell of a lot better than being carried around like a child.
I paced back and forth on the crutches, getting the hang of it and wondered what the guys were talking about. I even considered sneaking out to the hallway to listen in, but that wasn't exactly possible on crutches without being heard.
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the scratch wasn't from the flesh eater. We were all so absorbed in fighting off the horde that it would be understandable to get injured and not even realize what caused it.
I shook my head and took a few deep breaths. No, that had to be it. He wasn't scratched at all, it just got it caught on a tree branch or something. Or maybe he nicked it with an arrow pulling it out of his pack. That made a lot more sense.
My heart slowed a bit as my brain cycled through possibilities and tried to pinpoint exactly when it might have happened.
Dan softly knocked on the door and poked his head in. "He's asking for you."
"What did he say?"
"Uh, he said, can you tell Andi I wanna see her."
"No idiot, what did he want to talk about with
you
?"
Dan smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. "That was between me and him. Now he wants to see you, so why don't you go spend time with him while you can."
Spend time with him while I can
.
It sounded so final. So hopeless.
Anger bubbled up inside me and I pushed Dan's hand off. "Thanks." I wanted to punch him in the throat or knock him down, maybe smack him with a crutch. Anything but have him standing there looking at me with that pity in his eyes. It wasn't his fault, but that didn't matter. I was going to take it out on him anyway.