Rouge (4 page)

Eventually, Liz became less
vulnerable to the pain of Leo’s death. Joshua helped her wherever he could –
except in the kitchen – and after a while she grew curious of why he spent so
much time in his lab. After he confessed, she was more than willing to help
find the answer and together they decided to go deeper.

This was when Liz remembered
the drug.

“I think it’s called
something like… Feucotetanus,” Liz called to Joshua in the bathroom as she sat
in his make-shift lab running through an internet search. “But there’s nothing
here.”

“First time Google has ever
failed, huh?” Joshua smiled as he entered the room, wiping his hands on his
black suit pants. Joshua always dressed in suit pants and clean shirts, even at
home. Liz had only ever seen him wear casual clothing when he and Leo left on
their expeditions. Even then, it was closed shoes, neat camouflage colors and
lots of protection.

Throwing her fist down on
the keyboard, Liz sighed. “Why can’t I find it?”

“Hey, relax. It’s going to
be okay.” Joshua approached her and squatted, laying a hand on her bare knee.
He gazed up into her worn face. It had aged phenomenally since Leo’s death.
“Guess what? I found a place for us to move to.”

Liz’s face brightened.
“Really? Where?”

“Cuba.”

“Cuba? You’re not serious?”
Her frown hardened instantly. “Why Cuba?”

“Because it’s secluded and
beautiful and it’s where the stone came from.”

“I just…” Liz heaved and put
her hand against her forehead. “Christ, I’m hot.”

Joshua snatched a thermometer
from the top shelf of his desk and stuck it against her head.

“What’s the reading?”

He waited a moment and then
shook his head. “42 degrees
.
How is your heart rate?”

“Racing,” she said. “Why
does my temperature rise like that?”

“You probably have this
Feucotetanus still in your system. What we really want to know is where this
drug has come from so suddenly, and how no one in the internet universe knows
about it – except a homeless man with obviously no internet access, who just so
happens to have it on hand.”

“Mark,” she said and clicked
her fingers. “Mark knows what it is, he told me himself the night that-”

“Mark, the guy who keeps
calling here like… three times a day?”

“He’s from the hospital.” Liz
crossed the room to the door and flew into the kitchen.

“I know who he is,” he
muttered and followed her. “Won’t he ask questions about where you are?”

“So what?”

“Well, we’re supposed to be
hiding out. You don’t want to have to explain why you ran away, do you?”

Liz grabbed Joshua’s home
phone. “I owe it to Mark to let him know I’m okay. Getting you to call the
hospital wasn’t very professional. And anyway, he’s the one who knows what the
drug is. The hospital obviously has it in their system.”

“Liz, do you want to move to
Cuba with me?”

She waved him away. “We’ll
talk about it in a minute. Mark? Hey, it’s Liz.” She turned away from Joshua
and walked into the living room. “I know, I’m so sorry to put you through that
I just needed time…”

Joshua tuned himself out of
the conversation to save from the pain of hearing her talk about the fire. Not
only that, but he never liked Mark. Liz always talked about him as a
smooth-talking man who knew exactly how to treat women. Joshua knew him as a
man-whore. He would have liked to ask the guy for tips, if he wasn’t so
intimidated. Why couldn’t Liz ever talk about him the way she talked about
Mark?

Joshua picked up a glass
from the sink and poured himself a cold drink of water. Thoughts of the
volcanic substance – which he hadn’t managed to track down anywhere in any of
his textbooks, and so assumed it hadn’t been discovered yet – blocked out
sounds of Liz and Mark in deep conversation. He knew their only option was to
leave New York and go to Cuba. It would be painful to move to the shack where
he and Leo had spent the last few weeks before his death, but getting Liz out
of the city and into some fresh, tropical air would be good for her. There, he
had supplies for testing and boundless materials of the stone, which they would
be able to study in the peace and quiet of their shack. It was perfect. All he
had to do was convince Liz to go with him.

Joshua made his way back
into the office where he sat himself down at the computer and checked his
emails. There was a message from his old college professor, who had never heard
of Feucotetanus. Where had this homeless man found the drug that killed him?
All of this was too crazy to be real. Especially Liz’s immunity to flames.

They had never tested her
boundaries. Even the sight of flames reminded Liz of the fire and watching Leo
burn in it, so Joshua didn’t get to fulfill his desire to put a candle to her
skin and see what happened. Sometimes he even wondered if her story was true.
He had no proof, anyway, that Liz had survived the fire. What if she was
already outside when the fire started? What if she was just lucky? He pretended
to believe her just to make Liz happy, but a part of him needed to see it with
his own eyes.

“Mark is going to email the
files,” she said from the doorway. The phone was still in her hands.

“Great. How is he?”

“He’s… alright. Wasn’t too
happy that I quit, but he was still sympathetic.” She started massaging her
neck as she moved to the desk. “What have you found?”

“Oh, nothing.” Joshua closed
the application and smiled as best he could. “I think I might go to bed.”

“Okay. I’ll stay up a bit
longer and wait for the email.” As Joshua left, Liz gripped his arm and
squeezed it gently. “Night.”

“Goodnight,” he replied and
ignored the rapid beating of his heart as he climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
He undressed in a daze and climbed under the sheets. There, he lay awake for
what felt like hours as his thoughts shouted at each other in protest and
wouldn’t quiet long enough for him to fall sleep.

He was finally nodding off
when he heard the door to his bedroom creak open and the shadow of Liz in his
doorway fell upon the bed.

“Joshua.” Her voice wavered.
“I have something to tell you.”

He sat up fast, switching on
his bedside lamp and thanking God he kept his pajamas on instead of sleeping in
his underwear. It was just getting hot enough to do so.

“What’s up?”

Liz came and sat on the edge
of his bed, wringing her hands and biting her lip. Worried she may have found
something shocking in the information Mark had sent, Joshua opened his mouth to
ask when she blurted out four words that knocked him speechless.

“I’ve missed a period.”

Joshua’s mouth snapped shut.
Now
that
he hadn’t been expecting.

“I’m two weeks late,” she
said. “And I know that the stress of the fire might have changed my cycle, but
I have this feeling that… I mean Leo and I were…”

Joshua forced a smile,
something he’d become rather good at lately. “You’re probably just… I
dunno
, stressed out. It’s nothing Liz.”

She blinked hurriedly. “What
do you mean,
nothing?
Joshua, I’m
late
. I’ve been getting major
heat flushes and yesterday morning I threw up.”

“You threw up? Why didn’t
you tell me?”

“You were out, I forgot.
But… after talking to Mark I got to thinking. Leo and I… we didn’t use
protection that night.”

Joshua felt sick. This was
all happening way too fast and way too soon. Thoughts of the drug and of moving
to Cuba were suddenly way out of his mind. What occupied it now was the anxious
expression on Liz’s face. She was lost, again, and he had to be there for her.

So he did something that he
never felt comfortable with, but longed to do all the same. He reached forward
and cupped her face between his large hands.

“It’s going to be okay,
Lizzie. We’ll take a test tomorrow and find out if it’s true. If it’s not, then
great. Problem solved. But if you are pregnant with Leo’s baby, then there’ll
still be a part of him in our lives. It will be a blessing.”

Liz’s eyes welled with
tears. “You’re right. Thank you Joshua,” she smiled. It was a wide smile that
sparkled, one he hadn’t seen in what felt like a lifetime. “But I… I want to
take it now. I can’t sleep worrying about it.”

“I don’t have a-”

“I do.” She pulled from in
her pocket a little white stick.

Joshua’s heart began to
thud. “Okay. Use my bathroom.”

Liz nodded, pursing her lips
together as she ran into the ensuite. Moments later, after he sat there
listening awkwardly and tapping his fingers on his knees, she returned with the
stick.

“Is it dripping?” he asked,
holding out his hands and pushing her away.

Liz laughed loudly. It was
like chiming bells. “Relax, it’s not dripping. It takes thirty seconds to set.”

She sat beside him again and
suddenly her face fell.

“What’s the matter?”

“I always imagined that in this
moment… I’d be sitting here with Leo waiting for the results.”

Joshua tried not to look at
the stick as she spoke, unsure of what he wanted. He hadn’t had nearly enough
time to figure that out.

“Whatever happens,” he
whispered. “You know I’ll be here for you.”

Liz sniffed, twirling the
stick between her fingers. Her thin features shivered beside him on the bed and
he burned with the desire to tuck her red curls behind her ears, to hold her. But
she still belonged to Leo. And a part of him knew she always would.

“And…” he continued with a
thick lump in his throat, “I think that Cuba will be the perfect place to raise
a baby, away from all the crazy city people and in the fresh air. I actually
preferred it when-”

“Joshua.”

He turned back to Liz and
looked past the immaculate grin on her face to the frightening white stick and
the little pink plus sign on the screen. A plus.

“I’m pregnant,” she
breathed.

Hurling herself over the toilet bowl,
Liz opened her mouth and began the morning ritual: vomiting. Despite the fact
that they were miles from any sort of civilization, she still felt as though
she were on display for the world to see every time her breakfast decided to
take the return journey.

“Liz?”

Joshua was calling her from
his bedroom down the hall. The shack creaked whenever anyone took a step on the
wooden floors, so she could hear him coming toward her.

“I’m fine, okay!” She swung
the door shut and wiped her mouth.

Joshua knocked. “Are you
sure?”

“Yes, alright? Leave me
alone!”

“Hey, I know pregnancy gives
you mood swings or whatever, but I’m just trying to help!” He stomped back into
the kitchen area, muttering to himself.

After moving, their days had
been a lot like this. Liz hated being pregnant, especially in this dodgy shack,
half an hour away from any kind of general store or medical center. Joshua
insisted it was best for her, and there were times where she appreciated the
beauty of the mountains, but often she craved the comfort of her apartment.
Actually, she just wanted Leo.

Liz hauled herself to her
feet and peered in the mirror. The dye she’d used to get rid of her fiery red
hair was already fading. Now it looked like someone had dumped a bucket of
tomato sauce on her head and mixed black ink in it with a brush. She hated it.
Liz groaned, wondering if the off feeling in her stomach was more sickness or
just the baby rolling over.

“You really are a woman’s
nightmare, aren’t you?” she whispered to her swollen belly. She lifted up her
shirt and traced her fingers over the lump, across the little holes that
Joshua’s needle had made.

Sighing, Liz slumped down
the hallway and into the kitchen. Joshua was outside on the porch. She made
herself a cup of tea and went outside to join him.

The shack had a view of the
clearing of trees, and just through them, the white sandy beach on a small
alcove of water. Joshua had made a hammock on the porch that Liz sat in
everyday and watched the sun set over the trees and thought of Leo. She often
wondered what her life would be like if everything was back to normal and they
were having a baby just like any other couple. Not in some foreign country with
her dead husband’s best friend as company.

But Joshua wasn’t all bad. He
was better help than Liz could’ve asked for, always checking up on her and
making her tea and ‘trying’ to cook. It was just that, lately, things about
Joshua had started to change. Ever since they took the experimenting further,
Joshua’s sweet and innocent nature had suddenly turned… well, not so sweet. And
every so often, Liz could sense this poisonous cool about him, as though he
were a very thin stick of ice that would crack in two if she so much as touched
him.