Nineteen
Cai
It had been Addison haunting me all along. She was the reason I’d gone to the club, and I found her there even if I hadn’t realized it until just now. She’d been the one I’d gone to for a distraction from my mystery lover. This whole time, it had been her.
I refused to lose her.
I meant it when I said that nothing else could happen between us, but I would still have her in my lab, working with me, talking to me. I wouldn’t lose that.
I hadn’t been able to save Dr. Tighe, but I wouldn’t fail Addison.
I headed back to the temporary lab. I needed to sleep, I knew, but I had work to do first. I’d take a nap after I had some tests running. Until then, I’d work.
Yesterday was a blur of numbers and algorithms, and this morning hadn’t been much better. I took apart and pieced together every possible combination of the symptoms I could think of. I tried finding other explanations for things I’d considered symptoms. Was a sore throat a symptom of whatever this infection was, or just something that happened this time of year? Nurse Diaz had asthma, but none of the histories suggested any breathing issues, so I felt safe assuming that was a definite symptom.
The process of elimination was something we had to do whenever we went into a situation where we didn’t know what we were dealing with. If we made the mistake of thinking something was a symptom and it wasn’t, it could hinder our diagnosis to the point where people could die.
The one positive thing about Addison having been exposed to whatever virus or bacteria was causing our problem was that she could distinguish between how she’d felt before exposure and how she felt after. She’d been able to give a thorough explanation of every ache and sniffle, but since there seemed to be symptoms that she wasn’t experiencing, it didn’t help as much as I’d hoped.
“Dammit!” I muttered as I pushed back from the desk. I was missing something, and I couldn’t figure out what it was.
“Dr. Hunter, are you okay?”
I rubbed the back of my neck as I turned toward Dr. George. He was a nervous-looking guy even when we weren’t at an outbreak. Now, he looked like he was just waiting for the zombie apocalypse to erupt from quarantine.
My heart gave a twist. Zombie apocalypse. Addison had joked about that the first time we’d met. I’d thought it was funny at the time. One of the first things I’d laughed at in a long time.
“Anything new?” I asked as I leaned forward and rubbed my temples.
“Patient four was put on oxygen,” he said. “He kept refusing, but his numbers were too low, so the doctor put on a mask.”
I turned back around and tapped in a few things on my spreadsheet. It didn’t make a difference, but I entered the information anyway. I needed to be thorough. One little miss could be the difference between life and death. In my line of work, the concept of no pressure didn’t exist.
“It’s not too bad here.” Dr. Walters walked into the room the same way she walked into every room. Like she owned it, and we all existed to heed her beck and call.
Normally, it didn’t bother me. Every doctor had their own quirks, and most of them included some form of arrogance. I knew I had similar tendencies myself.
But what she’d just said…
“Not too bad?” I was on my feet before logic caught up to my emotions, but for once, I didn’t allow myself to give in to logic. “We have a dozen people who are waiting for treatment, but we can’t give it to them until we figure out what the hell is wrong with them. And one of those patients is one of our own. Now, you tell me exactly how the fuck is that not too bad?!”
Dr. George and Dr. Walters stared at me like I’d grown a second head, and as each silent moment ticked by, I felt more and more like that was the case.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Dr. Walters finally said. “Just that, compared to some of the other places we’ve been, the outbreak here hasn’t kept spreading, and there’ve been no deaths.”
She was right. Half of the time, at least one patient was dead before we were even called in. Dr. Hoskins and Ms. Bairstow had gotten us involved much quicker than a lot of other places would have.
“I apologize,” I said. “I haven’t gotten much sleep recently.”
“Maybe you should take a nap,” Dr. George suggested. “Dr. Edison wanted me to wake him up at ten. That’s only thirty minutes.”
I shook my head. “I need to figure this out.”
“Dr. Hunter, we haven’t had any new patients since Miss Kilar,” Dr. Walters pointed out, her usual bluster tempered. “No new data. There’s nothing else for you to figure out.”
“Just because no one new has come in…” The sentence trailed off as what she said clicked. “No one new.”
“That’s right.” Dr. George seemed puzzled. “Did you think of something?”
I ignored him and walked over to the whiteboard where the timeline was written. We’d added in Nurse Diaz’s and Addison’s information, but I hadn’t really looked at it because I’d been here when both had been infected. Now, I was thinking that I’d missed something.
Nurse Diaz had been working on all the patients, so we’d assumed that she’d contracted the illness from them. We still didn’t know the incubation period, so she could have gotten it at any point in time, but as I scanned the timeline, a picture started to form in my head.
“We know it can’t be strictly airborne because Dr. Hoskins is fine, and he was breathing the same air, but there has to be some sort of airborne component because Addison only breathed in the air. She didn’t touch anyone other than Nurse Diaz,” I mused out loud.
“How can a virus be airborne and not-airborne at the same time?” Dr. Walters asked.
“We don’t know that it’s a virus,” Dr. George said. “The mild fevers suggest infection.”
I closed my eyes and tuned them out. I could feel something right at the edge of my subconscious. What was it Addison had said? That she’d stepped on a pile of stuff, smelled the rot, and that’s when she realized something was wrong.
An image flashed into my mind. The spring before my parents died, they’d taken us kids on a hike. Blake had been running, jumping, and at one point, he’d landed on a pile of mushrooms. Spores had exploded out of the mushrooms, making him sneeze and cough.
Addison had stepped on a pile of something and breathed in whatever it was that had made her sick. My gut told me that Nurse Diaz had been gathering belongings from each of the patients before they’d been moved into quarantine. She could have easily caused a similar reaction if clothing had contained the same bacteria as what was in that pile.
All the pieces fell into place as that realization clicked home.
Same infection, spread differently, with different symptoms but some crossing over.
“I have an idea.”
“It makes sense,” Addison said. She coughed, turning her face into the crook of her elbow as if I wouldn’t notice how hard the coughs were.
I waited until she was done, then handed her a glass of water. I wanted to smooth back her hair, tell her she was going to be okay, but I needed to maintain my distance.
“I can give it to the first patients,” I said. “I’m confident it’ll work.”
“But you wanted to give me the option to try it first.”
“You are part of the team,” I said. “And I figured you’d never forgive me if I didn’t give you the option to play the guinea pig.”
“You figured right,” she said with a smile. “Are these going into my IV or pills?”
“IV,” I said. “I want to get this cocktail into your system as quickly as possible.”
The part about my job that I hated the most was the part right after a possible cure was given, when I had to wait to see if it was going to work or not. With Addison being the first, it was worse.
I knew she wouldn’t want me hanging around while we waited, and I couldn’t justify it professionally, so after I administered my antibiotic cocktail, I excused mysel
f. I should have tried to rest, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, no matter how tired I was.
That, I supposed, was how I found myself on the roof of the hospital, watching the sun set, and calling my brother.
“Cai? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said automatically. Then I sighed and answered honestly, “No, actually, I’m not. I’m in Texas, looking into an outbreak, and my intern is infected.”
“Shit. That’s rough.”
Jax’s reaction surprised me almost as much as my calling him had surprised us both.
“Yeah,” I said, momentarily unable to think of anything else to say.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m waiting for results of a possible cure,” I said. “I should be sleeping, but I can’t.”
He was silent for a moment, then spoke, “I’m going to build that club I talked to you guys about.”
A sense of relief flooded me. He understood. “Did the bar owner cave?”
Another moment of silence. “Not exactly.”
“That sounds like a story.” I really hoped it was the sort of story that would keep my attention.
He laughed. “It is.”
Had my straight-laced, stick-up-his-ass brother of mine just laughed? I hadn’t heard him like this since…honestly, I couldn’t think of a time in our adult lives that I’d had anything like this easy conversation with him.
“The bar burnt down.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Some asshole who wanted the bar tried to burn it down with Syll in it, but I got there in time to carry her out. She’s okay.”
“Please tell me that your story isn’t that you hired someone to set the bar on fire, so you could show up and save Syll.”
Another laugh, this one longer and louder. “I’m not that much of an asshole, Cai.”
“I hoped not,” I said honestly.
“Relax,” he said. “I’d already decided that I was going to let the bar issue drop. It wasn’t worth Syll hating me.”
“Then how are you building your club? Did you find a new location?”
“Nope. I got Syll out of the bar in time, but the firefighters couldn’t put it out fast enough. It was destroyed.”
What the hell had he been doing since I left Boston?
“After Syll was released from the hospital, I took her back to my place. And, well, long story short, we figured out who tried to kill her.”
“That’s good,” I said as I sat down. It seemed like Jax was having just as odd a time over the past few weeks as I was.
“It is,” he said. “Especially considering she’s going to be your sister-in-law sometime soon.”
“Excuse me, my what?”
“On Saturday, I took her back to the lot to show her that I’d had it cleared and then I proposed. She accepted, and we’re going to build a club as equal partners.”
What sort of strange alternate universe was this? Because that was the only rational explanation that existed for what Jax was telling me. Granted, he’d been gone over that woman before I left Boston, but marriage?
“Congratulations.”
I could almost feel him smile. “I know what you’re thinking.”
I doubted that.
“It was fast, I know,” he continued. “But Syll and I…I’ve never met anyone like her. She just gets me, and she’s not afraid to call me on my shit. Have you ever met someone you just clicked with? Someone who you felt so in sync with that the idea of continuing your existence without her just doesn’t seem possible?”
Shit.
I had.
Twenty
Addison
I trusted Cai with my life, quite literally, as it turned out. I hadn’t even thought twice when he told me that he had a potential cure for the infection. I volunteered to be the test subject, and I hadn’t let him see for one second how scared I was.
By Monday night, the blood tests showed that the antibiotic cocktail Cai had given me was doing exactly what he’d hoped, and then it was given to the others. I didn’t know any of that, though, because I’d fallen asleep shortly after he’d come to see me, and I didn’t wake up until Tuesday morning.
Cai was sitting in the chair next to my bed when I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed was how much easier it was to breathe. The second thing was that Cai wasn’t wearing his hazmat suit.
“Cai, what are you–?”
He held up a hand and smiled, his expression weary. “You’re not contagious.”
“I’m not?” I looked down at my arm where the intravenous tubing continued to pump in what I assumed was more of the cocktail.
“Have you ever heard of tularemia?”
I glared at him. “You’re seriously giving me a pop quiz?”
He chuckled. “It’s an infection that is contracted in different ways and has various manifestations.”
“Ulcers, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, difficulty breathing, coughing.” I listed off several of the symptoms.
Cai nodded. “When you stepped on that pile of detritus out at the cabin shed, it released the organisms in aerosol form. That’s what you breathed in when Pansy pulled out your air hose.”
“That’s how the kids got it too. They were in the cabin.”
“Some of it got on their clothes,” he continued the explanation. “When Nurse Diaz packed up their things, she inhaled the same thing you did, maybe a little less.”
“And the others?” I asked.
“The men came in direct contact with the contaminated animal or animals.”
“And the second wave of patients encountered the animal or animals after the hunters brought them home,” I finished.
“Exactly. Once I was able to pinpoint how Nurse Diaz was infected, everything fell into place.”
“Does that mean everyone else is okay?” I glanced toward the curtains pulled around the other beds.
“They will be,” Cai said. “You were the last one infected, so it worked faster on you than it will on them.”
“Does that mean we can go home?”
He gave me a sorry look. “Not yet. You still must go through another round of bloodwork, so we can make sure the infection is completely gone. The rest of the team is taking care of the cabin and the shed, then they’ll return to Atlanta. I’ll be staying here until you’re discharged sometime tomorrow.”
He was staying here with me?
I didn’t want to read too much into it, but something told me that he wouldn’t have been staying with any of the other doctors. I wasn’t sure that meant anything more than us being friends, but it was something.
I was beyond ready to get out of the hospital. I’d never been a fan of being a patient, but this was worse. I had nothing to keep me busy, and I kept feeling like I should be up working even though Cai kept reassuring me that there wasn’t anything for me to do.
We’d spent most of yesterday talking. I’d dozed off a time or two, but he’d always been there when I woke up, reading a book or making notes. It was odd, I knew, for someone I barely knew to make me feel as safe as he did, but it shouldn’t have surprised me. After all, I’d felt safe with him at the club when I hadn’t even known it was him.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” Cai said as he came into the room. “I have your test results, and you’re all clear.”
“That’s great.” I tried not to let my relief leak into my voice.
“You’re going to have to take some time off.”
I stared at him, thrown by the sudden change of topic. “What was that?”
“It’s part of your contract,” he said. “I’m guessing that means you haven’t read it since you remember everything you read.”
“Are you purposefully being a pain in my ass?” I immediately clapped my hands over my mouth. “I am so sorry.”
He laughed. “It’s all right. I wasn’t exactly explaining things well.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Let me try
that again.” He leaned against the wall. “If we’re ever exposed to anything while in the field, we’re required to take a few days off, the number to be determined by the supervisor.”
“You’re the supervisor,” I pointed out.
“I am,” he agreed. “And you’re going to take the rest of the week off.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Yes,” he insisted. “And for today, at least, I’m going to make sure that you rest. I’ve already had our luggage taken to the hotel.”
“The hotel?” I echoed.
“The plane is currently in use, so we can either wait here or drive back to Atlanta. I don’t know about you, but I don’t much feel like renting a car and driving for twelve hours.”
“You have a point.”
His expression grew serious. “Let’s go back to the hotel, get real showers, sleep in real beds, have real food. Then, tomorrow, we can talk about everything else.”
“I do like the idea of a shower.”
The room was nice enough, but I barely saw any of it. I was just happy to be out of the hospital. No beeping monitors. No sharp smell of disinfectants. No murmur of people talking, or the tossing and turning of other patients. But as much as I liked the idea of not being around other people, I didn’t want to be alone right now. I’d think too much.
“I’ll leave you to it,” Cai said as he set my bag down next to the dresser.
“Cai?” I didn’t look at him, knowing I wouldn’t have the strength to say what I wanted if I faced him. “Will you stay? Please.”
“Go get cleaned up,” he said quietly. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
I could feel him watching me as I walked over to the bathroom, but neither of us said anything. I gathered the items I needed for my shower, then closed myself in the bathroom. Despite all the sleep I had gotten over the last couple days, I was exhausted, and I let my brain float as I went through the motions of getting ready.
I turned the heat up until steam filled the room, and then stepped under the spray. I closed my eyes and let all the filth – real and mental – slough off. Shampooing my hair, washing, shaving, all of it was done on automatic pilot. I knew I’d eventually have to truly deal with what happened to me, how much danger I’d been in, but I wouldn’t do that today. And I wouldn’t deal with the still-present questions about my feelings toward Cai Hunter either.