Page 13 of A Wilderness Within

“I was in Chicago. The airport. I got trapped there trying to get home for the holidays.”

“Trapped?”

She nodded. “Yes. There was a man who came in from La Guardia who’d shared a plane with a man from Paris who they think might be patient zero or close to.” She shivered and looked down at her hands. Her fingers plucked the decorative fringes of the blanket wrapped around her.

“You’re truly immune then?”

She nodded again. “He coughed on me. I left the line, and he infected the woman at the desk. She collapsed within a few hours. It was terrifying. We were trapped like rats, falling sick by the dozens while they sealed us off from the rest of the world. I understand it, I do. But they sentenced us to die.” Her voice cracked with emotion, and Lincoln knew she was close to breaking. He wasn’t used to sharing his own stories, but what did it matter now if he talked? She needed to know she hadn’t been alone in her fear and her suffering.

“I was in Turkey when I heard the rumors of the virus in China and Pakistan.”

Her gaze focused back on him as he sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

“Turkey? What were you doing there?”

For a moment he didn’t answer. He was conditioned not to speak of his missions under any circumstances. But it didn’t matter now. None of it mattered. The country he had protected and fought for was an empty shell now. The halls of the White House were empty, and the chambers of the Supreme Court were vacant. The Capitol Building was gathering dust. Everything, the good and the bad, was all gone.

He cleared his throat. “I was in the First Special Forces Operational Detachment, what you probably know as Delta Force. We were trying to find a way into Syria to kill their president. The people up top were sick of them gassing their own people, and he wanted that monster gone.”

The faces in the pictures on the walls witnessed his confession, but their lips were sealed, their graves topped with snow.

“Delta Force? That’s top-secret stuff, like the SEAL teams?”

“Yeah, the SEALs are navy, Delta’s army. But similar. We do covert missions, things that, if done right, the world never knows about.”

Caroline shifted on the couch, moving closer to him. “I thought you might be military.”

“Oh? What gave me away?” he asked, genuinely interested. Not that he had been hiding his military position, but he was certainly curious to know how a civilian would view him.

“Aside from your clothes, it’s how you move. The way you looked around when we stepped outside of the store. What do you guys call it, situational awareness?”

Lincoln scratched his beard, thinking back to last night. He’d had one mission. Secure the girl. Protect the girl. Nothing else mattered. There had been no fear except in losing her.

“So what are you doing here?” she asked. “I mean, how did you get from Turkey to Omaha?”

Lincoln wasn’t sure how much he should tell her. Adam’s loss was still too deep and fresh, too much of a nightmare. That was a burden no one else should have to carry.

“I was assigned to presidential detail and flew back with my team. We met the acting president in DC and then flew to Omaha. It’s not much of a secret these days that we had a huge bunker here.”

“The president is dead, isn’t he?” She bit her lip and said, “Both of them, I mean. I remember when President Whitaker died. I heard on the radio that Vice President Adam Caine took over. But if you’re here, he must be gone too.”

“Yes.” The single word cut his throat to ribbons.

Caroline continued to stare at him. Misery twisted an invisible knife in his chest. He didn’t want to talk anymore.

“You should probably sleep now. To mend your ankle, you need to rest. I’ll rub on the tendons around your ankle bone to keep any scar tissue from knotting around it, or you’ll never regain your full strength and mobility.”

He knew she wanted to argue, but he saw the weariness overwhelming her. There were lines carved into her face, her pain exacting a toll upon her. For an instant he tried to imagine her laughing and carefree, no ghosts lingering in her gaze, no sorrow furrowing her brow, her lips no longer wilted in a frown. Grief and loss had made a mirror of her beauty, a darker version, yet he sensed that her joy, if she ever claimed it, would make her stunning beyond imagining.

He stood, collected her and the blankets in his arms, and carried her once more up the stairs to the master bedroom. He’d left a battery-powered lantern up there by the nightstand.

“Turn it off and on with this button.” He showed her the button on the base of the lantern.

“Thanks.” She settled deeper under the blankets, and he walked to the door and had nearly closed it when she spoke.

“Lincoln…” Hearing his name on her lips made his body tense. “Thank you for finding me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

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