Outbreak: Boston (34 page)

He sat up and stretched when the alarm on his watch went off at six o’clock. Eamon turned off the alarm then washed his face in the sink and grimaced at his reflection in the mirror over the porcelain basin.
Murderer. You fucking murderer
his own face taunted. A little bit after he was certain that he could screw on a reasonable facsimile of an innocent face, he had gone to get Sergeant Barnes and tell him that Private Powers had died of his wounds. The man did not seem to believe him but only gave him a knowing, strangely sympathetic look as the two of them removed the body and took it outside for burial.

Amy was in the female dorm closest to the nurse’s office. Nobody asked why he did not insist on having her brought to the infirmary, which was a good thing as far as he was concerned. In spite of everything, he could not help but smile a little as he walked over to check on his other patient. She was probably going to be pissed at him again for giving her the Tylenol 4. He was
just glad that she was still around to yell at him.

He knocked on the frame of the door before entering the room. Adam sat on a chair next to Amy’s cot, resting his chin on his hands as he watched her sleep. “She was a little cold earlier.” Lacey said as he stood up and stretched. “I gave her another blanket. Other than that, except for a couple bad dreams, she slept all night.” Eamon leaned over to wake up Amy but Lacey caught him by the arm. “Um…can I talk to you out in the hall for a minute?”

“Listen, I wanted to get out in front of this.” Adam said awkwardly once they were outside the room “I dunno if I understood her right, but I think Frannie might have come on to me. Or she could have been talking about Frays. I dunno.”

Eamon laughed. “Look man, me and Frannie…” he said slowly as he tried to find the right words. “We both kinda know that we’re just ya know…fuck buddies. Friends with benefits? Understand?”

Adam laughed nervously. “Yeah, sure.” he said quietly. “Look, I wasn’t sure and I didn’t want there to be a problem.” He shook his head and grumbled. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know how this whole ‘why don’t you two go off and fuck each other’ thing got started regarding me and Frays?”

“I don’t know, Adam.” Eamon said as a small grin rustled through his facial hair. “It wasn’t me, but shit dude, what’s wrong with you? I’d be hitting that good and regular if I thought she’d have me. Oh, right…you’re
married
. So where exactly does your wifey keep your balls?”

“I left ‘em inside your mom.” Lacey said as they went back inside the room. “Make sure that she sends them back. Your sister likes them too much.”

Eamon woke Frays. “Hey, how ya doin’?” he asked quietly as he dug in his pocket and came out with his penlight. “Little better today?” The fat man checked Amy’s pupils with the light and nodded with a slight frown. “Looks alright.”

Amy tried to sit up a little. She was not as dizzy as yesterday and the ringing in her ears had settled into a dull hum. “I’m okay.” she muttered as she blinked and looked around. Frays struggled against the blanket for a minute and gave up with a frown. “Can I have some water? Where did my LCS go?”

Adam took Amy’s gear out from under the cot and held out the bite valve of her camelbak so she could drink. He smiled uneasily as she drained the last of the water out of the container. Adam took a canteen out of its carrier and held Amy’s head so she could chug half of it. The dizziness started to go away a little bit more as she could practically feel the water getting absorbed into her bloodstream. Adam glanced at Eamon out of the corner of his eye. “How is Powers?” she asked. 

“Resting when I left him.” Eamon said as he took a new pressure bandage out of his bag and ripped it open. “Okay, Amy. I’ve got to change your bandage. Let’s have a look.” Adam smirked behind his hand at the way Frays’ hair looked when Eamon unwound the long strip of fabric from around her head. It was a perfect mess: all at strange angles from her head and falling in her face. Frays scowled at Lacey as Eamon examined her wound. “I can get the grains of gunpowder out if you want.
You’re going to need a few stitches too.” he volunteered as he looked closely at the burns on the woman’s cheek. “It’ll look better when it finally heals up.”

“Do it.” Amy said quickly. She
knew from an early age that the primary sin she had to watch out for was pride, but she also knew that she had good skin and a pretty face. There was not a whole lot that could probably be done about where Max’s bullet had grazed her, but Frays decided that she would really like to try and limit the damage. She tried to sit up, but Eamon stopped her.

“Just lay back. I can get at it easier this way.” Eamon said as he gently pushed the woman back down onto the bed. He shooed Adam away from the cot then took a small pair of fine tipped tweezers, a few gauze bandag
es and the other things he would need out of his bag. He put on a pair of latex gloves and looked down at the younger woman compassionately. “This might sting a little. I’m going to give you a local.” the medic said as he ripped open a syringe, filled it with a drug from a vial and injected it into various points on his patient’s cheek. Amy hissed and tensed up a little as he worked.

“Right.” Eamon whispered as he wiped the tweezers down with another pad. “Now comes the fun part. Hold still.” The medic turned to Lacey and said “Put some gloves on and give me a hand. I need you to dab at her cheek with some gauze. She’s gonna bleed a bit and I need to see what the hell I’m doing.”

The area around the wound was red and tender looking, but the cold pack Adam had given her had taken down the swelling. Eamon scowled in concentration as he sutured the gash on Amy’s cheek and plucked the grains of gunpowder lodged beneath Frays’ skin. He wiped them off the tweezers with a piece of gauze. Lacey would gently press a piece of gauze against her cheek for a second and give encouragement to their patient while the medic worked. Frays seemed amused by the pallor creeping up Adam’s face as Eamon dug around in her cheek. She could not help but wonder if it was the sight of blood or the sight of
her
blood that was making him nauseous.

Once Eamon finished the man replaced the bandage around her head with a fresh one and pronounced the operation a reasonable success. “You’ll still probably have some scarring, but it’ll be less noticeable without the gunpowder in the wound.” he said as he gathered his things and stood up. The rotund medical man looked down at his patient then at Lacey. “See that she stays in bed until at least this afternoon. I’ll be back around lunchtime to check up on you.”

Eamon left the two of them alone in the room. A look of sudden fury came to Adam’s face like a storm cloud. “You fuckin’ idiot.” Lacey spat furiously as he sat down hard in the chair at her bedside. “What the hell is wrong with you? You stupid foolish pigheaded…I leave you alone for five minutes and look what happens! Don’t you fucking do that to us again, Frays.” Amy started to open her mouth in retort but Lacey silenced her with a look “Like it or not we need you too, you stupid bitch. You watch my back, I watch yours. How the hell am I supposed to protect you if you won’t stop taking these stupid fucking risks?”

“Protect me?” Amy muttered angrily, throwing herself at the blanket wrapped around her. “Protect
me
?” Frays took several deep breaths to try and calm down. “Look, I can take care of myself, Lacey. I’m not some helpless little waif and if you really want to go there, I saved your butt a couple times myself. So what does that make you, hm?”

Adam muttered something into the palm of his hand. “Look, poor choice of words, okay?” he said quietly. The two of them looked at each other for a long moment and suddenly burst out laughing as Amy
slowly started to calm down. “Seriously, though. Don’t do that to me again, alright? You scared the shit out of me.”

Frays’ face pinched up a little bit around the edges. “I wasn’t all that afraid until I saw Eamon with my Kevlar.” she mumbled around the bandage. It would be wonderful to get rid of the thing. Amy paused for a minute, looking at the man seated next to her cot. “But…listen, Lacey. I couldn’t just stand there and let Max shoot himself. If I did, his soul would burn in hellfire forever.”

Adam shook his head and laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding.” he muttered under his breath, drawing an angry look from the woman on the cot. Lacey frowned and looked tired. “I’m sorry.” He laughed bitterly. “Why do we keep fighting all the time?”

Amy shook her head. “I dunno.” she mumbled. She managed to get a hand free and reached out to him. She put a hand on Lacey’s forearm and squeezed it. “I’m sorry I was mean to you earlier. You’re a good guy who panicked and did something horrible that he didn’t mean to. Remember the sergeant I shot at the supply point? I don’t know if he really was…sick…or if I just scared him and he reacted. I killed him and I don’t know if it was right.” She paused, trying to think of what Sergeant Emery would have said in this situation. He had always seemed to know just what to do. “You aren’t the same green kid that made that mistake. You aren’t going to let that happen again.”

He squeezed her hand on his arm, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “It’s alright, Frays.” Adam said with a gentle smile. He snorted a small laugh out of his nose. The two of them were quiet for a little while, simply enjoying each other’s company. “So, when am I going to meet your folks?” Lacey asked at last.

Frays blinked a couple times. “I’d like to start out as soon as Eamon says it’s alright.” she said at last. She could not wait to get better because it felt like she was trying to think her way through cold molasses. “The question is how are we going to get away?”

“Well, who’ll stop us?” Adam asked in response. He scratched behind his ear and leaned forward. “I really don’t think anybody will have much to say about it.”

Amy frowned guiltily. “I’m sure there’s people around here that wouldn’t want us to leave.” she said quietly. Frays stretched and shifted around on the cot. “Not to mention the people in town. There’s going to be trouble here eventually, once people start getting hungry.”

“All the more reason to go now.” Adam whispered urgently. He moved closer to Frays’ bedside and leaned a little closer to her ear. “I’ll start squirreling away a little food and stuff. As soon as you’re well, we’ll grab a Humvee and make a run for it.”

“Here’s a better plan.” Frays said quietly, turning her head a little to look at Lacey. “I’ve already gotten permission from Sergeant Barnes to make a raid on the police station in Holden.” She paused, hating herself a little for bringing up this idea “We could just sort of…not come back.”

Somebody cleared their throat at the doorway. They both started and turned towards the noise only to see Rodriguez standing in the door, smirking at the two of them as if she had caught them at something. “Hey, Lacey.” she said still wearing that smirk as she came into the room “I’m here to relieve you. Didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”

Lacey and Frays both looked surprised. “No you didn’t, Frannie.” she said at last as Adam stood up to let Rodriguez have the chair. “How have you been?” Frays asked as she tried to push herself up onto her elbows.

Rodriguez took off her Kevlar and sat down. “I’m good.” she said as she watched Lacey leave.
That boy looks tired
she thought as a small smile played at her face. “You’re looking better. By the way, Sergeant Barnes wanted to me to give you this.” Frannie took an Army patrol cap out of her cargo pocket and tossed it on the bed.

Amy
lifted her head and glanced at the cover. She could see that Barnes’ name was embroidered on the back of the cap and there was sergeant’s rank sewn on the front. “It’s his?” she asked. She was curious to see if it would fit. It would probably go over the bandage wound around her head with room to spare. “Want to hear something funny? I was supposed to get my E-5 but I think my LT screwed up the paperwork. Tell him I said thanks.”

Rodriguez gave the woman a small
, knowing grin. “Did you and Lacey have a good time?” she asked, getting a good laugh out of the embarrassed and frustrated look on her friend’s face.
“I slept a lot.” Frays grumbled almost to herself. She shifted around again under the blanket, all of a sudden feeling oddly sort of claustrophobic. “I need to have a word with your boyfriend. The jerk doped me up again. He knows I don’t do drugs.”

“You don’t sound all that mad at him.” Frannie said with a small grin. There was a sort of twitchiness in the woman’s face that was not there earlier. Rodriguez guessed that it was probably a combination of nic fitting and coming down from whatever Eamon had given her yesterday. “He means well.”

Amy sighed and tried to frown. “I don’t know what he gave me…but it felt
really
good.” she admitted guiltily. She shifted around on the cot again as she tried to break free of her blankets. “For the first time in a really long time I didn’t
care
…if that makes any sense.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Frannie said quietly. She vaguely remembered a hellish week spent sweating, puking and trembling in a hospital room that stank of shit and piss as she detoxed from all the pain meds the doctors gave her on the trip from Afghanistan to Germany to the States for surgery.
Her mom had risked her job at the cannery to stay with her at Walter Reed…the excruciating physical therapy, speech therapy… She decided to change the subject. “So anyway, how’s things between you and Lacey? I heard you guys had a fight.”